By Ken Jackson
Sports Writer

St. Cloud’s Manny Acta and Jim Hickey may be major leaguers touring the country with their baseball teams, but during the off-season, Osceola County is their one true home.

They showed it prior to Christmas while instructing at a holiday baseball camp full of elementary students at Osceola County Stadium.

Just a trivial part of the game, he said.

“This is my home, my town,” he said between signing autographs for awestruck students. “This opportunity to give back to the community is priceless. I never had a major league manager come talk to me at that age.”

Acta, still one of the game’s youngest managers (he’ll be 42 next month), is moved by bettering children’s lives. In 2007 he started the ImpACTA Kids Foundation, which focuses on providing opportunities for youngsters to achieve their dreams in both the Dominican Republic and the United States by emphasizing education, health and athletics.

He, like Hickey, the pitching coach for the Tampa Bay Rays, relish working at Osceola County Stadium under the logo of the Astros, who each gave them their first coaching (and in Acta’s case, playing) shots.

“The Astros will always be one of my favorites. They are who gave me my shot,” Acta, an infielder for the Osceola Astros in 1988-89 and manager of the Kissimmee Cobras in 1998-2000, said. “From there, like I tell people, if you work hard and keep your nose clean, good things will happen.”

Hickey, 49, lives here with his wife Jennifer, daughter Addison and sons Cameron and Austin, the latter a member of the Harmony High School baseball team. He said being near family, friends and youngsters actually makes the off-season seem rather short.

“This is my favorite time of year,” he said. “Getting back into the family life, it’s easy getting away from the everyday baseball grind.”

Both of their major-league careers have been focused on turning around franchises. Acta, after having little success turning around a Nationals franchise dysfunctional on levels beyond the dugout, took over an Indians club picked to be one of the worst in the American League last spring. The Tribe went 69-93, better than three AL clubs and three others in the National League.

“Both jobs were around rebuilding. Guys in the top markets were once doing what I have to do now,” he said. “With this team, most of the pieces are in place, and we all trust what the organization is doing. We have five or six established players already.”

Hickey joined the Rays in 2007, after three seasons as the Astros’ pitching coach that followed five throwing seasons in the Chicago White Sox organization in the 1980s. In 2008, the team had its first-ever winning season, playoff appearance and league championship. The team again won the AL East in 2010, meaning Hickey has reached the post-season in four of seven big-league seasons.

“The expectations have changed. We expect to be a playoff team, so guys who come into this team are met with big expectations,” he said. “It all starts with (manager) Joe Maddon. When he came in, he wanted to change the culture of the clubhouse and the ball club. It’s been pretty impressive.

“It’s fun in our division. When you win and beat the Red Sox and the Yankees, like we’ve done twice, it’s so gratifying. The two times we went to the playoffs with the Astros, we were wild cards. We never won the division.”

The Rays lost in the division playoff round this October to the eventual AL champion Texas Rangers, which most in baseball viewed as an upset.

Hickey has an easy explanation — his team ran into a buzz saw.

“Cliff Lee beat us twice. Without that, we probably make another deep run,” he said.

If the team is going to repeat the division success in 2011, it will come with a patched-up team. Offensive leaders Carl Crawford (Boston), Jason Bartlett (San Diego) and Carlos Peña (Chicago Cubs) left as free agents or via trade.

Nearer and dearer to him, the pitching staff, while still retaining a stout starting rotation of David Price, Matt Garza, James Shields, Wade Davis and Jeff Niemann, will have to patch together the bullpen. Hickey clicked off a list of relievers who were key last year.

“(Rafael) Soriano’s gone. (Joaquin) Benoit. (Dan) Wheeler. Randy Choate.  (Grant) Balfour’s probably gone,” he said. “This spring we just need to find those three or four guys who we trust back there.”

Can a young, patchwork team win? Well, it worked in 2008, didn’t it?

“We’ll have the advantage of youth. We’ll go with guys who are 23 or 24, which late in the year can be better than if your guys are 33 or 34,” he said. “If we win, we’ll really enjoy it. Let me say that again — if we win. If we go out and win 75 games (and lose close to 90) it won’t be much fun.”

Hickey said he hopes to be doing exactly what he’s doing for the foreseeable future.

“I wouldn’t mind being a manager, but I don’t go into work every day wondering how to further my career,” he said. “I like what I’m doing.”

He prefers to leave the spoils of the skipper to his friend Acta, who said he’s really enjoying the scene in Cleveland, despite the Indians’ recent struggles.

“It’s a big sports town,” he said. “The Browns are big but they don’t forget that the Indians dominated during the last decade and they had over 400 consecutive sellouts.”