Joe Gordon - Later Years

Later Years

Gordon next became a player-manager with the Pacific Coast League's (PCL) Sacramento Solons in 1951-52. Showing he still had something in the tank, Gordon hit .299 with 43 home runs and 136 RBIs in 148 games in 1951, but tailed off badly in 1952, hitting only .246 with just 16 home runs - his fewest since his WWII-shortened 1946 season. His teams also performed poorly under his direction, winning just over 40% of their games in those two years. Gordon then worked as a scout with the Tigers from 1953-1956. After returning to the PCL to manage the 1956 San Francisco Seals, winning a pennant in 1957, he would go on to manage for four different major league teams.

Gordon began began his major league managing career with the Indians in 1958, but had difficult relations with general manager Frank Lane, who publicly questioned his decisions. After Gordon announced late in 1959, with Cleveland in second place, that he would not return the next season, Lane fired him four days later. However Lane recanted and apologized after negotiations with Leo Durocher broke down and Gordon was rehired. But in the middle of the 1960 season, he was involved in a rare trade between managers, when the Indians traded him to the Tigers for their skipper Jimmy Dykes. After the season, Gordon was hired by the Kansas City Athletics for 1961. However, owner Charlie Finley fired him mid-year, and Gordon became a scout and minor league instructor for the Los Angeles and California Angels from 1961 to 1968. In 1969, he had the distinction of managing his second team in Kansas City, this time with the expansion Kansas City Royals, but lasted only one season with the 100-loss club before being fired again. Gordon later went into real estate, and died of a heart attack at age 63 in Sacramento, California.

On August 16, 2008, Gordon was inducted into the Cleveland Indians Hall of Fame. Two of Gordon's grandchildren were present for his induction ceremony. On December 7, 2008, Gordon was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee with 10 out of 12 possible votes, 83.3%, and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame on July 26, 2009; of the 20 candidates on two ballots, he was the only player to be selected. His only daughter, Judy Gordon of Idaho Falls, Idaho, gave his induction speech in Cooperstown in front of 21,000 people in attendance. "He (Joe) insisted against having a funeral," Judy said in the closing remarks of her speech. "And as such, we consider Cooperstown and the National Baseball Hall of Fame as his final resting place to be honored forever."

Wall Street Journal sports writer Russell Adams wrote a piece entitled "Who Is the Greatest Yankee?" Adams ranked Gordon as the 9th-greatest Yankees' position player in franchise history. "Gordon's great strength was defense — his range was the best of any of the 30 candidates we studied."