Dick Williams Two titles in a row in Oakland What titles did he win? Williams promptly directed the A's to 101 victories and their first AL West title in 1971 behind another brilliant young player, pitcher Vida Blue. What was the second title he won? managerial maneuvering of Williams resulted in a seven-game World Series victory for the A's, their first championship since 1930, when they played in Philadelphia. Was there anything exciting about the world series games? With the A's leading power hitter, Jackson, out with an injury, Cincinnati's Big Red Machine was favored to win, How did the A's win? but the home run heroics of Oakland catcher Gene Tenace and the managerial maneuvering of Williams resulted in a seven-game World Series victory for the A's,
Did Gene Tenace hit any homeruns?
Did Gene Tenace hit any homeruns during the world series?
After spending 1970 as the third base coach of the Montreal Expos, working under Gene Mauch, Williams returned to the managerial ranks the next year as boss of the Oakland Athletics, owned by Charlie Finley. The iconoclastic Finley had signed some of the finest talent in baseball - including Catfish Hunter, Reggie Jackson, Sal Bando, Bert Campaneris, Rollie Fingers and Joe Rudi - but his players hated him for his penny-pinching and constant meddling in the team's affairs. During his first decade as the Athletics' owner, 1961-1970, Finley had changed managers a total of ten times.  Inheriting a second-place team from predecessor John McNamara, Williams promptly directed the A's to 101 victories and their first AL West title in 1971 behind another brilliant young player, pitcher Vida Blue. Despite being humbled in the ALCS by the defending World Champion Orioles, Finley brought Williams back for 1972, when the "Oakland Dynasty" began. Off the field, the A's players brawled with each other and defied baseball's tonsorial code. Because long hair, mustaches and beards were now the rage in the "civilian" world, Finley decided on a mid-season promotion encouraging his men to wear their hair long and grow facial hair. Fingers adopted his trademark handlebar mustache (which he still has to this day); Williams himself grew a mustache.  Of course, talent, not hairstyle, truly defined the Oakland Dynasty of the early 1970s. The 1972 A's won their division by 5 1/2  games over the White Sox and led the league in home runs, shutouts and saves. They defeated the Tigers in a bitterly fought ALCS, and found themselves facing the Cincinnati Reds in the World Series. With the A's leading power hitter, Jackson, out with an injury, Cincinnati's Big Red Machine was favored to win, but the home run heroics of Oakland catcher Gene Tenace and the managerial maneuvering of Williams resulted in a seven-game World Series victory for the A's, their first championship since 1930, when they played in Philadelphia.  In 1973, with Williams back for an unprecedented (for the Finley era) third straight campaign, the A's again coasted to a division title, then defeated Baltimore in the ALCS and the NL champion New York Mets in the World Series - each hard-fought series going the limit. With their World Series win, Oakland became baseball's first repeat champion since the 1961-62 New York Yankees. But Williams had a surprise for Finley. Tired of his owner's meddling, and upset by Finley's public humiliation of second baseman Mike Andrews for his fielding miscues during the World Series, Williams resigned. George Steinbrenner, then finishing his first season as owner of the Yankees, immediately signed Williams as his manager. However, Finley protested that Williams owed Oakland the final year of his contract and could not manage anywhere else, and so Steinbrenner hired Bill Virdon instead. Williams was the first manager in A's franchise history to leave the team with a winning record after running it for two full seasons. CANNOTANSWER
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Richard Hirschfeld Williams (May 7, 1929 – July 7, 2011) was an American left fielder, third baseman, manager, coach and front office consultant in Major League Baseball. Known especially as a hard-driving, sharp-tongued manager from 1967 to 1969 and from 1971 to 1988, he led teams to three American League pennants, one National League pennant, and two World Series triumphs. He is one of nine managers to win pennants in both major leagues, and joined Bill McKechnie in becoming only the second manager to lead three franchises to the Series. He and Lou Piniella are the only managers in history to lead four teams to seasons of 90 or more wins. Williams was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2008 following his election by the Veterans Committee.

Biography

Playing career
Williams was born on May 7, 1929, in St. Louis, Missouri, and lived there until age 13, when his family moved to Pasadena, California. He attended Pasadena High School, and then enrolled in Pasadena City College. He signed his first professional contract with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947, and played his first major league game with Brooklyn in 1951. A right-handed batter and thrower, Williams was listed as  tall and . Initially an outfielder, he separated a shoulder attempting to make a diving catch on August 25, 1952; he missed the rest of the season and permanently weakened his throwing arm. As a result, he learned to play several positions (he was frequently a first baseman and third baseman) and became a notorious "bench jockey" in order to keep his major league job.<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/1983/08/15/sports/bench-jockeying-lost-art-in-baseball.html Alfano, Peter (15 August 1983), "Bench Jockeying: A Lost Art in Baseball." ]The New York Times</ref> He appeared in 1,023 games over 13 seasons with the Dodgers, Baltimore Orioles, Cleveland Indians, Kansas City Athletics and Boston Red Sox. Williams posted a career batting average of .260; his 768 hits included 70 home runs, 157 doubles and 12 triples. In the field, he appeared in 456 games in the outfield, 257 at third base, and 188 at first.

