CHICAGO — When Greg Vitello watches on television and the camera pans to the Giants’ dugout, he notices an expression on his son’s face. Or, more accurately, a lack of one.
“I think he’s done a really good job of controlling his emotions,” Greg Vitello told The California Post. “At this level, you can’t go berserk in the middle of a game. Grab somebody and shake them or any of that stuff. Because you just can’t do that at this level. I know he’d like to.”
Safe to say, Tony Vitello’s tenure as Giants manager hasn’t started the way he envisioned.
It has made it a little harder to enjoy the journey as the former University of Tennessee coach attempts to blaze the trail as the first to go straight from college to the major leagues’ managerial ranks.
There’s been few opportunities to stop and smell the roses while trying to right the ship after a disastrous start that left the Giants in last place through their first 60 games.
So, on the Giants’ visit to the most seminal ballpark of Vitello’s baseball upbringing, the first-year manager was all business.
“Need to be on a mission today just to win today’s game,” the childhood Cubs fan said before his first time at Wrigley Field as a big-league manager. “I get what you’re saying. I think more for my family it’ll be cool.”
It was more than cool for Greg Vitello and a dozen family members seated behind home plate.
“It’s mind-boggling,” the proud papa said. “It really is.”
Where it began
Watching his fully grown son manage a big-league team from the visitors’ dugout down the first base line brought back memories of a young Tony’s first time in a Wrigley Field dugout.
He was 8 years old.
Growing up, Tony was a second baseman and would try to emulate Ryne Sandberg. His favorite player, though, was Andre Dawson. Greg, by chance, was friendly with one of the Cubs’ pitchers, Al Nipper, who arranged for Tony to come onto the field.
And who else was sitting in the dugout but the Hall of Fame slugger whom Tony idolized.
For once, the gregarious manager was at a loss for words.
“He got to sit I think for a couple seconds with Andre. He signed a ball for him,” Greg recalled. “We were sitting somewhere [behind third base] and he looked at that ball the entire game. It was just one of those moments where you don’t say anything.”
Full circle
Greg grew up about 4 miles from Wrigley Field and attended seminary school in Chicago. As a kid, he would hang out on Waveland Avenue, waiting for batting practice home run balls.
Ushers allowed the kids to trade a ball for free admission to the bleachers for that day’s game.
“Or we’d grab an usher and turn him and four guys would run in behind him,” Greg laughed.
Many years ago, the Cubs actually brought him in for a tryout. Turns out his playing prospects weren’t any better than his son’s, who famously never made it to pro ball.
“I think it was kind of a goodwill thing,” he said. “You know, I wasn’t 6-2, 190 pounds so nobody was interested.”
Nowadays, Tony is a runner and made sure to get to the stadium early before Friday’s series opener. As he jogged the warning track, he scanned the empty seats and processed the memories jogged to life of sitting in all areas of the ballpark with his dad and his three sisters.
Although he grew up in St. Louis, “I came here more than Busch Stadium,” Vitello said. Greg would bring the family for weekends at their grandmother’s “and try to do like three years worth of work in three days” in molding them to bleed Cubbie blue.
“I’ve sat about everywhere,” Tony said, a few hours before Willy Adames provided what would have been a free ticket back in the day with a home run that left the stadium in an 18-3 rout.
Hate losing
There haven’t been many wins like those to celebrate this season, which has made it a little harder for Tony — and vicariously, the rest of his family — to soak it all in.
“I think there’s some parts where it’s really, really neat. There’s other parts where if we would’ve done this, if we would’ve done that, if that guy would’ve done that — but that’s part of being a manager,” Greg said. “He knew coming in that this was what it was going to be.”
Greg, a Hall of Fame high school coach in Missouri, can empathize with his son.
Neither of them likes to lose.
“There’s a number of ballparks he’s never been in. You’re just in awe, so you don’t know what to say,” he said. “But you’ve got a job to do. You’ve got to win some ballgames.”
When this win was over, the Vitello clan gathered at Pequad’s, a locals’ favorite for caramelized crusted deep dish. A veteran move from a family with deep roots in Chicago.
The next morning, Tony was served a reminder of his rookie status in his current job.
Along with a few lattes.
The first-year manager joined the team’s rookies in a Wrigleyville tradition to make a coffee run for the team at the Starbucks just outside the ballpark.
“I felt a little more in place than maybe you normally would,” Vitello said. “Fortunately Starbucks is close.”
