Down happy to rejoin Yanks

Victoria Sun

Friday, Dec. 28, 2001 | 10:01 a.m.

The fate of a major league baseball coach is almost always linked to the fate of the team's manager.

After a manager is fired, it's only a matter of time before his coaches are following him out the door.

Rick Down, a UNLV assistant coach from 1979-84, has fallen victim to the system more times than he'd like to count.

But now that he has rejoined the New York Yankees as hitting coach, he is hopeful he won't be caught in the crunch again.

"I'm excited about it," said Down, one of the instructors at the UNLV Holiday Baseball Camp. "It's a great organization and has a lot of stability.

"In the front office, (general manager) Brian Cashman has signed a contract and on the field, (manager) Joe Torre signed a contract, so they'll be there. Stability was something I was looking for.

"I think whatever happens to me in New York, it will be based on what I do, not based on what someone else did."

Down spent last season as the Boston Red Sox's hitting coach. The team fired manager Jimy Williams in July, then decided not to renew Down's contract at the end of the season.

The previous year, Down, then hitting instructor for the Los Angeles Dodgers, was a finalist for the manager job that opened when Davey Johnson was fired. But he was passed over for Jim Tracy.

"When you're a top candidate and you don't get the job, you've got to leave out of respect and loyalty to the guy who did," said Down, who first served as Yankees hitting coach from 1993-95 and reprised that role for the Orioles from 1996-98.

His name also surfaced when the Anaheim Angels and Tampa Bay Devil Rays were looking for new managers, but he never got the call.

"Yes, I do want to manage some day," Down said. "Hopefully, 10 years as a New York Yankees hitting coach may push the envelope."

He is eager to work with newly acquired Yankees Jason Giambi and Rondell White and being reunited with Derek Jeter and Bernie Williams.

"I am a little more pro-active," Down said of his coaching style. "I approach them, but you have to build bridges.

"When you talk about relating to players, I think you have to build a trust. It doesn't matter what I know or what I can bring to the table. The first thing they want to know is if I care about them as people.

"I'm a second set of eyes. I don't wait for them to come to me. I want to help them get consistent, just to make them be the best player they (can be). I don't try to reinvent the wheel."

Before taking the job at UNLV, Down was a minor league manager in the Yankees farm system from 1977-78.

He decided to leave the professional ranks to work under former UNLV coach Fred Dalimore because he enjoyed being in Las Vegas.

"The opportunity to stay in Vegas, having grown up in Detroit, was exciting," Down said. "It was a great time.

"I met my wife, Jill, here. Her family, mom, dad, brothers and sisters, all live here still.

"It was a great learning experience. It's different, but it's not. It's still baseball."