| Bobby Bragan | |
|---|---|
 Bragan as manager of the Braves in 1963. | |
| Shortstop /Catcher /Manager | |
| Born:(1917-10-30)October 30, 1917 Birmingham, Alabama, U.S. | |
| Died: January 21, 2010(2010-01-21) (aged 92) Fort Worth, Texas, U.S. | |
Batted: Right Threw: Right | |
| MLB debut | |
| April 16, 1940, for the Philadelphia Phillies | |
| Last MLB appearance | |
| June 27, 1948, for the Brooklyn Dodgers | |
| MLB statistics | |
| Batting average | .240 |
| Home runs | 15 |
| Runs batted in | 172 |
| Managerial record | 443–478 |
| Winning % | .481 |
Stats atBaseball Reference  | |
| Managerial record at Baseball Reference | |
| Teams | |
| As player As manager As coach | |
Robert Randall Bragan (October 30, 1917 – January 21, 2010) was an Americanshortstop,catcher,manager, andcoach inMajor League Baseball and an influentialminor league executive. His professionalbaseball career encompassed 73 years, from his first season as a player in the Class DAlabama–Florida League in 1937, to 2009, the last full year of his life, when he was still listed as a consultant to theTexas Rangers' organization.
Bragan played eight seasons with thePhiladelphia Phillies andBrooklyn Dodgers in the 1940s, before going on to manage thePittsburgh Pirates,Cleveland Indians andMilwaukee/Atlanta Braves in the late 1950s and 1960s. He also managed in theCuban League, leadingAlmendares to two championships.
On August 16, 2005, Bragan donned a uniform to manage theindependentCentral LeagueFort Worth Cats for one game, making him—at 87 years, nine months, and 16 days old—the oldest manager in professional baseball annals, besting by one weekConnie Mack, the manager and part-owner of thePhiladelphia Athletics from 1901 through 1950. Always known as an innovator with a sense of humor—and an umpire-baiter—Bragan was ejected in the third inning of his "comeback", thus also becoming the oldest person in any capacity to be ejected from a professional baseball game.
Bragan died on January 21, 2010, of aheart attack at his home inFort Worth.[1][2][3]
Bragan was born inBirmingham, Alabama. After three years of minor-league seasoning, he began his seven-year (1940–44; 1947–48) Major League playing career as a shortstop for thePhiladelphia Phillies, but by1943, his first season with theBrooklyn Dodgers, he had learned how tocatch and was for the most part a backup receiver for the Dodgers for the remainder of his MLB playing days. A right-handed batter listed as 5 feet 10 inches (1.78 m) tall and 175 pounds (79 kg), Braganhit .240 in 597 games, with 456hits and 15 careerhome runs. Bragan missed the 1945–46 seasons performing military service. He was commissioned alieutenant in theUnited States Army and was stationed atCamp Wheeler,Georgia.[4] In his onlyWorld Series appearance, in1947 against theNew York Yankees, he appeared in Game 6 as apinch hitter; batting forRalph Branca in the sixthinning with the game tied at five all, hedoubled off Yankeerelief pitcherJoe Page todrive homeCarl Furillo with the eventual winning run.[5] Bragan's hit gave him a perfect 1.000 career batting average in World Series play.
During his Major League managerial career, Bragan never skippered a game past his 49th birthday. He managed thePittsburgh Pirates (1956–57),Cleveland Indians (1958),[6] andMilwaukee / Atlanta Braves (1963–66),[7] each time getting fired in the mid-season of his final campaign. In Cleveland, he lasted a total of only 67 games of his maiden season before his dismissal—at the time of his firing, his was the shortest managerial stint in team history.[8] His career big-league managerialwon–lost record was below .500: 443–478 (.481).[9] He was the Braves' pilot during the transitional period when they relocated fromMilwaukee toAtlanta. Bragan also was a Major League coach for theLos Angeles Dodgers (1960) andHouston Colt .45s (1962).
