Remembering Don ‘Popeye’ Zimmer, a baseball lifer

February 28, 2024 William A. Gralnick

In this 1954 photo provided by the Brooklyn Dodgers, pitcher Ed Roebuck hands out cigars on the birth of his son. With him, left to right, are teammates Don Zimmer, Johnny Podres, George Shuba, Dick Williams and Roy Campanella, who holds up six fingers to remind Roebuck that he has six children. The Los Angeles Dodgers said George "Shotgun" Shuba died Monday. He was 89.

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There was a time when Don Zimmer, born Jan. 17, 1931, in Cincinnati, Ohio, was a wiry ball player, pretty good with the bat and very good with the glove. By the time he had wrapped up an eight-decade, 65-year career he looked more like a caricature of a ball player than an actual one. His nickname was Popeye but watching him move could evoke visions of a penguin. He stood a generously measured 5 feet 9 inches and weighed 165 pounds. He was Ron Cey before Ron Cey and was a cartoonist’s delight, someone who would never win a Steve Garvey look-alike contest. His weight gain and the omnipresent chaw of tobacco, which lasted decades until the doctors made him give it up, made cartooning him easy.

That 65-year major league career almost didn’t get out of the minors. He was hard-headed, literally, and it saved his life. Zimmer was struck by a pitch that hit him squarely in the head. He was unconscious or semi-conscious for two weeks and lost his ability to speak for two months, according to Forbes Magazine. His recovery would have some, like me, say he was destined to play baseball because instead of being brain dead, or just dead, he was healed by the man upstairs and played his way back onto the field and up the baseball ladder. Years later he was hit in the jaw by a pitch and had to have surgery to repair the break. When asked what he had to say about the pitcher he replied with a shrug, “If that’s the best stuff he has, he shouldn’t be playing major league ball.”

And He had good enough skills and numbers.

A utility infielder, Zimmer played 2nd and short (well enough to become Pee Wee Reese’s backup), and at the hot corner. His skills got him voted twice to the All-Star team, and once named manager of the year. He had two World Series rings to wear. (Baseball Reference.) Yet, ironically, his most famous moment was in a field scrum when Pedro Martinez, half his age, grabbed the 71-year-old Zimmer by the head and threw him hard to the ground. It was during the 2003 ALCS series during a two or three-inning set of swearing, fingering pointing, and defaming people’s mothers. Zimmer, then Joe Torres’ bench coach for the Yankees, was protecting his men and went on a bee-line at Martinez. But such a moment was quintessential Zimmer. He was one tough hombre.

Zimmer stepped to the plate three 3,283 times. He managed 773 hits of which 91 were dingers. He knocked in 352 RBIs. He wasn’t the go-to guy on the bench when you needed a pinch hitter. His on-base percentage was a paltry .290 and his slugging percentage was not much better at .372. (According to Google, a .350 on-base percentage is pretty good as is a 450 slugging percentage.)

Yet he was someone you wanted on the team. He was a fiery leader, a sparkplug, a guy who prized winning and disdained losing. It wasn’t so much what Zimmer did as a player, it was what he did to the players around him. That’s the mark of one who is an important part of a team, someone who understood the worn but true cliché that there is no “i” in team.

According to Google, Zimmer played ball for the following teams: Dodgers (1954–1959, 1963), Chicago Cubs (1960–1961), New York Mets (1962), Cincinnati Reds (1962), and Washington Senators (1963–1965).

Tracking his coaching and managing assignments is like trying to find one’s way through a maze both for this writer and Zimmer. Every time he seemed to find himself with no place to go the phone would ring with a call from one of his extensive list of baseball buddies. They were either needing a base coach or a bench coach with deep baseball experience. His administrative connections with players he either played with, coached or managed who got to the front office would land him managerial posts.

Paraphrasing Baseball Research, between being a base coach, a bench coach, and a manager, Zimmer moved a lot but he never left baseball. His accumulating years of experience made him more valuable to young teams, new managers, and even contenders who needed the kind of person who saw things others didn’t and intuited situations others couldn’t. Zimmer received 64 years of annual pay from baseball. It was only one summer when there was no call. A friend suggested he sign up for Social Security. He got one check before the seemingly inevitable call did come.

As a manager, he won more than he lost 885-858 (Sports Illustrated). A major accomplishment was managing the Cubs (1991-93) to a division title.

Here is how the Ranger’s history project, written by sportswriter Matthew Postins, summed it all up.

“Zimmer is one of the most famous baseball lifers in the game’s history, spending 65 years in baseball as a player, coach, and manager. As a player, Zimmer played with Jackie Robinson when he broke in with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1954. He made the trip with the Dodgers to Los Angeles… He was an original New York Met. Later he played for the Cincinnati Reds and Washington Senators. He played winter ball in the Cuban League and the Puerto Rican League. He was a two-time All-Star—both of which came in 1961, when Major League Baseball played two All-Star games. He also earned two World Series rings as a player.

Zimmer became a lovable bench coach later in life, most specifically with Joe Torre in New York, where he helped the Yankees win four World Series from 1996-2000. He ended his coaching career with a 10-year stint with the Tampa Bay Rays and passed away on June 4, 2014, at 83.”

Dunedin, Fla. Is “old” Florida, one of the most charming beachside communities one can find anywhere. The Zimmer’s found it, loved it, lived and retired there. If you’re up along Florida’s NW coast, you’ll find Dunedin and you’ll find Don Zimmer finally resting in one place. Give a wave.