He was a favorite of Paul Richards, who acquired Williams four different times between 1956 and 1962 when Richards was a manager or general manager with Baltimore and the Houston Colt .45s. Williams never played for Houston; he was acquired in an off-season "paper transaction" on October 12, 1962, then traded to the Red Sox for another outfielder, Carroll Hardy, on December 10.

His two-year playing career in Boston was uneventful, except for one occasion. On June 27, 1963, Williams was victimized by one of the greatest catches in Fenway Park history. His long drive to the opposite field was snagged by Cleveland right fielder Al Luplow, who made a leaping catch at the wall and tumbled into the bullpen with the ball in his grasp.

Managerial career

An "Impossible Dream" in Boston
On October 14, 1964, after a season during which Williams hit a career-low .159, the Red Sox handed him his unconditional release. At 35, Williams was at a career crossroads: Richards gave him a spring training invitation but no guarantee that he would make the 1965 Astros' playing roster; the Red Sox offered Williams a job as playing coach with their Triple-A farm team, the Seattle Rainiers of the Pacific Coast League. Looking to begin a post-playing career in baseball, Williams accepted the Seattle assignment. Within days, a shuffle in 1965 affiliations forced Boston to move its top minor league team to the Toronto Maple Leafs of the International League. This caused the Red Sox' Triple-A manager, Seattle native Edo Vanni, to resign in order to remain in the Pacific Northwest. With a sudden opening for the Toronto job, Williams was promoted to manager of the 1965 Leafs. As a novice pilot, Williams adopted a hard-nosed, disciplinarian style and won two consecutive Governors' Cup championships with teams laden with young Red Sox prospects. He then signed a one-year contract to manage the 1967 Red Sox.

Boston had suffered through eight straight seasons of losing baseball, and attendance had fallen to such an extent that owner Tom Yawkey was threatening to move the team. The Red Sox had talented young players, but the team was known as a lazy "country club." As Carl Yastrzemski commented, "if you don't keep your nose to the grindstone you won't (win)...we kept our noses so far away from the grindstone we couldn't even see it."

Williams decided to risk everything and impose discipline on his players. He vowed that "we will win more ballgames than we lose" — a bold statement for a club that had finished only a half-game from last place in 1966. The only team with a worse record than the Red Sox was their arch-rival, the New York Yankees, who were headed in a downward spiral only two years after losing the 1964 World Series to the St. Louis Cardinals in seven games. In spring training, Williams drilled players in fundamentals for hours.  He issued fines for curfew violations, and insisted his players put the success of the team before their own.  In Yastrzemski's words, "Dick Williams didn't take anything when he took over the club last spring...to the best of my knowledge—and I would know if it had happened—no one challenged Williams all season."

The Red Sox began 1967 playing better baseball and employing the aggressive style of play that Williams had learned with the Dodgers. Williams benched players for lack of effort and poor performance, and battled tooth and nail with umpires. Through the All-Star break, Boston fulfilled Williams' promise and played better than .500 ball, hanging close to the American League's four contending teams — the Detroit Tigers, Minnesota Twins, Chicago White Sox and California Angels. Outfielder Carl Yastrzemski, in his seventh season with the Red Sox, transformed his hitting style to become a pull-hitter, eventually winning the 1967 AL Triple Crown, leading the league in batting average, home runs (tying Harmon Killebrew of the Twins), and RBI.

In late July, the Red Sox rattled off a 10-game winning streak on the road and came home to a riotous welcome from 10,000 fans at Boston's Logan Airport. The Red Sox inserted themselves into a five-team pennant race, and stayed in the hunt despite the loss of star outfielder Tony Conigliaro to a beanball on August 18. On the closing weekend of the season, led by Yastrzemski and 22-game-winning pitcher Jim Lonborg, Boston defeated the Twins in two head-to-head games, while Detroit split its series with the Angels. The "Impossible Dream" Red Sox had won their first AL pennant since 1946, then they extended the highly talented and heavily favored St. Louis Cardinals to seven games in the 1967 World Series, losing to the great Bob Gibson three times.

