A dream year for Brumley

A long, but rewarding season got even better for Mike Brumley.

After guiding the Triple-A Salt Lake Stingers to division and conference titles, the manager was able to spend the final weeks of the major league season in the dugout with the eventual world champion Anaheim Angels.

Brumley was on hand when Salt Lake's parent club clinched a playoff berth. Through the first spray of champagne, he and pitching coach Mike Butcher took note that 14 of the guys celebrating had worn a Stingers uniform sometime during the season.

It provided the coaches with a sense of pride. And it only swelled as postseason play progressed. Though Major League Baseball's restrictive guidelines prevented Brumley from remaining in the dugout during the playoffs, he watched from the stands as 10 of his players competed on the active roster.

An improbable run of success led to the organization's first trip to the World Series. After seeing the first two games, though, Brumley opted to head home to Arizona for his first extended stay with the wife and kids since February. He watched Anaheim's Game 7 victory over San Francisco on television while receiving and making telephone calls to family, friends and colleagues.

"We were all like 'Can you believe this is happening?'," recalled Brumley, who is in Salt Lake City this week preparing for his second season with the Stingers. "It was wild, a wild time. When you've kind of sweated and fretted over the development of these guys, to see them have some success there is a sense of relief to say 'You know what? We did a good job with these guys.' "

Brumley couldn't help but reflect on the career of winning pitcher John Lackey. He started and won Salt Lake's opener last season. Success, however, took time. A year earlier, at Double-A Arkansas, Brumley dished out some "tough love" on the pitcher.

For a week or so, Lackey was mad at Brumley. He was yanked out of a game after getting frustrated and hitting a guy with the ball on a tag. Brumley questioned the pitcher's professionalism on the play. Later, in a start at Tulsa, Lackey had trouble getting people out. Because Brumley felt he was throwing the ball instead of pitching it, he never called for a reliever.

"We left him out there, but he grew. He finally got out of the inning and went back out and pitched," Brumley said. "That was the biggest growth that Mike (Butcher) and I saw."

It's part of a organizational philosophy, he added, to challenge prospects and not just take a feel-good approach to player development.