SPORTS: Jerry Manuel, New York Mets Manager, Gandhian

Jerry Manuel, the newly appointed interim manager of the New York Mets, is not your typical baseball lifer.  Manuel replaced the fired Willie Randolph earlier this week and the ensuing press coverage has noted his intellectual bent.  “Cornel West, Reinhold Niebuhr and Gandhi are just three men whose thoughts and philosophies he says have influenced him,” according to Wednesday’s New York Times.

A February 2007 Times profile elaborates further on Manuel’s interest in Gandhi, which stemmed from his study of Martin Luther King.

It was while he was reading about King that Manuel saw a photograph that showed King reading a book with the word “Gandhi” on it.

“Whatever he was reading was good enough for me,” Manuel said.

Manuel began scouring for books about Gandhi, and he still reads highlighted passages in a Gandhi memoir. Every winter, he makes a point of watching a movie version of “Gandhi.” And from Gandhi, Manuel found Tolstoy.

“They move men,” Manuel said. “I always wanted to move men, to take them to a level that they’ve never seen before. Let’s see how far you can go is how I feel.”

Here's his official Mets profile.

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Earlier on SAJAforum: SPORTS: Dante Culpepper, Quarterback and Gandhi Quoter