Zimmer passes away at age 83

RIP Don Zimmer, well done.

RIP DZ.

Don, I forgive you for pitching Torrez over Lee and playing Fisk for 157 games in 1978. RIP

I find the above personal, negative comments toward Don Zimmer despicable particularly in light of the circumstances. Feelings or beliefs about the decisions Zimmer made for the ball club or on the field and their consequences has no bearing at this moment. They are insignificant. Here was a man with a wife and family who gave much of his life to what he loved...as 040713 noted. I hope that few share the above view totally lacking in sensitivity or empathy..

Don Zimmer played/managed in a different era when 'regulars' ...your best players....played most of the season...tired, nicked up or not. Pitchers were lionized for throwing complete games...now an almost non-existent commodity. You were a man's man if you could do that just as much as playing a 154 or 162 game season. Zim was not on the cutting edge in a sport that was itself ever so slow to evolve....so tied to its reverence of the past and tradition. Sure, he was Old School....manage by your gut...as many others did in that era...(see Joe Morgan). That was baseball then.

Lee was the anti-hero...the pot smoking doper, irreverent, disrespectful. snub authority guy and the antithesis to Zim. To me, Zimmer was true to himself and his beliefs. IMO, he is being revered for his authenticity and love of a game that meant so much to him. When he managed, he did it to the best of his ability in keeping with his principles. If, in hindsight, his actions were less than perfect and could be second-guessed, well that could and will be said of us all.

Zim gave his best over many years. That is enough of a legacy for me and more than most of us could hope for.

RIP Zim.

Younger generation (recent college grad) here. I admire that he got to spend his entire life doing what he loved, but to me and my generation his legacy will go down as the guy whose jowels were clamped by Pedro while in the process of being sidestepped and thrown to the ground.

I really liked Zimmer. Like most older fans his managing drove me nuts at times. Thought he was best as a bench coach. He picked up things like pitchers tipping pitches,guys playing out of position ect. And I envy 60 plus years never having a real job.That's a dream come true for most baseball fans. R.I.P. Popeye.

Interesting to think back to July 1976. The defending AL champion Red Sox -- expected to repeat after adding Ferguson Jenkins to a team that should have won the 1975 World Series against a vaunted Cincinnati ball club -- are unraveling under Darrell Johnson. Tom Yawkey has just died on July 9 from leukemia. Dick O'Connell is in the GM chair, with Jean Yawkey -- who hates him passionately -- as the new owner and former crown prince Haywood Sullivan, demoted to scouting director, vying to use his very close friendship with Mrs. Yawkey to claw his way back to power in the organization. Johnson has supposedly gone back to drinking heavily and barely makes it to the All-Star Game in Philadelphia, during which he manages another losing AL effort. The Red Sox are 41-45 and have just lost five games of a six-game series (!?!; must have been some rainouts being made up) to the Royals in Kansas City. Johnson, clearly, is going to be fired. Who were the in-organization candidates, in addition to Zimmer, then in his third year as third-base coach?

Johnny Pesky was coaching at first; he was the only other coach with significant managerial experience (pitching coach Stan Williams had managed Double-A Bristol for one year) on Johnson's staff. He had compiled a very poor record as manager of the very flawed 1963-64 Red Sox, but you could argue that that was an organizational failing (and especially a failing of general manager Pinky Higgins, who had never wanted Pesky as his manager). Pesky had spent eight years as a minor league manager (with the Tigers, Red Sox and Pirates from 1956-62; 1968) and coached for the Pirates (1965-67) before working on the Sox' broadcast team. Pesky, of course, would have been a popular choice, at least as an interim manager (as Zimmer was) to finish out the season and right the ship.

Joe Morgan was in his third year as manager of the Pawtucket (that one year known as the "Rhode Island") Red Sox. He was not then a local celebrity, outside of the Walpole and BC people who knew him well; Gammons used to mention him occasionally in the Sunday baseball notes. Like Pesky, he had been a minor league manager and MLB coach with the Pirates. But the PawSox had finished 57-87 and 53-87 in Morgan's first two seasons at McCoy and, although they improved to 68-70 in 1976, they were generally considered a mess; this was the year just prior to Ben Mondor's buying the team. I don't remember Morgan being mentioned for any Boston managerial openings from the time he joined the Red Sox organization in 1974 until he actually succeeded John McNamara as interim manager (like Zimmer, promoted from third-base coach). The other Sox minor league managers were John Kennedy at Bristol, in just his second year as a manager, and veteran Class A managers Bill Slack, Rac Slider and Dick Berardino. Organization man Eddie Popowski was 63 and a roving instructor; he had twice before been interim manager (relieving Dick Williams and Eddie Kasko), but he was assigned to the minors that year as a roving instructor and would actually be called up to resume his Red Sox coaching career to fill Zimmer's old role that year.

