RT @stevecarney: WTSP is reporting that #Rays senior baseball advisor Don Zimmer has passed away at age 83. #Rays
Don Zimmer has passed away at age 83
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"The Manager With The Steel Plate in His Head", sung to the tune of "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head", was a song that made the rounds of Chicago radio during Zimmer's reign as Cubs manager.
RIP
RIP
ChefDJW said:
Exactly. To come back from the injury he suffered, and to play a part on baseball history for as long as he did spoke to a career that many he would have loved to have had the chance to experience.
Made some lousy managerial decisions, though
He knew more baseball strategy than Joe Torre did, and Torre never won another pennant after Zim walked away from the Steinbrenner dictatorship.
Zim lost control of his Red Sox teams of the late 1970s that should have won more than they did. Bill Lee had as much to do with losing the locker room as anyone but he never acknowledges it, even now, 40 years later.
Zim lost control of his Red Sox teams of the late 1970s that should have won more than they did. Bill Lee had as much to do with losing the locker room as anyone but he never acknowledges it, even now, 40 years later.
Anyone who told the great Bruce Hurst to take his bible and go back to Utah deserves no respect. God only knows how many careers that prototypical lifer/hack ruined.
Darnell's Son said:
RIP
"What does he have to apologize for?" Zimmer wrote. "I was the guy who charged him and threw the punch. To the people who said Pedro beat up an old man I said, 'No, an old man was dumb enough to try and beat up on Pedro.'"
Hard not to like the hell out of that man. RIP Zim.
My co-worker and good friend played for him on the 1973 Padres (60-102). My buddy is one of the nicest guys you'd ever meet. Very quiet and never says a bad word about anybody...except for Zimmer. "An absolute prick."
RIP, fat man.
RIP, fat man.
staz said:
His book "The Zen of Zim," which came out soon after the 2004 Series run (which he watched from the Yankee bench), made sure to point out that while they were a great team, he felt their long hair, baggy clothes and general demeanor were disrespectful to the game of baseball.
RIP.
RIP, Zim. He was quite the character, and was a coach here in Colorado for the first few years of the Rockies' history.
RIP truly one of a kind. I forgot about him being Hobson'a bench coach. Frankly I've tried my best to forget about Hobson being the manager for years now.fenwaypaul said:
Pretty good run for a true baseball lifer. RIP, Zim.
So just days after Joe Buck told viewers of the Sox-Rays game that Zimmer had been hospitalized, with Buck going on to give Gerbil an epic tongue bath as one of the nicest, most awesome, most incredible, most adored, most lovable, most supremely knoblickalicious people ever associated with the sport, Zimmer's gone?
Heh. How appropriate.
My upbringing taught me not to trample on the graves of the dead, especially if they're not even buried yet. But my experience as a fan who watched him manage this club into the ground more than three decades ago is winning the battle of conscience and morality.
This was the guy who put Spaceman in his doghouse and ultimately forced him out of town. Bill Lee was one of the 7 best lefty starters this franchise has ever had, but because Zimmer didn't like him personally, he kicked him to the curb. Imagine if Tito had decided to bench Manny Ramirez for all his bullshit, and the front office let him get away with it.
The guy who similarly ensured the club dispatched Carbo, Willoughby, Jenkins, and even Luis Tiant among countless other capable players in the latter half of the 70s.
The guy who decided Bob "Beetle" Bailey would be an adequate replacement for Carbo down the stretch in '78. (Bailey would end being being the guy that Zimmer sent up against Goose Gossage with the season on the line on October 2nd, but instead of being hot shit in a champagne bottle Bailey was, quite predictably, lukewarm diarrhea in a Dixie cup.)
The guy who gave us The Bobby Sprowl Experience (which, in retrospect, he might deserve a shred of credit for since it also gave us a damn fine eponymous SoSH Dope). This kid was reputed to be Clemens before Clemens, except he was still pitching in AA when the club jumped him all the way to Boston at age 22. His first start? Against Jim Palmer & the Orioles in Baltimore on 9/5, with the Sox already in a death spiral. His second start? Against the Yankees at Fenway on 9/10. Poor kid didn't make it out of the first inning (4 BB, a Reggie Jackson RBI single), and by the end of that game the Sox' one-time 14.5 game AL East lead over the MFY had completely evaporated. And Sprowl, clearly damaged goods in the team's eyes, was shipped off to Houston the following summer.
The guy who had screwballing closer Bill Campbell throw 140 relief innings in 69 games in '77 (He'd also been burned out by the Twins the year before he signed with the Sox as their first high-profile free agent, but he'd gotten through '76 healthy. Soup dealt with chronic elbow soreness in '78, but Zimmer ignored it and kept pitching him. Soup was never the same thereafter).
The guy who insisted on playing Butch Hobson day after day, night after night (speaking of chronic elbow soreness...) despite the fact that his third baseman's throwing arm had multiple sets of craps dice rattling around within the joint, and he couldn't hit the broad side of a barn on his throws to first.
They guy who presided over one of the most stunning regular-season collapses in baseball history.
I might shed a tear for this lifelong baseball figure at some point. But right now? Nope.
Heh. How appropriate.
My upbringing taught me not to trample on the graves of the dead, especially if they're not even buried yet. But my experience as a fan who watched him manage this club into the ground more than three decades ago is winning the battle of conscience and morality.
This was the guy who put Spaceman in his doghouse and ultimately forced him out of town. Bill Lee was one of the 7 best lefty starters this franchise has ever had, but because Zimmer didn't like him personally, he kicked him to the curb. Imagine if Tito had decided to bench Manny Ramirez for all his bullshit, and the front office let him get away with it.
