Life isn't all that different from baseball for Joe Maddon in new book, 'The Book of Joe'

Life demands change.

But naturally, as humans, we don’t always greet it upon arrival. More than 100 years in, baseball has been forced to meet a shifting sports landscape — one where fans engage differently, more technology and data is available, and the interest of young people wanes and rises on a whim.

Baseball, as with any other sport or industry, hasn’t always met those changes in the most effective way possible. Ask former Major League Baseball manager Joe Maddon and sometimes you tend to toss the baby out with the bathwater.

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“(Interest in baseball) is obviously not as plentiful as it had been just 15-20 years. It just seems to be lacking interest (in young people),” Maddon, who over 19 years managed the Rays, Angels and Cubs, where he won a World Series in 2016.

“Analytically, the game has changed and has broken away from the traditional way of playing baseball because of the three true outcomes: strikeouts, walks and homers. When you’re breeding a bunch of young players to just do that and throw as hard as you can, truly, the art proponent of the game suffers.”

But the advent of more information and new technology doesn’t automatically make things better. For Maddon, the tried-and-true methods of connecting with players and being able to marry the data with the fundamentals makes for a better overall product.

“I think (with players) you connect as you’ve always connected. Either you’re able to or you’re not able to, but you have to be aware of where they’re coming from,” he said. “I think as a coach, a player is going to know how sincerely interested you are in their well-being, progress and their careers.”

In that way, the ball coach is able to transcend just the game and provide an infrastructure for leadership in any capacity. His book, “The Book of Joe: Trying Not to Suck at Baseball and Life,” which he co-authored with award-winning sportswriter Tom Verducci, provides insights into leading past the baseball diamond.

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“The part that I get a little concerned with is that the method of leadership, the way people attempt to lead right now, is through control…leadership, in my mind, should be about empowerment, not control,” he said.

“If you don’t permit the freedom of thought, expression, empowerment, where a person gets on their own and attempts to create and come up with new thoughts and ideas and an implementation of its own volition…you’re not going to get the most out of that person and they’re always going to feel restricted.”

On the diamond, Maddon coached players such as Albert Pujols, Mike Trout and Kris Bryant, who epitomized the role of a leader in baseball. But those lessons can carry over to anyone in terms of finding people who can command the room, but don’t come from a position of management.

“Players know who the leaders are; players know who to go to when it gets hot and players know when this person shows up in the locker room and isn’t real happy ― I better pay attention and find out what’s wrong,” Maddon said.

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“Never be deceived by the back of a (baseball) card that good numbers automatically make a great leader. A great leader to me is somebody who puts the benefit of everybody else in front of them on a daily basis.”

Maddon will be making his first trip to Savannah for the 2023 Savannah Book Festival, where he’ll be speaking with Verducci at Lutheran Church Sanctuary at 11:30 a.m. on free Festival Saturday.

But he is familiar with one Savannah baseball connection: The Savannah Bananas.

“I’ve seen the videos and I’ve talked to people that are really into what they’re doing,” he said. “It brings fans to the game and there’s nothing wrong with that.”

IF YOU GO

What: Savannah Book Festival - Joe Maddon and Tom Verducci

When: Saturday at 11:30 a.m.

Where: Lutheran Church Sanctuary, 120 Bull St.

Cost: Free

This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Former Angels manager Joe Maddon talks new book, Savannah Bananas