Will we see another player/manager or player/coach?

Very interesting.

 

I see your point, Joe. But to use Konerko as an example since Meatie Pie brought him up, I don't know if Konerko is batting 056 against anyone and most folks know he's pretty clutch.
Additionally, I think Konerko would pinch hit for himself if his skills had sank to that level.

But this is just one hypothetical based on the character of one individual.

 

It's possible it would happen again in baseball. The Frank Robinson deal was a thing apart. First, he was the first African American manager, and WOW did baseball want that to happen. Second, he was always going to be a DH, and in the first years of the DH, the feeling inside baseball was that the DH was a part-time job anyway.
The obvious thing is, no team would make a player a player-manager unless said player was really good. That goes back to the dead ball era.
Nobody ever talks about a pitcher-manager, yet that makes so much more sense in some ways. He's off four of every five games after all.

 

Konerko is batting just .136 against Greinke, with 17 strikeouts.
Of course, I don't ever envision a situation that Greinke is still in the game in the above scenario. Not that I envision a player/manager being put in the above situation either. Bit the point being, 1. Every player has a weakness, or someone who has their number. 2. They all have egos. and 3. There are going to be these little situations come up that to be a manager you have to think like a manager, and take the player part out of it. It's tough enough for managers to make the right call in a lot of those situations.

 

Bucky Harris might have been the worst starter on the 1924 Senators and was never a particularly good player.

 

I believe it has happened more recently in soccer, but there too it has fallen out of use

 

I have said in the past that I think Jeter could do a better job managing the Yankees than Girardi.

 

MVP andManager of the Year

 

Prior to Rose, I believe the last one had been F. Robby a decade earlier. Before that, I think it was Lou Boudreau in the late 40s. So it wasn't like player-managers had been gradually dying out -- they've been almost extinct for 50 years.

I don't think there's any allegations Rose played himself in order to dump games to win bets -- that would have been too obvious.

The main thing was he kept playing his own washed-up has-been ass in order to get over the finish line to get Cobb's record.

 

Don Kessinger of the White Sox was the last player-manager in the AL, for the White Sox in 78-79.

 

Jimmy Spencer with the Broncos was it. He had the dual role of player/assistant DB coach in 2003, and was solely a position coach for three years thereafter before Mike Shanahan grew weary of him, as he eventually does with all defensive coaches.

 

Yeah, I thought there were a couple others. Joe Torre, now that I think of it.