Haywood Sullivan
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Haywood Sullivan | ||
---|---|---|
Runs batted in | 87 | |
Managerial record | 54–82 | |
Winning % | .397 | |
Teams | ||
As player
As manager
| ||
Career highlights and awards | ||
Haywood Cooper Sullivan (December 15, 1930 – February 12, 2003) was an American college and professional baseball player who was a catcher, manager, general manager and club owner in Major League Baseball. From May 23, 1978, through November 23, 1993, he was a general partner in the Boston Red Sox, where he parlayed a $200,000 investment into a cash out of at least $12 million.
Early years
Sullivan was born in
In his two seasons as the Gators' quarterback, Sullivan threw for 2,016 yards in an era when the emphasis was on a running offense.
As a Gators baseball player, he was named to the All-Southeastern Conference (SEC) team in 1952.
He threw and batted right-handed, stood 6 feet 4 inches (1.93 m) tall and weighed 215 pounds (98 kg).
Sullivan signed a guaranteed $45,000
MLB catcher and manager
Sullivan's professional baseball playing career—derailed by military service, which caused him to miss the 1953 and 1954 seasons, and back surgery that cost him the entire 1958 campaign—was largely confined to the minor leagues for its first eight seasons.
After three short stays and only eight total games played for the Red Sox (in 1955, 1957 and 1959), Sullivan finally established himself in the big leagues in
Sullivan played for 2+1⁄2 seasons with the Athletics, and was the club's semi-regular catcher in
In 1964, Sullivan was named manager of the Athletics'
Managerial record
Team | Year | Regular season | Postseason | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Games | Won | Lost | Win % | Finish | Won | Lost | Win % | Result | ||
KCA | 1965 | 136 | 54 | 82 | .397 | Tenth in AL | – | – | – | – |
Total | 136 | 54 | 82 | .397 | 0 | 0 | – |
Front office and ownership career
Role with Bosox' 1967 pennant winners
On November 28, 1965, he was recruited by the Red Sox, who had reorganized their front office under new general manager Dick O'Connell. As vice president, player personnel, Sullivan was positioned as the top "baseball man" in the organization, and from 1965 to 1967 was instrumental in acquiring several players from the Athletics (among them John Wyatt, José Tartabull, Ken Harrelson and Bill Landis) who would help lead Boston to its surprise 1967 AL pennant. But O'Connell gradually assumed more power and took over most of Sullivan's responsibilities; Sullivan kept his title but in reality became the Red Sox' director of scouting after the 1973 death of Neil Mahoney.
Despite his decline in overall authority, Sullivan maintained very close personal ties with owner
Before the sale was consummated, in October 1977, Mrs. Yawkey fired O'Connell and promoted Sullivan to general manager. Overall, his first off-season as GM of the Red Sox was highly successful. Still using the resources of the Yawkey fortune, and benefitting from the depth of the Red Sox
Post-1978 decline and the "Coup LeRoux"
Sullivan then further earned the wrath of Red Sox Nation after the 1978 season when he allowed legendary pitcher Luis Tiant to leave for the Yankees as a free agent and, as he had done with Jenkins, Carbo and the others, dumped a clubhouse dissident, lefty pitcher Bill Lee, in a giveaway trade—in this case, to the Montreal Expos. In 1979, he raised eyebrows when he selected his son Marc Sullivan, who was not considered to have early-round talent, in the second round of baseball's amateur draft; the younger Sullivan would bat a paltry .186 in parts of five major league seasons.[12]
In December 1980, Sullivan faced the imminent free agency of
From then on, Sullivan's reputation in Boston was tarnished. He refused to enter the market for free agents, preferring to rely exclusively on player development, but the Boston farm system hit a dry spell resulting from poor drafts during Sullivan's tenure as GM; whereas O'Connell in 1976 alone had drafted Wade Boggs, John Tudor, and Bruce Hurst, the only starting player drafted and signed by the Red Sox between 1977 and 1979 was Marty Barrett. The Red Sox were also ridiculed for stinginess and ineptitude, with one sportswriter claiming that the team motto should have been "don't just do something; stand there!" The contending Bosox of the late 1970s were reduced to also-rans.
Sullivan's legacy received another battering in 1983 when a long-simmering estrangement from LeRoux became embarrassingly public. On June 6, just prior to a ceremony celebrating the Red Sox' 1967 AL championship, and raising money to care for stricken former outfielder Tony Conigliaro, LeRoux called a press conference to reveal that he and his limited partners had exercised a clause in their ownership agreement and taken control of the Red Sox. He fired Sullivan on the spot, and restored O'Connell—who hadn't set foot in Fenway Park since his dismissal in 1977—to the GM post. Boston sportswriters called the gambit "the Coup LeRoux." Sullivan and Mrs. Yawkey then immediately called their own press conference to announce they had filed suit to prevent the takeover.[14] A court granted them an injunction, and in a public 1984 trial that aired dirty laundry on both sides, Sullivan and Yawkey won the day again.
From GM to CEO/COO
But the damage had been done. Sullivan voluntarily gave up his general manager duties to Lou Gorman in June 1984, immediately after the court victory over LeRoux, and became the team's chief executive and chief operating officer. Gorman received credit for trades that helped the 1986 Red Sox win the AL championship, although Sullivan's determination to build from within helped to furnish the club with many of its key players.
