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Don Zimmer (1931 - 2014)

Frayed Knot Jun 04 2014 07:29 PM

As usual, Marty Noble supplies the best words

Mets Guy in Michigan Jun 04 2014 08:21 PM Re: Don Zimmer (1931 - 2014)

An original Met -- and one of the first players in a Mets uniform on a Topps card -- and he was on a Reds card!

G-Fafif Jun 04 2014 08:31 PM Re: Don Zimmer (1931 - 2014)

...

Edgy MD Jun 04 2014 08:40 PM Re: Don Zimmer (1931 - 2014)

So beloved during his tenure as Cubs manager that he was simultaneously endorsing a fast food fried chicken joint and a diet program.

G-Fafif Jun 04 2014 08:47 PM Re: Don Zimmer (1931 - 2014)

Zim's eyes pretty much offer a scouting report of the '62 Mets.

MFS62 Jun 04 2014 09:12 PM Re: Don Zimmer (1931 - 2014)

Zip, I'll remember you as a Brooklyn Dodger and an original New York Met. I'll forgive you for going over to the dark side to become a major portion of Joe Torre's baseball I.Q. later in your career. R.I.P. Later

batmagadanleadoff Jun 04 2014 09:39 PM Re: Don Zimmer (1931 - 2014)

metsguyinmichigan wrote: An original Met -- and one of the first players in a Mets uniform [crossout]on a Topps card -- and he was on a Reds card![/crossout] ... was the first player ever to put on a Mets uniform, according to Zim himself. It's probably true, too.

batmagadanleadoff Jun 04 2014 09:50 PM Re: Don Zimmer (1931 - 2014)

Here's a shot from the first photo session that captured the Mets new uniforms. [fimg=411:1b0f8lbc]http://www.baseballcardstars.com/zimfiles/zimphotos/zimmer_tommy.jpg[/fimg:1b0f8lbc]

Zvon Jun 04 2014 10:04 PM Re: Don Zimmer (1931 - 2014)

I'll miss this man. A character of the game.

Benjamin Grimm Jun 05 2014 06:40 AM Re: Don Zimmer (1931 - 2014)

At the time of his death, Zimmer was the tenth-oldest living Met. Willie Mays takes over his spot in the Top Ten, and Willard Hunter moves into the Top Twenty. Player Birth Date Age Berra, Lawrence Peter (Yogi) May 12, 1925 89 years, 24 days Hillman, Darius Dutton (Dave) September 14, 1927 86 years, 265 days Thomas, Frank Joseph (Frank) June 11, 1929 84 years, 359 days Pignatano, Joseph Benjamin (Joe) August 4, 1929 84 years, 305 days Piersall, James Anthony (Jimmy) November 14, 1929 84 years, 203 days Craig, Roger Lee (Roger) February 17, 1930 84 years, 108 days Landrith, Hobart Neal (Hobie) March 16, 1930 84 years, 81 days Lary, Frank Strong (Frank) April 10, 1930 84 years, 56 days Friend, Robert Bartmess (Bob) November 24, 1930 83 years, 193 days Zimmer, Donald William (Don) January 17, 1931 83 years, 138 days Mays, Willie May 6, 1931 83 years, 30 days Marshall, Rufus James (Jim) May 25, 1931 83 years, 11 days Sherry, Norman Burt (Norm) July 16, 1931 82 years, 325 days Fernandez, Humberto (Chico) March 2, 1932 82 years, 95 days Bressoud, Edward Francis (Ed) May 2, 1932 82 years, 34 days Taylor, Samuel Douglas (Sammy) February 27, 1933 81 years, 98 days Altman, George Lee (George) March 20, 1933 81 years, 77 days Hicks, William Joseph (Joe) April 7, 1933 81 years, 59 days Charles, Edwin Douglas (Ed) April 29, 1933 81 years, 37 days Green, Elijah Jerry (Pumpsie) October 27, 1933 80 years, 221 days =#0080FF]Hunter, Willard Mitchell (Willard) March 8, 1934 80 years, 89 days

Centerfield Jun 05 2014 06:53 AM Re: Don Zimmer (1931 - 2014)

But now instantly moves into the top slot as the newest dead Met. I'll forever associate Zimmer with the Cubs.

