Like a lot of professional ballplayers, Rick Manning had a hard time coming to terms with the fact that his playing career was finished. “I never officially retired; they just never called me back,” jokes the Indians’ former center fielder. “I tried to keep playing-I lied, I cheated, but they wouldn’t let me in.”
The line is sure to evoke full-throated laughter in audiences, but it also encapsulates a bittersweet reality for men such as Manning, who once earned their living by playing a boys’ game. But Manning, a phenom prospect from Niagara Falls, N.Y., who never went beyond high school after he was drafted into the Indians farm system in the early ’70s, has nevertheless found a way to remain knitted into the fabric of America’s pastime since retiring from the game in 1987, then a member of the Milwaukee Brewers.
Today, he’s best known in Cleveland for providing the color commentary on 70 Tribe telecasts each year for Fox Sports Ohio and for appearing in long-running TV commercials for a local heating-and-cooling contractor. For the last four years, he also has coached minor-league prospects during the team’s spring training camp. Few people, however, know that in addition to all that, he has become something of an entrepreneur, coordinating affinity packages related to Tribe baseball.
Through a partnership they call K&M Productions, Manning and his partner Rudy Kastelic, owner of a Garfield Heights manufacturing company, produce spring training packages for fans, mount an annual fantasy camp in Florida and even put together a post-season Caribbean cruise where fans can mingle with a few of their heroes.
Many former jocks capitalize on their name recognition in the usual ways. Despite his lifetime ban from baseball, former Reds player-manager Pete Rose still makes a tidy living hawking his pricey autograph at dozens of collector shows each year. The immortal Willie Mays, meanwhile, was roundly condemned a few years ago by the lords of baseball simply for taking a job as a greeter at a Las Vegas casino.
In Cleveland, the list includes auto dealerships (former Browns linebacker Clay Mathews), real estate agencies (Browns cornerback Hanford Dixon, who now has the listing for Art Modell’s house), restaurants (too many to mention) and bond sales (Browns wide receiver Brian Brennan is a top producer for KeyCorp).
Rick Manning, who first cracked the Tribe’s roster in 1975, chose a slightly different path, perhaps in part because he never attended college. While he says he was approached about a lot of these kinds of opportunities upon retirement, he adds that “I would never do anything like that. I don’t give my money to anybody.”
Take the restaurant business, for instance. He calls it “one of the toughest and most competitive in the world. I don’t know a thing about it, so what are my chances of making money? I may be a guy with a high-school education from Niagara Falls, but I’m not stupid.”
Still, when Manning retired and moved back to Cleveland, he wanted to stay involved in baseball in some way. “But I didn’t want to coach or manage, because I didn’t want to stay on the road.” Instead, he submitted a proposal to the Indians to run a fantasy camp.
The team reacted coolly at first. “There are a number of issues that cross your mind when you hire a former player,” says Indians vice-president Bob DiBiasio, the institutional memory of the club’s front office. “At the top of the list is, how would other alumni feel who also are businessmen?”
But Manning has since come to understand that there was another reason his proposal wasn’t embraced at first. “I don’t think they trusted me. They figured, here’s an old ballplayer, what does he know about it? They didn’t think I was a businessman and could handle it. And when I look back now at all the work that was involved, they were probably right. I would have found out in a harsh way how tough this is.”
But when he teamed up with the diesel, Rudy Kastelic, it was another story altogether.
Manning first met Kastelic 20 years ago through their mutual friend, former Tribe pitcher and bonus baby Wayne Garland. Kastelic, who owns VIP, a $5-million manufacturer and distributor of home-insulation products, had arranged cruises featuring former Tribe player and broadcaster Herb Score, and Manning asked Kastelic if he could do the same for him. Kastelic called his contact at Norwegian Cruise Line, only to find he had left the company. As Manning recalls it, “He called me back and told me that, and I said, jokingly, ‘that’s too bad, we’ll have to start our own cruise.'” Kastelic apparently didn’t get the joke, because a week later, the nascent partners were meeting with a travel agent to get the ball rolling.
The result was the “Dream Team” cruise. Though it wasn’t affiliated with the team, the budding promoters did land Tribe stars Charlie Nagy, Omar Vizquel and Sandy Alomar. It drew 225 fans, specially catered to handicapped fans and impressed the Indians’ front office. “They did their homework,” Manning says. “They went out and checked, and people were satisfied with the service and what we provided. They were pleasantly surprised, I guess you could say.”
The team has since agreed to a formal affiliation, and K&M’s arrangements partner is now Triple A Travel, which has 17 offices in the region. Three hundred fifty fans turned up for last year’s cruise, and K&M expects it will have to cap the number at 400 this year.
The cruise led directly to the fantasy camp. “If we hadn’t done the cruise the year before on our own, we would never have gotten the fantasy camp. We proved to the Indians that we could put it together,” Manning says. Shortly before the team’s spring training opens in Florida each year, K&M now operates a fantasy camp for fans 30 and older. “It’s crazy,” Manning says. “We haven’t even advertised it, and yet we might have to add a second week this year,” because the first session fills up by late summer, even at $3,895 a head with a $750 deposit.
The engine behind it all is Kastelic. “He never sleeps,” Manning marvels. “He works seven days a week, from 7 in the morning till 8 or 9 at night.”
That kind of discipline, combined with Manning’s star power and, lately, the work habits that have rubbed off from his partner, has created the kind of word-of-mouth marketing that most companies could only dream of. Says Kastelic: “We threw this spring training package together at the last moment because people were calling, saying, ‘can you put something on for spring training?'” Having begun to plan only in January, just weeks before the first pitch in Florida, K&M ended up putting on one of their customary events, complete with the small, signature details that tend to lead to repeat business. “We took people in vans to the games,” Kastelic says.
The partnership is 50-50, based on nothing more at the start than a handshake. “We have a relationship that’s phenomenal,” Kastelic says. “Rick takes certain things and I take other things. I’ve always said I could never go into partnership with anyone, because I work so much, put so much time in. But I have to say that Rick is the only one in the world that I could go into business with, because he works just as hard as I do.”
The Indians’ DiBiasio says “the combination of Rudy and Rick, we felt, was perfect for these events. They’re both high-profile and very people-oriented events, and they really are a great tandem.”
The partners are discussing other possible joint ventures, including some with the Indians, which they decline to specify. The team is similarly tight-lipped about future projects. But DiBiasio does say that “we’re in discussions with them about a couple other things now, but what we really like about Rudy and Rick is that their approach is, let’s take care of business [we already have] before we think about expanding.”
Manning, meanwhile, proudly points to his pale complexion as proof that he’s adopted his partner’s routine. “Last year at this time,” Kastelic approvingly said in late spring, “he had a tan.”
If the team finally manag
es to win a Series this year on the 40th anniversary of their last championship, K&M will be sitting pretty. Just days after the last pitch is thrown in the fall classic, the company’s cruise is set to depart for the open seas. “If they win the Series, it will be perfect timing,” Manning says. “That’s how it was designed: We figured we’d have the biggest party in Cleveland, on the water, if they win the series. If they win it, people will be calling [to book a spot], but it’ll be too late. You have to be already signed up.
