Don Zimmer, Who Spent 60 Eventful Years in Baseball, Dies at 83

Don Zimmer, left, and Joe Torre in 2000. Credit Barton Silverman/The New York Times 

 

From loathed Red Sox to lovable Yank.

 

Don Zimmer, the stubby, Popeye-muscled baseball lifer with the unforgettable jowls whose passion for the game endured through more than 60 years as a player, manager, coach and adviser, died on Wednesday in Dunedin, Fla. He was 83. His death was announced by the Tampa Bay Rays, a team he served recently as a senior adviser.  Zimmer had surgery April 16 to repair a leaky heart valve, according to The Tampa Tribune.

Zimmer had been having kidney dialysis since May 2012 after falling into a diabetic coma at his home. But he continued to visit the Rays’ Tropicana Field when he could.

Zimmer was married on a baseball diamond in 1951, and it seemed he never left the field.

He played the infield for the Brooklyn Dodgers’ only World Series championship team, he was an original member of the Mets and he was Yankee Manager Joe Torre’s confidant as his bench coach on four World Series championship teams. He filled in as the Yankees’ manager for 36 games in 1999 when Torre was being treated for prostate cancer.

“All I’ve ever been is a simple baseball man, but it’s never ceased to amaze me how so many far more accomplished people I’ve met in this life wanted to be one, too,” he said in “The Zen of Zim,” (2004) written with Bill Madden. “What a game, this baseball!”

Bill Madden in NY Daily News

Chicago Tribune: Former Cubs manager Don Zimmer dies at 83

Zimmer in 1999 Don Zimmer visits Greg Maddux on the mound during a 1999 game in Wrigley Field. (ED WAGNER, CHICAGO TRIBUNE /May 4, 1999)

His exit was also one of the most memorable in Cubs history. Zimmer handed an ultimatum to Tribune Co. executive Don Grenesko to give him a contract extension early in the 1991 season, asking for the same kind of security the players had.

“Am I any different?” Zimmer said he told Grenesko. “What am I? A piece of garbage in Lake Michigan?”

The ploy didn't work, and Zimmer was fired after 37 games. In typical fashion, he invited the beat writers into his New York hotel suite and told them to empty out the minibar so he could charge it to the team.

In 1989, Zimmer reached the zenith of his managerial career, throwing out the book and using crazy strategy to great success, including squeeze bunts with the bases loaded and a triple-steal with a pitcher at the plate.

Tampa Bay Tribune
ST. PETERSBURG — Don Zimmer, whose long and star-crossed career linked baseball’s golden age of the mid-1950s to the present, allowing him to tell tales of Jackie Robinson and Derek Jeter, died Wednesday.

Zimmer said he never drew a paycheck outside of baseball. When asked how he supported his family in the offseason back when players’ salaries were a fraction of what they are today, Zimmer answered with two words: “Winter ball.”

He spent winters in Cuba, Puerto Rico and Mexico honing his craft.

He played winter ball after his rookie season in 1954, teaming with future hall of famers Willie Mays and Roberto Clemente. Zimmer and was named the MVP of the Caribbean World Series that winter.

Cincinnati Enquirer: Don Zimmer, West High and MLB great, dies

To the rest of the major leagues, Don Zimmer was a a Popeye lookalike, a prominent-cheeked baseball lifer who in 66 professional seasons once won a World Series with Jackie Robinson, once stole home 10 times in one minor-league season, once famously grappled with Pedro Martinez on the mound in a playoff game at Fenway Park.

To Cincinnati, Don Zimmer was a West Side legend, part of formidable Western Hills High and Bentley Post American Legion teams with Jim Frey and Glenn Sample, long forgiven for being on the other side in the fabled 1975 World Series when he coached third for the Red Sox.

Only a portion of one of his 66 seasons was spent with the Reds, 1962, .250 with a couple of homers and 16 RBI. That never mattered.