Harry Ralston “Bud” Black was a big deal in Longview, Wash., a timber town of 35,000 people about 45 miles north of Portland.

Athletically gifted and intensely competitive, he excelled on the basketball court and on the mound for Mark Morris High School. But that’s not the only thing that made the Rockies’ new manager exceptional.

“We’d be walking down the hallway and some stoner would walk by and say, ‘Hey, Harry, how’s it going?’ And he’d say, ‘Great, Freddie, how ya doing?’ ” recalled Kirc Roland, a close friend who has known Black since the fifth grade. “Me, being the big jock, would say, ‘How do you know that guy?’ But Buddy would just say, ‘It’s cool, he’s a good guy.’

“Buddy is just one of those big-hearted people. The stoners, the jocks, the nerds, the kids taking special education, they all loved Buddy Black.”

But Black’s competitive fire always smolders just beneath the surface. Although he appreciates his reputation as one of baseball’s gentleman, he doesn’t want that misconstrued.

“I like to win. I like to compete — at lot,” Black said.

That’s always been obvious to his longtime friend.

“If we went to play pinball, Blackie was going to win the pinball game. If we were playing basketball, he would come up with the most creative dunk,” said Roland, a longtime athletic director at Lower Columbia Community College and the news and sports director for KLOG Radio in Kelso, Wash. “He was a winner and he was a quiet killer. He would beat you with a smile on his face and that would (tick) you off. But then he would look at you with a smile on his face and he’d be like, ‘Hey, man, we’re all good!’ ”

Black’s combination of people skills, passion for sports and fierce desire to succeed has served him well in his chosen profession. He has played it cool with hot-headed umpires, stood his ground with high-paid prima donnas and exhibited patience for slumping sluggers.

Baseball has been his job for 37 of his 59 years. The Rockies hired him Monday, hoping to reap the rewards of his experience and personality .

MAKING OF A PITCHER

Black’s first love was basketball, but until he had a growth spurt his senior year of high school, he was undersized. So the left-hander concentrated on baseball. In spring 1975, his senior season, Black finished 9-1 with a 2.52 ERA and also hit .359 with 20 RBIs, helping lead the Mark Morris Monarchs to a third-place finish in the state tournament.

Considering that the Monarchs had won the state title in his sophomore season and were state runner-ups his junior year, Black’s senior season was a downer, but he did enough to put himself on the baseball map.

He surprised many by staying home to attended Lower Columbia Community College, but Black always had a plan in mind. He wanted to learn from coach Ed Cheff, who would go on to lead Lewis-Clark State College, in Idaho, to an unprecedented 16 NAIA World Series titles.

After two years playing for the Red Devils, Black set his sights higher. He targeted San Diego State University, coached by the legendary Jim Dietz, a man whom Black calls one of the most influential in his life. Dietz had previously coached at Lower Columbia — and Black figured that connection would help.

Still, it was Black’s own self-belief and persistence that earned him a scholarship with the Aztecs.

“Buddy drove all the way down to San Diego but Coach Dietz wasn’t around, so Buddy wrote a handwritten note and shoved it under Coach Dietz’s office door,” recalled Roland, who ended up rooming with Black at SDSU. “The note basically said, ‘I’m a left-handed pitcher and I want to play for you.’ ”

Dietz had never seen Black pitch, either in person or on film, but he called up Cheff, received a solid recommendation and offered Black a scholarship without so much as a tryout. Black, who was a teammate with the late Tony Gwynn, set an SDSU record with 16 strikeouts in a game. His senior season, Black finished 7-1 with a 3.35 ERA, good enough to get drafted by the Seattle Mariners in the 17th round.

Black, who calls himself “a late bloomer,” was never a hard thrower, his fastball coming in at 87-89 mph. But he had grown to be a strong, lean, 6-foot-2, 180-pound man. More important, he was learning how to be a pitcher.

BIG-LEAGUE PITCHER

Black pitched 15 major-league seasons with five teams, including seven with the Kansas City Royals, with whom he won the 1985 World Series. He made his debut in 1981 as a September call-up with the Mariners, at age 24, in just his second professional season. However, he was traded to Kansas City shortly after that season.

He finished his career with a 121-116 record, with 32 complete games, 12 shutouts, 11 saves and a 3.84 ERA. His best season was in 1984, when he posted a 17-12 record, 3.12 ERA and an American League-best 1.128 WHIP. Although his numbers were not nearly as good in 1985, that championship season was his most gratifying.

Black’s playoff heroics came in Game 6 of the American League Championship Series against Toronto when he came on in relief in the sixth inning and pitched 3⅓ scoreless innings in the Royals’ 5-3 victory. During his one World Series start against the Cardinals, Black gave up three runs over five innings and earned a loss in Game 4, putting St. Louis on the verge of clinching. However, Kansas City rallied from a 3-1 series deficit to take the title in seven games.

