Dick Williams

4.1. Boston Red Sox

After his playing career ended in 1964 with a career-low .159 batting average, the Red Sox released Williams. At 35, he accepted a playing coach position with the Red Sox's Triple-A affiliate, the Seattle Rainiers of the Pacific Coast League. A subsequent affiliation shuffle led to the team moving to the Toronto Maple Leafs of the International League, and when the previous manager resigned, Williams was promoted to manager of the Maple Leafs in 1965. As a novice manager, Williams quickly established a hard-nosed, disciplinarian style, leading the Maple Leafs to two consecutive Governors' Cup championships with teams full of young Red Sox prospects. His success in the minors earned him a one-year contract to manage the 1967 Red Sox.

Boston had endured eight consecutive losing seasons, and attendance had plummeted, prompting owner Tom Yawkey to consider moving the team. Despite having talented young players, the Red Sox were known as a complacent "country club." Williams decided to take a bold risk by imposing strict discipline. He famously vowed that the team would "win more ballgames than we lose," a daring statement for a club that had finished only half a game from last place in 1966. In spring training, Williams drilled players intensely on fundamentals, issued fines for curfew violations, and insisted that team success take precedence over individual aspirations.

The Red Sox began the 1967 season playing with a newfound aggressive style, reminiscent of Williams's playing days with the Dodgers. He benched players for lack of effort and poor performance and frequently clashed with umpires. By the All-Star break, Boston had fulfilled Williams's promise, playing above .500 and staying close to the American League's top contending teams. Outfielder Carl Yastrzemski, in his seventh season, transformed his hitting style to become a pull-hitter, eventually winning the 1967 AL Triple Crown by leading the league in batting average, home runs (tied with Harmon Killebrew), and RBI.

In late July, the Red Sox embarked on a 10-game winning streak on the road, returning home to a tumultuous welcome from 10,000 fans at Logan Airport. The team inserted itself into a tight five-team pennant race and remained in contention despite the loss of star outfielder Tony Conigliaro due to a beanball on August 18. On the final weekend of the season, led by Yastrzemski and 22-game-winning pitcher Jim Lonborg, Boston defeated the Minnesota Twins in two head-to-head games, while the Detroit Tigers split their series with the California Angels. This remarkable turnaround, dubbed the ""Impossible Dream"," saw the Red Sox win their first AL pennant since 1946. They then pushed the heavily favored and highly talented St. Louis Cardinals, led by the great Bob Gibson, to seven games in the 1967 World Series, ultimately losing.

Despite the World Series loss, the Red Sox became heroes in New England. Williams was named Major League Manager of the Year by The Sporting News and signed a new three-year contract. However, his tenure would be short-lived. In 1968, the team dropped to fourth place as Conigliaro was unable to return from his head injury, and both Lonborg and José Santiago, Williams's top pitchers, suffered arm ailments. Williams began to clash with Yastrzemski and owner Yawkey. With the club a distant third in the AL East, Williams was fired on September 23, 1969, and replaced by Eddie Popowski for the final nine games of the season.

4.2. Oakland Athletics

After spending 1970 as the third base coach for the Montreal Expos under Gene Mauch, Williams returned to managing in 1971, taking the helm of the Oakland Athletics, owned by the eccentric Charlie Finley. Finley had assembled an impressive roster of talent, including Catfish Hunter, Reggie Jackson, Sal Bando, Bert Campaneris, Rollie Fingers, and Joe Rudi, which Finley famously dubbed the "Swingin' A's". However, Finley's players often resented him for his tightfistedness and constant interference in team affairs. During his first decade as the Athletics' owner (1961-1970), Finley had changed managers ten times.

Inheriting a second-place team from his predecessor, John McNamara, Williams promptly led the A's to 101 victories and their first AL West title in 1971, propelled by the brilliant young pitcher Vida Blue. Despite being defeated by the defending World Champion Baltimore Orioles in the ALCS, Finley retained Williams for the 1972 season, which marked the beginning of the "Oakland Dynasty." Off the field, the A's players were known for their internal brawls and their defiance of baseball's traditional grooming standards. Capitalizing on the popularity of long hair, mustaches, and beards in popular culture, Finley initiated a mid-season promotion encouraging his players to grow their hair long and sport facial hair. Fingers notably adopted his distinctive handlebar mustache, and Williams himself grew a mustache.

The success of the early 1970s Oakland Dynasty was ultimately attributed to talent rather than appearance. The 1972 A's secured their division by 5.5 games over the Chicago White Sox and led the league in home runs, shutouts, and saves. They went on to defeat the Detroit Tigers in a fiercely contested ALCS. In the 1972 World Series, they faced the formidable Cincinnati Reds' "Big Red Machine." With the A's leading power hitter, Jackson, sidelined due to injury, the Reds were favored to win. However, the home run heroics of Oakland catcher Gene Tenace and Williams's astute managerial strategies culminated in a seven-game World Series victory for the A's, marking their first championship since 1930, when the franchise was based in Philadelphia.

In 1973, Williams returned for an unprecedented (for the Finley era) third consecutive season. The A's once again cruised to a division title, then defeated the Baltimore Orioles in the ALCS and the NL champion New York Mets in the World Series, with both hard-fought series going the full seven games. With their second consecutive World Series win, Oakland became baseball's first repeat champion since the 1961-62 New York Yankees. However, Williams had a surprise for Finley. Exhausted by his owner's constant interference and deeply upset by Finley's public humiliation of second baseman Mike Andrews for his fielding errors during the World Series, Williams resigned. George Steinbrenner, then completing his first season as owner of the New York Yankees, immediately signed Williams as his new manager. Finley, however, protested, asserting that Williams was still under contract with Oakland for another year and could not manage elsewhere. Consequently, Steinbrenner hired Bill Virdon instead. Williams was the first manager in the A's franchise history to leave the team with a winning record after managing for two full seasons.

