Chuck Tanner

Tanner would spend his entire Minor League managing career in the Angels' system. In 1963, Tanner began his managerial career with the single-A Quad Cities Angels in the Midwest League. Tanner would spend the next seven season climbing the Angels' organizational ladder and in 1970 he led the AAA Hawaii Islanders to 98 wins in 146 games and a Pacific Coast League pennant. In late September, he received his first major league managing assignment guiding the Chicago White Sox for the final 16 games of the season after the firing of manager Don Gutteridge and interim manager Bill Adair.

With the White Sox, Tanner managed such star players as Wilbur Wood, Carlos May, Bill Melton, and the temperamental Dick Allen. His most successful season with the Sox came in 1972, when he managed them to a close second-place finish behind the eventual World Series champion Oakland Athletics in the American League (AL) Western Division. The pitching staff was led by 24-game winner Wood, whom Tanner had converted from a reliever to a starter. According to Tommy John, "Tanner never liked to use a knuckleballer in relief, because of the way the knuckler danced and moved all over. He solved that by making Wood a starter."[5] Tanner was voted that year's The Sporting News Manager of the Year Award.[2] He also converted Rich "Goose" Gossage from a starting pitcher to a reliever, a role that would lead Gossage to the Hall of Fame.[2] He finished his White Sox career with a record of 401 wins and 414 losses.[4] Tanner was replaced by Paul Richards on December 17, 1975. Bill Veeck, who had repurchased the White Sox, invited Tanner to remain in the organization in a different capacity, but the offer was declined. Tanner still had to be paid $60,000 in each of three remaining years of his White Sox contract.[6]

John said that "Chuck Tanner once told me he never forgot the fact that he was a player. When he became a manager, he remembered how he wanted his manager to treat him."[7]

One day later on December 18, 1975, Tanner was hired to succeed Alvin Dark as manager of the Oakland Athletics.[6] With speedy players such as Bert Campaneris, Bill North, Claudell Washington, and Don Baylor, Tanner made the A's into a running team, stealing an AL league-record 341 bases.[2] Eight players had 20 or more steals, including 51 by pinch runners Matt Alexander (who only came to the plate 30 times) and Larry Lintz (who had one at-bat all season).[1] However, the days of the juggernaut A's of Reggie Jackson and Catfish Hunter had passed with the coming of free agency and Tanner's switch to small-ball couldn't prop up a crumbling dynasty as the team finished second in the AL West, ​2 ¹⁄₂ games behind the Kansas City Royals. He finished his Athletics career with a record of 87 wins and 74 losses.[4]

A's owner Charlie Finley had hoped to secure a manager at a cut rate for at least three years, but ended up in a dispute with Veeck and the American League (AL) over how much each team owed Tanner. AL president Lee MacPhail ruled that the White Sox had to pay most of the $60,000 owed to Tanner for the 1976 season but was released from any contractual obligation for 1977 and 1978.[8]

Tanner returned to his Western Pennsylvania roots when he was traded by the A's to the Pittsburgh Pirates for Manny Sanguillén and $100,000 on November 5, 1976. He succeeded the recently retired Danny Murtaugh as Pirates manager.[8] This was the second instance in major-league history where a manager has been part of a baseball trade (Joe Gordon and Jimmie Dykes were traded for each other in the 1960s; Lou Piniella of the Seattle Mariners was traded to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays almost 30 years later). However, Sanguillén would be traded back to the Pirates in 1978.

He reached the pinnacle of his managerial career in 1979 as the skipper of the Pirates' 1979 World Series champion team. The team included future Hall of Famers, first baseman Willie Stargell and pitcher Bert Blyleven, along with curmudgeonly stars like third baseman Bill Madlock and outfielder Dave Parker. Tanner guided the team together, and the players selected the Sister Sledge hit "We Are Family" as their theme song. The Pirates were able to win the World Series after falling behind three games to one to the Baltimore Orioles. Hall of Fame manager Sparky Anderson wrote of the Pirates, "They do everything with abandon, because that's the way Chuck Tanner wants it. He's an aggressive manager, a manager who doesn’t go by the book. That's why Pittsburgh is such an exciting team."[2] 1979 would be Tanner's only divisional winner as a manager.

Tanner's next few teams would not match his 1979 World Series winner as the 1985 Pittsburgh Drug Trials showed that serious drug problems beset the team—arguably the worst of any major league team. The most famous Pirate affected by his usage was Parker, whose cocaine habit punched a hole in his offensive production in the middle of his career—possibly costing him a chance at Cooperstown. Reliever Rod Scurry had it much worse; his cocaine habit ultimately forced him out of baseball in 1988 and cost him his life in 1992. Following five years of mediocre seasons in which the Pirates neither lost nor won no more than 84 games, but only finished as high as second place in the division once, Tanner was fired following a 104-loss season in 1985.[4] He finished his Pirates career with a record of 711 wins and 685 losses.[4]

Tanner was hired by the Atlanta Braves prior to the 1986 season, but his teams would continue to muddle along near the bottom of their division—finishing last and second to last in the NL West in his two full seasons. Following a 12–27 start to the 1988 season, Tanner was fired by the Braves and replaced by Russ Nixon. He finished his Braves career with a record of 153 wins and 208 losses.[4]