Despite the Series loss, the Red Sox were the toasts of New England; Williams was named Major League Manager of the Year by The Sporting News and signed to a new three-year contract. But he would not serve it out. In 1968, the team fell to fourth place when Conigliaro could not return from his head injury, and Williams' two top pitchers — Lonborg and José Santiago — suffered sore arms. He began to clash with Yastrzemski, and with owner Yawkey. With his club a distant third in the AL East, Williams was fired on September 23, 1969 and replaced by Eddie Popowski for the last nine games of the season.

Two titles in a row in Oakland

After spending 1970 as the third base coach of the Montreal Expos, working under Gene Mauch, Williams returned to the managerial ranks the next year as boss of the Oakland Athletics, owned by Charlie Finley. The iconoclastic Finley had signed some of the finest talent in baseball – including Catfish Hunter, Reggie Jackson, Sal Bando, Bert Campaneris, Rollie Fingers and Joe Rudi that were described by Finley as the "Swingin' A's" – but his players hated him for his penny-pinching and constant meddling in the team's affairs. During his first decade as the Athletics' owner, 1961–1970, Finley had changed managers a total of ten times.

Inheriting a second-place team from predecessor John McNamara, Williams promptly directed the A's to 101 victories and their first AL West title in 1971 behind another brilliant young player, pitcher Vida Blue. Despite being humbled in the ALCS by the defending World Champion Orioles, Finley brought Williams back for 1972, when the "Oakland Dynasty" began. Off the field, the A's players brawled with each other and defied baseball's tonsorial code. Because long hair, mustaches and beards were now the rage in the "civilian" world, Finley decided on a mid-season promotion encouraging his men to wear their hair long and grow facial hair. Fingers adopted his trademark handlebar mustache (which he still has to this day); Williams himself grew a mustache.

Of course, talent, not hairstyle, truly defined the Oakland Dynasty of the early 1970s. The 1972 A's won their division by 5½ games over the White Sox and led the league in home runs, shutouts and saves. They defeated the Tigers in a bitterly fought ALCS, and found themselves facing the Cincinnati Reds in the World Series. With the A's leading power hitter, Jackson, out with an injury, Cincinnati's Big Red Machine was favored to win, but the home run heroics of Oakland catcher Gene Tenace and the managerial maneuvering of Williams resulted in a seven-game World Series victory for the A's, their first championship since 1930, when they played in Philadelphia.

In 1973, with Williams back for an unprecedented (for the Finley era) third straight campaign, the A's again coasted to a division title, then defeated Baltimore in the ALCS and the NL champion New York Mets in the World Series – each hard-fought series going the limit. With their World Series win, Oakland became baseball's first repeat champion since the 1961–62 New York Yankees. But Williams had a surprise for Finley. Tired of his owner's meddling, and upset by Finley's public humiliation of second baseman Mike Andrews for his fielding miscues during the World Series, Williams resigned. George Steinbrenner, then finishing his first season as owner of the Yankees, immediately signed Williams as his manager. However, Finley protested that Williams owed Oakland the final year of his contract and could not manage anywhere else, and so Steinbrenner hired Bill Virdon instead. Williams was the first manager in A's franchise history to leave the team with a winning record after running it for two full seasons.

From Southern California to Montreal and back

California Angels
Seemingly at the peak of his career, Williams began the 1974 season out of work. But when the Angels struggled under manager Bobby Winkles, team owner Gene Autry received Finley's permission to negotiate with Williams, and in mid-season Williams was back in a big-league dugout. The change in management, though, did not alter the fortunes of the Angels, as they finished in last place, 22 games behind the A's, who would win their third straight World Championship under Williams' replacement, Alvin Dark.

Overall, Williams' Anaheim tenure turned out to be a miserable one.  He did not have nearly as much talent as he'd had to work with in Boston and Oakland, and the Angels did not respond to Williams' somewhat authoritarian managing style.  They finished last in the AL West again in 1975.  During the 1975 season, Boston Red Sox pitcher Bill Lee stated that the Angels' hitters were "so weak, they could hold batting practice in the Boston Sheraton hotel lobby and not hit the chandelier".  Williams responded by having his team actually do so before the game (using Wiffle balls and bats) with the Red Sox until hotel security put a stop to it.    The Angels were 18 games below .500 (and in the midst of a player revolt) in  1976 when Williams was fired July 22.

Montreal Expos
In 1977, he returned to Montreal as manager of the Expos, who had just come off 107 losses and a last-place finish in the NL East. Team president John McHale had been impressed with Williams' efforts in Boston and Oakland, and thought he was what the Expos needed to finally become a winner.

After cajoling the Expos into improved, but below .500, performances in his first two seasons, Williams turned the 1979–80 Expos into pennant contenders. The team won over 90 games both years—the first winning seasons in franchise history.  The 1979 unit won 95 games, the most that the franchise would win in Montreal. However, they finished second each time to the eventual World Champion (the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1979 and the Philadelphia Phillies in 1980). Williams was never afraid to give young players a chance to play, and his Expos teams were flush with young talent, including All-Stars such as outfielder Andre Dawson and catcher Gary Carter.  With a solid core of young players and a fruitful farm system, the Expos seemed a lock to contend for a long time to come.

But Williams' hard edge alienated his players—especially his pitchers—and ultimately wore out his welcome. He labeled pitcher Steve Rogers a fraud with "king of the mountain syndrome" – meaning that Rogers had been a good pitcher on a bad team for so long that he was unable to "step up" when the team became good. Williams also lost confidence in closer Jeff Reardon, whom the Montreal front office had acquired in a much publicized trade with the Mets for Ellis Valentine. When the 1981 Expos performed below expectations, Williams was fired during the pennant drive on September 7. With the arrival of his easy-going successor Jim Fanning, who restored Reardon to the closer's role, the inspired Expos made the playoffs for the only time in their 36-year history in Montreal. However, they fell in heartbreaking fashion to Rick Monday and the eventual World Champion Los Angeles Dodgers in a five-game NLCS.

San Diego Padres
Williams was not unemployed for long, however.  In 1982, he took over the San Diego Padres. By 1984, he had guided the Padres to their first NL West Division championship. In the NLCS, the NL East champion Chicago Cubs – making their first postseason appearance since 1945 – won Games 1 and 2, but Williams' Padres took the next three games in a miraculous comeback to win the pennant. In the World Series, however, San Diego was no match for Sparky Anderson's Detroit Tigers, a team that had won 104 games during the regular season.  Although the Tigers won the Series in five games, both Williams and Anderson joined Dark, Joe McCarthy, and Yogi Berra as managers who had won pennants in both major leagues (Tony La Russa joined this group in 2004, Jim Leyland followed suit in 2006, followed by Joe Maddon in 2016 and Dusty Baker in 2021).

The Padres fell to third in 1985, and Williams was let go as manager just before 1986 spring training.  His record with the Padres was 337–311 over four seasons. As of 2011, he was the only manager in the team's history without a losing season. His difficulties with the Padres stemmed from a power struggle with team president Ballard Smith and general manager Jack McKeon.  Williams was a hire of team owner (and McDonald's restaurant magnate) Ray Kroc, whose health was failing.  McKeon and Smith (who also happened to be Kroc's son-in-law) were posturing to buy the team and viewed Williams as a threat to their plans.  With his San Diego tenure at an end, it appeared that Williams' managerial career was finished.

Final seasons in uniform
When another perennial loser, the Seattle Mariners, lost 19 of their first 28 games in 1986 under Chuck Cottier, Williams came back to the American League West on May 6 for the first time in almost a decade. The Mariners showed some life that season and almost reached .500 the following season. However, Williams' autocratic managing style no longer resonated with the new generation of ballplayers. He tried to play injury-plagued Gorman Thomas in the outfield, but was rebuked by the Mariners' front office because of Thomas' medical history, namely his rotator cuff.  Also, Williams had trouble relating to the devoutly religious Mariners' players, namely Alvin Davis.  Williams was fired on June 8, 1988 with Seattle 23–33 and in sixth place.  It would be his last major-league managing job. Williams' career won-loss totals were 1,571 wins and 1,451 losses over 21 seasons.

In 1989, Williams was named manager of the West Palm Beach Tropics of the Senior Professional Baseball Association, a league featuring mostly former major league players 35 years of age and older. The Tropics went 52–20 in the regular season and ran away with the Southern Division title. Despite their regular season dominance, the Tropics lost 12–4 to the St. Petersburg Pelicans in the league's championship game. The Tropics folded at the end of the season, and the rest of the league folded a year later.

He remained in the game, however, as a special consultant to George Steinbrenner and the New York Yankees. In 1990, Williams published his autobiography, No More Mister Nice Guy. His acrimonious departure in 1969 distanced Williams from the Red Sox for the remainder of the Yawkey ownership period (through 2001), but after the change in ownership and management that followed, he was selected to the Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame in 2006.

Williams' number was retired by the Fort Worth Cats.  The Cats were a popular minor league team in Fort Worth and Williams played there during 1948, 1949 and 1950, while he was working his way through the Dodgers' system. Moreover, Williams—in his Hall off Fame speech—cited Bobby Bragan, his Fort Worth manager, as a significant influence on his own career.  After the Texas League Cats finally disbanded in 1964, they returned as an independent league team in 2001.  These "New" Cats retired Williams' number.

