Michael Young spent just one season as an observer of the game he played for nearly 20 years and now he's back in a loosely defined role with the Texas Rangers, the team he played all but one of those big-league seasons with.
Young, the franchise's all-time leader in a handful of offensive categories, had a bitter split from general manager Jon Daniels but the two have since made up and are now working together. In fact, Young played a fairly large role in the hiring of new manager Jeff Banister, who replaced the club's all-time winningest manager Ron Washington.
Young told Evan Grant of The Dallas Morning News that he went to lunch with all of the final seven or eight candidates and gave his input, but that ultimately the consensus decision was that Banister was the man for the job.
Young said he felt all of the final candidates will one day be big-league managers, and one of them has already done just that as Tampa Bay hired Kevin Cash, who was one of three finalists for the Rangers job, along with Banister and former interim manager Tim Bogar.
Young, who was on the 2010 Rangers team that had current Pittsburgh manager Clint Hurdle on staff as a hitting coach, said Banister reminds him of Hurdle, which makes sense considering the two worked together in Pittsburgh for the past four seasons.
"They're both great communicators and carry themselves with self respect," Young said of Banister and Hurdle. "They're open to making relationships work."
<They’r eboth great communicators and carry themselves with self respect and open to making relationships work.”