The guy who similarly ensured the club dispatched Carbo, Willoughby, Jenkins, and even Luis Tiant among countless other capable players in the latter half of the 70s.
The guy who decided Bob "Beetle" Bailey would be an adequate replacement for Carbo down the stretch in '78. (Bailey would end being being the guy that Zimmer sent up against Goose Gossage with the season on the line on October 2nd, but instead of being hot shit in a champagne bottle Bailey was, quite predictably, lukewarm diarrhea in a Dixie cup.)
The guy who gave us The Bobby Sprowl Experience (which, in retrospect, he might deserve a shred of credit for since it also gave us a damn fine eponymous SoSH Dope). This kid was reputed to be Clemens before Clemens, except he was still pitching in AA when the club jumped him all the way to Boston at age 22. His first start? Against Jim Palmer & the Orioles in Baltimore on 9/5, with the Sox already in a death spiral. His second start? Against the Yankees at Fenway on 9/10. Poor kid didn't make it out of the first inning (4 BB, a Reggie Jackson RBI single), and by the end of that game the Sox' one-time 14.5 game AL East lead over the MFY had completely evaporated. And Sprowl, clearly damaged goods in the team's eyes, was shipped off to Houston the following summer.
The guy who had screwballing closer Bill Campbell throw 140 relief innings in 69 games in '77 (He'd also been burned out by the Twins the year before he signed with the Sox as their first high-profile free agent, but he'd gotten through '76 healthy. Soup dealt with chronic elbow soreness in '78, but Zimmer ignored it and kept pitching him. Soup was never the same thereafter).
The guy who insisted on playing Butch Hobson day after day, night after night (speaking of chronic elbow soreness...) despite the fact that his third baseman's throwing arm had multiple sets of craps dice rattling around within the joint, and he couldn't hit the broad side of a barn on his throws to first.
They guy who presided over one of the most stunning regular-season collapses in baseball history.
I might shed a tear for this lifelong baseball figure at some point. But right now? Nope.
I was at the Rays game tonight when it started buzzing through the crowd. Really surprised they didn't announce and ask for a moment of silence.
RIP
RIP
I'm thankful that as Don passed this mortal coil, he did so with the knowledge that the Sox were World Champions.
M
MentalDisabldLst
Guest
Well, there passes nearly the last of the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers, heroes to a borough that has yet to regain the spirit they had after Johnny Podres finally pitched them to the promised land. Nearly 60 years after that day, Brooklynites still wear the hats of the team that abandoned them a few scant years after their triumph (and their brewery still sells a lot of '55 Ale). Zim played a respectable middle infield for that storied championship team.
The only surviving member of The 25 from '55 is now Ed Roebuck, a reliever who threw 2 innings in Game 6. A 19-year-old Sandy Koufax pitched 41 innings for Brooklyn that year, and still walks the earth, but wasn't on the WS roster.
That team was almost certainly the on-field highlight of Zimmer's career, as he amassed 0.8 of his net career 2.7 WAR, and broke Brooklyn's curse. His role in prolonging other supposed curses may be forever debated, but let's recognize that the guy was Forrest Gump-like in his ability to be present at so many of baseball's defining moments since the 50s.
The only surviving member of The 25 from '55 is now Ed Roebuck, a reliever who threw 2 innings in Game 6. A 19-year-old Sandy Koufax pitched 41 innings for Brooklyn that year, and still walks the earth, but wasn't on the WS roster.
That team was almost certainly the on-field highlight of Zimmer's career, as he amassed 0.8 of his net career 2.7 WAR, and broke Brooklyn's curse. His role in prolonging other supposed curses may be forever debated, but let's recognize that the guy was Forrest Gump-like in his ability to be present at so many of baseball's defining moments since the 50s.
The first game I saw at the Fens was in 1982, the first ever Old Timers game there- got to see 3 innings of Teddy Ballgame. The sox also beat Zimmer's Rangers in 11 innings, IIRC, on an error on a botched double play ball. Good times.
The crowd reaction that Zim got every time he went onto the field that day was...memorable.
Didn't like how he handled things when he was on the Sox, but RIP, Zim.
Edit: 12 innings:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS198205010.shtml
The crowd reaction that Zim got every time he went onto the field that day was...memorable.
Didn't like how he handled things when he was on the Sox, but RIP, Zim.
Edit: 12 innings:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS198205010.shtml
StuckOnYouk said:
Just typical of the "good baseball man" that Zimmer personified so well and is hopefully being purged out of the game as it tries to evolve. Hurst was introspective, quiet and a little homesick while he was developing into one of the most dominant LHPs of his time, at least for a while. The Gerbil in all his manly manliness made the possibly career-ending decision that this was evidence that Hurst was soft and "couldn't cut it" in the pseudo-military jargon of a certain type of asshole.
He was, of course, wrong - Bruce Hurst could most definitely cut it - and fortunately someone talked Hurst out of quitting. I want to say there's a passage in Golenbock's 'Fenway' that goes into more detail and I think it was Ojeda.
In fact, the big story is how in hell he was still employed in 1980 when all this went down. What a strange and incompetent FO back then.
And if I had to bet, he didn't tell Denny Doyle "no, no!" in game 6 in '75. He at least should have done more to prevent Doyle from going. More likely, he was lying to cover his ass. That's a key to staying employed in the game for that long.
FelixMantilla said:
I think during his Yankees stint it became clear he was much better suited and much more comfortable being a bench coach than any type of manager or leader.
He was a living fossil in Boston, I can't imagine a worse guy to be in charge of a talented but eccentric and flaky bunch that was the 77-78 Sox. Holding a personal grudge against Lee to the detriment of the team is his worst baseball sin and one that should not and will not ever be forgiven.