“Bud was instrumental to that team’s success,” said catcher Jim Sundberg, whom the Royals acquired from Texas in 1985 because of his ability to help mold a young Kansas City rotation that included Charlie Leibrandt (age 28), Bret Saberhagen (21), Danny Jackson (23), Mark Gubicza (22) and Black (28).

“Buddy was ultra-competitive, but he was calm and was never a hot head,” Sundberg said. “He was easy to work with and he very much followed directions given by me.”

Black, never blessed with raw power, was very much a thinking man’s pitcher, mixing and matching a fastball, slider, changeup and curve. He was popular and loose in the clubhouse, but intensely focused on the mound.

“There is a little bit of an attorney in Buddy,” Sundberg said with a laugh. “Attorneys will get in there and filet each other in a courtroom and then go have dinner together. That’s Buddy.”

The second half of Black’s career was not as successful as the first, but he certainly did well for himself. He had an 83-82 career record when he signed a four-year, $10 million contract with the San Francisco Giants before the 1991 season. That was a relative fortune at the time, and some snidely referred to him as “the Mediocre Millionaire.”

But Black was a pro’s pro and he had discovered that baseball would be his life’s work.

MAKING OF A MANAGER

“I started thinking about being a coach or manager late in my career,” Black said. “It probably started in Cleveland and then crystallized at the end of my career in San Francisco. I was able to have conversations with younger players, guys like John Farrell (now the Boston Red Sox manager) and Greg Swindell and other young pitchers.”

When Black retired as a player, he became a special assistant with the Indians.

“When I first retired, I worked in the front office in Cleveland with John Hart, Dan O’Dowd and Mark Shapiro,” Black recalled. “It was a tremendous education. What I learned from those three guys still influences me. After the 1999 season, I felt like I wanted to get back on the field. Those guys encouraged me, said that’s where I belonged.”

So Black served as pitching coach for the Angels under manager Mike Scioscia from 2000 to 2006 and was part of the 2002 World Series championship team that included current Cubs manager Joe Maddon as its bench coach. From Scioscia, Black learned the importance of open dialogue, trusting in his staff and team building.

For example, during spring training 2012, after the Padres traded for Casey Kelly, a pitcher who could have played quarterback at Tennessee, Black blocked out one morning of practice for a football competition, with passing drills for every player who had been a high school quarterback.

“He is a player’s manager,” said Clint Barmes, a former Rockies shortstop who played for Black in San Diego in 2015. “It was just the way he carries himself around the clubhouse and in the dugout. He kept the team loose, he kept the clubhouse loose. When it was time to work, we worked, but he sure was fun to work for.”

Black’s pitching background paid off in San Diego, albeit with a boost from pitcher-friendly Petco Park. In his 15 years as manager and pitching coach, his pitching staffs finished with one of the five lowest ERAs in baseball seven times.

“He’s a very consistent guy and his knowledge of pitching is evident,” said former Rockies catcher Nick Hundley, who played under Black for seven seasons in San Diego. “He does what he needs to allow his pitchers to succeed. But the biggest thing, to me, is that he cares about the players more than he cares about keeping his job.”

Black managed the Padres for eight seasons and part of a ninth, finishing with a 649-713 record. He was fired in June 2015 when the Padres were 32-33. Padres general manager A.J. Preller, who had dramatically reshaped the lineup and wanted an instant winner, was not satisfied. Plus, he wanted his own man in charge.

Although none of Black’s teams made the playoffs, his 2010 team — which had the second-lowest payroll in the majors and $22 million less than any other team in the National League West – was in first place for much of the summer. San Francisco overtook the Padres in September on its way to winning the World Series. Nonetheless, Black was named National League manager of the year.

INTO THE FUTURE

Roland is thrilled that the best man at his wedding is taking over as the Rockies’ manager.

“I know Buddy, and he wouldn’t take the Colorado job if he didn’t think that franchise could win,” Roland said. “I’ve talked to him about this. He’s very excited.”

So are the Rockies, who have a stellar lineup featuring Nolan Arenado, DJ LeMahieu and Carlos Gonzalez, and rising star Trevor Story. They also have an up-and-coming starting rotation, anchored by power right-hander Jon Gray. The bullpen remains a shambles, but general manager Jeff Bridich has vowed to fix it.

”We’re aware of where we’re at and where we need to get to,” Bridich said. “But Bud’s experience and his expertise absolutely adds into that, and lends to us to being better than we have been recently on the bump.”

Black also received a hearty endorsement from owner Dick Monfort, who made a list of eight things he wanted for Colorado’s next manager.

”I went down my list and checked a lot of them off with Bud,” Monfort said. ”I’ve watched him manage at San Diego all those years. He seems like a tough guy. He understands the game and obviously has a lot of experience. I think he’s a good fit for us.”

Basic Black

Things to know about new Rockies manager Bud Black: