The Skipper That Stirs The Drink...

While the Pirate nation waits with bated breath to find out if Rocco or Derrick join the team or if Dirt Dog makes a miraculous resurrection in Bucco colors, GW's mind got to wandering: who was the best at being maestro to a Pittsburgh ensemble when the talent was finally assembled?

Yah, we know that it's the players that make a team, but still, somebody has to fill out the lineup card. Here's our list of the top five skippers to ever run the Pirate orchestra since the days of Al Pratt, the first Allegheny manager from back in 1882:

5) Bill McKechnie (1922-1926, 409-293, .583) - McKechnie, a Wilkinsburg native who started and ended his MLB playing career with the Pirates, won 55% or more of his games in four of his five seasons at the helm, and his 1925 Bucs won it all.

They beat Washington and the Big Train, Walter Johnson, in seven games. With Kiki Cuyler, Max Carey, and Pie Traynor, he had an explosive club. Alas, his Pirate career came to a screeching halt during the ABC uprising (see Fred Clarke) and he moved on to St. Louis, the third of his five managerial stops.

McKechnie is the only skipper to win pennants with three different NL clubs - Pittsburgh (1925), St. Louis (1928), and Cincinnati (1939-40). He led his 1925 and 1940 clubs to World Championships and was twice named manager of the year.

He was an odd kinda manager for his era (this era, too!) A religious man, he didn't smoke, didn't drink, and didn't cuss. When he had a problem child who liked to party, McKechnie's Solomonic solution was to room with him. That usually calmed the situation. Not too surprisingly, his nickname was the Deacon.

McKechnie was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962. He died at age 79 in Bradenton, Florida, where the Pirates' spring training home, McKechnie Field, is named after him.

4) Jim Leyland (1986-1996, 851-863, .496) - Before the Pirate suits gutted his lineup, the chain smoking skipper led the Bucs to three straight division titles (1990-92). But for all the players he had in the early 1990s, he couldn't get past the NLCS and suffered some of the most heart-breaking losses in Pittsburgh sports history.

In 1990, his club was outpitched by the Reds. In 1991, they lost the NLCS to Atlanta, losing a pair of 1-0 games and the series in seven after being up 3 games to 2, and 1992 - well, we'll just forget about that one.

Leyland hung around for a while, but the suits let all the stars - Barry Bonds, Bobby Bo, Doug Drabek, Andy Van Slyke - leave, and Jim eventually followed them.

In 1997, he was hired by Wayne Huizenga to manage the Florida Marlins and led them to the franchise's first world championship. In the offseason, Huizenga dismantled the team. Leyland lasted another season, and moved on to the Colorado Rockies head job in 1999.

It was one and out with the Rox, and he became a Pittsburgh-based scout for the Cardinals. You could spy him in the stands of PNC Park with Chuck Tanner. And what a commentary that was to the Pittsburgh fans.

In 2005, Leyland returned to the franchise where he spent the first 18 years of his pro baseball career, Detroit. In 2006, he guided the Tigers to a 95-67 record, their best season since 1987. They won the AL crown as a wild card, only to be dropped by St. Louis in the Series.

Leyland was recognized with the Manager of the Year award for the third time in his career, becoming the third person to win the award in both leagues. He also won The Sporting News Manager of the Year Award for the American League in 2006.

Times have been a little rougher in Motown for Jim of late, and he's working on the last year of his contract. He and his wife Katie live in Pittsburgh with their two kids.

3) Chuck Tanner (1977-1985, 711-685, .509) - Sunshine superman was the ideal guru for the "We Are Familee" Pirates of the late 70s and early 80s. In his 11 seasons, he only made the playoffs once - but whatta ride that was, as the 1979 Pirates rallied to take the Series' crown away from Baltimore.

You know the Pirates wanted him badly. They traded an over-the-hill Manny Sanguillen and threw in $100,000 to pry him loose from Charlie Finley and the Oakland A's, then only the second time a manager had been traded.

He took them to the promised land, but Pops and Dave Parker were on a downslide, and Bert Blyleven was traded. The results showed, as did Tanner's laissez faire attitude towards his players' personal lives, culminating in the low mark of Pittsburgh baseball, the drug trials of 1985.

His baby-sitting skills can be questioned, but he came up with an innovation that's still en vogue. Tanner came up with the "bridge" relievers, bringing in guys as early as the sixth inning to keep the lead, a new tactic at the time. In fact, in 1979 Grant Jackson pitched in 72 games, Enrique Romo in 84 and Kent Tekulve in a league-leading 94. They had the three highest appearance totals in the NL.

Pittsburgh and Tanner parted ways after the 1985 season, and he went to the Braves to manage three unforgettable years with an old, creaking roster.

In 2006, he was invited to be a coach in the All Star game in a classy move by NL manager Phil Garner, who played for the Pirates during Tanner's time, and Chuck threw out the first pitch. It was a great moment for both Tanner and the Pirate faithful.

He returned to the Pirates in 2008 as a senior advisor, and his rumpled golf hat is as much a part of PNC Park as the Pierogies. And Tanner has two more modest claims to fame - the Yankee Doodle was born in New Castle, where he still lives, on the Fourth of July, and hit a home run in his first MLB at bat.