Despite his lack of success in the majors, Bragan was highly respected as a minor league manager, winning championships in 1948 and 1949 withFort Worth of theDouble-ATexas League during a successful 41⁄2-year run, and with the 1953Hollywood Stars of theOpen-ClassificationPacific Coast League. A photograph of Bragan lying at the feet of an umpire who had ejected him, still arguing, was published inLife magazine at the time.Baseball Hall of Fame managerDick Williams, who played for Bragan at Fort Worth from 1948 to 1950, lauded Bragan in his Cooperstown induction speech in 2008, and wrote, in his autobiography: "There should be a note under every one of my [managerial] records that says 'See Bobby Bragan.' Because a bit of every one of my wins belongs to him."[10]
Bragan was a protégé ofBranch Rickey, the Hall of Fame front-office executive, who hired him as an unproven young manager at Fort Worth in 1948. Then 30 years old, Bragan had started the 1948 season with the Dodgers but played sparingly, getting into only nine games (starting two) through June 27, and collecting only two hits in a dozenat-bats. When Rickey wanted to make room forRoy Campanella, who was starring in the minors, he offered Bragan the Fort Worth managerial job; he took over in July 1948, and remained with the Cats through 1952. Then, in 1953, Rickey, by now heading the Pittsburgh front office, brought Bragan to Hollywood and the Pirates' organization.
Bragan had clashed with Rickey in1947 over the Dodgers' breaking of thebaseball color line after the big-league debut ofJackie Robinson. Bragan—the Dodgers' second-string catcher at the time—was one of a group of white players, largely from the AmericanSouth, who signed a petition against Robinson's presence. He even asked Rickey to trade him. But Bragan quickly relented. "After just one road trip, I saw the quality of Jackie the man and the player", Bragan told MLB.com in 2005. "I told Mr. Rickey I had changed my mind and I was honored to be a teammate of Jackie Robinson." When Bragan attended Rickey's funeral in 1965, he stated he decided to attend because, "Branch Rickey made me a better man."[11]
As a manager, Bragan earned a reputation for "color-blindedness." When he was the skipper of the Dodgers'Triple-ASpokane Indians PCL farm club in1959, he played a pivotal role in helpingMaury Wills, a speedyAfrican-American shortstop, rise to Major League stardom. Wills' baseball career had stalled in the Dodgers' farm system until he learned toswitch hit under Bragan. Said the Dodgers' then-general manager,Buzzie Bavasi, "Bobby would call six times a day and tell me over again how Wills had learned to switch-hit and how he was a great team leader, off and on the field, and how I was absolutely nuts if I didn't bring him up right away."[12] Afterbatting .313 in 48 games with Spokane in 1959, Wills was promoted to the Dodgers in June and proceeded to win the regular shortstop job. He would fashion a 14-year MLB career, play on three world champions, make sevenNL All-Star teams, and in1962 win theNational League Most Valuable Player Award and set a new record forstolen bases in a season, with 104 thefts, breakingTy Cobb's 47-year-old mark.
In his 1976 memoirThe Lords of Baseball, longtime Dodger executive Harold Parrott would claim that Bragan's hiring by theBraves in 1963 was orchestrated by Rickey to thwart a plan by Dodger ownerWalter O'Malley to replace his manager, eventual Hall of FamerWalter Alston, withLeo Durocher. Alston had come under withering criticism for failing to win the1962 National Leaguepennant but O'Malley decided he would make the move on hiring Durocher only if he could find a suitable "soft landing spot" for Alston, who had managed his club for nine seasons and, to that point, had won three NL flags and twoWorld Series titles. The owner chose Milwaukee, fading as contenders and with a managerial vacancy to fill, as Alston's ideal destination. According to Parrott's memoir, Rickey—then in semi-retirement but still O'Malley's bitter enemy—discovered the scheme and brokered the marriage between Bragan and the Braves' ownership before O'Malley's plan could materialize. Alston kept his job in Los Angeles and led the 1963 Dodgers to theworld championship for his third Series triumph; he would remain at the Dodger helm through 1976, win three additional pennants and, in 1965, his fourth and final world title.[13]
| Team | Year | Regular season | Postseason | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Games | Won | Lost | Win % | Finish | Won | Lost | Win % | Result | ||
