Another ringing endorsement for Mike Arbuckle

IF REVENGE is a dish best served cold, seven years is plenty long for Mike Arbuckle's resentment to have chilled.

Except there is no resentment.

He is too big a man, too good a man, to consider even tasting vengeance.

Arbuckle was part of another World Series parade on Tuesday. He will be fitted for another ring this winter.

Today, Phillies president Andy MacPhail is tasked with clearing the rubble of a Phillies franchise Arbuckle helped build as an assistant general manager, then watched crumble from Midwestern exile as a special adviser with the Royals.

Today, Phillies faithful can ask:

"What if the Phillies had promoted Arbuckle to general manager instead of Ruben Amaro Jr?"

Who knows. Not Arbuckle.

This week, Arbuckle doesn't much care.

Monday morning found Arbuckle, part of the Royals' front office that built the best young team in baseball, still in groggy euphoria after a night of celebration in New York. Arbuckle spoke with the Daily News as he packed for Kansas City, where he would be met by hundreds at Kauffman Stadium on Monday afternoon and celebrated by hundreds of thousands of fanatics on Tuesday.

More than a million cheered the Phillies in 2008. It was a day that signified for Arbuckle a triumph and a death.

"In '08, it was thrilling, because I had been so heavily involved in drafting and development there. But it was bittersweet, because I knew I was out; I wasn't going to get that GM job," Arbuckle said.

"This time, it's a little more settled. My shelf life as a GM candidate has expired. I've accepted that. This was all very clean and simple."

Monday morning found Amaro studying the Red Sox' roster . . . as their new first base coach, the first such bizarre move in the history of baseball; a spectacular fall, from baseball nobility to serfdom.

"I feel badly things didn't work out for him," Arbuckle said. "I've always had a solid relationship with Ruben. I've never carried any ill will toward David (Montgomery), or Ruben or anyone there."

Ill will is beneath Mike Arbuckle; though he would be within his rights to feel some.

He has often seen Amaro at league meetings since Montgomery, then the Phillies president, tapped Amaro to succeed Pat Gillick after the team's 2008 title. That put Arbuckle in the awkward position of suddenly reporting to Amaro, who was still trying to make it as a player when Arbuckle began the Phillies' rebuild in 1992.

Arbuckle acquired and developed Jimmy Rollins, Pat Burrell, Brett Myers, Ryan Madson, Chase Utley, Cole Hamels, Ryan Howard and Carlos Ruiz.

But Amaro, the telegenic, young assistant, got the job. It was the second time in three years Montgomery chose someone besides Arbuckle. Gillick followed Ed Wade in 2005, but Gillick was accomplished. Amaro was unaccomplished, especially compared with Arbuckle.

So, Arbuckle left.

"It was bitterly disappointing to not be given a chance to continue a very good program we had in place," Arbuckle said. "I felt I'd given 16 years of my life to that organization."

Within two days, Arbuckle had three offers. He turned down both - one as assistant GM - to come home to Missouri and act as GM Dayton Moore's counselor and consigliore.

"I'm kind of a utility guy. I have the opportunity to give input. On everything," Arbuckle said, with emphasis. That's as self-promoting as he gets.

After spending 28 years building the Atlanta juggernaut and the Phillies' best teams, it was a "no-brainer" to come home, Arbuckle said. He grew up 100 miles from Kansas City. His two daughters, four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren live within 100 miles of him.

In the bosom of friends and family, Arbuckle looked back East in horror. He watched as Amaro gutted the farm system, landed big-money players and offered bloated extensions to aging favorites in an attempt to ride out a wave of sellouts and playoff runs. The wave crashed when Howard blew out his Achilles' tendon in the 2011 playoffs, but Amaro proceeded as if the glory days would last forever.

"I take no joy in the fact they have scuffled," said Arbuckle, citing his continued friendships with dozens of people in the Phillies family. "But would I have done some of the things the same way? Absolutely not."

Things weren't exactly peachy in KC, either. Only three years ago, after some sketchy signings and some leaden prospects, Moore, hired in 2006, was unpopular, too.

He wasn't a young saber-head with an Ivy League degree, and he wasn't winning; the Royals lost at least 90 games in six of the seven seasons from 2001-07. But the Royals were close.

"I told Dayton many times: 'We're on the right track. A good track. I lived through it in Philly. I lived through it in Atlanta,' " Arbuckle said.

He is 17 years older than Moore, who is 48. Like Arbuckle, Moore cut his front-office teeth with the Braves and GM John Schuerholz.

When Arbuckle left the Braves after 12 years, he found himself again in the shadow of greatness, where former GM and manager Paul Owens occupied the role of senior adviser with the Phillies.

"Here, I've modeled myself after the way Paul Owens helped me," Arbuckle said. "The 'Pope' was tremendous as a sounding board. I'd have a problem and he'd say, 'Well, I remember, back in 1965, I had the same situation . . . ' "

Like the Pope, Arbuckle has his finger in all of the Royals' pies. Nine of the 25 players on the World Series roster predate Arbuckle's arrival but he has had a voice in the development and the retention of all of them.

This is no soft job.

He scouted 176 players before the 2015 draft after spending all six weeks at spring training. He figures he will have to start slowing down soon, but he cannot fathom stopping.

Like the Pope, Arbuckle mixes a manic work ethic with a love of laughter. He is a pathological practical joker who always has one burning somewhere.

"I always tried to treat my guys with respect, but I told them not to forget to have some fun along the way," Arbuckle said. "This is not brain surgery."

Arbuckle turned 65 on Sunday. The team gave him a heck of a present:

A come-from-behind, extra-innings, Game 5 win over the Mets to take the series, 4-1.

"You know what?" Arbuckle said. "I'll take the same thing next year."

He sounds hungry, doesn't he?

Maybe this is the sort of dish that tastes better the colder it gets.

On Twitter: @inkstainedretch