Monday, October 25, 2010
Washington and the oldest first-time World Series managers
Posted by Chris JaffeRon Washington was born April 29, 1952, which mean’s he’ll be 58 years and just shy of six months old when he fills out his first World Series lineup card this week. That’s pretty old for a first time Fall Classic skipper.
2010's old rookie
How does it compare historically? Well, it turns out he’s the eighth oldest rookie skipper in the Series. Here are the ones even older than Washington, with the teams they ran, and their approximate ages (you might quibble on some of the months, but close enough) as well:
1) Jack McKeon, 2003 Marlins, age 72 years and 10 months
2) Charlie Manuel, 2008 Phillies, age 64 years and nine months.
3) Burt Shotton, 1947 Dodgers, just shy of his 63rd birthday.
4) Fred Haney, 1957 Braves, 61 years and five months.
5) Paul Owens, 1983 Phillies, 59 years and eight months
6) Roger Craig, 1989 Giants, 59 years and eight months (he was slightly younger than Owens was
7) Casey Stengel, 1949 Yankees, 58 years and two months.
Those men went 4-3 in their debut Series (McKeon, Manuel, Haney and Stengel won).
Let’s see how Washington does.
History instructor by day, statnerd by night, Chris Jaffe leads one of the most exciting double lives imaginable; with the exception of every other double life possible to imagine. Despite his lack of comic-book-hero-worthiness, Chris enjoys farting around with this stuff. His new book, Evaluating Baseball's Managers is available for order. Chris welcomes responses to his articles via e-mail.
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