A good manager who was unfairly savaged by Bill James in his Baseball Abstracts.

We all know about the '79 championship with the Bucs, but Tanner might have done his best managing job in 1972, when he kept the undermanned White Sox in contention with the powerhouse A's all summer long. Check out the roster of the '72 White Sox. Other than Dick Allen and Wilbur Wood and a couple of others, it was a collection of mediocrities and misfits, but Tanner kept them together.

Tanner's legacy is hurt by his records with the Pirates and Braves in the eighties, but those teams had, for the most part, little talent. He was one of the game's best managers throughout the 1970s, and for what it's worth, was a terrific guy.

I planned on throwing together a quick post about Tanner, and four hours later wound up learning a lot of things about him. His career is boiled down to the 1979 team, but he really was a baseball lifer whose career spanned so many changes in the game.

Seems like we've lost a lot of great old time managers recently. Houk, Sparky and now Tanner.

Tanner coincidentally passed away on the 10th anniversary of the demolition (implosion) of Three Rivers Stadium.

(quirky)