This article about the Orioles firing Dave Trembley mentions that he was one of only seven men who have managed a major league baseball team without prior pro playing experience. I’m curious who the other six are.
Yes, I could probably Google this, but I thought it would be a fun exercise for you all to try to come up with them.
Ed Barrow
Hugo Bezdek
Judge Fuchs
Ted Turner
John Boles
Carlos Tosca
That’s a misleading article. It says “seventh man in baseball history”, but it should just mean “this season”. Off the top of my head, I came up with Joe Maddon, Trey Hillman and Jim Riggleman. Here’s a link to all managers ever. Click the “To” column to sort by last year, and you’ll get all current 2010 managers. Next to the manager’s name is an “as a player” link, which links to their playing history (if any). Plenty of blanks throughout history.
They all played in the minors. The question was about pro experience.
Nicely done, MD12! What a quick answer.
I’m a sixth-degree Black Belt in Google-Fu.
You know what’s even more amazing (maybe only to me)? Dave Duncan, the highly-regarded Cards pitching coach, was never a pitcher!
You’d think that a pitching coach would have to have been a pitcher so he could be like “Oh, that burning feeling is normal, but the shooting pain, you’ve gotta get that checked out.” shrug
Duncan was a pretty good catcher, so he learned quite a bit about pitching.
Criticism of Peter Angelos not relevant to the OP. Sorry.
Criticism of Angelos is always relevant, particularly if your name is Frank, Dave, Brooks or Cal.
Al “Rube” Walker was a former catcher (he was catching when Bobby Thomson hit the famous home run, Roy Campanella was injured) and pitching coach for the 1969 Mets. His younger brother Verlon was also a coach and also nicknamed “Rube”.