5 Manager Cards that Put Us In Our Place
And Remind Us to Stay Coachable
A few big-name managers have had birthdays over the last week-plus — the late Dicks Howser and Williams, among others — which put me in the mood for some skipper cards.
So, here are a few cards that feel very managerial and carry at least a slight whiff of coach-level disapproval …
1965 Topps Casey Stengel (#187)
“Listen, son…”
Ol’ Casey sure is giving someone an earful here, and you can be sure whoever’s on the other end of that lecture is learning something.
Whether it’s one of the finer points of the game, some important life lesson, or simply to never ask that question again, it’s gotta be a humbling experience.
1983 Topps Frank Robinson (#576)
It’s not that Frank Robinson disapproves of you, really. It’s just that he doesn’t have time for any sort of nonsense.
He has a major league team to run, after all.
And, since we sort of specialize in baseball-ish nonsense around here, that puts us right in F. Robby’s crosshairs.
In case you’ve forgotten on of Robinson’s nicknames as a player, this card should remind you: The Judge.
And then there’s that little matter of his Hall of Fame resume as one of the game’s most fearsome hitters ever, and a trailblazer, to boot.
1984 Topps Dick Williams (#742)
The first major league game I ever attended was a June 1984 tilt between the Reds and Padres at Riverfront Stadium.
By that time, the Pads were shocking everyone with their run to first place in the old National League West, and their right fielder was leading the world in batting.
I was beyond psyched to see all my Reds heroes (Charlie Puleo, baby!). And watching Tony Gwynn and Dave Parker trade spaces each half inning in front of our RF seats was amazing.
But I was completely mesmerized when Dick Williams and Vern Rapp trotted the lineup cards out to home plate before the game.
As far as I could tell, Williams was an ancient wizard resurrected from a remote, frozen mountain peak by a Chthulu Trader Jack incantation on a cold, dark night sometime before the season started.
He was certainly working some medieval magic with the Friars.
As it turns out, Methuselah was just a few weeks past his 55th birthday at the time.
1985 Topps Dick Howser (#334)
The next year, 1985, was maybe my favorite baseball season ever.
Not only was Pete Rose back on the Riverfront all summer long to chase Ty Cobb, but he had the Reds winning.
They were in the race for a division title right up until the last week or two of September, and the Cobra was a legitimate MVP candidate.
Then, when the Reds bowed out, I had a ready-made rooting interest for the postseason in the underdog Kansas City Royals.
It was an incredible October, culminating in the first great World Series of my fan lifetime. The guy at the helm for the Royals was the understated, (mostly) calm, diminutive Dick Howser.
He kept it all together in that crazy Fall Classic against the Cardinals, and his untimely death less than two years later only underscored how much he meant to the team.
1960 Fleer Connie Mack (#14)
And the first shall be last on our list this week.
Because, looking back on baseball history now, it’s hard to distinguish Connie Mack from whoever the first manager was.
Could’ve been Mack, for all I can tell.
And there was a half-century run there where it looked like he might also be the last man standing when the game finally folds up shop in a few millennia.
Dude was the Cal Ripken of managers, and then some.
Humbling, no matter how many terrible teams he guided.
—
So, which skipper cards are your favorites?
And which ones melt you with their steely stares?
I’d love to hear your picks … as long as you remember that Ray Knight in the skipper’s chair was a multiverse glitch that did not actually happen.
Thanks for reading.
—Adam
I have a real sense of privilege having grown up in the shadow of Dodger Stadium in the decade of the 60s. It was a time when many of the games early greats—including Stengel—remained in the game as managers and coaches. As a result, between seeing some of the pioneers of baseball at the helm of ball clubs and others at the annual Old Timers Game, I was privileged to see many of the greats from as far back as the decade of the 20s.
As a Royals fan, I loved that Dick Howser card. I've written about how big of a deal the Royals' 85 title was, basically hooking me as a baseball and Royals fan for life, but he was also one of my first encounters with death as a young kid. Not like I personally knew him or anything. I was lucky that no one close to me died when I was really young, so Howser was one of the first people I cared about that died.
I was also fascinated by the Pete Rose card from the same year because it listed him as 1B-MGR. It kind of blew my mind at the time that a player could manage the team at the same time.