Snitker’s long, winding road ends up as leader of Braves

Twenty years ago, Brian Snitker was the manager of the Macon Braves. His team was 80-60, and he had 12 players go on to play in the major leagues. Nine were pitchers, who combined for 321 wins in the show.

Snitker’s Macon team was upset in the first round of the 1997 South Atlantic League playoffs by Greensboro. Snitker sat in his office the night of the final game, at Luther Williams Field, in much smaller digs than the one he has today.

“I remember telling (Glenn Hubbard, Snitker’s coach in Macon) after they beat us that I wasn’t ready for this to end,” Snitker said. “It was one of those years where it was a really good team and a fun bunch of guys to be around. Sometimes you just don’t want it to end.”

Snitker was 41 at the time, still young enough to have high aspirations for his own career as he was trying to shape others who had the dream of making it to the highest level.

“Twenty years ago, I was worried about today,” he said. “I wasn’t looking that far ahead. I didn’t put that on myself. I just wanted to survive today and enjoy the moment. If somebody had asked, ‘Where do you want to be in 20 years?’ I probably wouldn’t have said be the manager of the Atlanta Braves.”

That’s exactly what he is now. Snitker is the manager of the Atlanta Braves. And, what a journey he has had.

The team he now leads signed him as a free agent 40 years ago after a college career at New Orleans. Snitker played 236 games as a minor leaguer, mainly as a catcher, with a little time at first base. Then, after the 1980 season, his minor league director wanted to talk with him.

Hank Aaron, yes that Hank Aaron, was Atlanta’s farm director. He knew Snitker’s time as a player was ending, but Aaron saw something more. He asked Snitker about coaching.

“I had packed up everything and was kind of a vagabond,” Snitker said. “He gave me the opportunity to stay in the game. He offered me a salary. My first job, I went down to Bradenton and was a pitching coach for a while. Then I was a rover with Cito Gaston (later the manager of the Toronto Blue Jays).

“It was pretty neat that he saw that in me and allowed me to do that. When I got this job last year, I ran into him. There wasn’t anyone happier than Hank. He’s been wonderful to me in my career.”

Snitker first managed in 1982, in the Sally League with Anderson. Then he had two stints in Atlanta as a coach, first in 1985 with Eddie Haas and then with Russ Nixon from 1988-90.

Then, it was back to the minor leagues. He managed in Macon in 1992 and then had the two-year stretch in 1997 and 1998. Snitker managed up and down the Braves’ minor league ladder until he got the call to be Bobby Cox’s third-base coach in 2007. That’s when he starting thinking about being a manager in the big leagues.

“I was like, ‘OK, I’m ready for this now,’ ” he said. “Coaching third usually turns into a managing job a lot of times. Two or three of the third-base coaches had become managers — Jimy Williams, Ned Yost and Fredi (Gonzalez). So, it’s something at that point that I thought about.”

When Cox retired, Gonzalez got the manager’s job, but Snitker remained as the third-base coach. Then after the 2013 season, former general manager Frank Wren demoted Snitker and sent him back to the minors, to manage Triple-A Gwinnett.

“After I didn’t get it, and after I went back to Triple-A, I kind of shut it down,” Snitker said of his desire to be a major league manager.

The big chance

On May 16, Snitker and his wife Ronnie were having breakfast at Papa Jack’s Country Kitchen in Buford. The owner of the restaurant had a house for sale, and the Snitkers were in the market for a new home. They were viewing diagrams of the house when Snitker’s phone rang.

“It was (Braves’ general manager John Coppolella),” Snitker said. “It was not uncommon to hear from him. We talk all the time about moves. Then he’s like, ‘Can you talk?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘No, can you talk? Can you go somewhere.’ So, I just went out in the parking lot.”

Then John Hart, the Braves’ president of baseball operations, conferenced in on the call. Snitker then thought something was up.

“I’ll be honest with you, I thought I heard them say they wanted me to come be the bench coach. I thought, ‘They ain’t making me the manager,’ ” Snitker said.

“We want you to take the team over,” Coppolella then said.

“I was like, ‘Holy cow’ ” after I pulled my tongue out of the back of my throat,” Snitker said. “Then they said, ‘What do you think? Do you want the job?’ I was like, ‘Hell, yeah.’ I’ve auditioned for this my whole career.”

Hart and Coppolella swore Snitker to secrecy. He couldn’t tell a soul, not even his wife. So, he got in the truck with her, knowing he had just been asked to become the manager of the Atlanta Braves. He gave nothing away. Then he had to go manage a Triple-A game that night, acting like nothing had happened but knowing his life was about to change.

