A former No. 1 overall draft pick who hit 208 home runs over 12 big-league seasons, Nevin played in the 2001 All-Star Game as a member of the San Diego Padres.

When you got the job did you start scouting out Tigers prospects?

When they first talked to me about the job — they didn’t want to call it an interview — before I went and talked to them I went right to my computer at the hotel. I was at the winter meetings. I immediately started looking up guys who had big years in A ball, kids who might be returning here, and tried to familiarize myself with the system. Once I get to spring training, that’s when I’ll meet those guys and find out more about personalities and stuff.

You’ve said the brief time you played for Sparky Anderson in Detroit made an impression on you. How so?

I played for him for about a month and a half. I got traded from Houston in the middle of August. He was somebody where you could see when guys walked in the room what kind of respect they had for who they were playing for. Where I’d come from, and this isn’t a knock on Houston, but Terry Collins was a rookie manager, he was new and I think on down the line he learned a lot as a manager. But it was like night and day walking in from the Houston clubhouse to the Tigers clubhouse. Obviously there were a lot more veteran players there like (Alan) Trammel and (Lou) Whitaker, and I think that had a lot to do with it, too. The first time I sat down in his office, the way he was respected and the way he was looked upon by his players, I kind of had an idea then that this was something I wanted to do someday.

Did you think it would happen so quickly after you were done playing?

No. And honestly right when I did quit playing I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted to be home for awhile, but that didn’t last long. I think if you asked my wife she’d say the same thing. I did some media stuff, I did ESPN and I did some radio stuff with the Padres. I loved doing the college games for ESPN, but it was few and far between, just a couple of weeks a year. The radio stuff wasn’t really what I liked. I had been contacted by a few people that I had either played for or been around in baseball and they told me I needed to get back in. It was about mid-December (in 2008) when the independent team that plays in Orange County at Cal State-Fullerton, where I went to college, came up and asked me if this was something I really wanted to do, and they thought it would be a great situation.

How was your first year managing in independent ball?

I was there for about a week of spring training and I knew I had done the right thing. It’s something I really loved doing. And as the season went on, I look back and I tell people I’ve had some good experiences in baseball. I played in the Olympics, I played in an All-Star Game, I played in the playoffs, but being a manager in that league and the kind of players that played there will go down as one of my top five baseball experiences.

Why do you say that?

There were a few guys that had a shot to go back to the big leagues, but most of them were playing for $1,000 a month for 3 ½ months. They lived for it. They loved the game so much, and they played their rear ends off every single night. It was just fun to see. You don’t get that every day in the big leagues anymore, unfortunately. They just had a different outlook on the game that I hadn’t seen in quite some time, probably since I played in Little League or high school. I had some big-leaguers thrown in like Robert Fick and Damian Jackson who knew it was probably their last chance to have fun playing baseball, and they did.

What was it like to manage so close to your roots?

It was nice. If I had been managing the Angels it might have been a little different. It was fun. My mom and dad were there almost every night. My kids got to go to the games. My daughter actually goes to Cal State-Fullerton, and she was one of our trainers. I got to spend the whole summer with her.

The draft can be such a crapshoot, yet in 1996 you went first overall and Derek Jeter went sixth overall. That right there is a pretty good first round, isn’t it?

Someone screwed up, huh? (laughs) Remember, Giambi was also in that draft, early second round, and Charles Johnson, who caught in the big leagues for a long time. It was a pretty good draft. I haven’t really studied the history of the draft and how it works out. I know there’s been some No. 1 picks that have worked out and some who haven’t. I don’t know that there’s been a draft where there were two guys who played together in an All-Star Game.

Was there a moment last year when it hit home that you had moved to the other side of the desk?

For as long as I live I will miss being able to do the things I could do when I was 26 or 27. I think that’s true of any human being no matter what they do. I just couldn’t do those things anymore. I had been a utility player early in my career. It was just time. I knew it was time to find something else. I’ll always want to go back, but I knew I couldn’t do it. When it got to that point, I was 36, 37 years old, some people think that’s young, some done, but I knew I was done.

