This is something I’ve always wondered, but have never seen an answer and I don’t know any actual players I could ask. Unlike in most other sports, baseball team managers and coaches wear numbered uniforms; I have no idea why this is, but I’ve sort of assumed that in some sort of dire emergency, one of them could be listed on a lineup card to subsitute for a player. Are managers and coaches in fact allowed to play, if such is desired? If not, why DO they wear numbered uniforms, anyway?
For most of the season only 25 men are eligible to play. In September the roster can expand. But before the game all players must be listed on the major league roster.
A Manager can be both a Manager or Coach and a player, but he therefore fills one of the 25 spots on the roster. This is very rare.
Jim
Managers and coaches wear uniforms because the rules of baseball specifically state that only uniformed representatives of the team may step onto the field. So if they did not wear uniforms they could not emerge from the dugout; the base coaches could not coach, the manager could not visit the mound, etc.
They are not eligible to play unless they were part of the team’s active roster. A professional team has a set roster of players - in the major leagues it’s 25 men who are eligible under the MLB’s byzantine rules to be on the roster, or 40 after September 1. If you’re on the roster you can play; if you are not you can’t. So unless the managers and coaches are on that roster, being paid as players, they cannot play. (A team will often have some players present in uniform who cannot legally play, such as players who are on the Disabled List.)
If a team runs out of enough eligible players to continue playing the game - since a player once removed cannot re-enter, it’s theoretically possible, albeit remarkably unlikely - they forfeit the game.
The last manager who was simultaneously a rostered player was Pete Rose, in 1986.
There hasn’t been a player manager in the big leagues for twenty years, and there were only four in the twenty years before that: Frank Robinson (1975-76), Joe Torre (1977), Don Kessinger (1979), and Pete Rose (1984-1986).
here were 15 from 1945-1975, but it was much more commone before that. One hundred and thirty men served as player/managers from 1871-1899, and another 99 from 1900 to 1944.
As with many other sports, the role of the manger evolved over time from what we might consider today to be the team captain into the professional leadership role.
{data on player/managers from the Lahman Baseball Database}
For most of the season, there are 25 players on a team’s roster, and only those 25 men are eligible to play. If the Yankees run out of players in a game, Joe Torre can’t take the field- the Yankees have to forfeit the game.
Now, the rules DO allow one of the 25 players on a team to be the team’s manager. And player-managers USED to be very common, but not in my lifetime. In my lifetime, I can think of Pete Rose (who was a player-manager for the Cincinnati Reds in the 1980s) and Frank Robinson (manager and part-time designated hitter for the Cleveland Indians in the mid-1970s), and that’s about it.
I don’t know about the authenticity of this, but Bernie Williams was listed as player/manager in the Yankees last regular season game this year. Obviously, it was a one game thing, so I don’t know if it would be included in any player/manager stats.
Officially that game counted against Torre’s record. Torre has made a habit of letting a long time vet manage the last game of the season, if the game had no meaning. Paul O’Neill and Chili Davis are two players I recall managing last games. I think Joe Girardi had one also, but I am not as sure.
Jim
Is this true? What about Connie Mack and some of the early managers? Didn’t the tradition evolve from the many player managers in the early days of baseball?
Connie Mack wore a suit and tie, rather than a baseball uniform, but as a result, he was not allowed to set foot on the field. If he needed to communicate with a pitcher, he couldn’t walk out to the mound- he’d send a uniformed assistant coach (like Jimmy Dykes) to talk to the pitcher.
The Wikipedia mentions a Mack visit to the mound.
Any other good sites on baseball history that can confirm or deny this?
I can’t confirm or deny this, but I think I can say from the first time I started listening to (and occasionally going to) A’s games (1946) until Mack retired (1950, I think), he never left the dugout during the game. But the picture of him wearing suit and tie at top of the dugout steps holding the lineup card was iconic. Until Shibe Park (later called Connie Mack Stadium) was torn down there was a statue of him in that pose at 21st and Lehigh and may still be.
After he retired there were two changes in the baseball rules: henceforth, managers had to be in uniform and team owners could not manage. As Ted Turner found out the hard way when tried to manage the Braves. I don’t know why that rule was made.
I know there have been a number of short-term and part-time player-managers, I believe that the last time there was a player-manager who was in the regular lineup over an extended period was Lou Boudreau who managed and played shortstop for the Cleveland Indians for several years in the late 40s, including winning the 1948 World Series.
I think that originally, the manager was just one of the regular players designated to take care of travel arrangements. He was not a coach and that is why he was called the manager. Things evolve and gradually it became closer to a full-time job and the player-manager went into decline.
