Bochy's brand of excellence never goes out of style

It was barely over a year ago that Bruce Bochy became the manager of the Rangers. He was hired out of retirement by general manager Chris Young, who had once pitched for Bochy in San Diego, because Young thought Bochy was the right manager to get things right in Texas.

The Rangers had lost 94 games the previous season, and 102 the season before that. But a man named Young cared not at all that Bochy was 67 at the time; he just knew from personal experience that Bochy was a truly great baseball man, one Young believed had more baseball in him, believing at the same time that what Bochy brings to a clubhouse and dugout never gets old.

Here’s something Bochy said the day he was introduced as the new Rangers manager:

"I remember going to see the Rolling Stones and watching Mick Jagger sprint down this runway. ... I go, 'He's almost 80 years old; why am I retired?'"

Later, he added this about his motivation to return:

“Some have asked, ‘Why?’ The simple answer is I miss this game. There’s so many things about the game I miss. In the dugout, the competition, being on the team. But beside that, I said if I’m going to jump back into the fire, it had to be the right fit.”

Now Bochy, whose life in professional baseball began when he signed with the Astros nearly a half-century ago, has become the first manager in baseball history to win pennants with three different teams: San Diego, San Francisco and now Texas. He won three World Series in five years with the Giants --starting in 2010, when they beat the Rangers -- and if his team can get three more games against the D-backs, he will join the exclusive club of managers who have won at least four World Series:

Joe McCarthy, Casey Stengel, Connie Mack, Walter Alston, Joe Torre.

Bochy has seen so much at this time of year, and in Game 1 on Friday night, he saw his team come back when Corey Seager tied it at 5 with a two-run homer off Arizona closer Paul Sewald, and then win when Adolis García, the hitting star of this October, hit another one over the wall in the bottom of the 11th.

When it was over, somebody asked Bochy where the game ranked with everything he has seen in the World Series.

“Right near the top,” he said, and the way he said it, it told you everything -- that it was the possibility of a team like this, a season like this and a night like this that brought him back.

The sweep of Bochy's baseball life really is amazing -- and pretty wonderful. He once played college ball at South Alabama for Eddie Stanky, who had been managed in the 1940s by Leo Durocher. He was behind the plate for one of the games in that memorable 1980 NLCS between the Astros and Phillies, and he even played one game for the Padres when they made it to their first World Series in 1984. The next year, in July, he even managed to hit the only walk-off home run that Nolan Ryan ever allowed.

Bochy became manager of the Padres in 1995 and took them to another World Series in '98. They got swept, but it took perhaps the best Yankees team of them all (114 regular-season wins, 125 in all) to do it. By the way? Bochy managed in that Series before the two rookie stars of this current World Series -- Texas' Evan Carter and Arizona’s Corbin Carroll -- were even born.

Then Bochy went 3-0 in the World Series with the Giants. In this century, only the Red Sox have won more titles than that, with four. Bochy walked away after the 2019 season, and though he made it clear he might be available to manage again if the right opportunity presented itself, one thought the next bright point on the map for him was going to be Cooperstown.

Then came the call from Chris Young.

“[Young] was determined to get winning baseball back to Texas, and he’s done that,” Bochy said after the Rangers had defeated the Astros in seven games to win the American League pennant.

With an off-day on Sunday and this exciting series tied at a game apiece, it is a perfect opportunity to take a look back at where Bruce Bochy has been and where he is right now, managing the Rangers with intelligence and grace and wit, mixing old-school feel with all the modern numbers, only looking for one number now:

Three more wins.

Bochy never thought the game had passed him by, always thought he had more baseball in him. He was right about that, and now one of the biggest stars in his return to the World Series is Bochy himself. He can’t move like Mick Jagger. But he’s the same as Mick in this one big way:

Still here.