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Roger Mooney

Roger Mooney covers the Tampa Bay Rays for The Tampa Tribune, TBO.com and News Channel 8. He has covered the Rays since their first season in 1998, including 11 years for the Bradenton Herald. Roger has also covered Florida, South Florida and Florida State football, the Bucs and the Lightning.

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Maddon drew Greene to Rays

Posted Jan 13, 2009 by Marc Lancaster

Updated Jan 13, 2009 at 03:40 PM

Just got off a conference call with Todd Greene, the Rays’ new quality assurance coach. The 37-year-old worked extensively with Joe Maddon in the Angels organization from the time he was drafted in 1993 through his first few years in the big leagues, and Greene made it clear the manager is the primary reason he’s here.

“Joe is the most positive person I’ve ever been around, whether it’s baseball or my regular life,” Greene said. “He creates a pretty good atmosphere for the players. He never was a guy to ask a player to do something he didn’t believe he could do. He tries to put people in a position to be successful. ...

“When you have the opportunity to come to him and be on a staff with him and learn from everything he’s been able to accomplish, it’s a no-brainer.”

Greene spent last season as a scout for the Padres and said he likely wouldn’t have left if it wasn’t for the chance to work for Maddon and the “quality organization Tampa has become.”

“To me, the hardest thing to do in sports is to change a losing culture, and the people in there running the [Rays] organization now have done that,” he said.

He said he has not talked to the man he is replacing, Tim Bogar, about the way he did the job because he wants to bring his own identity and personality to it. His goal will be to do “whatever it takes to get our players ready to go out and win games,” which he equated with the role he played during an 11-year big-league career spent mostly as a backup.

“I would rather be known as a really good teammate than a really good player,” Greene said. “Hopefully I was able to accomplish that with the teams that I played with.”

Greene got a one-year deal, putting him in line with the rest of the Rays’ coaching staff heading into 2009.