Matt LeCroy, Gerry McNamara hoping for happy returns | On Sports

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That Matthew LeCroy would don a Santa Claus costume and be honored at baseball parks in Rochester and Harrisburg, Pa. with bobblehead (and bobblebelly) dolls portraying him as jolly, old St. Nick is fitting, given his somewhat portly physique, white beard, and engaging personality. Whether it’s teaching young men how to become major-league ballplayers, or bringing Christmas joy annually to hundreds of elementary school children in his South Carolina hometown, or mingling with fans at newly named ESL Ballpark, LeCroy is a gift that keeps on giving.

Just ask Rochester Red Wings general manager Dan Mason, who was ready to do cartwheels when he received the news last December that LeCroy would be back for a franchise-record-tying sixth consecutive season as manager.

“I couldn’t have been happier,” said Mason, during a break from preparations for the Wings’ International League season opener Friday in Jacksonville, Fla., and home lid-lifter next Tuesday. “He’s not only a great baseball guy – a tremendous teacher who the players love playing for – but he also gets what we do. His willingness to participate in the marketing of the ballclub, including some of our social media hijinks, is unmatched by any manager in all of organized baseball.”

It’s apropos LeCroy’s return will tie him with Joe Altobelli for most seasons as Wings manager because he shares many of the attributes that earned Alto his “Mr. Rochester Baseball” moniker. Though his main job is to get players ready to help the Wings parent club — the Washington Nationals — LeCroy also embraces his role as an ambassador of the game. And that means hob-knobbing with the fans on a daily basis, often displaying his mischievous side.

“He chats it up with everybody he meets,” Mason said. “That’s just his personality; he’s a people person. And if you are sitting there in the front row, near the Wings’ dugout, you better be careful he doesn’t grab one of your nachos or French fries.”

Yes, LeCroy is known to abscond with an occasional nacho, fry or handful of popcorn. But he always makes sure he reciprocates by posing for pictures, signing autographs and occasionally passing on game-used balls and bats to kids.

“I guess it’s just my makeup,” he said. “People spend their money and time to come and watch us play, so it’s the least I can do to interact with the fans, especially the kids. Yes, baseball is a serious business for me and the players. This is our career, our life. But at its core baseball is a game. It’s supposed to be fun, and I don’t ever want to lose sight of that.”

Baseball has been a pursuit since he was old enough to swing a bat. It earned him a scholarship to Clemson University, a bronze medal at the 1996 Olympics, a first-round contract with the Minnesota Twins, and an eight-year career in the big-leagues, which saw him smack 60 homers, drive in 472 runs, bat .260, and become one of just a handful of players in Major League Baseball history to hit a pinch-hit, walk-off grand slam. And it’s remained a passion and livelihood since hanging up his spikes and catcher’s mitt in 2008, a season after playing 80 games for the Wings.

This spring marks his 18^th season in the Nationals organization, and 16^th as a minor-league manager. That run included a two-year stint as Washington’s bullpen coach. “Every coach wants to be in the big leagues, but my feeling is that if I’m going to be in the minor leagues there is no better place to be than Rochester,” said LeCroy, who turned 50 in December. “I’ve been around the horn in my time and the support of the community and the fans here is as good as it gets. And Naomi Silver and Mase and the rest of the front office is the best of the best. They do everything they can to make my time and the players’ time here as comfortable as can be.”

The role of the minor league manager is to cultivate major-leaguers. That focus on development sometimes can be at odds with winning, and that can be tough to deal with, especially for someone as competitive as LeCroy.

“It’s hard because I want to win every game,” he said. “And the players and I try to do that every day. But sometimes your hands are tied. The big club wants you to keep a hitter in the lineup even when he’s slumping and leave a struggling pitcher in a game because working through those difficulties can help them become better players down the road. And I get all that, because our goal is to develop players who can help the Nationals turn things around and become winners again.”

LeCroy has to play the hand he is dealt, even when the deck is filled with more jokers than aces. Managing at the Triple-A level is difficult because there is so much roster turnover. Last year’s Wings shuffled through 71 players enroute to a miserable 59-88 record.

Hope springs eternal, and LeCroy is amped about the roster he’s been given to start this season. It includes the Nationals top-rated prospect, Harry Ford, an athletic catcher who was acquired in an off-season trade from Seattle and played for Great Britain in this year’s World Baseball Classic; outfielders Dylan Crews and Robert Hassell III, who saw plenty of time last season with Washington, and 2025 Wings MVP Andrew Pinckney, who last year became the first player in Rochester history to hit at least 20 home runs and steal at least 30 bases in the same season.

“We got a good lineup; it’s very athletic,” LeCroy said. “And a bunch of our pitchers spent the past few years in the big leagues, so that kind of experience should help. If we can stay healthy, I think we’re going to be a heckuva lot more competitive than we were last year. I think we have a chance to do a lot of exciting things.”

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As a player whose moxie, brains, and dead-eye shooting helped Syracuse University win its one and only NCAA basketball championship in 2003, Gerry McNamara is well acquainted with running fast breaks. And that’s a good thing, because the newly hired Orange head coach will be moving at a breakneck speed in the coming weeks, while finalizing his staff and constructing a roster that likely will bear little resemblance to the 2025-26 roster. In recent years, Atlantic Coast Conference teams that hired new coaches wound up returning an average of just under three players from the rosters they inherited, so expect dramatic change.

As we saw with coaching changes in Louisville and Miami, programs can achieve successful turnarounds quickly. Re-energized Orange fans and donors are banking on G-Mac to do the same.

Syracuse, which was late in launching and funding its NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) coffers, ranked in the middle of the pack of ACC spenders last season. Thanks to contributions by some enthused, deep-pocketed benefactors, the Orange men expect to be in the top third this year, meaning McNamara will have a highly competitive budget.

He’s already begun identifying which players to retain and which players to pursue when the transfer portal opens on April 7. Two returning priorities will be Kiyan Anthony and Sidiq White, who are coming off up-and-down freshman seasons. I’d be shocked if Kiyan, son of all-time SU great and G-Mac teammate and friend Carmelo Anthony, doesn’t return. White is a more highly-regarded prospect than Anthony and will receive numerous suitors.

I’d also be surprised if Gavin Doty isn’t one of the players McNamara brings with him from Siena to Syracuse. A 6-foot-4 junior-to-be guard, Doty averaged 18 points and seven rebounds for the Saints. It helps that he grew up an Orange fan in Fulton, about 30 miles north of Syracuse.

The coming weeks will be a different sort of madness for McNamara, who will be working furiously to resuscitate Cuse the way he did Siena where, in just two years, he transformed a 4-28 team into an NCAA tournament team that came within a whisker of knocking off top-seeded Duke.

Best-selling author and nationally honored journalist Scott Pitoniak is the Rochester Business Journal sports columnist.