During Sullivan's tenure as general manager and chief executive, the Red Sox, with their history as the last pre-expansion MLB team to break the color line, were again criticized for anti-Black bigotry. In a 1985 public reckoning, the team was sued by former outfielder and coach Tommy Harper for retaliation after the Red Sox fired Harper as a minor league base-running instructor when he shared with the media the club's practice of allowing the all-white Elks Club of Winter Haven, Florida (where the team held spring training) into the Red Sox' Chain of Lakes Park clubhouse to invite white players and white front-office personnel to the Elks' segregated facilities.[15] The Red Sox' illegal actions, and Harper's complaint was upheld by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on July 1, 1986.
When the Red Sox re-entered the free agent market late in the 1980s, they were able to sign All-Star catcher Tony Peña, but many nonwhite players ignored the Red Sox in free agency, or included them on their "no trade" lists. This trend only began to change when the Red Sox bid aggressively (but unsuccessfully) for Kirby Puckett after the 1992 season.
In late March 1987, Jean Yawkey bought out LeRoux and, with two general partnership shares, she became the Red Sox' managing partner. Sullivan and Mrs. Yawkey grew distant, and, although he still held a general partnership in the team, by the late 1980s Sullivan was consistently outvoted 2–1 by Mrs. Yawkey's two shares. (Sullivan's title of CEO/COO, meanwhile, quietly was removed from the team's masthead.) When Mrs. Yawkey died in 1992, Sullivan and her representative,
Life after baseball
Sullivan then retired to the Gulf Coast of Florida, where he operated a marina and invested successfully in real estate, his name occasionally popping up (usually linked with former Commissioner of Baseball Fay Vincent)[18] as a potential part-owner of another Major League club. Upon Sullivan's death at age 72 in Fort Myers, Florida, after suffering a stroke, Boston baseball observers such as Peter Gammons took a fresh view of Sullivan's impact on the Red Sox and gave him renewed credit for building the team into contenders, and keeping them there, from 1966 forward. Sullivan is interred at the Dothan City Cemetery. He was named to the Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame in 2004.
See also
- Boston Red Sox all-time roster
- Florida Gators
- Florida Gators football, 1950–59
- List of Florida Gators baseball players
- List of University of Florida Athletic Hall of Fame members
References
- ^ 2011 Florida Gators Football Media Guide Archived April 2, 2012, at the Wayback Machine, University Athletic Association, Gainesville, Florida, pp. 96, 148, 186 (2011). Retrieved August 31, 2011.
- ^ F Club, Hall of Fame, Gator Greats. Retrieved December 13, 2014.
- ^ a b "1960 BOS A Regular Season Batting Log for Haywood Sullivan". retrosheet.org. Retrosheet. Retrieved December 20, 2022.
- ^ "Boston Red Sox 7, New York Yankees 1", Retrosheet box score (April 20, 1960)
- ^ Nats trade Sullivan for Marty Kutyna
- ^ 1962 regular season batting log from Retrosheet
- ^ Haywood Sullivan Statistics - Baseball-Reference.com
- ISBN 1455511889
- ISBN 978-0-8027-1745-0
- ^ Gammons, Peter (May 24, 1978). "Red Sox Sold to Group Led by Jean Yawkey". The Boston Globe. Retrieved July 2, 2018.
- ^ Gross, Jane (June 4, 1984). "A Proud Club's Troubled Times". The New York Times. Retrieved July 24, 2017.
- ^ Marc Sullivan career statistics: https://www.baseball-reference.com/s/sullima02.shtml
- ^ Doyle, Paul (February 13, 2003). "Sullivan, Former Sox Owner, Dies at 72". The Hartford Courant. Retrieved July 2, 2018.
- ^ Scoggins, Chaz (January 13, 2008). "The Rise and Fall of Buddy LeRoux". The Lowell Sun. Retrieved July 2, 2018.
- ^ Margolick, David (March 23, 1986). "Boston Case Revives Past and Passions". The New York Times. Retrieved July 3, 2018.
- ^ Margolick, David (April 26, 1992). "Red Sox Are the Subject of a Custody Battle". The New York Times. Retrieved July 24, 2017.
- ^ Cafardo, Nick (November 28, 1993). "Deal worth more money?". The Boston Globe. p. 50. Retrieved October 24, 2022 – via newspapers.com.
- ^ Gammons, Peter, "Reality – Instead of Disaster – Sets In", Boston Globe, December 12, 1994
Bibliography
- Bryant, Howard, Shut Out: A Story of Race and Baseball in Boston. Boston: The Beacon Press, 2002.
- Gammons, Peter, Beyond the Sixth Game. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin Co., 1985.
- Spink, C.C. Johnson, editor, The 1965 Baseball Guide. St. Louis: The Sporting News, 1966.
- Stout, Glenn and Johnson, Richard A., Red Sox Century. Boston and New York: Houghton-Mifflin Co., 2000.
- Obituary, The Boston Globe, February 13, 2003.
External links
- Career statistics and player information from Baseball Reference, or Baseball Reference (Minors)