Snitker waited until after the game and then knew he had to tell his wife. He couldn’t just disappear the next morning and wind up in Pittsburgh. So, after he left Coolray Field, Snitker called his wife.

“You’ve got to help me pack tonight,” he said.

“What do you mean?” Ronnie Snitker asked.

“You’ve got to help me pack,” he repeated.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“Pittsburgh,” he replied.

“Why are you going there?” she asked.

“I’m going to take the Braves over,” he said.

Snitker used the same line with his wife the Braves’ brass had used with him earlier in the day.

“She went crazy,” he said. “I was really good about keeping that secret.”

When Snitker got home, he told his son Troy, who is now a hitting coach for the Houston Astros’ High-Single-A minor league team.

“That was really special. It was neat,” Snitker said.

And then, at 5 a.m. the next day, Snitker was off to Pittsburgh, and he said, “The next two weeks were a blur.”

His job was not easy. He was asked to rescue a team that was 9-28, which led to Gonzalez’s firing. The Braves were in year two of a rebuilding process that was spiraling out of control, at least at the big league level.

Snitker made an immediate impact, according to first baseman Freddie Freeman.

“He gave a little talk, and instead of being 9-28, I felt we were 28-9,” the Braves’ first baseman said.

“We battled a lot of demons trying to turn this thing around,” Snitker said. “I kind of wanted them to relax. The more I was around those guys, the more I liked them. I respected them and their professionalism.”

It took awhile. The Braves were 9-18 in Snitker’s first 27 games at the helm.

“(Pittsburgh manager) Clint Hurdle put his arm around me after that first game and said, ‘Just enjoy this,’ ” Snitker said. “I saw him two weeks later when he came to Atlanta. I said, ‘You forgot to tell me how.’ ”

Then, things clicked. Snitker made a few changes. He called Adonis Garcia back up from Triple-A Gwinnett —cwhere Garcia had been sent to learn how to play left field — to be his third baseman. Snitker then made Ender Inciarte the full-time center fielder after Inciarte had bounced back and forth between center and left with Mallex Smith.

The Braves then traded for outfielder Matt Kemp on July 31, and then three weeks later, Dansby Swanson was called up to finish the season at shortstop. Along the way, Freeman and right fielder Nick Markakis turned sluggish starts into outstanding seasons.

The results were incredible. The Braves were 50-47 in the final 97 games of the season. They were 37-35 after the All-Star break and then 20-10 in the final 30 games.

“We weathered the storm,” Snitker said. “They had been through a lot, and it wasn’t really good. But all-of-a-sudden, guys started playing up to their baseball card. The guys were unbelievable. They impressed the heck out of me the way they prepared, the way they played the game, the enthusiasm they had. We ended up playing pretty well and had a lot of fun.”

When the season ended, there was still one issue that had to be settled. The term “interim” in Snitker’s job title had expired. The Braves had to decide whether he was the man for the full-time job. The references on Snitker’s resume were his players, who made it known they wanted him back for this year.

“He handled a tough situation, and he was the same person every single day,” Freeman said. “All he cares about is the person. He’s a special human being. He has that presence. He’s going to be the same person every day. He cares about you, so it makes you want to go out and play hard for him.

“I said it publicly in the end, and then I went to Coppy and gave him my opinion of why I wanted Brian back. Ultimately, I think they made the right decision.”

On Oct. 11, the Braves made it official. Snitker was their manager. He was no longer an interim manager. It was his gig. Hart and Coppolella picked Snitker.

“I’m glad they did,” Snitker said. “It’s been a lot of fun.”

“He’s great,” Swanson said. “This game is so hard to be consistent, and when you have a manager that is strategically the leader of your team, when he is consistent every day on how he approaches it with his energy and how he goes about his business, it makes our life easier. Snit’s awesome.”

After years of grooming young players to make it to Atlanta, Snitker is now waiting on others to join him. The Braves have a new park, a better roster and with the best farm system in baseball the rebuilding process is almost complete.

“This organization is going in the right direction,” Snitker said. “The future is unbelievable here. It’s a fun time right now in Braves baseball. It’s going to be really, really fun in the next few years because they’ve got some really good young players down there.”

And Snitker is going to be the manager. He has come a long way in a long career with the only team he has ever worked for. The organizational man, the 40-year trusted employee now has the most important job of anyone in a Braves uniform.

“A year ago today, I wouldn’t have expected it,” Snitker said. “I’ve had a great time. I’ve enjoyed learning how to do this. It’s great to experience it. I’m working like hell to get good at it. I’m like a 61-year-old rookie, but it’s been a lot of fun.”

This story was originally published April 1, 2017 at 2:55 PM with the headline "Snitker’s long, winding road ends up as leader of Braves."