Hall of Fame induction
Williams was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee in December 2007, and was inducted on July 27, 2008. He was inducted into the San Diego Padres Hall of Fame in 2009.

Managerial record

Personal life
Williams was an extra in the 1950 movie The Jackie Robinson Story. Before Williams became a major league manager in 1967, he successfully appeared on the television quiz shows Match Game and the original Hollywood Squares. According to Peter Marshall's Backstage with the Original Hollywood Squares, Williams won $50,000 as a contestant on the latter show.

His son, Rick Williams, a former minor league pitcher and major league pitching coach, became a professional scout for the Atlanta Braves. 

Williams died of a ruptured aortic aneurysm at a hospital near his home in Henderson, Nevada, on July 7, 2011.

Arrest
In January 2000, Williams pleaded no contest to indecent exposure charges in Florida. The complaint against him alleged that he was "walking naked and masturbating" on the balcony outside his hotel room. Williams subsequently stated that he was not aware of the details of the complaint when he pleaded no contest, and that although he was standing naked at the balcony door, he was not on the balcony and was not masturbating.

This occurred just weeks before Baseball Hall of Fame balloting by the Veterans Committee. Williams' arrest appeared to impact consideration by the committee, and he would not be inducted to the Baseball Hall of Fame until 2008. "What happened to me down in Fort Myers when I was arrested evidently hurt me quite a bit", Williams told The New York Times.

See also
 List of Major League Baseball managers by wins

References

Further reading
Cooper, Steve, Red Sox Diehard, 1967 season retrospective. Boston: Dunfey Publishing Co., 1987.
Stout, Glenn and Johnson, Richard A., Red Sox Century.  Boston and New York: Houghton-Mifflin Co., 2000.
Williams, Dick, and Plaschke, Bill, No More Mr. Nice Guy: A Life of Hardball.'' San Diego: Harcourt, Brace & Jovanovitch, 1990.

External links

 Dick Williams at SABR (Baseball BioProject)
Dick Williams at Baseball Library

1929 births
2011 deaths
American expatriate baseball people in Canada
American expatriate baseball players in Canada
Baltimore Orioles players
Baseball players from Pasadena, California
Baseball players from St. Louis
Boston Red Sox managers
Boston Red Sox players
Brooklyn Dodgers players
California Angels managers
Cleveland Indians players
Deaths from aortic aneurysm
Fort Worth Cats players
Kansas City Athletics players
Major League Baseball left fielders
Major League Baseball third base coaches
Montreal Expos coaches
Montreal Expos managers
Montreal Royals players
National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees
New York Yankees scouts
Oakland Athletics managers
St. Paul Saints (AA) players
San Diego Padres managers
San Diego Padres scouts
Santa Barbara Dodgers players
Seattle Mariners managers
Toronto Maple Leafs (International League) managers
World Series-winning managers
Fury Gene Tenace (; born Fiore Gino Tenacci; October 10, 1946), better known as Gene Tenace, is an American former professional baseball player and coach. He played as a catcher and first baseman in Major League Baseball from  through , most notably as a member of the Oakland Athletics dynasty that won three consecutive World Series championships between 1972 and 1974.

Tenace was drafted by the Kansas City Athletics from Valley High School in Lucasville, Ohio and played for the Oakland Athletics, San Diego Padres, St. Louis Cardinals and the Pittsburgh Pirates. He batted and threw right-handed. Tenace was one of the top catchers of his era and won the 1972 World Series Most Valuable Player Award. While he was never a great hitter (having batted. 241 in his career), he made up for it with a solid on-base percentage (.388), which is the highest among modern catchers with a sub .250 batting average, with his 46.8 Wins Above Replacement (WAR) being fifth highest among all sub .250 hitters.

After his playing days ended, Tenace coached for several organizations, most notably for the Toronto Blue Jays.

Playing career

Oakland Athletics (1969–76)
Tenace was selected in baseball's first entry draft, being taken in the 20th round of the 1965 Major League Baseball draft by the then Kansas City Athletics. Tenace made his major league debut for Oakland on May 29, 1969 against the Detroit Tigers at Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum where he went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts in an 8–4 Oakland loss. He hit the first home run of his career on June 6, 1969 at Tiger Stadium against Earl Wilson of the Detroit Tigers. He finished the  season with a .158 batting average, a home run and two runs batted in, appearing in just 38 games as a third-string catcher.

