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WNPR News sports coverage brings you a mix of local and statewide news from our reporters as well as national and global news from around the world from NPR.

Episode 7: The Manager

Yard Goats manager Jerry Weinstein is a man of many little self-contradictory terms. Words like "simplexity." Or this one he has for a pitch that could be a strike or a ball: a... "striball."

And it's not just these seemingly nonsensical little chestnuts, either. There are deeper contradictions in the manager that is Jerry Weinstein.

He never played professional baseball -- he never even tried to -- but he has such a deep knowledge of the game that he makes a point of keeping the players aware that every piece of advice he gives them could be, well... wrong.

He's made a life out of teaching and coaching and developing baseball players, and the philosophy he's crafted rests mostly on empowering the players to teach and coach and develop... themselves.

He says repeatedly that his job is to eliminate his job, and it turns out that in one more little act of contradiction, his first season as manager of the Hartford Yard Goats will be Jerry Weinstein's final season as the manager of any baseball team.

Jonathan is a producer for ‘The Colin McEnroe Show.’ His work has been heard nationally on NPR and locally on Connecticut Public’s talk shows and news magazines. He’s as likely to host a podcast on minor league baseball as he is to cover a presidential debate almost by accident. Jonathan can be reached at jmcnicol@ctpublic.org.

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