Frayed Knot Jun 05 2014 07:19 AM Re: Don Zimmer (1931 - 2014)

Verducci points out the Zelig-like (or Gump-like if you prefer) arc of his life, starting from the time he, as a teenager, met Babe Ruth just a year before he died. He also hung around with and was a partial role model for a ten-years younger Pete Rose back when they were both growing up in Cincinnati. Zimmer went on to play with Jackie Robinson and for Casey Stengel. Was part of the team which lost the most games in a single year ('62 Mets) and the one which won the most ('98 Yanx). Played in Brooklyn's only championship and in LA's first. Was on the right side of Carlton Fisk's HR and the wrong end of Bucky Dent's Managed the star-crossed Cubs to a 1st place finish and the equally star-crossed Red Sox to a tie for one - but of course got no further than that. He was there for the first game in Rockies history, the first night game at Wrigley Field, the George Brett pine tar game, and all three prefect games at Yanqui Stadium

HahnSolo Jun 05 2014 10:03 AM Re: Don Zimmer (1931 - 2014)

I remember Zim most for seemingly pushing every right button in leading the Cubs to the '89 NL East crown.

G-Fafif Jun 05 2014 04:03 PM Re: Don Zimmer (1931 - 2014)

Angell on Zimmer: Don Zimmer, who died yesterday at eighty-three, was an original Met and an original sweetie pie. His sixty-six years in baseball were scripted by Disney and produced by Ken Burns. (Grainy black-and-white early footage, tinkly piano, as he marries for life at local home plate in bushy, front-porchy Elmira, New York; smiling baggy-pants young teammates raise bats to form arch.) As a stubby, earnest third baseman and utility infielder, he compiled a .235 batting average over twelve seasons for six teams, including the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers, the Chicago Cubs, those 1962 ur-Mets, and the Washington Senators. In the off-seasons, he played ball in Puerto Rico and Cuba and Mexico. Turning coach, he was hired eleven times by eight different teams (there were three separate stints with the Yankees) and along the way managed the Padres, Red Sox, Rangers, and Cubs. Two championship rings as a player with the Dodgers, four as a coach with the Yanks. He finished up with the Rays, in his home-town Tampa: a coach, then a local presence. But never mind Disney: only baseball could have produced a C.V. like this, and it’s not likely to happen again. I think Zim is best remembered as the guy right next to manager Joe Torre on the right-hand side of the Yankees dugout in the good years: a motionless thick, short figure, heavily swathed in Yankee formals. The bulky dark warmup jacket and the initialled cap neatly and monastically framed his layered white moon-face, within which his tiny, half-hidden eyes remained alive and moving. He could also run and yell, of course. Boston fans—no, fans everywhere—will not forget the night he charged Pedro Martinez on the mound in that Fenway Park playoff fracas in 2003—and instantly wound up on his back, like a topped-over windup toy. Zim burned hard, and the hoots and yells and laughter that ran through the fiercely partisan Back Bay stands were familial and affectionate. Zim sitting is the way he comes back to mind, for me. Like a few other old coaches, he had converted clubhouse silence and immobility—elbows on knees, hands folded, head aimed forward and downward, lips zipped—into something like a regional religious practice. If he caught your gaze as you walked past the coaches’ little anteroom on your way to Joe Torre’s office after another late game—he was down to sweats and clogs by now—he might manage an infinitesimal nod of recognition. Yep … same old. Our universal affection for Zim is complicated, beginning as it does with our childlike joy in his bald cannonball head and stumpy bod and jack-o’-lantern grin, but encompassing as well, I think, a deep trust in and respect for his decades of exemplary competitive service, without stardom or contemporary distraction. He was a baseball figure from an earlier time: enchantingly familiar, tough and enduring, stuffed with plays and at-bats and statistics and anecdotes and wisdom accrued from tens of thousands of innings. Baseball stays on and on, unchanged, or so we used to think as kids, and Zimmer, sitting there, seemed to be telling us yes, you’re right, and see you tomorrow.