He continued to play the next two years as the third-string catcher before serving as Dave Duncan's backup in 1971. Tenace entered the 1972 season backing up Duncan, but was given a chance to show his abilities by being made the team's regular catcher in the post-season. Tenace took full advantage of this opportunity, excelling in the 1972 playoffs and World Series. In the 1972 American League Championship Series against the Detroit Tigers, he drove in the clinching run in Oakland's 2–1 victory in Game 5; it was his only hit of the series.  Tenace's heroics made up for an error in Game 4 of the series when he had to play second base (for the first time since high school) in the late innings due to regular second baseman Dick Green getting hurt and backup second baseman Ted Kubiak having to play shortstop due to Bert Campaneris being suspended.  Tenace dropped a throw from Sal Bando on a potential game-ending double play attempt in the bottom of the 10th which kept the inning alive as the Tigers eventually won.

He put himself in the spotlight once again in Game 1 of the 1972 World Series when the Athletics faced the Cincinnati Reds. He became the first player to hit home runs in his first two World Series at bats and drove in all three runs in the A's 3–2 victory.  Prior to Tenace's feat, only eight other players had homered in their first World Series at bat. In Game 4, the A's were losing 2–1, with their only run to that point coming on Tenace's solo home run. A ninth-inning one-out rally consisting of four singles, with Tenace's the second and the rest coming from pinch hitters, won the game against Cincinnati's ace relief pitcher, Clay Carroll. He hit a three-run home run in the A's Game 5 loss. Before Game 6 of the 1972 Series, he was the target of a death threat. In Game 7, he was once again the hero, driving in two runs in a 3–2 victory for Oakland. In total, he went 8-for-23 in the Series, with four home runs and 9 RBI to earn the World Series Most Valuable Player Award.

Tenace's heroics helped him earn a full-time job in Oakland's lineup. He served as the team's starting first baseman for two seasons, while still serving as the backup catcher to Ray Fosse. He had his roles reversed in , starting at catcher while backing up first base. As a regular starter for the A's, Tenace had a low batting average but a fair amount of power, hitting 20 home runs in four consecutive years in Oakland, finishing among the top 10 home run hitters in the American League each year. He further made up for his lack of a high batting average by sporting a tremendous batting eye. He drew over 100 walks in a season three times for Oakland, and led the American League in walks in 1974, making up for a career-low .211 average that year. Statistically, his best year with Oakland was in 1975, when he hit a career-best 29 home runs and drove in 87 runs, drew 106 walks, finished 18th in the American League Most Valuable Player Award balloting and was selected to be the starting first baseman for the American League in the 1975 All-Star Game.

As a member of the A's, Tenace hit what turned out to be the final home run in the history of Kansas City's Municipal Stadium on September 30, 1972, in a 10–5 Oakland victory over the Kansas City Royals.

San Diego Padres (1977–80)

Tenace was one of several Athletics who became free agents after the 1976 season and participated in a newly created re-entry draft, in which teams acquired the rights to negotiate with veteran free agents. Tenace and teammate Rollie Fingers were the first players from that draft to sign, with both joining the San Diego Padres in December of that year. In four years as a starter with the Padres, his power numbers dropped in part due to the cavernous dimensions of San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium, only reaching 20 home runs once; but his batting eye remained, recording three more seasons of 100 walks, with a career best of 125 in 1977. In 1979, Tenace led National League catchers with a .998 fielding percentage, committing only one error in 94 games. He recorded an on-base percentage of over .390 in each of his years in San Diego, and finished third in the National League in that department in three consecutive years.

On August 1, 1979, Tenace was part of a bench-clearing brawl against the Atlanta Braves. After hitting a home run off of pitcher Eddie Solomon, he charged the mound when Solomon apparently said something to him, and the benches cleared. No punches were thrown, and the Braves won 5–4.

St. Louis Cardinals (1981–82)
After the 1980 season, Tenace, Fingers, Bob Shirley, and Bob Geren joined the St. Louis Cardinals in a trade for Terry Kennedy and six minor league players. In his two years in St. Louis, Tenace primarily played against left-handed pitchers, platooning with Darrell Porter. As a member of the Cardinals team he won the 1982 World Series, giving him four World Series rings.

Pittsburgh Pirates (1983)
Tenace played his final season as a utility player and pinch-hitter, appearing in 53 games and batting just .177 with 6 RBI for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1983. He retired after being released the following year in spring training.

