If all that sounds like Charlie, understand this was a 39-year-old version. Known as a patient type now, he rarely held back in those days - once challenging his entire team to a fistfight.
But among the losing streaks, interminable bus rides, and squabbles with umpires, team owners and his own players, Manuel learned some of the lessons that helped him mature into a stabilizing influence in the Phillies' dugout.
"To tell you the truth, when I first started managing, I didn't know nothing about the game," Manuel said. "I mean that. About the only thing I knew how to do was play right field, and I played some first base, and I thought I could hit."
In charge of a team of guys all younger than 25, Manuel was all by himself - no coaches - traveling the Midwest League in a beaten-up "jalopy" of a bus. Manuel rarely let on about any game-management ignorance to his young players.
"He was old-school baseball," said Ken Klump, one of his pitchers.
Even if Manuel hadn't gone on to a bigger stage and far more fame, none of his players from that first season would have forgotten their time with Charlie.
"I see him on TV - 'Holy cow, he's so calm.' That was not him that first year," said Kiel Higgins, a pitcher that year, now a police officer in Albuquerque, N.M.
"He did not lack for confidence."
Charlie's rules
Manuel didn't have a lot of rules, his players said. No shorts on the road. Don't be late - that was a big one, even then.
Another of his rules is time-honored in baseball: Don't drink in the same bar as the manager. (Since this was the Midwest League, the rule was waived when the Twins rolled into a town with only one bar.)