2) Fred Clarke (1900-1915, 1422-969, .595) - Clarke won four NL titles and the 1909 World Series with a roster of great players brought to Pittsburgh by Barney Dreyfuss at the turn of the century. And he was one of them.

In 1900, Clarke joined the Pittsburgh Pirates as a player and manager, roles he would hold until his retirement in 1915. His team played in the first World Series ever held, losing 5 games to 3 in 1903 to the AL Boston Americans and Cy Young after their third consecutive NL title.

But he got his revenge in 1909, when his club whipped the Ty Cobb-led Detroit Tigers. Of course, having Honus Wagner and Babe Adams didn't hurt the cause, either.

He was also a cause celebrite when he instigated the ABC affair. As an assistant to Barney Dreyfuss in 1926, he was allowed to sit on the Pirates' bench but the players, egged on by a trio of vets, wanted him out of the dugout. The Pirates responded by releasing Babe Adams, Carson Bigbee and Max Carey. Still, he had enough and retired after the season.

Clarke was selected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1945 as one of the first to be elected by the Old-Timers Committee with over 1,400 wins as a manager and a lifetime .312 batting average. After his baseball days, Clarke retired to his "Little Pirate Ranch" near Winfield, Kansas, where he died at age 87

1) Danny Murtaugh (1957-1964, 1967, 1970-1971, 1973-1976, 1115-950, .540) - The Smilin' Irishman was as synonymous with Pirate baseball as Rosey Rosewell and the Gunner. He took the helm four times, and twice won World Series as a heavy underdog, with a NL pennant and 4 NL East titles to his credit.

He was named the Pirates manager in the middle of the 1957 season, replacing the acerbic Bobby Bragan. The next year, he led Pittsburgh to a second place finish.

Two years later he piloted the Pirates to their first NL flag since 1927, and led them to a 4 games to 3 victory over the heavily favored New York Yankees of Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford, aided a bit by Bill Mazeroski’s dramatic 9th inning home run in Game 7. It was Pittsburgh's first title since 1944.

After managing the Bucs for the next four seasons, he stepped down in 1964 after a heart attack, but stayed with the club as an advisor.

In 1967 he replaced Harry "The Hat" Walker as the Pirates field leader in mid-season as a favor, but stepped down at season's end. In 1970, after spending two years in the front office, he accepted the managers job for a third time, having helped build the team from within and recognizing that it was, well, loaded. He managed the team to another first place finish, but lost to the Cincinnati Reds in the NLCS.

With a lineup that boasted of Willie Stargell, Roberto Clemente, Dock Ellis and Al Oliver, he captured the 1971 NL Pennant and then defeated the Baltimore Orioles 4 games to 3 in the World Series. After winning the crown he retired one more time, again on top of the baseball world.

But you can't keep a good man down. For a fourth time, he would come back to the Pirates at the tail end of the 1973 season to take the spot of his hand-picked replacement, Bill Virdon. He led the team to two more NL East titles in 1974 and 1975, but lost in the NLCS both years.

After the 1976 season he called it quits for the final time, suffering a stroke and dying only two months later in his Chester home. He was named the NL Manager of the Year in 1958, won the Sporting News' Manager of the Year honors twice (1960 and 1970), and in 1960, he was selected as the "Man of the Year" by Sport magazine.

November 20, 1985 - Jim Leyland Comes To Town

James Richard Leyland was born on December 15, 1944, in Perrysburg, Ohio, right on the Maumee River, the son of a factory foreman, and a wiry kid who grew up tough and driven.

Leyland started his baseball career with the Tigers when they inked him as a catcher on September 21, 1963. He spent six seasons in the Detroit minors (1964-69) before leaving the plate for the dugout.

He became a coach for the Montgomery Rebels in 1970, moving to the Rocky Mount Leafs for half of the 1971 season before earning his first managerial shot with the Bristol Tigers that same year.

Leyland managed for 11 seasons in the Tigers' organization (1971-81), advancing to the playoffs six times and claiming three league titles. He was selected as the manager of the year in the Florida State League in 1977 and 1978, and given the same honor in the American Association in 1979, a pretty cool trifecta.

He was always had a cigarette jones, even back in the day, and a locla newspaper ran a story about that habit: "Ex-umpire Sonny Fulks recalled a minor-league game in the 1970s when chain-smoker Jim Leyland, then managing the Lakeland (Fla.) Tigers, had just fired one up when Fulks called a balk on Leyland's pitcher.

"He ran out on the field to argue and jammed the cigarette in the hip pocket of his pants, which were double-knit," Fulks told the Dayton Daily News. "By the time he got to second base, it had melted a hole in the seat and he was really smoking.

"He didn't stay long. He wasn't wearing underwear, and I mean his [rear end] was hangin' out."

Leyland left the Tigers' nest in 1982 when he became Tony La Russa's third base coach (1982-85) with the Chicago White Sox, waving in the runs during team's 1983 AL West division title season.

Then Syd Thrift had a brainstorm when it was time to find Chuck Tanner's replacement. He raided Chicago and named Jim Leyland to be the 33rd Pirate skipper on November 20, 1985.