Incidentally, it is not really true that only uniformed personnel are allowed on the field. Aside from the umpires, there are the groundskeepers and the trainers. They come on only during timeouts, but so do the manager and coaches.
http://www.yankeesbaseballblog.com/2006/10/bernie_manages_.html
Just 1 game, and he put hims self in 
No rule prevented Turner from managing – he was banned by Bowie Kuhn under the blanket authority of the Commissioner of Baseball to make ad hoc rulings “for the good of the game.” Kuhn’s argument was that Turner had no baseball experience and thus should not manage. If there is a rule that prevents George Steinbrenner from going into the dugout :eek: , it was passed after Turner tried it.
Not really. Someone had to make decisions on the field even in the beginning. In the early days, it was usually a player. There was also a general manager who handled the business and travel arrangements (signing players, renting a ballpark, etc.). Occasionally, the same person was both player, general manager, and field manager, but usually the field manager was not a played. I’d guess the non-playing manager became the norm as player-managers grew too old to continue playing, but who had established themselves as good managers.
And this is why I love this place. Some great information here. Thanks.
Managers are exempt:
Nineteenth Century practice was so variable that it’s hard to generalize. Baseball was invented as a recreational game to be played by gentleman’s clubs, and from earliest times one of the players would be designated as “captain”, with minimal duties involving making out a lineup and representing the team in conversations with the umpire. And of course, even at a recreational level somebody had to schedule matches and make travel arrangements, which might or might not be the person designated as “captain” during the games.
As the game professionalized around 1870, the off-field duties became more important; teams were profit-making enterprises and had to recruit and sign players. Owners began to hire “managers” to manage the business end, and these managers might or might not take over dugout duties as well. As early as 1878, Harry Wright ceased playing but continued to “manage” (both in the dugout and off-the-field) the Boston National League club. Gradually, the word “manager” was applied to the role formally called “captain”, whether the person involved played or not.
Dugout strategy became more important when substitutions were legalized in 1890, and teams moved toward the modern tripartite arrangement of players/field manager/general manager. The move was gradual; as others have pointed out, player-managers were common well into the Twentieth Century.
There’s no doubt that the early prevalence of player-managers helped establish the custom of managers in uniform, so that even non-players usually followed it, and all do today. Contrast this with the early evolution of football and basketball, which were originally played mostly by schools; a school team almost requires an institutional representative as a non-playing coach. Simple comfort is another factor; baseball uniforms are vanilla enough that they can be worn as civilian duds; whereas basketball uniforms are too skimpy and football too bulky.
A bit of an aside - but having baseball managers and coaches in uniform has always seemed dumb to me. I can’t think of any other sports where this is felt to be vital.
Imagine NFL coaches having to be in uniform - or even worse, NBA coaches (how would the elder statesmen look in those baggy shorts? :eek: )
But baseball uniforms are basically just a shirt and pair of long pants (well, except the 1976 White Sox), so they can be worn by people even if they’re out of shape.
Why is it a dumb idea? Just because other sports don’t do it? Why should baseball match other sports?
Years ago, Mike Royko proposed the same thing, in a very funny column, after seeing poor, pudgy manager Don Zimmer in a Cubs uniform. Royko wondered why managers couldn’t wear suits and ties the way Tom Landry did.
I think there actually was a rule against player/owners dating from the 1920s that was invoked in the Ted Turner case. St Louis Cardinal second player-manager Rogers Hornsby had invested about $47,000 in Cardinal stock sometime around 1924. The Cardinals were an impoverished team at the time and besides being a great player, Hornsby was an avid horse racing bettor. The team won the World Series in 1926 but Hornsby had such an abrasive personality they traded him to the Giants. Hornsby had complained, among other things, the team played so many in-season exhibtion games during the regular season to earn extra money (even the Yankees wouldplay 12-15 such games a year. Play in Washington on Monday, stop in Wilmington, Delaware or another place on Monday to play a minor league team,play in New York Tuesday).
Baseball didn’t want a player for the Giants to own stock in the Cardinals…conflict of interest. St Louis owner Sam Breadon offered to buy Hornsby’s stock back for the same price he paid for it, no doubt thinking how generous he was. Hornsby refused arguing the team was lousy when I bought, I won you a World Series (bringing in Grover Cleveland Alexander to face Tony Lazzeri in game 7, very famous game) and said he deserved to make a profit. Eventually he got it, some $112,000 with the Cards playing about $85,000, the Giants $15,000 and the other 6 NL teams paying $12,000. All those owners were unhappy to be paying money to a player so the rule passed.
There was an exception a few years later. When Boston Braves owner Emil Fuchs couldn’t find anyone to manage his team, he did it himself. The other owners didn’t much care and let this pass because Fuchs was “one of them” and they wouldn’t have to pay him any money.
Also in the 1970s and 1980s baseball became more stuff shirt. You could across accounts of old players getting into a game or two in there 50s…Deacon McGuire and other players from the 1880s playing in the 1904 Giants for a game or two. You don’t see any players from the 1980s Detroit Tigers playing for this year’s Wild Card team. Baseball stopped allowing Minnie Minoso to play in games in the 1980s and 1990s as publicity stunts.