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Directing a Major League Baseball team has become catch as catch can --- or catcher can.

Old backstops are making their way into the ranks of baseball leadership at an alarming rate.

Another one was added to the list added Friday when the Seattle Mariners made former major league journeyman Bob Melvin their bench boss.

Melvin played for seven teams in a rather pedestrian 10-year career. Outstanding achievement on the field is not a requirement to be a MLB manager, however. It seems the top qualification simply is that one should have been fond of strapping oneself into the tools of ignorance.

Melvin takes over the M's after losing out to Ned Yost for the Milwaukee Brewers job. Yost is a former Brewers' backstop.

Melvin's most recent job was on the staff of former catcher Bob Brenly's Arizona Diamondbacks.

Earlier this offseason, Eric Wedge, a 34-year-old former star catching prospect, earned the top job for the Cleveland Indians, beating out interim manager Joel Skinner. Skinner, you guessed it, a former catcher, was retained as the Indians' third base coach -- before he's hired to run someone else's team in 2004.

For some teams, having a manager who as a player was involved in the most intimate facets of the game, has worked out well -- quite well.

When the Anaheim Angels shocked baseball by winning the 2002 World Series, Mike Scioscia extended the streak of teams led by former backstops winning the championship to seven years.

The streak began with Joe Torre's New York Yankees in 1996. It continued with former minor league catcher Jim Leyland and the 1997 Florida Marlins. Since then, it's been Torre's Yankees ('98, '99, '00), Brenly's D-Backs (2001), and Scioscia (2002).

For other clubs, the owners might be taking a shot at duplicating the mysterious formula.

The Detroit Tigers made former Houston Astros catcher Luis Pujols their main man last year with an early-season switch.

The Kansas City Royals gave former all-star catcher Tony Pena their job after they fired Tony Muser.

Bruce Bochy led the San Diego Padres to the 1998 Series, but has struggled since. Bob Boone is trying to right the ship of the Cincinnati Reds.

Jeff Torborg is working on leading the Florida Marlins back to the playoffs.

There's more...

Other backstops that recently have been moved aside -- and probably will resurface as candidates soon enough include Chicago Cubs interim manager Bruce Kimm. The Cubbies on Friday signed former San Francisco Giants skipper Dusty Baker.

The Toronto Blue Jays ended their catcher-is-the-answer experiment when they fired Buck Martinez during the 2001 midseason. The Jays modified their own trend of hiring a man with no prior managing experience -- Martinez -- when they hired a replacement with no previous professional playing experience -- Carlos Tosca.

Even the Colorado Rockies' Clint Hurdle and the Pittsburgh Pirates' Llyod McClendon were part-time catchers during their playing days.

And baseball's all-time winningest manager, Connie Mack, was a catcher.

The correlation cannot be ignored, though it is not as odd as you might think.

It would take a guy who survived a couple thousand foul tips off his melon and family jewels to not be too distraught when the moody superstars in his lineup fail to run out a grounder.

That's a bad idea that's really been catching on.

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