| PIT | 1956 | 154 | 66 | 88 | .429 | 7th in NL | – | – | – | |
| PIT | 1957 | 103 | 36 | 67 | .350 | Fired | – | – | – | |
| PIT total | 0 | 0 | 0 | – | 0 | 0 | – | |||
| CLE | 1958 | 67 | 31 | 36 | .463 | Fired | – | – | – | |
| CLE total | 67 | 31 | 36 | .463 | 0 | 0 | – | |||
| MIL | 1963 | 162 | 84 | 78 | .519 | 6th in NL | – | – | – | |
| MIL | 1964 | 162 | 88 | 74 | .543 | 5th in NL | – | – | – | |
| MIL | 1965 | 162 | 86 | 76 | .531 | 5th in NL | – | – | – | |
| ATL | 1966 | 111 | 52 | 59 | .468 | Fired | – | – | – | |
| MIL/ ATL total | 597 | 310 | 287 | .519 | 0 | 0 | – | |||
| Total[14] | 921 | 443 | 478 | .481 | 0 | 0 | – | |||
Bragan scouted for the newbornMontreal Exposexpansion franchise in 1968, and that October he agreed to return to uniform as a coach onGene Mauch's staff for the team's maiden National League season in1969.[15] But before spring training could begin, in February 1969, Bragan stepped down to become president of the Double-A Texas League.[16] He was one of four color commentators used by the Expos during the 1972 season.[17]
AFort Worth resident since 1948, Bragan spent seven seasons as president of the Texas League. His appointment came during a period of contraction and low attendance for minor league baseball; in 1971, the Texas circuit—down to only seven members when theEl Paso franchise withdrew—temporarily merged with theSouthern League to form the 14-clubDixie Association. The following season, however, El Paso returned to the Texas League, and Bragan's circuit successfully weathered the defection of two successful franchises,Dallas–Fort Worth, who jumped all the way from Double-A to theAmerican League, andAlbuquerque, who moved up to the Triple-A Pacific Coast League. With eight member clubs each, the Texas and Southern leagues resumed their former identities and were poised to capitalize on the attendance boom in the minor leagues that would follow during the 1980s.
Bragan's achievements were recognized during the 1975–76 offseason when he was elected president of the minor leagues' governing body, the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues, headquartered inSaint Petersburg, Florida. He spent three full years as president of the minor leagues before he and his wife Gwenn returned to Fort Worth, where he joined theTexas Rangers' front office in 1979. He continued to make appearances and speaking engagements on behalf of the ballclub well into his eighties.
After Gwenn Bragan's death in 1983, Bobby married Roberta Beckman. It was Roberta who suggested to Bobby that he establish a scholarship foundation to encourage youth to do well in school and go on to college. With the financial seed money provided by Roberta, the Bobby Bragan Youth Foundation (BBYF) was established in 1991.
Roberta Beckman Bragan died in 1993. Bobby married Betty Bloxam in 1995 and the two stayed together until his death.
As he passed his 90th birthday, Bragan continued an active schedule, as the Chairman of the Bobby Bragan Youth Foundation and making numerous appearances for civic organizations and businesses, including his beloved Fort Worth Cats as well as in schools, where he enjoyed entertaining and motivating students.
Each year, theBobby Bragan Youth Foundation honors outstanding athletes and executives for the achievements on and off of the playing field at the annual Bobby Bragan Gala to raise funds for the scholarships. Honorees have included Joe DiMaggio, Hank Aaron, Larry King, Tommy Lasorda, Bobby Valentine, Bud Selig,Willie Mays,Lou Brock andBrooks Robinson.
Bragan came from a baseball family. Five of the six Bragan boys played baseball professionally. His brotherJimmy was a minor league player and longtime coach andscout in Major League Baseball who himself was president of the Double-A Southern League during the 1980s. His brother Peter owned and operated theJacksonville Suns of the Southern League for more than 25 years, and his son, Bobby Bragan Jr., operated theElmira ball club in theNew York–Penn League.
| Sporting positions | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Fort Worth Catsmanager 1948–1952 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Hollywood Starsmanager 1953–1955 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Spokane Indiansmanager 1958–1959 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by Hugh Finnerty | Texas Leaguepresident 1969–1975 | Succeeded by |
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |