CINCINNATI - Reds Hall of Famer Ron Oester thinks the club made a good choice when they hired David Bell as their new manager.
"It’s great to see him get this job, his first job managing,” Oester, a former Cincinnati high school star like Bell, told WCPO Sunday. “He was a great coach, and he’ll do very well as a manager.”
Oester played with Bell’s father, Buddy Bell, on the Reds in the late 1980s and said David Bell is good at developing younger players while keeping the respect of the veterans.
“I think the biggest challenge is going to be the pitching and being patient. He’s a real patient guy,” Oester said of David Bell.
Bell has never been a big-league manager – he did manage in the Reds’ minor–league system for four years - but Reds fan Ryan Testerman said he likes Bell’s other big-league credentials, especially that he was bench coach with the Cardinals.
“It’s positive. He has the Cardinals pedigree, which is definitely positive,” Testerman said.
Bell was also hitting coach for the Cardinals, third-base coach for the Cubs, and most recently vice president of player development for the Giants.
A bench coach is the manager’s right-hand man in the dugout.
“The Reds are looking up right now to the Cardinals and Cubs as the prototypical franchise. I like that. We’ll see what he can do,” Testerman said.
Does Testerman think the Reds got the right guy?
“We’ll see,” he said. “Obviously there’s bigger names. I know (Joe) Girardi was definitely part of the talk. That would’ve brought immediately some legitimacy to the franchise. But I understand where they went.
“I’m going to obviously have an open mind. Hopefully David Bell is the guy.”
The Reds will introduce Bell as their new manager at an 11 a.m. Monday news conference.
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