Russell excited to manage against Phils

PITTSBURGH -- It's an organization that will always mean a little something more to Pirates manager John Russell, as the Phillies gave him his first chance to play professional baseball and his most recent opportunity to manage in the Minors.

For the first time on Friday, Russell will take all that history he has with the Philadelphia club and add to it another first. Not including the five Spring Training games between the cross-state rivals, Russell will sit in the dugout managing against the Phillies.

"It's kind of fun," Russell said. "It's the organization that I first started playing with and a lot of the same people are still there. It's neat to see. I had a great two years there as a manager, and that's where I started playing, so I have a lot of fond memories."

Five players on Philadelphia's 25-man roster played under Russell at some point in the Phillies' system. And the respect is more than mutual for Russell, who spent the past two years managing Philadelphia's Triple-A club in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and Ottawa.

Asked if he saw Russell graduating to the post of a Major League manager one day, Phillies catcher Chris Coste never hesitated.

"No question. He was a catcher and they usually make good managers," said Coste, who played for Russell in 2006 and '07. "But he's a really good communicator. He has that rare gift [that] he doesn't overspeak, he doesn't speak too much. When he does open his mouth, he tends to get your attention."

The praise didn't stop there.

"It was something different that he gave off," said Phillies reliever Clay Condrey, who spent two Triple-A seasons pitching for Russell. "You knew exactly what he was talking about. Plus, he's one of the smarter managers I've ever played for."

Though it marked the first time Russell would manage against a number of the players whose careers he fostered, Russell's history with the Phils goes back much further. The Phillies made him the 13th pick of the 1982 First-Year Player Draft. Russell would make his Major League debut for the club two years later and would play parts of five seasons in Philadelphia.

However memorable it may be to be manage against his former team this weekend, though, Russell boiled down the hype around this series not to that but to an intrastate rivalry that has pitted Pennsylvanians against each other for years.

"It's kind of neat to see Philadelphia back in Pittsburgh, because when I played, it was such a great rivalry," Russell said. "It was always fun. I wish we could get them in our division, because it is a great rivalry being in the same state."