CHICAGO — Kevin Alcántara can still remember running relatively hard during a game at Single-A Myrtle Beach in 2022.

It wasn’t enough for his then-manager, Buddy Bailey.

“Run hard! Run hard!” he barked at his outfielder, then one of the Cubs’ top prospects.

Alcántara was irritated.

“Man, this guy has it out for me,” Alcántara thought.

But, as time passed, he realized Bailey wasn’t some hot-headed manager who was yelling just to yell. No, this was a baseball man who knew and loved the game and wanted players to compete at their absolute best, knowing that would help them reach the next step in their journey and achieve their dreams of becoming a major leaguer.

“He was a tough guy on me, but everything he did he told me he did it out of care and love so that I could go up to the next level,” Alcántara said. “He was a very caring person, a hard-working person.”

It was announced on Tuesday that Bailey passed away at the age of 68. He was a coach in the Cubs’ minor league system from 2006 through the 2024 season, with his last job managing the Myrtle Beach Pelicans from 2021 through 2024. He won 2,417 minor league games, in a career that began with the Atlanta Braves in 1983. He also coached in the Boston Red Sox system from 1991 through 2004.

Leading the Single-A Cubs’ affiliate was a crucial role in player development. That’s a pivotal step in the growth of minor leaguers – it’s the first full-season affiliate and includes longer road trips than you’ll find in the Arizona Complex League or the Dominican Summer League.

“He was a coach who got to me when I was starting my career,” said Cubs catcher/designated hitter Moisés Ballesteros, who played for Bailey in 2022-23. “He advised me a lot. He helped me a lot to work hard. I feel like he was a person who liked to help develop ballplayers when they’re starting.”

He did it in his own way, like Alcántara discovered.

“He was an old school manager but always put discipline when he needed to,” Cubs reliever Daniel Palencia said. Bailey managed Palencia in 2021. “He was someone who loved doing the little things in baseball and was such a good person.

“From the beginning, he always taught us how to be a professional in baseball. He showed us how to dress, the importance of routines, all that.”

Everyone was an equal in Bailey’s eyes. It didn’t matter if you were a top prospect or not; the important thing was to play the game the right way.

“It doesn’t matter who you are, if the situation calls for you to bunt or to do something to help the team, you do it,” Ballesteros said. “I feel like, honestly, he helped me so much. He was a great person. He liked helping young players.”

That was clear to those up and down the Cubs organization.

Cubs hitting coach Dustin Kelly started in the organization as a roving instructor, spending a week at different affiliates. Some of his favorite memories during that time came when he was with Bailey and the Pelicans. After games, Kelly would sit in Bailey’s office until the wee hours of the morning, sipping on a beer and talking ball.

“We would sit there till one, two o’clock in the morning a lot of nights, just talking baseball and telling stories about players and talking about projections of our players,” Kelly said. “He had so much baseball knowledge, and he loved the game as much as anybody that I’ve ever been around.

“So, you just couldn’t help but just try and soak up as much baseball information as you could around him.”

Bailey was impactful to the Cubs, but he was a legend in Venezuela, too.

“I always heard ‘Buddy Bailey, Buddy Bailey, one of the best managers,’” Palencia said.

The hardware backed that up.

Bailey won six Venezuelan Winter League titles with the Tigres de Aragua, becoming the only manager to win 500 games and the only one to win six titles with the same team. He won the prestigious Caribbean Series in 2009, the first in Tigres’ history, with the name of Venezuela emblazoned on his chest. The Caribbean Series comprises the winners of the various winter leagues across Latin America, each representing that country.

“He won a Caribbean Series with Venezuela, and he felt proud of managing in Venezuela because he loved being a part of the Latin American community,” Ballesteros said. “I think the impact he had on Venezuela was massive. He accomplished a lot there and here.”

That experience allowed Bailey to connect with everyone in a clubhouse. He could teach the American players the importance of running down the line hard and playing the game the right way, then deliver the same message to the young Latin players, too.

“He just put together such a really good structure and work ethic,” Kelly said. “This is what it takes to play professional baseball. This is how we’re going to make you get better. And he was hard on them, right? A lot of the guys that play for him, they say that year was really tough on them.

“But then they talk about it, two, three, four years later, and they’re like, ‘when I look back at it, that was the most impactful year of my career,’ just because of the structure that he put behind those guys. And he had a really high expectation for them, and he got the best out of a lot of players.”

That’s clear to Alcántara, who still practices what Bailey taught him at Wrigley Field and across major league diamonds.

“He was a very caring person, a hard-working person,” Alcántara said. “I hope his soul is at peace because he was a good person with me, with guys. He loved extra work. Honestly, he put people in a good place.

“For those reasons, many guys who passed through there are here now.”