Texas Rangers manager Bruce Bochy looks out from the field before a baseball game against the Los Angeles Angels, Friday, May 17, 2024, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
ARLINGTON, Texas — Watching Bob Melvin move from one National League West team to another this winter, manager Bruce Bochy echoed the sentiments of many Giants fans who remember their beloved former manager making the same move a decade ago.
“He may have said I’ve been following some of the places he’s been,” Melvin said Friday before the Giants’ opener against Bouchi’s new team, the Texas Rangers, sharing some of the things his predecessor told him when he took over as manager in November.
“More than anything, it was just like, ‘Hey, I’m glad you’re home. Good luck.'”
Bochy left the Padres in 2006 and began a 13-year managerial stint in San Francisco the following year, winning three World Series. After years of managing on the other side of the Bay, Melvin took over as Padres manager in 2021, just two years after following in Bochy’s footsteps on the West Coast.
This wasn’t the first time the two men had walked similar paths in baseball, but they usually ended up sitting in opposite dugouts.
The 62-year-old Melvin and the 69-year-old Bochy, who face off this weekend at Globe Life Field, have added a new venue and new uniforms to their long history.
“Bob and I have a long history of playing against each other as coaches,” Bochy said. “We’ve been together a long time.”
“I’ve played against him since my days at Arizona, maybe even seen him somewhere in Seattle,” Melvin said, noting the commonality. “So we’ve been together for a long time.”
Bochy began his managerial career with San Diego in 1995 at age 40. Melvin was 41 when he was named the Mariners’ first-year manager in 2003. Decades later, the two still rank in the top two among the winningest active managers.
Bochy’s 2,123 wins rank seventh all-time, while Melvin’s 1,547 wins rank 25th. Next on the list is Bud Black, also from the NL West, who has over 400 fewer wins than Melvin.
Not including their time as backup catchers for rival National League West teams, the two most experienced managers in the sport had faced each other 154 times in the regular season before this weekend, twice as interleague rivals, twice as division rivals and many times as regular opponents.
Melvin, who served with Bochy for 18 years as one of the two best managers in major league baseball’s 30 seasons, outscored him 84-70, including a 28-25 edge in their 10-year matchup in the annual Bay Bridge Series.
“It’s always fun to be on the same field as him and be in the opposing dugout,” Melvin said, “but I try not to say, ‘OK, I’m going to play against him.’ I try not to go up against him. I try to do what I have to do with my team. It was cool that the Athletics, the Giants, the Bay Area teams always had a little bit of momentum.”
Asked whether an extra match would be played as this year’s game will be against his former club, Boci denied the idea.
Most of his memories of San Francisco were collated by him during his first revisit last year.
“It’s always fun to see old friends,” Bochy said. “It’s been a while. I’ve been here a year and a half. I played in San Francisco last year. I’ll see some of the guys and catch up. Those are great memories. I made some great friendships there and some of them are still there.”
The Rangers went 69-47 when they came to Oracle Park last year but won the World Series, adding a fourth ring to Bochy’s collection. But more than a third of the way through the season, injuries and poor performances have the Rangers hovering around .500, the same winning percentage as the Giants.
“You could say that both teams have something in common,” Boci said. “Both teams are trying to get back on track and stay on track or have a consistent run. … Both teams are trying to win games right now. Neither team is playing to their potential yet.”
