Former Rockies manager Jim Tracy
Jim Tracy is not a hard man to pin down nowadays in Mason, Ohio. The former manager of the Rockies, as well as the Dodgers and Pirates, can often be found working in his yard, reminiscing on his major-league career, or on his back patio, where his TV feeds him all the baseball he could want.
And in particular, Tracy noted that he recalls Colorado’s wild-card run in 2009 — when he took over for Clint Hurdle two months in and proceeded to lead the Rockies to a franchise-best 92-70 mark — with particular fondness.
The 62-year-old won National League manager of the year for his efforts, as Colorado posted a 74–42 record (.638) under Tracy while the team flipped from being completely out of the chase to earning a divisional series showdown against the Phillies, which the Rockies lost in four games.
“It was absolutely as intriguing a season as I was ever involved in — when you go from 12 games under .500 to winning the wild card, that doesn’t happen every day,” Tracy said. “That’s making up a lot of ground in a big hurry to be able to make statement like that.”
Tracy originally joined the staff as the bench coach the prior offseason, so taking over for one of his close friends in Hurdle — not to mention the fact the club was spiraling — made managing the Rockies a less-than-appealing prospect for him initially.
“When I was asked to manage and said I would do so, until we got back from the first road trip (a couple weeks later), I managed out of the coaches’ room,” Tracy said. “I would not step foot in that manager’s office, because that was a very dear friend of mine that had left and I had extreme reservations about walking into that office because of where the club was and where it was all going to go.
“But a credit to the players and the coaches I had there — for them to get on board and support what I was trying to do, that’s award-winning in and of itself.”
And while Tracy admits his tenure in Colorado “didn’t necessarily end the way I wanted it to” with his resignation following the Rockies’ disastrous 2012 season, in which they posted a franchise-worst 64-98 mark, he says he “still roots like crazy for them.”