He has a warm smile, handshake and kind word for everyone he met and can be a genuinely nice guy. He also has an incredible recall for names and used them frequently, something you don’t find very often in the baseball business and a very nice touch.

On the other hand, he also has a tremendously large ego as he took full credit for the few things that went right in his two seasons as the Pirates’ manager in 2006-2007 and in his previous managerial job with the Los Angeles Dodgers while always distancing himself from the bad.

Normally, people with large egos are loud, obnoxious and abrasive. Tracy is none of those, which makes him even harder to figure out.

He has a way of being condescending, yet in a nice way, as during his time with the Pirates he always talked in a way that let everyone know he was smarter than everyone else in the room. Again, in a nice way, he would irritate every writer on the Pirates’ beat by never answering the question asked and instead going on long-winded filibusters that almost always included tales of the 2004 National League champion Dodgers.

Yet he always blew off the questions in a non-confrontational way.

Thus, it was easy to have mixed emotions about Tracy. You could love him and hate him, and I did both during the two years he was with the Pirates.

However, in the end, it was one of the happiest days of my sports writing career when general manager Neal Huntington decided to ax Tracy less than two weeks after getting hired. Dealing with Tracy had worn me out and made me begin to hate baseball, the second-greatest love of my life behind my lovely wife Brenda, for the first time in life.

It was utter dread coming to the ballpark every day and trying to deal with him the reason for that is, ultimately, at least in my book, life has a lot to do with respect. If you treat me with respect, I will gladly reciprocate.

Of the five Pirates’ manager I have covered, I have deep respect and admiration for Jim Leyland, Gene Lamont, Lloyd McClendon and John Russell. All are upfront people who do things the right way.

Tracy is not on the list for a good reason. Midway through the 2007 season, I had written some columns critical of him and making a case that his players had lost respect for him.

Tracy, understandably, was not happy and wanted to talk about it. No big deal there as I had been called into the “principal’s office” by Leyland, Lamont and McClendon, and I’m sure I will eventually get the same from Russell. Eventually, you write something the manager doesn’t like.

However, Tracy handled it completely different than the others.

First, he made a big production of ending his pre-game press conference by saying he wanted to see me in his office, doing it that way to presumably embarrass me in front of my peers.

Even worse, Tracy did not have the nerve to talk with me man-to-man like any other manager or coach I have ever dealt with at the professional, college or high school level. Keep in mind, I’ve been covering sports since I was a 14-year-old kid, more than three-quarters of my life.

Instead, Tracy demanded that Pirates media relations director Jim Trdinch, who was clearly uncomfortable to be put in the situation, stay in the room. No need to mince words here, it was a gutless move by Tracy.

I’m usually not one to hold a grudge but I lost all respect for Tracy that day and I doubt he can ever gain it back.

Thus, you won’t find a story on this site about Tracy as he returns to PNC Park this weekend as the Colorado Rockies’ bench coach for the first time since being fired. I have a pretty strong feeling most fans don’t care what he thinks or what he’s doing now anyway.

I don’t.

I put my two years in covering Tracy and almost lost my love of the game while doing so.