Walking the line

Brenly's Diamondbacks hope to cheat Father Time again

TUCSON, Ariz. -- It was a scary thin line that the Arizona Diamondbacks walked last season, a line between too old (and too fragile) and just old enough.

Ahhh, but those Diamondbacks walked it. Walked it all the way to a World Series title.

A week before their 2002 season opens, the Diamondbacks are toeing that wrinkled old line once again. They have virtually the same team, only now a year older. It's just how they like it.

They may not be favored to repeat, not with Yankees around. But the Diamondbacks are among the favored because of cagey veterans like Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson and Luis Gonzalez and Mark Grace. And because of manager Bob Brenly, a former major leaguer who now has his first year of managing behind him.

As creaky as this team seemed at times last year, a balky back or a chronically sore knee away from extinction, Brenly may have been the iffiest part of it. He was a rookie manager, as unproven as they come.

The whole situation could have been absolutely brutal. It could have turned into a substitute teacher in a class full of seniors, or a sixth grader trying to play with the varsity. Instead, Brenly saw what he had and was smart enough not to mess around with it.

Sure, he tinkered. Some critics said way too much. Yet he knew what was right about the team and mostly got out of the way. That was hard enough.

"Everyone assumed it was an easy run," Brenly says, smiling and standing on a sunny practice field outside of Tucson Electric Park, where the Diamondbacks are coming to the end of their spring training. "By no stretch of the imagination was it ever easy.

"There were egos to salve. Guys to pat on the back. Some guys to kick in the butt. I really didn't have to crack a whip a whole lot, but …"

But his players tested him, for sure. They waited to see how he would handle different situations. Game situations. Egos. Both at the same time.

"The veteran players wanted to make sure I knew what I was doing, that I was on top of things, that I didn't get flabbergasted," Brenly says.

The manager recalls an incident when he pinch-hit for first baseman Grace early in the season. Grace had never been pulled for a pinch hitter in his career with the game on the line.

"If Grace stomps to the clubhouse, fires his batting helmet," Brenly told the Chicago Tribune recently, "I'm probably going to lose every veteran on the team."

But Grace actually agreed with the move. And that's the beauty of the Diamondbacks and their tailor-made skipper. Because they are so experienced -- Johnson, Schilling, Grace, Steve Finley and all the rest -- there are not a lot of tantrums. Which leaves the manager free to do what he needs to do.

Brenly will bench a veteran here and there. He'll play a hunch, ride the hot player, pinch-hit until his lineup card looks like a first grade art project. As long as it works, his players are behind him.

"I don't think it's just veterans," second baseman Craig Counsell says. "I think it's these guys. They have the right attitude. And that's Bob's doing. He's been able to get guys to squash their individual concerns for the good of the team.

"You have to give Bob credit. We have something special going here and, believe me, it does not exist on a lot of teams."

The Diamondbacks will look a little younger this season. They'll rely more on guys like Erubiel Durazo (once he recovers from a broken hand he suffered last week), Danny Bautista and Junior Spivey.

But they proved last season that experience wins. So they'll gamble that Johnson (who is 38) and Schilling (35) and Grace (37) and Finley (37) and many other 30-plus somethings will hold up, and that they'll continue to walk that fine line all the way to another World Series.

Brenly, 48, will walk it with them.

John Donovan is a senior writer for CNNSI.com. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer.

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