LaTroy Hawkins pitched in the major leagues for 21 years and is now the bullpen coach for the Minnesota Twins. These are the three best leaders he played with.Tom KellyHe had a different way of getting the best out of people, and if you could handle it, he was the best. Some guys couldn’t handle it.He could make you feel small or he could make you feel like you were a 757 luxury airplane. His blood pumped baseball.I talk about him differently because he had a huge impact on my career. I wasn’t a great starter; one year I had a 6.66 ERA. But he saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself. That was what made him an incredible leader.He knew that I had some talent, but I wasn’t having any success. He saw everything; he always knew what was going on. He watched how I went about my business, how I worked every day. I didn’t take any shortcuts.He would call me into his office and say: “You’re going to continue to be on this team. Keep working hard. The first time I see you stop working, your ass is going to be out of here. As long as I’m here, you’re going to be here. You just have to keep working.”I walked out, and I didn’t know if it was a good meeting or a bad meeting. I was like: S–t. He was just such an old-school guy, and he was so brash.Being raised in Gary, Indiana, I was used to his brashness; I thrived on it. All my coaches growing up were brash. My mom was brash.And I knew that he loved me.I just told this story the other day. He called me in and said: “I’ve got a question for you.” I was sitting in his office, like I always did. He was smoking a cigar and said: “Do you want to learn how to pitch out of the bullpen in Triple A or here in the big leagues?”