NASHVILLE – Even in the 94-degree temperatures of Tennessee, Rick Sweet showed off the goosebumps on his arms as he recalled the Nate Orf story.
Sweet has a picture of his 2,000th career victory on his desk at First Horizon Park and Orf is in the frame, hugging his manager. The diminutive infielder who played 15 games with the Milwaukee Brewers in 2018 had been highly productive at Class AAA but once got sent back down to Class AA to clear roster space for higher touted prospects. He came back, though.
So when asked which big-league promotion story was his favorite, Sweet’s thoughts went to Orf.
“I get up on a chair [in the clubhouse] and looking around and can’t see Nate – not a big guy – and I had to stand on top of the table. I looked around and then I saw him over in the corner,” Sweet said. “I said, ‘You! Nate Orf! You’re a big-leaguer!’ And I left and the place erupted. The feeling that went through that clubhouse, that this guy deserved this and the Milwaukee Brewers are doing the right thing. They’re calling him to the big leagues.”
Sweet, 73, has been part of organized baseball for more than 50 years, a Baseball Moses who’s led countless players (and plenty of managers) to the Promised Land of the Major Leagues but has himself never managed at the big-league level. Never even gotten a big-league managerial interview, in fact.
After recording his 2,500th career victory Aug. 8, Sweet entered Aug. 14 just 29 wins away from Stan Wasiak for the most managerial wins in minor-league history. He’ll blow the record away when he manages again in 2027, and it’ll almost certainly be with the Brewers, where he’s been the organization’s Triple-A manager since 2014.
“It’ll be a cool thing,” Sweet admitted. “I think of all the years I’ve been in the game, I’ve never really thought about how many I have and where I rank until all of a sudden now it’s kind of popped up [last year]. Hopefully, the Brewers have me back next year and I get to finish it. And, if not, 29 other clubs out there, I guess. Somebody will want this old gray-haired guy.”
Rick Sweet’s big-league dreams achieved as a player
It’s inaccurate to say Sweet has never gotten a big-league opportunity. The catcher made his big-league debut as a player for the San Diego Padres in 1978 and played for the New York Mets and Seattle Mariners in 1982 and 1983. He appeared in 272 games, mostly in Seattle, where his parents could easily travel to watch.
The Longview, Washington, native had never attended a big-league game before playing in one. He was in middle school in 1969 when the Seattle Pilots – the franchise that became the Milwaukee Brewers – played their lone season, and by the time the Mariners arrived in 1977, Sweet’s playing career was well under way.
He’s the son of a papermaker and World War II veteran who’d sometimes voyage to the top of a nearby hill to try and catch the radio waves just right so he could hear his son’s games with the Padres. His mother, who herself worked in the paper mill during World War II and raised four kids, is “98 [years old] and still ornery as ever,” Sweet said.
“I got drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates in ’72 or ’73 and didn’t even know I was drafted,” Sweet said, which seems like a common pre-internet circumstance until you realize he didn’t find out until years later, with no recollection of anyone from Pittsburgh contacting him. Agents weren’t commonplace, and only a couple scouts manned the northwest. Word simply didn’t travel.
By the time he was drafted again by the Padres in 1975, Sweet said he knew a lot more about baseball.
His unremarkable big-league career – he hit .234 with six home runs and 57 RBIs – was followed by a baseball coaching odyssey, first as bullpen coach for the Mariners in 1984 and then managing the Bellingham Mariners in the Northwest League in 1987, followed by the Wausau Timbers in northern Wisconsin the next year in a town that knows a thing or two about papermaking.
By 1993, he was a Triple-A manager for the first time – and a league champion to boot – with the Tucson Toros of the Pacific Coast League. It was the first of two titles, accompanied by a runner-up finish. He’s won three International League Manager of the Year awards, including in 2022 with the Sounds, and a PCL Manager of the Year award.
He’s worked for the Houston Astros, New York Mets, Montreal Expos, San Diego Padres, Detroit Tigers, Cincinnati Reds and now the Brewers, first with the Sounds in 2014, then at Colorado Springs and San Antonio before returning to Nashville when the affiliation with Milwaukee resumed in 2021.
