MILWAUKEE -- Kansas City's Ned Yost learned valuable lessons while he was with the Milwaukee Brewers.
The Royals skipper on Monday showed an appreciation for his time in Milwaukee in his first regular season trip to Miller Park since being fired by the Brewers in 2008.
"I loved being here, the six years I was here. I learned a lot of great things -- what to do, what not to do," Yost said from the visiting dugout before the interleague game between Kansas City and Milwaukee. "It was great for me to prepare me for being with the Royals."
Yost was fired by the Brewers with 12 games left in the 2008 season with the team 16 games above .500. At the time, the success-starved Brewers had lost 10 of their first 13 games in September in the middle of a pennant race.
Yost returned to the dugout two years later with Kansas City. The Royals have ascended gradually during his tenure to become one of the best teams in baseball, winning the AL pennant last season.
"Without a doubt, I'm a better manager than I was then," Yost said.
He heaped praise first on his Royals coaching staff. He spoke of how he has learned to depend more on his coaches.
But he said the most important lesson from his Milwaukee tenure was coming to grips that he couldn't control everything.
"If the players weren't performing, it used to tear me up, it used to kill me," Yost recounted.
"A lot of times, it's give them the time it takes to work through it," he continued. "That was a rough lesson to learn, but I learned it."
Current Brewers manager Craig Counsell played for Yost in Milwaukee when he was fired in 2008.
"I think Ned did a great job developing a lot of young players here and I don't think we always got it at that time," Counsell said. "It's a great lesson that I take from what he did here."
