PHOENIX -- Torey Lovullo got on the team bus, fresh off a victory over the Phillies in Game 7 of the NL Championship Series, and looked at his coaching staff. He told them not to make plans for the 2024 All-Star break because they would be coming with him to the Midsummer Classic.
The World Series managers for each league and their coaching staffs get the honor of serving in similar roles in the following year’s All-Star Game as a reward for winning the pennant. In recent years, the manager has had the option of adding a fellow manager to the coaching staff.
As Lovullo mulled over which NL manager he wanted to add during the winter, he kept coming back to the same name -- Cincinnati Reds skipper David Bell.
There are a lot of connections between the two. They were teammates on the 1995 Triple-A Buffalo Bisons, and Bell’s father Buddy was a mentor for Lovullo during Buddy’s long post-playing career in baseball.
But a deeper bond exists between the two is their love and respect for David’s late brother, Mike, who ran the D-backs farm system from 2011-19 and managed in the Arizona system before that. He left the organization in 2020 to serve as the Twins’ bench coach.
Mike was a beloved member of the D-backs organization and a trusted confidant of Lovullo. His passing in the spring of 2021 due to kidney cancer was a blow to many in the industry, and it was felt most profoundly in Arizona.
“His brother Mike ran our player development for a number of years, and he has relationships with just about all the young players you're watching on the baseball field perform at a high level,” Lovullo said. “And I just wanted to honor Mike the best way I could. It just made so much sense for me personally, and professionally, to ask David to join us. And it's an honor for me to have him and be able to share with the world this great baseball story. This is a great moment for baseball and it'll be a lot of fun for me to sit next to him [in the dugout] and tap into the Bell family a little bit more.”
Lovullo had his mind made up before Spring Training started that David would be his choice, but rather than calling him, he waited until the two teams met during Spring Training. Before the game started, Lovullo walked over to the Reds dugout and pulled Bell aside to ask him in person.
“Talk to your family,” Lovullo told him, “and get back to me when you can. It doesn’t have to be right away.”
Bell quickly texted his wife to check with her and called Lovullo after the game was over to tell him it was an emphatic yes.
“It's especially meaningful because of Mike,” Bell said, turning to look at Lovullo. “Mike and I spoke a lot, and I feel like I know people throughout this organization probably a lot better than I do. And Torey and Mike had a close relationship. I know the impact he had on you and the impact you had on him. It was a very close relationship. So that's why this is so meaningful to me. The relationships that Mike had throughout this organization meant so much to him. So to be able to do this with Torey, it just means so much to me and my family.”