The draft can be a crapshoot, yet in 1992 you went first overall and Derek Jeter went sixth overall. That right there is a pretty good first round, isn’t it?

Someone screwed up, huh? (laughs) Remember, Giambi was also in that draft, early second round, and Charles Johnson, who caught in the big leagues for a long time. It was a pretty good draft. I haven’t really studied the history of the draft and how it works out. I know there’s been some No. 1 picks that have worked out and some who haven’t. I don’t know that there’s been a draft where there were two guys who played together in an All-Star Game.

What’s the biggest challenge in teaching young guys to hit?

I have a hitting coach. (laughs) I was somebody who loved to sit around before or after a game and talk about hitting, talk about mechanics or the mental side. What that pitcher has done to you before and what he might try to do to you in your next at-bat. I probably learned a lot of that from Tony Gwynn, just watching from the side. I was lucky I got to hit behind one of the best hitters in the history of the game. He hit third, I hit fourth for a few years there. I would sit and just watch him, I took a lot of what he did, his tee work, when he talked about hitting and certain pitchers and paying attention the whole game. It drives me nuts when guys aren’t paying attention in a game, they’re sitting off to the side when a guy like Tony Gwynn is up to bat and they’re talking about something else. How could you not be sitting and staring at him and learning something.

Is there one piece of hitting advice that stayed with you throughout your career?

Just to be confident. Baseball is such and up and down game. Albert Pujols might make outs seven or eight times in a row, but guess what happens after those seven or eight times in a row? And during those seven or eight at-bats, I guarantee he didn’t walk to the plate thinking, ‘I’m going to make an out.’ He always thought he was better than the guy on the mount. I felt the same way. I’ve been asked who was the pitcher that scared me the most. Scared me? What are you talking about? There are guys I had more trouble with, but I never walked to the plate with fear.

You’re a big Chargers fan, right?

Thanks. (Shakes his head) Yeah, I had plane tickets from here to Indianapolis and I had to change to go to New Orleans. Drew Brees is a good friend of mine, so I’m going to watch that game this weekend.

Do you watch football as a fan?

I’m more of a fan when I’m at the game, but things like last week just drove me nuts. My buddy does talk radio in San Diego and you hear callers calling in and they’re bashing Kaeding, they’re bashing Norv Turner. What drove me nuts about that game is when you play football, you check your manhood at the door. You might be the toughest son-of-a-gun out there, but when a guy gets in your face, you don’t head-butt him. A coach throws the red flag, you don’t kick it back at him. That’s what cost the game. And I did bring up Norv — that was the dumbest onside kick I’ve ever seen in my life.

How did your friendship with Drew Brees develop?

He took batting practice with us, the Padres, when he was with the Chargers. He was a golfer, and we played golf a few times. We text back and forth and talk once in a while. I don’t think there’s anybody in sport who gets more out of what they have than Drew Brees does. He’s listed at six-one, and he’s not six-foot, I’ll tell you that. He and Doug Flutie stand eye-to-eye. But he plays like a big man back there. He’s a competitor. Sometimes you’ll see celebrities come out and take batting practice, stuff like that, and they just kind of go through the motions and have a good time. He was serious about it. That’s the way he is with golf, too. That’s the way he is with everything.

If you could have been another athlete in another sport for a day, what would it be?

The easy answer, since I was a kicker in college, would be a kicker. But I wouldn’t want to be an NFL kicker, especially after last weekend. I guess playing quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys. You think of the glamour spot, that would be one. I quarterbacked in high school, and you always thought you were good. You watch Peyton Manning and all his pre-snap reads. To hear them talk about where they’re throwing the ball because they know what this defender’s going to do and they know what this receiver’s going to do. The relationships they get with their receivers, it’s amazing to hear them talk about that kind of stuff. The mental side of the game is something I’ve always enjoyed, whether you’re talking about it or watching it.

– John Dudley