Bill Rigney

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Bill Rigney
Runs batted in
212
Managerial record1,239–1,321
Winning %.484
Teams
As player

As manager

Career highlights and awards

William Joseph Rigney (January 29, 1918 – February 20, 2001) was an

American League West Division championship, the only postseason entry of his big-league tenure. Fired in midseason of 1972, he concluded his managerial career in 1976
by serving a one-year term at the helm of his original team, the Giants.

New York Giants' infielder

Born in Alameda, California,[1] Rigney batted and threw right-handed, stood 6 feet 1 inch (1.85 m) tall and weighed 178 pounds (81 kg). He began his professional baseball career in 1938 when he signed with the unaffiliated Oakland Oaks of the top-level Pacific Coast League. After seasoning in the Class B Western International League, Rigney played the full seasons of 1941 and 1942 with the Oaks, then performed World War II service in the United States Coast Guard from 1943–1945.

Acquired by the Giants during the war, he was a 28-year-old

Joe Coleman in his only plate appearance
.

On August 12, 1950, Rigney replaced Eddie Stanky at second base after Stanky had been ejected from a game against the Phillies for repeatedly waving his arms while Andy Seminick was batting. Seminick was still irritated, and after he reached base on an error in the fourth inning, he slid hard into second base, crashing into Rigney and causing him to fall over. A nearly ten-minute brawl erupted between the teams, which required police intervention and resulted in the ejection of Seminick and Rigney from the game. The Phillies went on to win 4–3.[2][3]

As a

at bats (a single off Vic Raschi), with one run batted in, as a pinch hitter
.

As a big-leaguer, Rigney was a .259 career batsman with 510 hits, 41 home runs and 212 runs batted in over 654 games.

Manager of three MLB clubs

Giants

Following his MLB playing career, Rigney was named manager of the Giants' top

American Association and Junior World Series championships. He then was promoted to skipper of the parent Giants in 1956, succeeding his mentor, Leo Durocher. Despite the presence of Hall of Fame center fielder Willie Mays, the Giants' final two seasons in Upper Manhattan
, 1956 and 1957, were dismal: they lost 87 and 85 games, respectively, finished in sixth place in the eight-team National League both years (a combined 52 games out of first place), and their attendance fell below 700,000.

But upon their move to San Francisco in 1958—and rejuvenated by young players such as

scout
who replaced Rigney, fared even more poorly, however, going only 46–50 as the Giants plummeted into fifth place by season's end.

Angels

Rigney in 1964

Rigney was not unemployed for long. He became the first skipper in the history of the

Baseball Hall of Fame manager Casey Stengel, a resident of nearby Glendale who had been fired by the New York Yankees after the 1960 World Series. But Stengel declined all managerial offers and spent 1961 in temporary retirement. Then Durocher, out of uniform since leaving the Giants in 1955 and working as a broadcaster, campaigned for the Angel job. Like Stengel, he had become a permanent resident of Southern California—he lived in Palm Springs
—and was a future Hall of Fame pilot. But Autry and Reynolds bypassed him and chose Rigney instead, believing that he would have the patience to develop an expansion team's younger players.

While the Angels' maiden edition lost 91 games and finished eighth in the ten-team AL, the

Manager of the Year by The Sporting News
.

During Rigney's eight full years with the Angels, the club played in three home ballparks—

Anaheim Stadium—and also compiled winning records in 1964 and 1967. But 1969, Rigney's ninth season, proved catastrophic. The Angels started the year 11–28 and were mired in a ten-game losing streak when Rigney was fired on May 27 and succeeded by Lefty Phillips. Later in 1969, Rigney joined the San Francisco Giants' radio broadcast team to close out the season; coincidentally, KSFO
, the Giants flagship station, was then owned by Autry and Reynolds.

Twins

Returning to the field (and to the

American League West Division championship. But the Twins fell in three straight games to the eventual world champion Baltimore Orioles in the 1970 American League Championship Series, then won only 74 games in 1971. When the Twins began 1972 with a 36–34 record and 91⁄2 games behind the eventual World Series champion Oakland Athletics in third place, Rigney was replaced by Frank Quilici on July 6. Team owner Calvin Griffith's explanation for the move was that he felt many of the Twins players "were too nonchalant."[4]

Second turn with Giants

After serving as a scout for the San Diego Padres and California Angels (1973–1974), Rigney had a second managerial stint with the Giants in 1976, a year of transition between the Horace Stoneham and Bob Lurie ownerships. Rigney's 1976 club went only 74–88 and finished 28 games behind the world champion Cincinnati Reds. Joe Altobelli succeeded him at the Giants' helm on October 7, 1976.[5] Rigney finished with a managerial record of 1,239 wins and 1,321 losses.[6]

Managerial record

Team From To Regular season record Post–season record
W L Win % W L Win %
New York/San Francisco Giants 1956 1960 332 342 .493 —
Los Angeles/California Angels
 1961 1969 625 707 .469 —
Minnesota Twins 1970 1972 208 184 .531 0 3 .000
San Francisco Giants 1976 1976 74 88 .457 —
Total 1239 1321 .484 0 3 .000
Ref.:[6]

Broadcaster, scout and "ambassador"

In an 18-season managerial career, Rigney posted a 1,239–1,321 record (.484) in 2,561 games. The Twins' three-and-out loss in the 1970 ALCS was his only MLB postseason managing appearance. As a

American Association
championship at the helm of the Minneapolis Millers.

After leaving the Giants at the close of his second managerial term in 1976, he served as a front-office consultant and a radio and television broadcaster for the Oakland Athletics in the 1980s.

Rigney died in Walnut Creek, California, at age of 83.

The "Bill Rigney Good Guy Award" is given each year to a San Francisco Giant and Oakland Athletic who is most accommodating to the media.[7]

Quotation

  • Rigney took the reins of the Giants in 1956, succeeding Leo Durocher, for whom he had played from 1948 to 1953. "I learned a lot from Leo Durocher", he said. "I learned about the hit-and-run, about gambling and going against the percentages. You can't play it the same all the time." – Norman L. Macht, at Baseball Library[8]

See also

References

  1. ^ admin. "Bill Rigney – Society for American Baseball Research". Retrieved 2023-12-28.
  2. ^ Rogers, C. Paul III. "August 12, 1950: The day Andy Seminick took out the Giants' infield". SABR. Retrieved February 27, 2022.
  3. ISBN 0-525-23264-8
    .
  4. ^ "Quilici Is Named Twins' Manager," The Associated Press (AP), Thursday, July 6, 1972. Retrieved June 9, 2020
  5. ^ "Giants Pick Joe Altobelli," The Associated Press (AP), Friday, October 8, 1976. Retrieved August 18, 2019
  6. ^ a b "Bill Rigney". Baseball Reference. Sports Reference LLC. Retrieved August 3, 2016.
  7. ^ "John Shea, National Baseball Writer". sfchronicle.com. Archived from the original on 2013-03-30. Retrieved 2021-10-07.
  8. ^ "Bill Rigney". baseballbiography.com. Retrieved October 7, 2021.

External links

Preceded by Minneapolis Millers manager
1954–1955 		Succeeded by
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