Billerica native DiSarcina says time is right to manage

LOWELL -- The first two times Red Sox executives offered Gary DiSarcina the job of managing the Lowell Spinners, he turned them down.

Happily for everyone, they asked him a third time.

It's not that this former Major League shortstop didn't want the job. It's just that the timing wasn't right.

But things change. So, when the Spinners -- the single-A minor league affiliate of the Red Sox -- hold their season opener this week at LeLacheur Park, it will mark DiSarcina's managerial debut, as well as a homecoming of sorts for the 39-year-old Billerica native who played for the Angels in Anaheim, Calif., for 15 seasons.

"Timing is everything in life," DiSarcina said in a recent interview. "I have a friend, Craig Shipley, who is the vice president of international scouting for the Red Sox. The first time that he asked me if I'd consider being the manager for the Spinners was in 2002. I'd just retired from the Major Leagues and I was going through a divorce. I knew that managers make a huge commitment and have to give to their team 100 percent, and I wasn't at a point where I could do that right then."

Instead, DiSarcina, who was drafted by the Angels (then the California Angels, and now the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim) during his junior year at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1988, accepted a position as a commentator for NESN. He held that job for two years. "It was great, but it wasn't what I would call fulfilling," he said. "As a commentator, you don't end the season with the same feeling you get when you've spent the year on a team."

Last winter, Shipley again brought up the idea of managing the Spinners, and DiSarcina again demurred. He was living on the South Shore and had joint custody of his 9-year-old son and 13-year-old daughter. And he was taking classes at UMass-Dartmouth with the hope of finally finishing his undergraduate degree and becoming a history teacher like his father, who taught at Wilmington High for more than 30 years.

So, Red Sox management instead created a position for DiSarcina as a baseball operations consultant, a role that required him to spend two weeks at a minor league training camp last March. And there, the former Angel recognized something in the college-age recruits that he hadn't expected to see -- himself.

"It was the commitment they have, the drive to make it. The look in their eyes. Their thirst for information. "

When DiSarcina returned to Massachusetts, he got a phone call. Again, Red Sox management wanted to know whether he would consider managing the Spinners, and this time he accepted.

"Being at spring training had really changed my attitude," he said. "I talked it over with my kids and my ex-wife, and they gave me their blessing. So, I decided it was a perfect opportunity."

It's a relatively long commute from his Plymouth home to the ballpark in Lowell, but DiSarcina's parents and sister still live in Billerica, and for several years he and his brother, Glenn, ran a summer baseball camp there. So, in many ways, the area is still home.

During his childhood, DiSarcina played baseball and basketball. Little League was highly competitive during those years, and at Billerica High School he played on the same team as pitcher Tom Glavine, now with the New York Mets.

His career with the Angels included a .258 batting average, two team most valuable player awards, and a spot on the 1995 American League All-Star team. But DiSarcina maintains that what makes a baseball player Major League material is not just skills but attitude and a willingness to learn.

"As a minor-leaguer," he said, "you have to have people around you who give good advice, and you have to be ready to learn from your failures."

DiSarcina said he was surrounded by mentors and role models during his years with the Angels. "When I first came up [from the minor leagues], the team had a lot of great veteran players who took time to explain the game to me, to pass on their knowledge. That was so helpful. You can always find guys in the minor leagues with more hitting or fielding talent than some guys in the Major Leagues. What's the difference? Their mental approach to the game.

"Big-league players know how to make constant mental adjustments based on what's happening on the field. You adjust not game to game and not even at-bat to at-bat, but pitch to pitch. The ability to do that is what gets a player out of the minor leagues and into the majors."

And DiSarcina sees his new role with the Lowell Spinners as something of a moral imperative as well. "Veteran players ought to be willing to take time to talk to the younger guys, not just about hitting and fielding, but also about things like dealing with the press and family issues. I had a lot of guidance when I was a young player. And I feel an obligation to pass it along."

With the Spinners' season nearly upon him, DiSarcina is eager to see how his new role unfolds. "Right now, I need to find out whether I'm cut out to be a manager," he said. "All throughout my playing career, I pictured myself managing or coaching. Then I went back to school to finish my college degree and started thinking I'd be a history teacher and coach high school baseball.

"But my career path changed. At this point, I'd like to think this is just how things are supposed to be."