An Unsuccessful Encore
He was out of baseball until the middle of the 1958 season. On July 22, with the team in seventh place, the Phillies fired Mayo Smith and brought Sawyer back to manage. The gamble fizzled, as the 1958 Phils dropped 40 of 70 games under Sawyer to finish last, and then placed last again in 1959. The second baseman on the 1959 Phillies roster was Sparky Anderson, which was the only season in the Majors as a player for the Hall of Fame skipper.
After managing the Phillies for the opening game of the 1960 season, a 9-4 loss to the Cincinnati Reds, Sawyer resigned his position, famously saying: "I'm 49 years old and I want to live to be 50." He was replaced by Gene Mauch. Sawyer would remain in the game as a scout, however, for the Phils and the Kansas City Royals.
His lifetime major league managerial record was 390–423 (.480). He was elected a member of the Pennsylvania Sports and Ithaca College Sports halls of fame. Sawyer died at age 87 in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania.
Read more about this topic: Eddie Sawyer
Famous quotes containing the words unsuccessful and/or encore:
“Pan had been amongst them—not the great god Pan, who has been buried these two thousand years, but the little god Pan, who presides over social contretemps and unsuccessful picnics.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)
“The deer and the dachshund are one.
Well, the gods grow out of the weather.
The people grow out of the weather;
The gods grow out of the people.
Encore, encore, encore les dieux . . .”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)