Heart break:Jimy Williams Red Sox manager involve……..
There was something very Forrest Gump-ian about former Red Sox manager Jimy Williams, who passed away on Friday at 80 years old after a brief illness.
Williams’ professional baseball career spanned five decades and included playing, coaching, or managing stints with a third of Major League Baseball’s 30 franchises, including championship seasons with the ’95 Braves and ’08 Phillies. Bobby Doerr scouted him, Sandy Koufax struck him out in his first big-league at-bat, Juan Marichal gave up his first big-league hit. Williams was teammates with Curt Flood and Lou Brock, played summer ball with Tom Seaver in Alaska, and was Fernando Valenzuela’s skipper in Mexican Winter League. He managed Nomar Garciaparra to Rookie of the Year and Pedro Martinez to his second and third Cy Young Awards, traded barbs with Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, and caused a United States president to run onto the field during a postseason game.
In the afterglow of 2004, 2007, 2013, and 2018, it’s easy to forget that Williams was instrumental in building the foundation; his late-90s Red Sox propelled Boston into a new millennium and eventual glory. And few remember that his connection to the Red Sox began decades earlier. They were his first professional organization, albeit briefly. A star infielder at Fresno State in the 1960s, the California native signed with Boston after graduation – Doerr and Glenn Wright were credited with scouting him – but only played one season in their system before the Cardinals took him in the ’65 Rule 5 Draft. Over the next two seasons, he played all of his 14 career big-league games with St. Louis, but spent most of his playing time in the minors. (The Cardinals recalled him for one contest in September 1967, technically making him a member of the team that destroyed Boston’s Impossible Dream the following month.)
Williams’ true impact on the Red Sox came almost exactly 30 years later. He returned to his first organization on Nov. 19, 1996, hired by general manager Dan Duquette to replace ousted manager Kevin Kennedy.
The new skipper’s uniqueness and quirkiness were on display from his first day on the job. His Red Sox introductory press conference will forever be remembered for one line: “If a frog had wings, he wouldn’t bump his booty.” It was one of many perplexing aphorisms Williams spouted over the years.
Williams inherited a chaotic clubhouse. Duquette and Mo Vaughn had been feuding for years. The GM had also made a catastrophic error by saying that 33-year-old Roger Clemens was in “the twilight of his career.” The three-time Cy Young winner departed for Toronto, where he immediately got his revenge in the form of Cy Youngs No. 4 and No. 5 in ’97 and ’98, and two more with the ’01 Yankees and
