The man was about to die. He was living at the home of his former assistant coach because the former assistant's wife, a retired nurse, could tend to him even though he wanted no fuss.

But a fuss was going to be made, nonetheless.

The principal of the school at which he'd coached baseball so long came over with a few officials and former teammates to present him with Northview High School's first Hall of Fame plaque. Tom Quinley, on oxygen because of the lung cancer, drifted in and out during the short presentation. But he was coherent enough to spot one of his former players, whom he motioned over.

"How are you guys doing?" Quinley rasped to Chris Woodward, who was at that moment the third-base coach for the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Woodward assured Quinley the scuffling Dodgers were fine.

Quinley pressed him.

Woodward tried to reassure him, going through a whole spiel on how things were really starting to come together.

It didn't work.

Former Northview High School baseball coach Tom Quinley had a profound influence on new Texas Rangers manager Chris Woodward (second from left). (Courtesy/Chris Woodward) (Courtesy/Chris Woodward)

"Well, you guys are [bleeping] killing me," Quinley whispered.

And the room broke out in laughter, even the old coach who would die less than a week later at 64 and thus not live to see Woodward, with whom he'd forged a special bond more than 25 years earlier, named manager of the Rangers.

"That was perfect Quinner," Woodward, 42, said this past week. "He wasn't afraid to speak his mind. He could be vulgar and in your face. But he loved you and cared about you and wanted to have fun. He was just the same way until his last hours."

Trying to get to know where Chris Woodward will come from as Rangers manager charged with changing the culture means getting to know where it is that Woodward actually comes from. In general, that is Covina, Calif., a city in east Los Angeles County that was once 1 square mile in size and earned the town the motto of "One Mile Square and All There."

More specifically, though, it is from Hollenbeck Park, where one baseball field served the entire town of 40,000 and where guys like Michael Young and Jason Giambi first started playing, too. It's the kind of place, one might imagine, that you'd find a real-life Morris Buttermaker, Walter Matthau's crusty, cranky and lovable coach from The Bad News Bears.

Covina was -- and still is -- a blue-collar kind of place but was also a close-knit kind of place. The kids would ride bikes to Hollenbeck even when they weren't playing. Young said he'd go just to watch other kids. On Friday nights, everybody showed up at Manny's El Loco for the carne asada.

"Hollenbeck was at the center of everything," Young said. "Playing there was a big deal. And I think the kids played the same way that their parents worked -- with a blue-collar approach."

It was at Hollenbeck where Woodward, then a scrawny 14-year-old infielder, was selected to play for Quinley's Colt League Pirates. The two would end up being together for five years as coach and pupil since Woodward would eventually play for Quinley at Northview, too.

Woodward's parents were going through a divorce after their greenhouse and nursery business failed. His father moved to Rancho Cucamonga, a world away for a preteen. Woodward and his mother ended up moving around the town almost annually, once spending a year on Calvados Avenue, one street over from the Youngs. Woodward and Young began a friendship at Las Palmas Junior High that often included playing one-on-one basketball as Stacey Augmon and Larry Johnson, then of UNLV. Young loved Don Mattingly; Woodward idolized Cal Ripken Jr. They both were Raiders fans and gushed over all that Bo Jackson knew.

Quinley, at the time, had been coaching in the city for more than 20 years since starting as an assistant for his brother Bill's 14-year-olds team in the 1970s. Baseball became his life. He never married, never had kids. His "kids" were his kids. He coached in youth baseball before travel and select ball became an industry. He was the guy for whom every kid wanted to play.

"He married baseball, that's a good way to put it," said Bill Quinley, one of Tom Quinley's two surviving brothers. "He just got the bug in him to coach. He fell in love with the whole process -- teaching and giving back to the community."

Over the course of a coaching career that spanned more than 40 years, Tom Quinley would often find some kid on his team who loved the game a little more and worked a little harder than others, and he would try to indulge that passion. Former major league catcher Randy Knorr was one. Darren Murphy, who currently coaches at South Hills High School in neighboring West Covina, was another. And then there was Woodward.

Murphy said that over the years, Quinley made a lot of kids feel like his favorite. Five years before Woodward came along, Murphy had been that kid. But there was something different about Woodward.

"I think they both needed each other," said Murphy, who later coached under Quinley and in the last few years used him as his assistant at South Hills. "Chris was in a situation where he could use a really strong male role model. A lot of us had both parents; Chris didn't have them at home at the time. Tom helped fill that void for Chris. I felt I was very close with Tom, but there was something special about the way he looked after Chris. A lot of kids would say Tom was like a second father; to Chris, he really was."

