Snitker, 61, savors shot as Braves’ manager

KISSIMMEE — Let's face it, Brian Snitker had pretty much given up on his dream.

He always wanted to be a big league manager.

But with his career in baseball approaching four decades, he figured there wasn't much chance of actually getting the call.

Yet here he is, at 61, getting ready for his first full season as skipper of the Atlanta Braves.

“I've always been a late bloomer,” Snitker cracked this week, sitting in the dugout after his team finished a spring training workout.

He took over the Braves on an interim basis last May, becoming the fourtholdest rookie manager in baseball history.

“I don't feel my age,” Snitker said. “I'm going to just enjoy it for what it is and have a good time with it.”

He certainly put time.

Snitker has been with the Braves organization since 1977, spending four seasons as a minor league catcher and first baseman before moving into coaching.

He became a manager for the first time in the Class A South Atlantic League at age 26, and his star seemed on the rise when he joined the big league club as a bullpen coach in 1985.

It didn't last. He returned in the to the minors the following season, settling into a largely overlooked career as a jack-of-all trades in the organization. He managed at every level of the minors, from the rookie leagues to Triple-A, and got two more stints as a coach for the big league team.

After seven years as Atlanta's third-base coach, first serving under Bobby Cox and then for his successor, Fredi Gonzalez, Snitker was sent back to the minors following the 2013 season to manage Triple-A Gwinnett.

His hopes of managing the Braves — or any other major league team, for that matter — were likely finished.

Last May, with the Braves in the midst of a major rebuilding job and predictably off to a miserable start, Gonzalez was fired.

Snitker was handed what looked like another thankless job: Just get through the season the best he could, before the Braves moved on to their next fulltime manager.

A funny thing happened, though.

The Braves, who won just 16 of their first 58 games, suddenly became a respectable team. Yes, they still finished last in the NL East, but team executives took notice of a 52-51 record after June 7 — and especially a group that played hard until the end, winning 12 of its last 14 games when there wasn't anything on the line.