Ben Cherington won't blow anyone away. Not visually. Not verbally.
And that comes with a welcome feel, at least from this perspective.
One might think that this particular Monday at PNC Park, maybe more than any day in Ben Cherington's 45-year life, would've been the one where he'd try to turn it up a notch. To get a little visually expressive. To sound a little verbally stoked.
Nope. It never came.
I mean, sure, he'd become a GM once before, back in 2011, but that was after 14 years with the Red Sox in his native Boston. Everyone knew him there, and he knew everyone right back. But on this occasion of being introduced as the top baseball man with the Pirates, a new team in a new city with new faces all around, it would have been plenty fair to expect him to be a little wound up. Or, more to the point, to attempt to prove himself to Pittsburgh in the span of, oh, an hour or two.
I kept waiting, even prodding him a time or two in our site's 20-minute interview session with him, Bob Nutting and Travis Williams. And again, it never came.
I promise, I'll get to the inside-baseball stuff in a bit, but that was the most compelling immediate impression the man made on me. He's got a cool, calm aura of confidence about him. Ask him a question, and he'll answer without hesitation but also, palpably, without worrying what anyone will think of it. And at the same time, raise a point with him, and he'll pause, look right back in the eyes and legitimately consider it.
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