Manny Acta gets 2nd chance with Indians

Associated Press

GOODYEAR, Ariz.

Under a blue Arizona sky on a back field at Cleveland’s training complex, the team’s top offseason acquisition is taking practice swings — outside the batting cage.

Grabbing a fungo bat, the Indians’ new No. 11 shouts instructions across the diamond to infielders busy smoothing divots in the dirt with their cleats.

“Let’s go to work!” shouts manager Manny Acta. “A lot of life.”

With that, Acta, fired last July after 21‚Ñ2 years with the Washington Nationals, tosses a ball in the air and rips a hard grounder through the grass at second baseman Luis Valbuena, who scoops it cleanly and tosses a one-hopper back to Acta, the modest man the Indians believe can maneuver them through yet another rebuilding project and hopefully back to legitimacy.

Acta is up for the challenge.

“This is what I love,” he said a few hours later, sitting behind an office desk where an open laptop is surrounded by charts, analytical printouts and detailed calendars. “This is my passion. I don’t have a fall back. I quit school to sign a professional contract, and I’m not going back to school. This is all I know to do.”

The fact that Acta, who went 158-252 in Washington, is again managing in the majors is a testament to his abilities and reputation, and to the baseball community’s understanding of what he faced with the talent-starved Nationals.

Despite the losses, he emerged a winner.

After leading Washington to a 73-89 record in 2007, a respectable mark considering the club had 14 rookies and used 13 starting pitchers, Acta’s second season in the nation’s capital was a disaster. The Nationals were ravaged by injuries and finished a major-league worst 59-102. In the aftermath, Acta was retained but his entire coaching staff was fired.

Acta didn’t make it through four months last season, dismissed following a 26-61 start that only seemed destined to get worse.

“The time in Washington gave me an opportunity to showcase myself to the world. I was getting into a tough situation, but I needed to get my foot in the door, that’s the way that I looked at it. My character was tested for a couple years, but we survived and showcased ourselves and obviously the industry saw us in a different way.”