Coaching career
Tenace became a coach after retiring as a player. He was touted as a possible managerial candidate during his later years. The Pittsburgh Pirates became strongly interested in the possibility of hiring Tenace as their manager to replace Chuck Tanner. When the year ended, however, Tanner was still the manager, so Tenace became a coach at the Major League level with the Houston Astros in 1986 and 1987, and later coached with the Toronto Blue Jays from 1990 to 1997. When manager Cito Gaston was sidelined with a herniated disc in 1991, Tenace served as the team's interim manager, going 19–14 and keeping Toronto competitive en route to an eventual American League Eastern Division title. He was part of Toronto's World Series-winning teams in 1992 and 1993, giving him six rings in six World Series appearances as a player and a coach. After he left the Jays, he joined the Boston Red Sox organization, serving as hitting coach for their Triple-A affiliate Pawtucket Red Sox in 1999, and Double-A affiliate Trenton Thunder in 2001. He then served as a hitting instructor for the St. Louis Cardinals organization. He was re-hired as the Blue Jays' hitting coach on June 20, 2008, when Cito Gaston replaced John Gibbons as the team's manager. Tenace replaced hitting coach Gary Denbo. He was one of two members of Gaston's old coaching staff from his last World Series championship team who were brought back to the team (third base coach Nick Leyva being the other). He announced his retirement following the 2009 season.

Managerial record

Hitting approach
Tenace advocates a more aggressive approach to hitting. Under his guidance, hitters spend less time working the count and more time preparing to hit. He stresses the mental part of hitting, such as the mental preparation for what a pitcher will do, rather than just the physical aspect. Under Tenace, the philosophy of hitting can be described as "Grip It And Rip It" and more of an old school approach to hitting.

During the 2008 season, prior to the hiring of Gaston, the Blue Jays had a record of 35–39. Once Gaston and his coaches took over the Blue Jays went 51–37 to finish with an 86–76 record. The offensive improvements under Gaston were one of the reasons for the resurgence and as the hitting coach, Tenace was credited with rejuvenating a stagnant offense. Adam Lind commented: "The thing is, a lot of people can teach you how to hit, but not a lot of people can teach you how to hit in the big leagues", referring to the major league experience of Gaston and Tenace. Blue Jays' former center fielder Vernon Wells has said he likes the approach to hitting that Tenace teaches: "One thing Gene talks about is having that approach mentally when you go up there, in your mind you already guarantee yourself that one run on third, but you want to do more than that. Gene always says that first runner is a gimme, you should be able to come through in pretty much every situation like that. And then you try to do more damage than just that one run".

Career statistics
In a 15-year major league career, Tenace played in 1,555 games, accumulating 1,060 hits in 4,390 at bats for a .241 career batting average along with 201 home runs, 674 runs batted in and an on-base percentage of .388. He not only caught nearly 900 games, but also played first base over 600 times. Tenace ended his career with a .986 fielding percentage as a catcher and a .993 fielding percentage as a first baseman. He reached 20 home runs in five of his seven seasons as a regular, with a high of 29 in . After becoming an everyday player in 1973, he did not have an on-base average below .370 until his final year; his OBP was above .400 five times and over .390 (about 60 points above the league average) an additional three times, ending his career with an impressive .388 on-base percentage. Six times he drew more than 100 bases on balls, and he led his league twice. He set the American League record for having the lowest batting average while leading the league in walks in  when he posted a .211 batting average with a league-leading 110 walks. In , he had a .415 on-base percentage while posting a .233 batting average, the second lowest batting average with a .400 on-base percentage in major league history. Less than half of his career trips to first base came via base hits, reaching 1,075 times through walks (984) and being hit by pitches (91) as opposed to only 1,060 hits.

In his book, The Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, baseball historian Bill James ranked Tenace 23rd all-time among major league catchers. Chuck Rosciam, a Baseball historian and a member of the Society for American Baseball Research, believes that Tenace deserves a spot in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Using six offensive measures: Average, On-base percentage, Slugging, RBIs, Runs created and Win shares—all League-Era adjusted, Rosciam ranks Tenace sixth offensively behind Mickey Cochrane, Mike Piazza, Bill Dickey, Gabby Hartnett and Joe Torre among catchers. Tenace is tied for third in OPS (on-base percentage plus slugging percentage) with Johnny Bench and Torre. He's only behind Roy Campanella and Yogi Berra.

Notable achievements

 AL All-Star (1975)
 1972 World Series MVP
 2-time League Bases on Balls Leader (1974/AL & 1977/NL)
 20-Home Run Seasons: 5 (1973–1976 & 1979)
 Caught Vida Blue's no-hitter on September 21, 1970
 Won four World Series as a player with the Oakland Athletics (1972, 1973 & 1974) and the St. Louis Cardinals (1982)
 Won two World Series as a coach with the Toronto Blue Jays (1992 & 1993)

Appearances in other media
 Tenace did a voice cameo in an episode of The Simpsons entitled "Regarding Margie" in 2006.
 Tenace appeared in a television commercial for the Toronto Blue Jays in 2008.
 Tenace was mentioned by sportscaster Champ Kind in the party scene in Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy while describing his signature catchphrase. "Gene Tenace at the plate, and Whammmy!"
 Tenace is portrayed on one of the Floodwall Murals in Portsmouth, Ohio honoring local Major League Baseball players.

