Jackie Moore (baseball) - Coaching Career

Coaching Career

Despite his brief stint in the majors as a player, Moore has spent over forty years coaching in the game, most of which has been at the major league level.

His coaching career began in the Red Sox farm system shortly after his playing days ended. His first coaching job was managing the Jamestown Falcons of the short-season Class A New York-Penn League. In two seasons under Moore, Jamestown went 64-85.

He was hired as catching coach for the Seattle Pilots shortly after their one and only season in major league baseball (1969), and went with them when they moved to Milwaukee and became the Brewers starting in 1970. He was their bullpen coach through 1972, when he was released at the end of the season.

He was hired by new Texas Rangers manager Whitey Herzog as the Rangers' first base coach shortly afterward for his first stint with the Rangers. After the 1973 season he moved to third base, where he coached until he resigned at the close of the 1976 season to join the expansion Toronto Blue Jays' coaching staff. He also managed Texas' Double-A farm team, the Pittsfield Rangers of the Eastern League, for the first half of the 1975 During the 1979 season, he announced that he wouldn't return to the Jays for the following season. He rejoined Texas in 1980, but after just one season was let go when manager Pat Corrales and his entire staff were fired.

In 1981, Oakland Athletics manager Billy Martin invited Moore to coach first base for his "Billy Ball" team. He remained with the club after Steve Boros replaced Martin in 1983, and eventually replaced Boros as manager on May 24, 1984. In his only full season at the helm, 1985, the A's went 77-85.

The 1986 Athletics' record hovered around .500 until an 8-23 skid dropped the team's record to 29-44 in mid-June, worst in the majors. Moore, who went 163-190 (.462) in his 2+ years managing the A's, was replaced on an interim basis by Jeff Newman, and in early July by Tony La Russa, who stayed in Oakland through 1995 before concluding his brilliant managerial career with the St. Louis Cardinals from 1996 to 2011.

The following season, Moore caught on with the Montreal Expos and remained their third base coach through 1989. He enjoyed his only World Series championship with Lou Piniella's Cincinnati Reds when he joined them in 1990 as their bench coach. He stayed with the Reds through 1992, after which he left for his third stint in Texas followed by three seasons as bench coach for the Colorado Rockies.

In 2000, Moore was appointed the first manager in the history of the Round Rock Express, a Double-A affiliate of the Houston Astros owned by a syndicate including Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Nolan Ryan. He lead his team to a Texas League championship with a 83-57 record in their first season to earn "Manager of the Year" honors. He followed that up with league titles in 2001 and 2002, and division titles in 2003 and 2004. In 2005, the Express moved up to Triple-A in the Pacific Coast League. He remained their manager through 2007, winning a division crown in 2006. In his five Texas League seasons the Express went 376-324; in the Pacific Coast League, 220-210.

On September 30, 2007, he was named the Houston Astros' bench coach for the 2008 season by manager Cecil Cooper. Moore was Cooper's first professional baseball manager with Jamestown in 1968. After just one season, Moore left the Astros to begin his fourth stint as a coach with the Texas Rangers, reuniting him with Ryan, now president of the Rangers.