John Francis McNamara (June 4, 1932July 28, 2020) was an American professional baseball player, manager and coach. After spending over 15 years in the minor leagues as a catcher and player-manager, McNamara helmed six Major League Baseball (MLB) teams for all or parts of 19 seasons between 1969 and 1996. He managed the 1986 Boston Red Sox to the American League pennant, and was named the league's "Manager of the Year" by both the BBWAA and The Sporting News.
Early life and playing career
McNamara was born in Sacramento, the fourth of five children of John and Josephine McNamara. His father, an Irish immigrant who was a railroad worker, died in 1944; his mother worked at the California Department of Motor Vehicles. McNamara attended Christian Brothers High School, where he was selected as an All-City player in both basketball and baseball. At Sacramento City College (SCC), he led his team to the 1951 California Community College Athletic Association state championship and later was inducted to the SCC Athletic Hall of Fame.
A right-handed batter and thrower who stood tall and weighed , in his playing days he was a peripatetic, weak-hitting catcher who originally signed with the St. Louis Cardinals organization in 1951. He rose as high as the Open-Classification Pacific Coast League during 1956 as a member of his hometown Solons, but he hit only .171 in 76 games played.
Managing and coaching career
Minor leagues
McNamara began his managing career with the Lewis-Clark Broncs in Lewiston, Idaho, of the Class B Northwest League in 1959, and when the club became an affiliate of the Kansas City Athletics in 1960, McNamara joined the Athletics' farm system. After helming the Triple-A Dallas Rangers in 1964, he won Southern League pennants at Kansas City's Double-A affiliates, Mobile (1966) and Birmingham (1967), where he groomed many future members of the Oakland Athletics' early-1970s dynasty — including Hall of Famers Rollie Fingers and Reggie Jackson, as well as Sal Bando, Blue Moon Odom, Joe Rudi and others. At the same time, McNamara also mentored future Hall of Fame manager (then an infielder) Tony LaRussa and future pitching coach (then catcher) Dave Duncan. Jackson, in particular, credited McNamara with helping him through his time with Birmingham, with the racial tensions that existed in the Deep South at the time.
Oakland Athletics
McNamara served as a coach at the major-league level for Oakland from 1968 through September 18, 1969, when A's owner Charlie Finley fired manager Hank Bauer and promoted McNamara, then 37, to succeed him. The Athletics were in second place in the American League West Division, nine games behind the Minnesota Twins. They went 8–5 under McNamara for the rest of the campaign, then finished second to the Twins again in 1970 with an 89–73 mark. and the A's would go on to win five successive division titles and three straight American League pennants and World Series titles under Williams and Alvin Dark.
San Diego Padres
McNamara returned to the coaching ranks from 1971 to 1973 with the cross-bay San Francisco Giants before he took over the struggling San Diego Padres as their manager in 1974. The Padres improved incrementally, winning 60, 71, and 73 games through 1976, reportedly because he refused his front office's order to fire members of his coaching staff.
McNamara's 1979 Reds, minus legend Pete Rose, who had defected to the Philadelphia Phillies as a free agent, won 90 games—two fewer than Anderson's 1978 team. But they edged the Houston Astros by 1<small></small> games to win the NL West and became McNamara's first postseason entry. In the 1979 National League Championship Series, however, the Reds dropped the first two games at home in extra innings to the Pittsburgh Pirates, then were swept out of the playoffs in Game 3. Pittsburgh went on to win the 1979 World Series. McNamara's 1980 Reds won 89 games but finished third, 3<small></small> games behind Houston.
Then came Cincinnati's frustrating 1981 season: the Reds compiled the best overall record in the National League West (66–42, .611), but the split-season format adopted because of the 1981 Major League Baseball strike denied them a place in the playoffs because they finished second (initially to the Dodgers, then to the Astros) in each half-season. The 1981 campaign became all the more distressing because the 1982 Reds unraveled, losing 58 of their first 92 games, falling into the division basement. McNamara was fired on July 20, 1982, with Cincinnati 23 games out of first place. The following year, the 1984 Angels clawed back to .500 at 81–81, but came within three games of the division champion Kansas City Royals, who won only 84 contests all season.
McNamara clashed with pitcher Tommy John that year, not listening to John when the 41-year-old pitcher told him he was tiring in games. Late in the year, he moved John to the bullpen, then forbid him to practice throwing because he wanted to keep the pitcher's arm fresh in case he needed him. Wanting practice to get his problems straightened out, John practiced throwing anyway, much to McNamara's displeasure. Frank Pastore had the same issue with McNamara during the manager's time with the Reds.
Boston Red Sox
When Ralph Houk, 65, retired as Boston's manager at the close of the 1984 season, the Red Sox approached the Angels about McNamara's availability for the opening; he and Haywood Sullivan, the Red Sox' chief executive officer and co-owner, had managed together in the Athletics' organization in the mid-1960s. With Mauch ready to return to the dugout, the Angels agreed to let McNamara go to Boston, and in 1985, he led the Red Sox to another .500 season; but at 81–81, they finished 18<small></small> games behind the Toronto Blue Jays in the American League East Division.