References

External links

Baseball Reference (Minors)
Baseball Evolution Hall of Fame
Baseball Gauge
Baseball Library
BR Bullpen
Encyclopedia of Baseball Catchers
Retrosheet
Venezuelan Professional Baseball League

1946 births
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Major League Baseball catchers
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People from West Deer Township, Pennsylvania
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Toronto Blue Jays coaches
Toronto Blue Jays managers Robert Eugene Smith (born May 10, 1974) is a former infielder for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in Major League Baseball. He was drafted in the eleventh round of the 1992 amateur draft by the Atlanta Braves, and was subsequently selected 12th by the Devil Rays in the 1997 MLB Expansion Draft. Bobby is now the hitting instructor in the Arizona Diamondbacks organization.

Early life

Robert “Bobby” Eugene Smith was born on May 10, 1974 in Oakland, California. Bobby was a natural athlete, and he excelled in both basketball and baseball. He was often the best player on the field, and as a youth baseball player he was a six-time all-star and a Bambino League World Series champion. Bobby went to Fremont High School in Oakland, and was a three-year letterman in both Baseball and Basketball. In his Senior year, Bobby was recognized as the Oakland Athletic League’s “Player of the Year,” an award handed out annually to the best ballplayer in the Oakland Unified School district. Bobby was offered, and accepted a full scholarship offer to University of California, Berkeley, but was subsequently selected in the 11th round of the 1992 Major League Baseball Draft by the Atlanta Braves, who he signed with on June 5, 1992 .

Career

Atlanta Braves

Bobby spent 1993 with the Class-A Macon Braves before being brought up to the Class-A advanced Durham Bulls in 1994. It was here that Bobby started to show his potential hitting .266, but slugging 12 homeruns to go along with 18 steals. In 1995, Bobby hit .261 with the Class AA Greenville Braves, slugging 14 homers and swiping 12 bags. He was also regarded as a talented fielder who could play third base and shortstop, as well as outfield. After the season, Baseball America rated him 75th out of the top 100 prospects currently in the minor leagues. In 1996, Smith started the season with the AAA Richmond Braves, and seemed poised for a great season. His numbers dipped from the year before, as he was only able to manage a .256 batting average. His power numbers dipped as well, as he only hit 8 homeruns. However, he did steal 15 bases. After the season, he was removed from baseball America’s top 100. His 1997 season in Richmond did not show much improvement, as he was only able to hit .246. His power numbers, however, rebounded slightly, as he was able to hit 12 homeruns (in 24 less games than the previous season).

Tampa Bay Devil Rays

Bobby was selected twelfth overall by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in the 1997 expansion draft, and in 1998 he made his Major League debut. He was selected for the inaugural roster of the Devil Rays, with his role being defined as the 5th infielder, occasional outfielder, who would spell the aging legend, Wade Boggs at third base. Bobby’s major league debut came in the form of a bottom of the ninth, pinch-hit at-bat for starting center fielder, Quentin McCracken. Bobby singled off of Detroit Tigers reliever Bryce Florie. He would go on to have the best season of his professional career, (Majors or minors) hitting .276, with an on base percentage of .343, and a slugging percentage of .422. Bobby hit 11 homeruns in only 117 games. He was regarded as a player of the future, and a possible building block of the Franchise. After the season, Bobby was named (along with teammate Miguel Cairo) to the 1999 Topps Baseball All-Star Rookie Team.

In 1999 Smith spent as much time with AAA Durham as he did with the big club, hitting only .181 in the majors. In the minors however, Smith hit .333, and slugged .613. Smith hit .234, .105, and .175 in 2000, 2001, and 2002 respectively. In that same time frame, he hit .291, .301, and .239 in the minors, proving himself to be an outstanding Minor Leaguer. His last MLB appearance was May 6, 2002, where he went 0-3 against the Boston Red Sox. Shortly thereafter, Smith was designated for assignment by Tampa Bay.

Minor Leagues

He began his journey through the minors, playing for affiliates of the Milwaukee Brewers, New York Yankees, Chicago White Sox, and Oakland A’s. In 2006, after his second stint with the AAA White Sox affiliate in Charlotte, where he hit .259 with a meager 6 homeruns, Smith retired from baseball at the age of 32.

Smith’s playing days over, he joined the Arizona Diamondbacks as a hitting coach. As of July 18, 2016, he is no longer with their organization.

External links 

1974 births
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