Don Zimmer

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Don Zimmer bigraphy, stories - American baseball manager

Don Zimmer : biography

January 17, 1931 –

Donald William Zimmer (born January 17, 1931, in Cincinnati, Ohio) is a former infielder, manager, and coach in Major League Baseball (MLB), currently serving as a senior advisor to the Tampa Bay Rays baseball organization. Zimmer has been involved in professional baseball since 1949.

Zimmer signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers as an amateur free agent in 1949. He played in MLB with the Dodgers (1954–1959, 1963), Chicago Cubs (1960–1961), New York Mets (1962), Cincinnati Reds (1962), and Washington Senators (1963–1965). He also played for the Toei Flyers of Nippon Professional Baseball in 1966.

Following his retirement as a player, Zimmer began his coaching career. He worked in minor league baseball, before coaching the Montreal Expos (1971), San Diego Padres (1972), Boston Red Sox (1974–1976, 1992) New York Yankees (1983, 1986, 1996–2003), Cubs (1984–1986), San Francisco Giants (1987), Colorado Rockies (1993–1995), and Tampa Bay Devil Rays / Rays (2004–present). He served as manager for the Padres (1972–1973), Red Sox (1976–1980), Texas Rangers (1981–1982), and Cubs (1988–1991).

Personal life

At home plate before an Elmira night game in 1951, Zimmer married Soot (Jean), the girl he started dating in 10th grade.

In December 2008, Zimmer suffered a stroke, causing loss of speech for a week.

Coaching and managing career

Minor leagues

Zimmer served as a player-manager for the Cincinnati Reds with the Class-AA Knoxville Smokies and Class-AAA Buffalo Bisons in 1967. Zimmer ended his playing career after the 1967 season, and he managed the Class-AAA Indianapolis Indians in 1968. In 1969, he managed the Class-A Key West Padres and the Class-AAA Salt Lake City Bees in 1970.

Major Leagues

Montreal Expos and San Diego Padres

In 1971, he joined the Montreal Expos as third base coach. He took a similar job with the San Diego Padres in 1972, but after only 11 games he was called on to replace Preston Gómez as manager, giving Zimmer his first managerial job in the major leagues.

Boston Red Sox

After being fired by the Padres at the close of the 1973 campaign, he served as the third-base coach for the Boston Red Sox for 2½ seasons. Working under skipper Darrell Johnson, Zimmer’s tenure included a memorable event during Game 6 of the 1975 World Series. Boston had the bases loaded and none out in the home half of the ninth inning. The score was tied. A soft fly to left field was too shallow to score the winning run, but baserunner Denny Doyle thought Zimmer’s shouts of "No! No! No!" were actually "Go! Go! Go!" He ran for home, and was thrown out at the plate. That play, and Dwight Evans’ brilliant catch off Joe Morgan in extra innings, set up Carlton Fisk’s classic, game-winning home run.

The 1976 Red Sox never got on track under Johnson, and he was fired in July. Zimmer was named acting, then permanent, manager and he led them to a winning record, but a disappointing third-place finish in the AL East. The Red Sox would win more than 90 games in each of Zimmer’s three full seasons (1977–79) as manager, only the second time they had pulled off this feat since World War I. His 1978 team won 99 games, still the fourth-best record in franchise history.

However, he is best remembered among Red Sox fans for the team’s dramatic collapse during the 1978 season. After leading the American League East by as many as fourteen games, the Red Sox stumbled in August. By early September that lead was reduced to four games. That lead evaporated in a four-game series against the surging New York Yankees which is still known as "the Boston Massacre."

The Red Sox spent the last month of the season trading first place with the Yankees, forcing a one-game playoff on October 2. In that game, the Yankees took the lead permanently on a legendary home run by Bucky Dent over the Fenway Park Green Monster.

During this stretch, Zimmer made several questionable personnel moves. He never got along with left-handed starting pitcher Bill "Spaceman" Lee. As a matter of fact, his outright hatred of Lee (who had nicknamed Zimmer "The Gerbil.") ran so deep that he gave the starting assignment in the last game of the "Massacre" to rookie Bobby Sprowl, who had only been called up from Triple-A Pawtucket a few days earlier. Reportedly, Carl Yastrzemski pleaded with Zimmer to start Lee, who, along with Luis Tiant, had dominated the Yankees during their careers. (Lee, for example, won 12 out of 17 decisions against the Yankees in 10 years with Boston.) Sprowl allowed four walks, one hit and one run in the first inning before being pulled and made only three more major-league starts.