Edgy MD Jun 05 2014 07:50 PM Re: Don Zimmer (1931 - 2014)

I don't know how many of the loving remembrances are mentioning it, but of course he's a rare figure of a member of the Yankee "family" who finally told Steinbrenner to stick it and walked away.

Frayed Knot Jun 05 2014 07:54 PM Re: Don Zimmer (1931 - 2014)

Edgy MD wrote: I don't know how many of the loving remembrances are mentioning it, but of course he's a rare figure of a member of the Yankee "family" who finally told Steinbrenner to stick it and walked away. After Steinbrenner had ordered YES not to show Zim on camera, something which was almost comically stupid considering that he sat shoulder to shoulder with Torre every pitch/every day. With all the warm & fuzzy stories about Zimmer this week, I wonder if that story makes it into the Steinbrenner for H-o-f campaign.

G-Fafif Jun 06 2014 10:40 AM Re: Don Zimmer (1931 - 2014)

Centerfield wrote: I'll forever associate Zimmer with the Cubs. I know what you mean.

Ashie62 Jun 06 2014 04:37 PM Re: Don Zimmer (1931 - 2014)

G-Fafif wrote: Centerfield wrote: I'll forever associate Zimmer with the Cubs. I know what you mean. Moreso a Yankee here...

batmagadanleadoff Jun 09 2014 09:18 AM Re: Don Zimmer (1931 - 2014)

Spicier than Angell: -- Charles Pierce on Zimmer: http://grantland.com/the-triangle/don-z ... and-worse/ excerpt: The passing of Don Zimmer is being celebrated by many old, grizzled baseball guys — and by many young, grizzled baseball guys pretending to be old — as yet another reason to wallow in the weaponized nostalgia that attends so much of the way we talk about baseball. We are reminded (relentlessly) that Zimmer, who died yesterday at 83, “never drew a paycheck outside of baseball,” as though this says something about Zimmer’s character, rather than simply that Zimmer was very fortunate his entire life to stay pretty much in the same job, even in an era in which people are expected to have three or four different careers just to survive. However, in my own experience with Zimmer, which was limited, the fact that he lived his entire life within the baseball bubble was not something that served him well as a human being or, for that matter, as a baseball manager. Because he spent his entire career in the universe of baseball, Zimmer was convinced, as were many of his contemporaries, and far too many players of the present day, that excelling in baseball made you an expert on almost everything else. (My introduction to that came one day on the Red Sox bus when, during an argument over the decision in the Hagler-Leonard fight, longtime coach and eventual Boston manager Joe Morgan played what he firmly believed was his trump card. “Have you asked the guys on this ballclub?” he said. So I should change my mind about the decision in a prize fight based on what Rich Gedman’s opinion was? Baseball is weird that way.) People tell stories about Zimmer’s making great sport of people he caught reading books on the airplane or on the bus. This, too, is a classic Old Baseball Guy trope. Anti-intellectualism is a point of pride, and it always has been. (This attitude is also why Tony La Russa’s law degree is treated within the world of baseball as though La Russa personally split the atom.) In all my experiences with athletes, baseball players are the only ones who have constructed an entire intellectual infrastructure around the notion that, because they have excelled at their sport, prima facie, they are smarter than anyone else about just about everything else. It is a generational kind of hilariously unearned arrogance.

Edgy MD Jun 09 2014 09:25 AM Re: Don Zimmer (1931 - 2014)

Sounds like he's using Zimmer to hammer home a broader point he has to make.

Edgy MD Jun 09 2014 09:57 AM Re: Don Zimmer (1931 - 2014)

Oh, that Charles Pierce.