“I feel very much a part of it,” Sweet said of Milwaukee’s run of success. “When [Craig Counsell] was here, we talked all the time. I knew what he wanted. I knew what direction he was going. I feel involved. I buy into all of this. We do a great job with young players, with six-year free agents. We get the most out of the people we have.”
He doesn’t hesitate when asked how to explain the job of a Triple-A manager.
“My job is to get guys ready to play for Pat Murphy,” Sweet said. “When I worked for the Padres, it was Bruce Bochy. Reds, it was Dusty Baker. My job is to emulate them, the way they manage and run their club and do the same thing here. My biggest thing is to get guys ready to go up there and help that big-league club win. That’s all I focus on, all I talk about. When they go up there, they don’t miss a beat.”
He relayed a recent conversation with former big-league manager Mike Shildt, who asked Sweet what it was that allowed the Brewers organization to achieve this level of consistent success.
“I said, ‘It’s very simple. We come to the ballpark and expect to win every day,'” Sweet said. “It had nothing to do with anything other than we as an organization expect to win baseball games when we come [to the ballpark], and we do it.”
A leader and a character for the Brewers organization
Good luck finding someone associated with the Brewers who has a bad word to say about Sweet. The mustachioed sage is one of the most beloved personalities in the organization.
“Rick Sweet is one of one,” Sounds outfielder Akil Baddoo said. “He’s a player’s manager, he understands, he played in the show and understands how to manage a team and how to bring the best out of everyone. That’s what you appreciate. That’s what you want to play for and play with. It’s an honor. You see his catalog and how many wins he has and how he’s gone about his business – just a true professional.”
It’s similar for Sounds pitching coach Tyler Thornburg, a former Brewers pitcher who also played for Sweet in the minors.
“I played for him in 2015 when we were in Colorado Springs, and it was a tough time for me. I got sent down after being on the [Brewers] in April, and I always remember him treating me like a big-leaguer and making sure I got what I needed,” Thornburg said. “The reason he’s had a lot of success here is demanding we constantly stay on stuff with the players and making sure we’re on top of everything. The little things, constantly staying on them and constantly getting better at the small details that make the tiniest difference.”
Sweet makes his offseason home in Nashville, too, and occasionally makes visits to the stadium in the offseason.
“Our creative team has all these goofy video ideas, and he’s always game for all that stuff,” Sounds assistant manager Doug Scopel said. “Of course, you’ve got the big mustache. We did the bobble ‘stache giveaway last year. The fans loved that.”
His signature look is often temporary. He shaves it every offseason because he said his wife isn’t fond of facial hair. But he’ll re-grow it again each season.
If you happen to find an old playing card of Sweet’s – something his players love to collect and trade in the clubhouse – where he isn’t adorned in the mustache, it’s not because Sweet ever preferred it that way.
“There have been places where facial hair was not allowed,” Sweet said. “Nobody has that rule anymore. The Yankees even got rid of their rule. Anytime you see me without facial hair, it’s because it was not allowed.”
Why has he never managed in the big leagues?
So why has Sweet never gotten a chance to manage in the majors? He’s seven years older than Murphy, the oldest manager in Major League Baseball, but it seems unbelievable that someone with this much success at the upper reaches of the minors never got that shot.
“Maybe I haven’t been outspoken enough, going to people calling them and saying, ‘Hey, I’d be interested in your job,'” Sweet said. “I’ve not hired an agent; a lot of guys have agents. Self-promoting myself has not been an object.”
Instead, he’s remained in Class AAA as a key, if broadly underappreciated, figure in an organization that has churned out success.
Now he’s on the precipice of a milestone that will leave him alone in history.
“The reason I’m still in this ballgame is these players make it fun,” he said. “I love coming to the ballpark every day to see what’s going to be new and what’s going to happen. …
“I’ve never questioned why I stayed in the game. I love the game. People ask when I’m going to be done. When they stop making it fun for me, maybe I’ll be done.”
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Nashville Sounds manager Rick Sweet on path to minor-league wins mark
Reporting by JR Radcliffe, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By JR Radcliffe, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel | USA TODAY Network
