Hall of Fame Manager Earl Weaver died yesterday at the age of 82. If you read the obits, you will see words like "feisty" and "fiery" used to describe Weaver. Not to speak ill of the dead, and I know this depends on what team you are rooting for, those words can be taken as euphemisms for, to be kind, "obnoxious", among other less flattering terms.
A few years back, I read a book called "Bottom of the 33rd." Great book about a minor league baseball game in 1981 that went 33 innings.
( http://grandstander.blogspot.com/2011/12/book-review-bottom-of-33rd.html )
A portion of that book talks about a young infielder who got his call to the Majors with the Orioles, made an error in his first game, and was then positively crushed by Weaver afterwards. Not a pretty story, and I am guessing that that story will not be among all the warm and fuzzy tributes that will be written in the days ahead, and I am also betting that there are no doubt scores of players who could tell the same story about Weaver as that young short stop from Rochester.
Anyway, Weaver was a very good manager, and no doubt deserves his Hall of Fame status, but like any manager would have been, he was a better manager when he had guys like Brooks Robinson, Frank Robinson, and Jim Palmer playing for him than when he didn't. And I will personally have great memories of seeing Weaver sitting in the LOSING dugout during the 1971 and 1979 World Series.
RIP Earl Weaver.
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