4.3. California Angels

Despite being at what seemed to be the peak of his career, Williams found himself unemployed at the start of the 1974 season. However, when the Angels struggled under manager Bobby Winkles, team owner Gene Autry secured Finley's permission to negotiate with Williams. Williams was back in a big-league dugout by mid-season. The change in management, however, did not improve the Angels' fortunes, as they finished in last place, 22 games behind the A's, who went on to win their third consecutive World Championship under Williams's replacement, Alvin Dark.

Overall, Williams's tenure in Anaheim proved to be a difficult one. He did not have the same level of talent he had enjoyed in Boston and Oakland, and the Angels' players did not respond well to his somewhat authoritarian managing style. They finished last in the AL West again in 1975. During that season, Boston Red Sox pitcher Bill Lee famously remarked that the Angels' hitters were "so weak, they could hold batting practice in the Boston Sheraton hotel lobby and not hit the chandelier." Williams responded by having his team actually conduct a batting practice in the hotel lobby (using Wiffle balls and bats) before a game against the Red Sox, until hotel security intervened to stop it. The Angels were 18 games below .500 and in the midst of a player revolt in 1976 when Williams was fired on July 22.

4.4. Montreal Expos

In 1977, Williams returned to Montreal as manager of the Montreal Expos, a team that had just endured 107 losses and a last-place finish in the National League East. Team president John McHale, impressed by Williams's past successes in Boston and Oakland, believed he was the leader the Expos needed to finally become a winning franchise.

After two seasons of cajoling the Expos into improved, though still below .500, performances, Williams transformed the 1979-80 Expos into legitimate pennant contenders. The team achieved over 90 wins in both years-marking the first winning seasons in franchise history. The 1979 squad recorded 95 victories, the most the franchise would ever achieve in Montreal. However, they finished second in their division each time to the eventual World Champions (the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1979 and the Philadelphia Phillies in 1980). Williams was known for his willingness to give young players opportunities, and his Expos teams were rich with emerging talent, including future All-Stars such as outfielder Andre Dawson and catcher Gary Carter. With a strong core of young players and a productive farm system, the Expos appeared poised for a sustained period of contention.

However, Williams's demanding and often abrasive demeanor began to alienate his players, particularly his pitchers, and ultimately wore out his welcome. He controversially labeled pitcher Steve Rogers a "fraud" with "king of the mountain syndrome," implying that Rogers, having been a good pitcher on a bad team for so long, was unable to elevate his performance when the team improved. Williams also lost confidence in closer Jeff Reardon, whom the Montreal front office had acquired in a highly publicized trade with the Mets for Ellis Valentine. When the 1981 Expos performed below expectations, Williams was fired during the pennant race on September 7. With the arrival of his more easy-going successor, Jim Fanning, who reinstated Reardon to the closer's role, the inspired Expos made the playoffs for the only time in their 36-year history in Montreal. However, they suffered a heartbreaking loss to Rick Monday and the eventual World Champion Los Angeles Dodgers in a five-game NLCS.

4.5. San Diego Padres

Williams's unemployment was brief. In 1982, he took over as manager of the San Diego Padres. By 1984, he had successfully guided the Padres to their first NL West Division championship. In the NLCS, the NL East champion Chicago Cubs, making their first postseason appearance since 1945, won Games 1 and 2. However, Williams's Padres staged a miraculous comeback, winning the next three games to clinch the pennant. In the 1984 World Series, San Diego proved to be no match for Sparky Anderson's Detroit Tigers, a dominant team that had won 104 games during the regular season. Although the Tigers won the Series in five games, both Williams and Anderson achieved the distinction of winning pennants in both major leagues, joining a select group of managers that included Alvin Dark, Joe McCarthy, and Yogi Berra. Other managers who later joined this exclusive group include Tony La Russa (2004), Jim Leyland (2006), Joe Maddon (2016), Dusty Baker (2021), and Bruce Bochy (2023), who was a backup catcher on that Padres team.

The Padres fell to third place in 1985, and Williams was dismissed as manager just before the 1986 spring training. His record with the Padres was 337 wins and 311 losses over four seasons. As of 2011, he held the distinction of being the only manager in the team's history to not have a losing season. His difficulties with the Padres stemmed from a power struggle with team president Ballard Smith and general manager Jack McKeon. Williams had been hired by team owner Ray Kroc, the McDonald's restaurant magnate, whose health was declining. McKeon and Smith, who was also Kroc's son-in-law, were positioning themselves to buy the team and viewed Williams as a threat to their plans. With his tenure in San Diego concluded, it appeared that Williams's managerial career might be over.

4.6. Seattle Mariners

However, Williams returned to the American League West on May 9, 1986, to manage another perennial loser, the Seattle Mariners, who had started the season with a 19-28 record under Chuck Cottier. The Mariners showed some improvement that season and nearly reached .500 the following season. Despite this, Williams's autocratic managing style, which had been successful in previous eras, no longer resonated with the new generation of ballplayers. He faced resistance from the Mariners' front office when he attempted to play the injury-plagued Gorman Thomas in the outfield, due to Thomas's medical history, specifically his rotator cuff. Additionally, Williams had difficulty connecting with devoutly religious Mariners players, such as Alvin Davis. Williams was ultimately fired on June 8, 1988, with Seattle holding a 23-33 record and in sixth place. This marked his final major-league managing job. Williams concluded his career with a total of 1,571 wins and 1,451 losses over 21 seasons.