Thursday, March 25, 1999

Ex-Reds manager Tebbetts dies at 86

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Led hard-hitting teams in the '50s

BY GEOFF HOBSON
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Birdie Tebbetts | ZOOM |

        George “Birdie” Tebbetts, manager of the power-laden Cincinnati Reds of the mid-1950s, died Wednesday at age 86.

        Tebbetts spent 14 years in the American League as a savvy, clutch-hitting catcher before taking his first managerial job with the Reds in 1954.

        He won 372 games, seventh-most in club history, and had a winning percentage of .510 before resigning late in the 1958 season when the Reds were mired in seventh place.

        He managed for six more seasons — two in Milwaukee and four in Cleveland — and never won a pennant with a 748-705 career record But those in Cincinnati remember him as a player's manager long before the phrase was coined.

        “He was a student of the game; he was never afraid to experiment,” said Chuck Harmon, a rookie infielder with the Reds in Tebbetts' first season as Reds manager. “If I wasn't playing, he'd come down the bench and sit with you and tell you why and why not he was doing things.”

        After the 1977 World Series, Reggie Jackson credited Tebbetts, then a special assignment scout for the Yankees, with helping him hit five homers because of his reports on how the Dodgers pitched Dave Parker.

        Harmon was the Reds' first African-American player, and he made a perfect match with Tebbetts, born in Burlington, Vt. Harmon remembered Tebbetts telling him that, at any sign of a scuffle, Harmon was to walk away.

        “He told me if there was a bench-clearing brawl to stay on the bench, or if I was on the bases, to get away and find a friendly face, because they would somehow blame it on me,” Harmon said. “It was his way of trying to protect me. That first year, he made me the captain of one of the teams in an intrasquad game. He didn't have to do that, but it was his way of introducing me to the team.”

        Tebbetts' greatest gift to the game may have been his handling of a 21-year-old rookie named Frank Robinson in 1956. In his autobiography, Robinson remembered how Tebbetts “didn't put any pressure on me. He told the writers, "if he hits .260 with 15 home runs and 60 RBI, I'll be satisfied.' I knew I could do better than that, and Birdie knew it, too.”

        The 1956 Reds team was Tebbetts' highwater mark as a manager, as he nearly led them to an improbable pennant. The Reds went 91-63, finishing two games behind Brooklyn and one behind Milwaukee, and tied the major-league record with 221 homers.

        Tebbetts was named Manager of the Year for nursing a pitching staff with just one arm that won more than 14 games.

        “Birdie was a very intelligent guy, he had a very high IQ,” said John Murdough, former Reds traveling secretary. “We weren't known for having a lot of pitching, but Birdie knew how to handle pitchers and he got a lot out of that staff.”

       

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