Gereing Up for the Afterlife

Don Zimmer, the one Yankee Pedro Martinez was not referring to when he called them his daddy, has died of heart and kidney problems at the age of 83. Baseball’s version of Forrest Gump, Zimmer spent 66 years as a player, manager, coach and fixture, proudly boasting that he never cashed a paycheck not directly related to the game. He played with Jackie Robinson, was a member of the Brooklyn Dodgers when they finally reached next year with the 1955 World Series Championship, and helped expand the game to the West Coast as a member of the first Los Angeles Dodgers team three years later. He was an original member of the New York Mets in 1962, going 0-for-34 for the worst team in major league history before getting traded to Cincinnati. As a manager, he cost the San Diego Padres their first no-hitter by re-positioning players with 2 outs in the 9^th, resulting in the game’s first hit; the Padres still await that elusive no-no. As the Red Sox third base coach, he almost blew Game 6 of the 1975 World Series when his “No, no, no,” was misheard as “Go, go, go,” and Denny Doyle got himself thrown out at the plate. Not satisfied, he blew a 14-game lead as manager of the 1978 Red Sox, then started a rookie pitcher rather than aces Bill Lee (the man who dubbed him Gerbil) or Luis Tiant in the 1-game playoff helping to cost them the division title. He won a surprise division title with the 1989 Chicago Cubs, earning Manager of the Year honors. He was a coach in the inaugural season of the Colorado Rockies in 1993, the first MLB expansion in 16 years. And in his third go-round as a coach with the New York Yankees, he was Joe Torre’s right-hand man for 4 World Series championships, filling in for Torre as manager when he was being treated for prostate cancer in 1999, the one year in 5 they didn’t win it all. In 2003, at the age of 72, during a shoving match in a Red Sox-Yankees playoff game, he took a run at Martinez, who threw him to the turf at Fenway Park to the delight of fans. In 2011, then coaching for the Tampa Bay Rays, he left the bench in the 6^th inning of the last game of the season, as any good baseball man would be apt to do, and on his drive home, decided to turn around to say his goodbyes, arriving in time to see the Rays rally to win the game and make the playoffs. All of it almost never happened, as he was nearly killed in a 1953 minor league game when he was hit with a pitch, sustaining a fractured skull and spending two weeks in a coma. The incident helped push MLB to make batting helmets available, but Zimmer, a once-promising prospect, was reduced to role player status. Almost 50 years later, he was hit by a foul ball in the dugout of a game, prompting the Yankees to install protective fences, a move that was duplicated by most other teams.