We Are a Fatality

Chuck Tanner, the manager traded for a catcher, has died at the age of approximately 80. Tanner was an amiable baseball man fated to deal with jackasses like Dick Allen and Wilbur Wood, who he coaxed to an MVP award and a 24-win season, respectively, Charlie O. Finley, who hired him for a season then traded him for Manny Sanguillen as part of the house cleaning. All of which prepared him to deal with the collection of cranks reprobates on the 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates, including Dave Parker, Bert Blyleven, Willie Stargell and Bill Madlock. We Are Family was more like We Are Fraternity, with tales of baseball Annies and drugs filling the pages of a tell-all, but the team could flat out play, winning 98 games, sweeping Cincinnati in the NLCS and then rallying from a 3 games to 1 deficit to win the World Series. After being fired by the Pirates, Tanner wrapped his career with the unfathomably nice Dale Murphy in Atlanta, and lost 89, 92 and were on the way to 106 losses when he got fired. Nice guys really do finish last.