Catching Up on a Lifelong Friendship

Brandon Hyde doesn’t recall his exact age. He might have been 13 or 14 years old. A budding catcher whose father picked him up from school with plans for the afternoon.

“I remember him saying, ‘Hey, we’re going to go watch the catcher at Santa Rosa High with the hair,’” Hyde said.

The story is retold as Hyde sits in his office as the 20th manager in Orioles history. It brings a smile from the man who’s the subject of it, Major League field coordinator Tim Cossins, a roommate for one year and a close friend for life.

They didn’t know each other growing up in Santa Rosa, Calif. Cossins was four years older and they lived on opposite sides of town. But a catching reputation eventually brought them together.

“I was a player in junior college and he was in pro ball,” Hyde said. “When I was a player at Santa Rosa Junior College, Tim used to come back and work out there in the offseason. He was playing in the minor leagues. That’s where we first met.

“We’re from kind of a smallish town where a lot of players didn’t play after college, so I think there was a group of guys right around Tim’s time that played professionally. We all were trying to get to that spot.”

The relationship evolved from there. They just didn’t know at the time that they’d be in the majors together – Hyde one of 30 Major League managers and Cossins as one of his coaches in the dugout, who also doubles as catching instructor.

“When I started playing in the minor leagues and Tim was still playing, we would come home in the offseason and start working out together,” Hyde said. “There were only a few of us who were playing professional baseball in that area, so we would go and hit, throw, and get ready for Spring Training at that local junior college.”

“It’s funny,” Cossins said, “I don’t remember a lot but I do remember that for whatever reason.

“I just remember coming home and we would work out at the JC and we were both catchers, so we were just trying to bounce stuff off each other and trying to make it happen. I remember immediately watching him hit and thinking, ‘Man, he can flat-out hit’ and then our friendship grew from there.”

They’d also play basketball in the evenings, games easier to arrange while living together one offseason.

“We both had no money,” Hyde said. “We were struggling-type minor league players and had crappy winter jobs but [trying to] be able to still work out and stuff in the afternoon. I was mowing lawns at a golf course and selling firewood. We were both mid-to-late 20’s guys that all of our friends were kind of starting their lives and we’re like hanging onto our minor league careers mowing lawns on the golf course in the mornings.”

Cossins earned his paychecks in a guitar shop, perhaps influenced by his brother Mike, who played the bass.

“I’m a hack at all instruments,” Cossins said. “I grew up in a musical family. He was a musician, I was a hobbyist.”

Cossins is no longer known for his hair, which he used to wear long. His catching skills as a youth, while quite impressive, weren’t always how he’d be defined.

“The look was late-80s long hair,” he said. “That was kind of the thing back then. I think I was in my own mind trying to pull off a Darren Daulton thing. I don’t know.”

“Yeah,” Hyde said, smiling, “I’ve seen pictures.”

Playing the same position created an even stronger bond between Hyde and the man everyone calls “Cuz.” It gave them a perspective on the game that others couldn’t necessarily share.

“We had very similar experiences,” Cossins said. “We were trying to improve everything and we were grinding pretty hard. We joked that we had cell phones and trucks that we couldn’t afford. It was pretty thin back then for sure.”

The same modesty that Cossins brings into conversations about his music resurfaces when asked which one of them was the better catcher.

“I have no idea,” he said. “It’s funny, I have a real hard time thinking about what my skill sets were and what I could and couldn’t do. For whatever reason I just don’t have a good bearing on that.”

Hyde does.

“Tim was,” he said. “He’s being modest. He could really catch and throw. Played at the University of Oklahoma. The College World Series, he was the starting catcher. He could really catch and throw and I think that’s why he got drafted and that’s why he played for as long as he did.”

They never made it to the majors as players. Hyde, who attended college at Long Beach State, finished in the independent Western League in 2001. Cossins, a 16th-round pick of the Rangers in 1993, played in the same league a year earlier before retiring.

Their paths would intertwine in the Marlins organization, with Cossins managing in the minors and serving as catching coordinator and Hyde managing and working as infield coordinator before becoming the Marlins bench coach. Cossins later succeeded Hyde as Cubs minor league field coordinator, with the latter becoming director of player development, first base coach, and bench coach.

It seemed like only a matter of time before the current arrangement would unfold, with Hyde managing and Cossins as his right-hand man on the bench.

“I think we always shared ideas,” Hyde said. “I think when I became field coordinator with the Cubs is when we first started. We were in the Marlins together and worked closely together for a lot of those years, and then when I went to the Cubs as field coordinator there were people I wanted to bring over, because we were kind of like [Baltimore now], like starting over a little bit. So I think we talked about it that year.

“The next year when I became farm director, that whole year I was telling Theo (Epstein) and Jed (Hoyer) and Jason (McLeod) that this is the guy we need to bring over here. And that was Tim.”

“I think for me it goes back even a little bit further,” Cossins said. “I feel like we started bouncing ideas off each other. We literally left Santa Rosa together the same day. My then-girlfriend, now-wife, dropped us off at the airport. We walked into something completely new in player development.

“I remember talking about it, like, ‘Wouldn’t it be great at some point to be in a position to have some heavy weight in an organization.’ I thought that stuff maybe started then, and then our careers kind of took different paths. I started out managing, he started out being a pitching coach, and then natural progression, I ended up kind of going toward the catching and Brandon went toward managing and stuff.

“I always knew that he would be an outstanding manager. I knew he was a strategist from the get-go. As we kind of defined where we were going in this game and the potential of what we could put together and the things we could potentially bring to an organization after he had the opportunity, and it grew from there.”

Just like a friendship that extends to their families. Their wives and children are close, and Cossins is the godfather to Hyde’s son, Colton.

There must be some good vacation stories.

“Oh God,’ Cossins said, laughing. “Mexico, you driving that boat.”

“We used to live in Florida,” Hyde said. “Tim lived about a couple miles away. We used to go down to Key West. Remember? We’ve been a lot of places. Key West, Cancún.”

“Rented some boats in Mexico,” Cossins said, “and watching you drive across the protected … what is that stuff called?”

“Coral reef.”

“Yeah, yeah. We’ve done some vacationing together.”

An idea pops into Cossins’ head, the kind a buddy would devise for his own amusement.

“It would be fun to have a camera at times, especially with him and his wife,” Cossins said. “A comedy show.”

“Not so much fun for me,” Hyde laughed.

This story was originally published in the 2019 Second Edition of Orioles Magazine. Birdland Insider features original content from Orioles Magazine, including new articles and stories from our archives.