Over the course of those five years, Quinley stoked Woodward's love of baseball. Quinley always wore No. 8 on his uniform for Yogi Berra, but he always let Woodward wear No. 8 for Ripken.

There were trips to Dodgers and Angels games. There was a cross-country trip to Baltimore so that Woodward could see his hero, Ripken, play in person. On the same trip, they took the train to New York to see a game at Shea Stadium. In 1999, when Woodward defied the odds after being a 54th-round draft choice and reached the big leagues, it was at Shea that he made his debut. There was a trip to Arizona State so Woodward, who never really thought about a career in baseball, could see the school where he thought of studying architecture or engineering.

Former Northview High School baseball coach Tom Quinley had a profound influence on new Texas Rangers manager Chris Woodward. Quinley wore No. 8 because of his love of Yogi Berra. (Courtesy/Chris Woodward) (Chris Woodward / Courtesy)

"He put a belief in me that I didn't even know I had, that I didn't have until I met him," Woodward said. "He had a way of making people feel like they were better than they were. When I was around Tom, I felt like I was better. I felt like I was capable of more than I was."

Said Murphy: "Tom made you feel taller than you were and stronger than you were. He got you to max out your ability because he made you feel like a stud. He had the ability to get the best out of us. We all knew he loved us. It's really what it was."

This is at the core of Woodward's managerial philosophy. You will hear lots about his willingness to work with new data and more science. Those are methods. The mission, though, is the same: Create an environment for players in which they believe.

Quinley and Woodward kept in touch after Woodward began his pro career with the Toronto organization. Woodward got married to Erin, the other person he cited at his introductory news conference as having a profound impact on his life. He moved to Arizona and began his own family. He embarked on a 12-year major league career, which made staying in touch a little more difficult.

After the playing career ended, Woodward immediately went into coaching, too. He came to the Dodgers as coach for the 2016 season. It was so much easier to stay in close contact. And then Quinley was diagnosed with lung cancer.

The community rallied around him. Quinley protested but didn't refuse when a get-together was held for former players.

"He said, 'I never married and I didn't have kids and I regret that,'" remembered Derek Nichols, another youth coaching legend in the area who opened his home to care for Quinley in the last months of his life. "And the kids, almost all of them, came up to him and said, 'You did have a family. We are your family.' He was not a huggy-huggy kind of guy, but he told everyone of those kids he loved them."

Meanwhile, Woodward had begged Quinley to come to a Dodgers game. Quinley had resisted. He thought his oxygen tank would get in the way, thought he'd be too much of a burden to those around him. Woodward insisted. He made Quinley agree that, at the very least, if the Dodgers reached Game 7 of the World Series, he'd attend.

They did. He did. It was the last MLB game he attended.

At the All-Star Game this year, where Woodward was part of the NL coaching staff, he held up a "Stand Up 2 Cancer" placard with Quinley's name on it. He prepared for Players Weekend by writing two names on his shirt sleeve patch: Erin's and Quinley's.

Northview alum and current Dodger Coach Chris Woodward honors his former Coach and Northview alum Tom Quinley at tonight’s MLB All Star game, in the Stand Up to Cancer tribute. Toms touched many lives through his years coaching at NHS, South Hills, Charter Oak & Hollenbeck Park. pic.twitter.com/1UzlK6TQjQ — Dr. Richard Sheehan (@CVUSD_Supt_DrS) July 18, 2018

The days were ticking away. By mid-August, it was clear the battle was coming to an end. The Hall of Fame ceremony was planned around a Dodgers road trip so Woodward could attend.

Quinley died later in the week. The night he died, the lights went out at Dodger Stadium. Woodward took it as a sign he was there.

When it came time for the memorial service, those planning it tried again to work it around the Dodgers' schedule, but a 10-day road trip in the middle of a heated playoff race made it impossible. Woodward taped a six-minute tribute video that was played at the service.

Two months later, he was named manager of the Rangers. He spoke of wanting to instill that belief in their players that they were better than anybody had ever made them feel. He spoke of loving his players. And when asked about choosing the No. 8, he spoke of Quinley's impact on his life.

Back in California, they were watching.

"I just broke down in tears," Bill Quinley said. "What a gesture. What class."

But, then again, maybe he shouldn't have been surprised.

Two months earlier in that tribute video, Woodward said this of Quinley:

"I will take to my grave that you gave everything you had to others selflessly. You were there when I needed you the most. It goes beyond baseball. You will never be forgotten; your legacy will live on beyond the San Gabriel Valley. I will make sure of that; I will make sure that people never forget what you did."

It will live on with the Texas Rangers.