Joe Maddon looks comfortable back home with Angels

Joe Maddon’s managerial legacy is about as secure as they come. He’s the only person alive who managed the Cubs to a World Series win. He took the Rays to the World Series and was at the helm in the dugout for Tampa Bay’s first period of sustained success.

But now, in his 15th season as a major league manager, it feels more like home.

“The Angel uniform is the most comfortable uniform I could possibly wear,” Maddon said Friday. “I’m very grateful for that.”

Maddon has done just about everything in the Angels organization, starting as a minor league catcher in 1976. By 1980 he moved into scouting and coaching. He managed four different minor league teams, he was a roving hitting instructor for a few years. In 1994, he finally got the call to join the major league staff, first as a bullpen coach, then first base coach, before settling in as bench coach for about a decade.

He was interim manager with the Angels for a few brief stints — 1996, 1999, 2004 — for 52 total games. Now, after 14 years managing in Tampa Bay and Chicago, he has the full-time Angels job, in his 31st year in the organization.

“People see you now and they think that you’re just now. They have no idea what it took to get to now,” Maddon said. “So I’m very grateful for a lot of this stuff.”

Links & News

• MLB teams are allowed to bring along up to three taxi squad players on a road trip, one of whom has to be a catcher. For this weekend against the A’s, catcher Anthony Bemboom, pitcher Luke Bard, and infielder Elliot Soto. a Bemboom and Bard are on the Angels’ 40-man roster, and Soto is not. Bemboom is allowed to be around during the game as a bullpen catcher, but the other taxi squad members can’t be in the stadium.
• In case you missed Friday’s game, here’s our recap.
• Julio Teheran threw two simulated innings Friday at the Angels alternate training site in Long Beach, per Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register.
• Marc Carig at The Athletic chronicled how MLB’s official scorers are all working from home this year.
• MLB announced that 28.1 percent of players on active rosters, injured lists, or inactive lists on Opening Day were born outside the United States. Of the record 288 foreign-born players, six are Angels: Julio Teheran (Colombia); Andrelton Simmons (Curacao); Albert Pujols, Felix Peña, and Hansel Robles (Dominican Republic); and Shohei Ohtani (Japan).
• In the week ending Thursday, July 23, monitoring testing resulted in six positive tests for COVID-19, in numbers released by MLB and MLBPA. Four of those positive tests were players.