In a different time, in a different era, in a whole different world, the death of Don Zimmer would have warranted more than just a few seconds on the radio sports channel and a few lines in the paper. Back when baseball really was the national pastime--back before the car wrecks that are football games and the betting frenzy that is March Madness grabbed sports viewers by their throats--Donald William Zimmer was one of the more recognizable faces in sports.
And what a face.
If he didn't have a big ol' chaw in his cheeks--cheeks, plural--then he certainly looked as if he did. This baseball lifer had the forearms of Popeye and the belly of Brutus. And nothing at all in common with Olive Oyl.
What a life. What character. And what some of us wouldn't give to spend 66 years playing and managing on the diamond.
Sixty-six years. That's 66 times that April arrived with hope for every team in the bigs, and not only the bigs. That's 66 times the pennant was in reach. That's 66 times the warm days returned, and men appeared on the ballfields, seemingly out of nowhere, popping gloves and spitting into the dirt. And 66 times hope ran out at Wrigley Field.
That's 66 times that Don Zimmer put on some cleats and a uniform and walked across fresh grass. For in baseball, unlike the other sports, the coaches and managers wear uniforms, too. As God intended.
The Tampa Bay Rays announced his death last week at 83. But the Rays were just the latest team he worked for/ran. He was the Forrest Gump of baseball.
Don Zimmer got his first shot in the majors in 1954, filling in for a Dodger named Pee Wee Reese. Early in his career, Zim was hit by a pitched ball and lay unconscious in a hospital bed for the better part of two weeks. He was one of the last of the old-timers to walk to the plate without a batting helmet. But even the majors' management finally proved educable. Soon after Don Zimmer's injury--and others like it around the big leagues and minor ones--baseball adopted new rules to protect batters, especially their heads.
Don Zimmer was the manager of the year in 1989 when he led the Cubs to a division championship. Yes, those Cubs--the ones who play at Wrigley Field. They were a miserable team before he got there and even worse after he left. Not even Don Zimmer could help them in the end.
He was also the manager of the Red Sox for several years in the 1970s, including '78 when the Yankees made that great/awful comeback in their division. After 162 games, the two rivals were tied atop the standings, and the Yankees beat the Sox in a play-off game, continuing the Sox's history of misery. (Which wouldn't subside for another 30 years.)
Donald Zimmer did have his soft side. He married his high-school sweetheart, Soot, in 1951. At a ballpark. A marriage that would last the rest of his life.
Young 'uns today might only remember Zim as the fat old man who was thrown to the ground by Pedro Martinez during a bench-clearing brawl between the Red Sox and Yankees in 2003.
Oh, that man.
Yes, kids, that man. But for years that man was the face, or at least one of the faces, of baseball. Every bit as much as Lou Brock or Billy Martin or Tommy Lasorda or Reggie Jackson or Johnny Bench or . . . .
Don't get us started--'cause it's already too late to stop us. When memory kicks in, it tends to go into overdrive.
Let's just say that Donald W. Zimmer belonged to the Harry Caray era rather than the Joe Buck one. You pays your money and you takes your chances when it comes to which you prefer. As for us, all we can say just now is:
Rest easy, Zim.
Or better yet, play ball. Where you're at, there are no rainouts.
Editorial on 06/09/2014