While manager of Mossley he played four times, scoring once.

Tactics evolve and many managers play one up now.

The 51-year-old general manager never played the game, has been in football only since 1974, but he was a sharp businessman at the age of 17.

The manager let his players play, without second-guessing in the clubhouse and the media.

More than 500 human managers can play at the same time in a game session.

Some managers, he said, have played for big innings rather than sacrifice to set up one run.

With Queens short of players the then manager named himself as a trialist and played the whole 90 minutes.

Other managers played more to emotion than to law.

The manager will very likely play with the starting rotation as the season progresses.

But he didn't know what kind of game the manager was playing, and he couldn't afford not to play along.