Minor & Major League Manager
Pesky began his coaching career in the New York Yankees organization with the 1955 Denver Bears of the Triple-A American Association working under manager Ralph Houk. From 1956 through 1960, Pesky was a manager in the Detroit farm system, reaching the Double-A level with the Birmingham Barons and the Victoria Rosebuds. He then rejoined the Red Sox in 1961 as manager of their Triple-A farm club, the Seattle Rainiers of the Pacific Coast League.
Pesky enjoyed two winning seasons in Seattle. At the close of the 1962 campaign, Boston owner Tom Yawkey elevated manager Pinky Higgins to the club's vacant post of general manager and personally appointed Pesky as Higgins' replacement. Although the selection of Pesky was a popular choice, the Red Sox were a second division team and notorious as a "country club" — a group of unmotivated players who did what they wanted, when they wanted. In addition, Higgins and Pesky were not particularly close, and the general manager would be accused of undermining Yawkey's hand-picked skipper.
A major off-season trade added slugging first baseman Dick Stuart to Pesky's maiden roster, and while Stuart would lead the American League with 118 runs batted in during '63, he was an atrocious fielder (nicknamed "Dr. Strangeglove" and "Stonefingers") who would constantly defy Pesky's authority and make it difficult for him to control his players. Pesky's '63 club started quickly and briefly had pennant hopes, but lack of pitching soon doomed it to a second-division finish — 76-85, bad enough for seventh place. The 1964 Sox also languished deep in the nether regions of the AL, winning only 70 of the 160 games Pesky managed. With two games left in the season, he was replaced as manager by Billy Herman, the club's third-base coach and a friend of Higgins'.
Pesky then left the Red Sox for four seasons, and joined the Pittsburgh Pirates organization. From 1965 through 1967, he served as first-base coach for Pirate manager Harry Walker, who had hit the double that scored Enos Slaughter with the winning run in the eighth inning of Game 7 of the 1946 World Series — the play on which Pesky was accused of "holding the ball" on a relay from the outfield, allegedly hesitating as Slaughter made his "mad dash" for home from first base. After Walker's firing in 1967, Pesky managed the Bucs' Triple-A farm club, the Columbus Jets of the International League, to a second-place finish in 1968.
Read more about this topic: Johnny Pesky
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