However, perhaps the decision that McNamara will be most remembered for is his leaving first baseman Bill Buckner in the game in the 10th inning rather than removing him for a defensive substitute. Buckner committed an infamous error in the 10th inning allowing the Mets to win the game after they had tied it earlier in the inning. McNamara was ridiculed for years afterward for leaving Buckner on the field instead of replacing him with Dave Stapleton, who had previously been used to replace Buckner in late innings for defensive purposes (including Games 1 and 5 of the World Series). The Red Sox players also believed that their manager let sentiment overpower his judgement. Stapleton claimed that "[McNamara] damn well knows that he messed up. And he very well could have cost us the World Series that year." McNamara finally responded to Stapleton's attack in 2011 during an interview with Bob Costas for MLB Network, changing his original claim that sentiment was what caused him to keep Buckner in the game and saying that Stapleton had the nickname of "Shaky" because of his poor defense. It was an odd position to take, considering McNamara had used Stapleton in that spot all season long.
With Game 7 delayed a day due to rain in New York, McNamara bumped originally-scheduled starting pitcher Oil Can Boyd in favor of starting Bruce Hurst, the winner of Games 1 and 5 and the presumptive MVP of the series if the Red Sox were to win, on three days' rest; the Red Sox had chosen to go with a normal four-man rotation during the series, unlike the Mets who pitched a three-man rotation. The decision upset Boyd so much that he began drinking heavily afterward and drank himself to the point of intoxication, according to accounts given by McNamara and his pitching coach Bill Fischer, thus rendering him unavailable.
Hurst was staked to a 3–0 lead and pitched shutout ball for five innings, but tired in the sixth, he allowed the Mets to score three runs to tie the game. Since Boyd's actions had left the bullpen short staffed in a situation where every able pitcher would need to be available in case of an emergency, McNamara decided to bring Calvin Schiraldi in despite his struggles in Game 6 and the fact that he was still tired from pitching 2.2 innings that night (something he wasn't used to). Schiraldi gave up a tie-breaking home run to Ray Knight, the first batter he faced, and ended up surrendering three runs while recording only a single out. The Red Sox would lose the game 8–5, thus losing the series. the Cleveland Indians hired him as their skipper for 1990. Under McNamara, the 1990 Indians improved by four games compared with the 1989 edition, going 77–85 and finishing fourth in the AL East, only 11 games behind the Red Sox. But in 1991, Cleveland took a major step backward; they won only 25 of 77 games under McNamara until his firing on July 5,
McNamara returned to the Angels' organization as a minor league catching instructor, but was called to manage in the majors a final time in 1996 at age 64. He became interim pilot upon Marcel Lachemann's resignation on August 6, and had directed them to a 5–9 record when he was hospitalized for a blood clot in his leg on August 20. After coach Joe Maddon helmed the Angels for three weeks while he was treated, McNamara was able to return to the Angels and finish the 1996 season.
Managerial record
The 1996 assignment concluded McNamara's managerial career. Over all or parts of 19 seasons, he had a record of 1,160–1,233 (.485).
{| class="wikitable" style="font-size: 95%; text-align:center;"
|-
! rowspan="2"|Team !! rowspan="2"|Year !! colspan="5"|Regular season !! colspan="4"|Postseason
|-
!Games!!Won!!Lost!!Win %!!Finish!! Won !! Lost !! Win % !! Result
|-
|-
!OAK||
||13||8||5|||| 2nd in AL West || – || – || – || –
|-
!OAK||
||162||89||73|||| 2nd in AL West || – || – || – || –
|-
! colspan="2"|OAK total || 175 || 97 || 78 || || || 0 || 0 || – ||
|-
!SD||
||162||60||102|||| 6th in NL West || – || – || – || –
|-
!SD||
||162||71||91|||| 4th in NL West || – || – || – || –
|-
!SD||
||162||73||89|||| 5th in NL West || – || – || – || –
|-
!SD||
||48||20||28|||| fired || – || – || – || –
|-
! colspan="2"|SD total || 534 || 224 || 310 || || || 0 || 0 || – ||
|-style="background:#fdd"
!CIN||
||161||90||71|||| 1st in NL West || 0 || 3 || .000 || Lost NLCS (PIT)
|-
!CIN||
||162||89||73|||| 3rd in NL West || – || – || – || –
|-
! rowspan="2"| CIN|| rowspan="2"|
||56||35||21|||| 2nd in NL West || rowspan="2"| – || rowspan="2"| – || rowspan="2"| – || rowspan="2"| –
|-
||52||31||21|||| 2nd in NL West
|-
!CIN||
||92||34||58|||| fired || – || – || – || –
|-
! colspan="2"|CIN total || 523 || 279 || 244 || || || 0 || 3 || .000 ||
|-
!CAL||
||162||70||92|||| 5th in AL West || – || – || – || –
|-
!CAL||
||162||81||81|||| 2nd in AL West || – || – || – || –
|-
!CAL||
||28||10||18|||| interim || – || – || – || –
|-
! colspan="2"|CAL total || 352 || 161 || 191 || || || 0 || 0 || – ||
|-
!BOS||
||162||81||81|||| 5th in AL East || – || – || – || –
|-style="background:#fdd"
!BOS||
||161||95||66|||| 1st in AL East || 7 || 7 || .500 || Lost World Series (NYM)
|-
!BOS||
||162||78||84|||| 5th in AL East || – || – || – || –
|-
!BOS||
||85||43||42|||| fired || – || – || – || –
|-
! colspan="2"|BOS total || 570 || 297 || 273 || || || 7 || 7 || .500 ||
|-
!CLE||
||162||77||85|||| 4th in AL East || – || – || – || –
|-
!CLE||
||77||25||52|||| fired || – || – || – || –
|-
! colspan="2"|CLE total || 239 || 102 || 137 || || || 0 || 0 || – ||
|-
! colspan="2"|Total
McNamara died aged 88 on July 28, 2020, at his home in Tennessee.
See also
- List of Major League Baseball managers with most career wins