Tampa Bay (Devil) Rays Manager, Joe Maddon

He has something called controlling the controllables. (To Maddon) As a baseball player, the one aspect of your game you have the most control over is your defense. How you work at doing your due diligence. Does that need some 'splaining? (I could sure use some!)

Per dictionary.com, due diligence: refers to the care a reasonable person should take before entering in an agreement or transaction with another party. (2) an investigation or audit of a potential investment. Due diligence serves to confirm all material facts in regards to a sale.

In other words, to a potential acquirer, "making sure you get what you think you're paying for."

Hope that helps.

Best advice Joe Maddon ever heard...I was on an airplane going from Phoenix, AZ to Midland, TX. In the early 1990s I was very annoyed and upset because I had been passed over as a major league coach. I thought it was very unfair, very wrong, and I was upset. I was carrying it over into my work. My concentration wasn't as good. I was always concerned about why I was being passed over-kinda had that victim's complex going on. This lady sits next to me on the plane, and I did not want to talk to anybody, but she chose to talk to me.

She threw out this phrase to me: Remember one thing always: whatever you put out there will come back to you."

When I'm getting outside myself or things aren't quite right or if I'm not feeling right, I do a little self-check. Am I putting the right stuff out there?

And if I'm not, I really make a conscious effort to do so.

Just one question, for Angels manager Mike Scioscia: What did you and Joe Maddon talk about-other than baseball-when you were together with the Angels?

"You open up any football conversation with Joe and it's going to lead right back to his quarterbacking days out at Lafayette. And his collegiate football days were the source of a lot of inspiration to a lot of our comebacks. He was a big Joe Willie Namath fan growing up, wore #12 at Lafayette. We got a hold of some college football films of him, and from high school, too. We put them on a DVD and showed them on a plane to the guys. That was great."

(thanks to Sporting News magazine, dated 4/27/09 for the articles that inspired this commentary.)

Kevin Marquez