Who is the baseball equivalent of football coach Mike Leach?

[redbuck]

Mike Leach, who passed away just a few days ago, was such a larger-than-life, entertaining and hilarious figure, while also being a really good coach who changed the game of college football. I can listen to clips of his press conferences for hours.

Going through a lot of baseball managers, I've been thinking how so many have such bland personalities, or to the extent they have a personality it's mostly just anger / ego, rather than being engaging or amusing, but I must be forgetting some great minds. For those who are also college football fans and know Mike Leach, who would you say is the closest baseball equivalent matching that kind of larger-than-life personality, intelligence, wit, and also acumen for the sport?

[Honus Wagner Rules]

Casey Stengel and Earl weaver come to mind.

[That_guy]

Since I don't follow college football at all, the only variable I can imagine is a shared cause of death.

Gil Hodges also died of heart failure while managing. I've read of his as a stroke and as a massive heart attack. Since I'm no doctor, ita all the same to me.

If you're referring to coaching style or their vibe in the locker room, then I'm out.

[bluesky5]

Gabe Kapler tried to play himself up as eccentric but his natural douche shone through too bright.

[dominik]

Dusty baker is very popular among baseball people.

[SteveJRogers]

Dusty baker is very popular among baseball people.

Other than chewing on a toothpick, Dusty doesn’t seem to be much of a “character” though.

[Bigfoot 88]

Yogi Berra

[Mongoose]

Dusty baker is very popular among baseball people.

It's hard to listen to Dusty any length of time, and not see his personal charm and skill as a motivator.

Leach, though, was more innovative. Stengel was also an innovator; a pioneer of platoons and station to station baseball. Kapler, and most of the modern "innovators" are more in synch with, if not tools of, analytic front offices. Leach had a lot of formal education; probably more than most baseball managers; more comparable to what you'd find in high ranking, front office personnel.

Top college football coaches are high ranking, front office personnel, in their programs. They have much more power, top to bottom, than baseball managers have had, since Connie Mack, and maybe John McGraw. I'm not sure there's much basis for comparison.

[Orioles5]

I felt Mike Leach tried to hard to be funny however the guy could coach. Everywhere he went he turned a program into one that was consistantly going to bowl games. R.I.P. Mike.

[Otis Nixon's Bodyguard]

Not a coach/manager, but Zack Greinke seems to have some eccentric personal tendencies while simultaneously being an unorthodox savant in his approach to his sport.