Current:Home > MyJim Leyland elected to baseball’s Hall of Fame, becomes 23rd manager in Cooperstown-LoTradeCoin
Jim Leyland elected to baseball’s Hall of Fame, becomes 23rd manager in Cooperstown
View Date:2024-12-23 20:56:35
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Jim Leyland, who led the Florida Marlins to a World Series title in 1997 and won 1,769 regular-season games over 22 seasons as an entertaining and at-times crusty big league manager, was elected to baseball’s Hall of Fame on Sunday.
Now 78, Leyland received 15 of 16 votes by the contemporary era committee for managers, executives and umpires. He becomes the 23rd manager in the hall.
Former player and manager Lou Piniella fell one vote short for the second time after also getting 11 votes in 2018. Former player, broadcaster and executive Bill White was two shy.
Managers Cito Gaston and Davey Johnson, umpires Joe West and Ed Montague, and general manager Hank Peters all received fewer than five votes.
Leyland managed Pittsburgh, Florida, Colorado and Detroit from 1986 to 2013.
He grew up in the Toledo, Ohio, suburb of Perrysville. He was a minor league catcher and occasional third baseman for the Detroit Tigers from 1965-70, never rising above Double-A and finishing with a .222 batting average, four homers and 102 RBIs.
Leyland coached in the Tigers minor league system, then started managing with Bristol of the Appalachian Rookie League in 1971. After 11 seasons as a minor league manager, he left the Tigers to serve as Tony La Russa’s third base coach with the Chicago White Sox from 1982-85, then embarked on a major league managerial career that saw him take over the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1986-96.
Honest, profane and constantly puffing on a cigarette, Leyland embodied the image of the prickly baseball veteran with a gruff but wise voice. During a career outside the major markets, he bristled at what he perceived as a lack of respect for his teams.
“It’s making me puke,″ he said in 1997. ”I’m sick and tired of hearing about New York and Atlanta and Baltimore.”
Pittsburgh got within one out of a World Series trip in 1992 before Francisco Cabrera’s two-run single in Game 7 won the NL pennant for Atlanta. The Pirates sank from there following the free-agent departures of Barry Bonds and ace pitcher Doug Drabek, and Leyland left after Pittsburgh’s fourth straight losing season in 1996. Five days following his last game, he chose the Marlins over the White Sox, Red Sox and Angels.
Florida won the title the next year in the franchise’s fifth season, the youngest expansion team to earn a championship at the time. But the Marlins sold off veterans and tumbled to 54-108 in 1998, and Leyland left for the Rockies. He quit after one season, saying he lacked the needed passion, and worked as a scout for the St. Louis Cardinals.
“I did a lousy job my last year of managing,″ Leyland said then. ”I stunk because I was burned out. When I left there, I sincerely believed that I would not manage again. ... I always missed the competition, but the last couple of years — and this stuck in my craw a little bit — I did not want my managerial career to end like that.”
He replaced Alan Trammell as Tigers manager ahead of the 2006 season and stayed through 2013, winning a pair of pennants.
Leyland’s teams finished first six times and went 1,769-1,728. He won American League pennants in 2006, losing to St. Louis in a five-game World Series, and 2012, getting swept by San Francisco. Leyland was voted Manager of the Year in 1990, 1992 and 2006, and he managed the U.S. to the 2017 World Baseball Classic championship, the Americans’ only title.
He also was ejected 73 times, tied with Clark Griffith for 10th in major league history.
___
AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb
veryGood! (19)
Related
- Quincy Jones laid to rest at private family funeral in Los Angeles
- Louisiana and Amtrak agree to revive train service between New Orleans, Baton Rouge
- 'Breakfast Club' host DJ Envy is being sued for alleged investment fraud
- Why Bachelor Nation's Catherine Lowe Credits Husband Sean Lowe for Helping to Save Their Son's Life
- 'Yellowstone's powerful opening: What happened to Kevin Costner's John Dutton?
- Travis Kelce Dances to Taylor Swift's Shake It Off at the World Series
- AP Top 25: Oklahoma slips to No. 10; Kansas, K-State enter poll; No. 1 UGA and top 5 hold steady
- 3 Sumatran tiger cubs have been born at a zoo in Nashville
- Stop What You're Doing—Moo Deng Just Dropped Her First Single
- 6 people were killed and 40 injured when two trains collided in southern India
Ranking
- Mike Tyson vs. Jake Paul VIP fight package costs a whopping $2M. Here's who bought it.
- Most Palestinians in Gaza are cut off from the world. Those who connect talk of horror, hopelessness
- Thousands of Ukrainians run to commemorate those killed in the war
- Moms for Liberty unexpectedly finds itself at the center of a heated suburban Indiana mayoral race
- Kentucky woman seeking abortion files lawsuit over state bans
- Biden supporters in New Hampshire soon to announce write-in effort for primary
- Colombian police continue search for father of Liverpool striker Díaz
- Florida’s ‘Fantasy Fest’ ends with increased emphasis on costumes and less on decadence
Recommendation
-
Drone footage captures scope of damage, destruction from deadly Louisville explosion
-
NASCAR Martinsville playoff race 2023: Start time, TV, streaming, lineup for Xfinity 500
-
C.J. Stroud's exceptional start for Texans makes mockery of pre-NFL draft nonsense
-
Adel Omran, Associated Press video producer in Libya, dies at 46
-
'Bizarre:' Naked man arrested after found in crawl space of California woman's home
-
Here's what Speaker Mike Johnson says he will and won't bring to the House floor
-
Man sentenced to jail in Ohio fishing tournament scandal facing new Pennsylvania charges
-
San Diego ranks as most expensive US city with LA and Santa Barbara in the top five