Dave Cash managing in minors
Originally published April 7, 2001

By RON MOSHIER
Observer-Dispatch

FREDERICK, Md. — Dave Cash may not be back in the big leagues, at least not yet.

But the former major league all-star from Utica likes the direction he’s headed.

Cash, who spent the last four seasons as a coach with the Triple-A Rochester Red Wings of the International League, made his managerial debut with the Carolina League’s Frederick Keys — a long-season Class A team in the Baltimore Orioles’ organization — Friday night.

“It’s something I was looking forward to for a long time,” said Cash during a telephone interview Friday, just a few hours prior to Frederick’s season opener against Potomac. “I’ve been trying to get into the managerial part of it for about four or five years now.”

And in this particular case, it doesn’t matter when the latest career move takes him from Triple-A Rochester to Class A Frederick.

“Any time you can manage a team, I see it as a promotion,” said the 52-year-old Cash, a former star athlete at Utica’s Thomas R. Proctor High School. “When you’re the manager, you get to call the shots. Now, I get a chance to make up my own mind. It gives me some more responsibility. It gives me a chance to show my managerial skills.”

Cash was a minor-league manager before, for one season with the 1988 Batavia Clippers of the short-season Class A, New York-Penn League.

He was a roving infield instructor in the Philadelphia Phillies’ organization for the next four years (1989-92), and he was a coach with the International League’s Triple-A Scranton-Wilkes Barre Red Barons from 1992 to ’95.

Cash, a three-time National League all-star second baseman with the Phillies, returned to the majors in 1996 as Philadelphia’s first base coach.

“This is a test,” said Cash, admitting his one season of managerial experience with the New York-Penn League’s Batavia Clippers can’t compare to what lies ahead. “This is a 142-game schedule. This is a grind.

“Here it’s six months instead of two. It’s a little more challenging. It’s a little more demanding,” he said, “and at times it’s going to require me to be more patient. I’m going to make some mistakes, I’m sure, but hopefully I’ll learn from them.”
By the sounds, Cash, who lives in Odessa, Fla., hopes this career move leads to another.

“Usually, everything’s predicated on winning,” said Cash, whose team lost its season-opener 4-3 to Potomac Friday. “Hopefully, if I do the kind of job that I think I can do here, then I’ll probably get an opportunity to come back next season and manage somewhere else, at a higher level.”

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