Mabry brings wealth of experience to new role with Orioles

This week, the Orioles hired John Mabry — a veteran of 14 major league seasons as a player with eight teams and a coach for St. Louis, Kansas City and Miami for 13 years — as a senior advisor.

Mabry will assist interim manager Tony Mansolino, players and coaches. He grew up in Cecil County as an Orioles fan. He played in the Crown All-Star Game for top Maryland players in Memorial Stadium and played for Johnny’s, a top Maryland amateur team.

He met with the media before Sunday’s game.

Question: How do you envision your role?

Mabry: “I’m going to be a helping hand. I’ll be an available resource for coaches and players, get to know everything that’s going on and be available.”

Q: When was this opportunity presented to you and how quickly did it come together?

Mabry: “Pretty quickly. I had a soft launch for my retirement. I was watching my kids. I had two graduating college, hanging out, being Dad, enjoying the family. And I got a call after the circumstances, unfortunately. Happy for the opportunity. I grew up here in Maryland, been a Baltimore Orioles fan, my family were Baltimore Orioles fans. Favorite players were Eddie Murray, Cal Ripken, the whole nine yards. Been watching the Orioles since Wild Bill Hagy. It’s a cool opportunity, and it was good for our family as well.”

Q: Have you watched tape of the Orioles? What are your impressions?

Mabry: “Yeah, but I’m going to get to know them. You always watch stuff, but you want to see it firsthand, see what’s going on and see where you can help and just be a resource.”

Q: Is it tough coming in during the season?

Mabry: “Oh, yeah, these guys have built a relationship and done a great job with players all the way from spring training through the rest of the year. Can’t control injuries and stuff like that. It’s part of the game, just keep going.”

Q: You coached Ryan O’Hearn in Kansas City. Do you know any other players?

Mabry: “I had Tyler O’Neill in St. Louis, Emmanuel Rivera in Miami, Dylan Carlson in St. Louis. Jackson [Holliday], I played with his dad, coached his dad. He played with my kid in the family room for years, so they’ve been together for a long time. Matt Bowman, I had  with the Cardinals as well. [First base coach] Anthony Sanders in Seattle when I was there, so I have familiarity with a number of different guys.”

Q: Is it cool to be together with all those guys?

Mabry: “The longer you stick around, the more that happens. It’s a small community in baseball, so it’s really cool to have that familiarity with those guys to have something to build trust and relationships with. It helps.”

Q: Do you still have family in Maryland? ‘

Mabry: “I live in St. Louis. I played in St. Louis. I bought a house when I was playing for them in ’98. I stayed in St. Louis because it was in the middle of the country. My mother, brother, sister, all my family is here, north of here about 45 minutes.”

Q: You played with a lot of good managers. Have you taken things from them to be able to advise Tony Mansolino?

Mabry: “I guess that’s your journey in the big leagues, right? I was blessed to play for guys like Tony LaRussa, Lou Piniella, Dusty Baker, Bruce Bochy, Art Howe, Larry Bowa, a lot of the names in the history of the game that are going to be pretty synonymous with baseball. Every year you learn something. In this game, if you stick around long enough, you see something, you learn something that you hadn’t seen before or hadn’t know before. All those guys, the way they handle the clubhouse, the way they prep, the way they handle individual relationships. If you pay attention, you can learn a lot from people like that who’ve been in the game for a long time.”

Call for questions: I answer Orioles questions most weekdays. Please send yours to: Rich@BaltimoreBaseball.com.