He couldn't have known it at the time, but his career would be revived in the Japan League, and he would play another half-dozen years before returning to the United States and beginning a long trek through the minor leagues as a coach and manager.
In life and in baseball, Manuel was never given a silver-spoon ride. He worked for what he got and passed through a number of organizations that either didn't think anything special of him or didn't think of him very often at all.
"Charlie's a lifer," Joe Torre, the current Los Angeles manager, said fondly of Manuel after the Phillies had dismissed the Dodgers in the 2008 National League Championship Series. Manuel had guided the Phillies smoothly through that series, and it was difficult to tell where the manager's confidence ended and the team's began.
"I have a great deal of respect for Charlie, because he's bounced around a little bit," Torre said, "and it's always the manager's fault [when] something goes wrong. But he's been able to prevail at this point."
Torre, once he got into organized ball, had a better trip than Manuel. He was a star, a most valuable player in the National League one season, an all-star nine times, and jobs were always going to be easier to find once he finished playing. In fact, Torre wasn't even finished when he began to manage, serving three weeks as player/manager for the Mets before taking his final at-bat.
In all, Torre has managed five teams since retiring, and he worked in the broadcast booth for another five years. He never spent a day paying dues at the minor-league level, never helped remove the tarp in some A-league backwater, never had to sell himself to the next organization.