He managed the Bucs from 1986 to 1996, winning two Manager of the Year trophies in 1990 and 1992. Leyland had an All-Star line-up with Barry Bonds, Jay Bell, Doug Drabek, John Smiley, Andy Van Slyke and Bobby Bonilla.

The no-nonsense Bucco leader became a local folk hero when in 1991, with local TV cameras rolling during camp, he scolded Barry Bonds for talking back to a coach. Leyland yelled, "I've kissed your butt for three years! If you don't want to be here, then get your butt off the field!" The blue collar fans of Pittsburgh had found their boy.

Under Leyland, the Pirates went to the NLCS three straight seasons (1990-1992). The Pirates lost all three, the last pair going the full seven games against the Atlanta Braves. Sid @#%&* Bream!

But the management, the Pittsburgh Associates and Cam Bonifay, began breaking up the team after 1992's run, and sapped Leyland. After 11 seasons, he had enough of the losing.

In 1997, he was hired by Wayne Huizenga to manage the Florida Marlins and led them to the franchise's first championship. The Marlins, in only their fifth year of existence, became the fastest expansion franchise to win a World Series, a feat that has since been bested only by the 2001 Arizona Diamondbacks.

In the offseason, Huizenga dismantled the team in what became known as "the fire sale." Leyland stayed as the manager, but used an escape clause in his contract to defect to Colorado after his defending champions lost 108 games in 1998.

But after another bad year with the disappointing Rockies, he called it quits, walking away from $4.5 million of a three-year, $6 million deal, the largest ever signed by a major-league manager to that time. He said he just didn't have the energy to compete anymore. The fire that burned so fiercely had banked.

So he became a Pittsburgh-based scout for the Cards, hired by his bud Tony LaRussa. He was often spotted sitting in the stands at PNC Park with fellow ex-Pirates manager Chuck Tanner, one with a smoke hangin' out his mouth and the other with a crumpled roll-up hat, no doubt reminiscing about the good ol' days of Bucco baseball.

But the fire still smoldered, and Leyland interviewed for the Phillies' managerial vacancy following the 2004 season after Larry Bowa was fired, losing out to Charlie Manuel.

When the 2005 season ended, Leyland dropped some broad hints that he was more than willing to return to Pittsburgh, his home since 1985. Again he lost out, without even the courtesy of an interview, to Littlefield's pre-ordained pick, Jim Tracy.

Pittsburgh's loss, Detroit's gain. Leyland shrugged off the rejection and returned his baseball roots, taking the helm of the Detroit Tigers when he replaced Alan Trammell on October 3, 2005.

And he remembered where he came from. Among his coaches were Lloyd McClendon, Gene Lamont (who replaced Leyland at Pittsburgh), and Andy Van Slyke, kindred spirits from the Pirate days that provided him with a comfort zone at his new gig.

In the 2006 regular season, Leyland took the Tigers to a 95-67 record, their best year since 1987. The Tigers entered the playoffs as the wild card, and went on to whup the New York Yankees and sweep the Oakland Athletics on their way to winning the AL pennant.

But he lost the World Series to his mentor, Tony LaRussa, and his St. Louis Cards, a heavy underdog, proving its' not how you start the year, but how you finish it. The Tigers extended Leyland's contract through 2009 after he won the Manager of the Year award for the third time.

Leyland became the seventh manager in history to win pennants in both leagues that year, joining Joe McCarthy, Yogi Berra, Alvin Dark, Sparky Anderson, Dick Williams, and Tony La Russa.

After a disappointing 2008 season, Tigers GM Dave Dombrowski confirmed that Leyland would be back for the 2009 season, although his contract wasn't being extended this time around. That's OK. Jimmy Leyland with a chip on his shoulder is a formidable force.

In 17 seasons as a big league manager, Leyland's posted a 1326-1360 (.494) record, with five playoff appearances, two chances at the dance, and a World Series title.

He's known as a hard-nosed guy that tells it like it is, with a somewhat unorthodox managing style. But in March, he told the Post Gazette's Paul Meyer that managing is simple:

"John Russell will do fine -- if he has good players. Just like Jim Leyland will do fine if he has good players. Tony La Russa will do fine if he has good players. Bobby Cox will do fine if he has good players. But, if you don't have good players, you won't do fine."

"We all know the hit-and-run," Leyland said. "We all know about playing the infield in or back. Now, people get tired of hearing this, but the team with the best players is going to win. That's just the way it is.

"If the best players execute against a team of players who aren't very good players, the best players are going to win." Word.

The 63-year old Leyland still keeps his home in Pittsburgh (Thornburg, to be exact), where he met his wife Katy and has raised two children, Pat and Kelly. In fact, they were hitched by Jim's bro Tom, a Catholic priest who did the honors on November of 1987. The kids go to Bishop Canevin High School. You can find Leyland in the Beaver Valley indoor baseball complex in the off season, coaching up the youngsters.

And that's Jim Leyland. No matter where he's at, he's a Pittsburgh guy.

(Tomorrow at noon, GW gives his take on the 40-man roster moves)