When Pirates hitting coach Gregg Ritchie opted to coach his alma mater George Washington University following the 2012 season, the search for a new hitting coach was on. Clint Hurdle, Neal Huntington and company decided on a familiar face to the Pittsburgh faithful. Jay Bell was manning the middle infield when Pittsburgh last had a winning team. With his hire as hitting coach, Bell is looking to do his part in returning a winning culture back to Pittsburgh.
“One of the things that really allowed me the comfort to come back was listening to Clint and Neal talk about what they were trying to create here and the guys in place already,” Bell said. “The culture they are trying to implement here is tremendous. When you go back to the early 1990’s, you think about what we had and the style of play that we had; that’s what they’re trying to get back to.”
Bell said after talking it over with his wife Laura, the decision to come back to Pittsburgh was a no-brainer and that the Pittsburgher in him had started to come back.
“It’s been a great opportunity to come back. I can feel my accents starting to come back again. Those eight years that I was here, I could drop a “dahn-tahn” with the best of them,” said Bell jokingly. “It’s great to be back and Laura and I have had conversations when I got offered the job. I asked her how she felt about it. She had great memories of being here and it was a no-brainer to come back.”
Bell, who had a .265/.343/.416 lifetime line in his 18 seasons in the big leagues, is looking to tap into the potential that he has seen on the Pirates roster. He said that there is plenty of it there, that they just need to believe they can do it on a consistent basis.
“There’s some untapped potential. That’s one of the things that is extremely exciting. When you look at the year that Andrew (McCutchen) had, you say ‘that’s awesome,’ but what he’s capable of doing is even greater,” Bell explained. “Pedro (Alvarez) is the same way and Neil Walker is the same way also. (Starling) Marte has some young potential. (Travis) Snider has great potential. There are some great things. I look at Gaby’s (Sanchez) and (Garrett) Jones’ stats and think about what these guys are capable of. They are very impressive.”
Bell will look to tap into that potential of a team that finished just 25th in average (.243), 27th in on-base (.304) and 19th in slugging (.395) a season ago. Bell, who enjoyed his finest season as a Bucco in 1993 with a .310/.392/.437 line, wants the Pirates to be right mentally as well as physically.
“It’s being a psychologist, mentor and all that stuff as well as keeping track of what they’re physically doing,” Bell said of his job. “We talk about those little things that will allow them to get the most out of their ability.”
But as is the case with most coaches, there is only so much they can do. Bell knows from his experience as a player that when it comes down to it, the players have to perform on the field for them to find success.
“I think at the end of the day, the players have to do their job. They have to pitch, hit and catch. You can’t do it for them,” Bell said. “One of the things you want to do is continually to allow them to understand that it’s not about the destination, it’s about the process of the journey to get there.”
“If they continue to work hard, and go through a daily routine where they prepare for excellence daily, then they can walk away with their head held high that they’ve done everything they can do to find success. That’s all we are asking them to do. When they walk away, they should never feel they left anything out there.”
Bell gained the coaching experience of leading the New Zealand national team this past summer in hopes of qualifying for the World Baseball Classic. After two seasons of assisting with the US men’s national team, Bell said that he hopped at the chance of going to New Zealand, Australia and Taiwan in hopes of qualifying.
The roster that Bell had however, wasn’t made up of the international stars that one would be used to seeing in a tournament of this magnitude. In face, only 11 players on his roster had experience playing baseball.
“There were 11 guys that had some association with affiliated baseball. The other 14 guys were just local guys running around that had some experience in softball in New Zealand,” Bell said. “It was a great experience and great opportunity to go over there. I was able to teach these guys a little bit of the way that we do it in the states. It was just a blast.”
While New Zealand ended up losing to Chinese Taipei in the finals due to a lack of pitching according to Bell, he said he was proud of his guys and it was a great learning experience before he took the coaching job in Pittsburgh.
“The guys who never played before picked it up relatively quickly. There were a few guys that had never picked up a baseball until a few months ago, and they ended up doing fairly well,” Bell explained. “It was a joy to watch these guys go through the process. There were some guys there that understood the game and will be coaches and ambassadors for baseball in New Zealand going forward.”
While Bell says his best baseball experience while playing in Pittsburgh was having the privilege of playing along side Chico Lind in the middle of the diamond, the reason he loves Pittsburgh has nothing to do with baseball.
“I think more than anything else, just being here was the best part. Two of my kids were born here and I got to raise them for quite some time before leaving,” Bell said. “It was just a great city and I grew to love in a short period of time. It was a great eight years here before I left.”
If the next eight years are anything like the ones when Bell played here, Pittsburgh is in for a treat.
Photo Credits: MLB.com
