MILWAUKEE (AP) — Tony Mansolino’s first road game as the Baltimore Orioles’ interim manager came in the city where his dad worked as a Milwaukee Brewers coach for a couple of seasons in the late 1990s.
But the new skipper’s most vivid Milwaukee memory — even though it wasn’t particularly pleasant — goes back about five years before that.
Mansolino’s dad was coaching against the Brewers as a Chicago White Sox assistant in the summer of 1993. Mansolino was in the Milwaukee County Stadium stands watching the game with Casey Harrelson, the son of former White Sox broadcaster Ken “Hawk” Harrelson.
“I remember sitting behind home plate, and the next thing you know there was a lot of ruckus going on over by the first base dugout,” Mansolino recalled Monday during his media availabilty before the Orioles fell 5-4 to the Brewers for their seventh straight loss. “It turned out it was my dad and Phil Garner getting in a fight on the field.”
Mansolino was working as the White Sox first base coach and Garner was managing the Brewers at the time. According to The Associated Press account of the game, an angry Mansolino headed toward the Milwaukee dugout in the eighth inning and Garner came out to approach him, sparking a bench-clearing scuffle.
Video footage of the skirmish shows White Sox players Bo Jackson and Tim Raines restraining Mansolino, who was ejected from the game. The incident occurred after a pitcher for each team hit a batter earlier in the game, with Milwaukee’s Cal Eldred hitting Robin Ventura in the sixth and Chicago’s Jeff Schwarz plunking John Jaha in the seventh.
“I don’t know the whole story,” Tony Mansolino said. “I just remember watching it and being pretty terrified as a kid.”
Tony Mansolino, now 42, noted the story doesn’t end there. Garner ended up getting Doug Mansolino to join his Brewers coaching staff in 1998. Doug Mansolino went on to be part of Garner’s coaching staffs with the Detroit Tigers and Houston Astros as well.
“That was the start of the relationship,” Tony Mansolino said.
Mansolino is still seeeking his first victory since taking over as the interim manager for the Orioles, who fired Brandon Hyde on Saturday. Mansolino, a former minor league manager, had been working as Baltimore’s third base coach.
He said he should benefit from having a couple of days to adjust to his new assignment. The flight to Milwaukee gave him an opportunity to prepare for this series and just let everything sink in.
“Being fully honest, absolutely a ton of anxiety Saturday and Sunday. I didn’t sleep a whole lot,” Mansolino said. “Just going through the information and just getting my mind prepared for what the job is, I slept last night, which was a really nice feeling waking up today.”
He isn’t back at Milwaukee County Stadium, which was torn down in 2001. The Brewers now play at American Family Field, a stadium formerly known as Miller Park.
But the demolition of the old stadium couldn’t erase Mansolino’s memories of watching his dad get in a brawl here about three decades ago.
“When I think about being in Milwaukee,” he said, “that’s definitely what I think about.”
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