Earl Weaver one of the greatest managers in baseball history has died at the age of 82. He died of an apparent heart attack while on a cruise with his wife.

Earl Weaver managed the Baltimore Orioles from 1968-82 and 1985-86. He managed 2540 games winning 1480 and losing 1060 for a .583 winning percentage. He managed the Orioles to four World Series, winning in 1970. He only managed one losing season-1986 his last season.

I have been watching baseball since 1967 and in my opinion if I were starting a team and could hire anyone to manage my team that managed during that time period-1967 to today- I would hire Earl Weaver to be my manager. I totally believe in Earl’s philosophy to baseball- “Pitching, defense and the three-run homer.” Weaver was against the inside baseball- ‘small ball’ tactics of sacrfice bunting, stealing bases, and the hit and run. He famously said “if you play for one run that’s all you’ll get.” Weaver was also good about using the whole team. He was also on board early with using statistics. This was before the modern age of computers. He kept notebooks on how hitters hit certain pitchers and would do crazy things like having weak hitting  shortstop Mark Belanger leading off against Nolan Ryan because he hit him well.

Weaver was [along with Billy Martin} one of the most entertaining of managers. He got thrown out of at least 91 regular season games. It was always fun to watch him go after an umpire.

Earl retired after 1982 but came back in 1985. He retired after 2 years into his second term. I recall him saying that all his career he had managed without worrying what his moves might d0- as far as hurting a players feelings. He said in 1986 that how a player felt about his moves entered his mind and that told him it was time to retire for good.

Earl wasn’t one of these ‘feel good managers” he wasn’t a ‘great communicator.” His job was to manage the ball club and the players he felt should be professionals who came to play. He could be gruff. He didn’t walk around the locker room every day asking them how they felt about things. But as a manager the players believed in him. I remember one of his players once saying that if Earl made a move a lot of times it worked-even if on the surface it didn’t seem to be a good move simply because they believed in Earl, that he knew what he was doing.

During Earl’s years in Baltimore there was an Oriole way of playing baseball that went for the entire organization. The Orioles from the mid-1960’s until the mid-1980’s were probably the most successful organization in the sport. When you thought of the Orioles you though- professionals.