He was out of baseball until the middle of the 1958 season. On July 22, with the team in seventh place, the Phillies fired Mayo Smith and brought Sawyer back to manage. The gamble fizzled, as the 1958 Phils dropped 40 of 70 games under Sawyer to finish last, and then placed last again in 1959. The second baseman on the 1959 Phillies roster was Sparky Anderson, in his only season in the Majors as a player before he went on to be a Hall of Fame skipper.