Sam Mele was then a special assignment scout for the Red Sox. In fact, they had hired him in 1967 for the job right after he was fired in midyear by the Twins, who he had led to the 1965 pennant. Much of the time during Mele's managerial career in Minnesota, the Twins had been contenders. He was a popular, ex-Red Sox player and (like Pesky) had married a local woman and settled in the Boston area. He was 54 years old -- certainly not too old for job. He may have been the only person from their scouting department who might have been given the job.  EDIT: Ex-skipper Eddie Kasko was also a scout for the Red Sox at the time; no one (that I recall) seriously advocated that he get his old job (1970-73) back.

In my memory, that was the in-house field O'Connell had to choose from to find a manager who could at least finish the season. Despite the Denny Doyle "No No No/Go Go Go" confusion of Game 6, Zimmer was respected as a third-base coach. He had managed the talent-bereft San Diego Padres for almost two full years. At 45, he was young and energetic. Interestingly, the Red Sox went 2-8 in their first ten games under him to fall to 43-53. But they closed strong and finally got back up over .500 on September 26, and finished 83-79 (42-34 under Zimmer).

At some point that summer, O'Connell removed the interim title and named Zimmer manager for 1977. He might have been justified for doing so based on the team's improved performance during August and September; I don't recall there being a hue and cry about the appointment. He might have waited until the end of the season and looked at people from outside the organization. That off-season, apart from the expansion managers (one of whom was Darrell Johnson in Seattle), Joe Altobelli (Giants), Vern Rapp (Cardinals), Dick Williams (Expos), Bob Lemon (White Sox), Chuck Tanner (traded from the Athletics to the Pirates), and Jack McKeon (Athletics) were all hired. Of those, only Altobelli and Lemon might have made a short list of managers for the Red Sox. Ralph Houk, perennial candidate for the Red Sox managerial post, had a job already with the Tigers. I would imagine O'Connell might have approached Jim Campbell about releasing Houk, but they were in the midst of their pre-Sparky rebuilding and were rivals in the AL East; no doubt any request about approaching Houk was denied. And, of course, there were innumerable coaches and minor league managers from other systems that could have been dark horse candidates.

Many people believe Zimmer should also be faulted for the 1977 Red Sox season, when they finished 2.5 games out despite hitting 233 home runs. Certainly, Zimmer's handling of his pitching staff was questioned; it was one of the reasons for the gathering, and the dismantling, of the Buffalo Heads. But O'Connell was fired himself by Mrs. Yawkey when she arranged for the club to be handed to her organizational favorite, Sullivan. Plus, she liked Zimmer tremendously; part of the reason seemed to be that she hated drinkers (surprise surprise) and Zim was an alcohol abstainer all his life. Sullivan apparently also got along with Zimmer.

Whether it was the power of incumbency, or whatever, Zimmer was on surprisingly solid ground during 1978, even though he had essentially been hired by the deposed Dick O'Connell. And then they renewed his contract in the midst of the 1978 swoon, and in the days leading up to Zimmer's firing in late September 1980 (with Pesky as his interim replacement) there was a lot of ink spilled about how Mrs. Yawkey dug in her heels and refused to consider firing the man.

Playing with injuries, even severe ones was very common then. I can give another Sox example, plus pitching blunder on Zim's part..

Boston had just signed closer Bill Campbell the winter of 76/77. Campbell was pitching 2-4IP per game and sometimes back to back games in '77. His arm was blowing out (shoulder) and was hurting terrible, I remember the Yankee series, Soup couldn't throw a couple of games it was so bad, but Campbell got up and was soft tossing during a NY rally late, pain and all.

After the game? Zim announces how he had fooled the Yanks into believing Soup was pitching, by acting like he was warming up. Soup's sinker would never recover after the abuse. He became a screw ball pitcher and never a closer.