#327 Buck Rodgers
Here is the first manager card that I have posted from this set in over two years. This one features Bob "Buck" Rodgers. I sent this card to Buck last November and I got it back a month and a half later.
Buck managed the Brewers, Expos, and Angels during his thirteen years of managing in the Majors. 1980 was his first season and Baseball Reference lists him as the first of three Brewer managers that year and the third of three. I guess he started out the season as the acting manager after the real manager, George Bamberger, suffered a heart attack. George came back, only to step down in September with Buck regaining the helm. The Brewers finished third that season.
They did a little better the next season and Buck got his only taste of the post-season after winning the second half of the strike-shortened 1981 season. The Brewers then fell to the Yankees in five games in the playoffs.
The team got off to a rough start in 1982 and Buck was let go. His batting coach, Harvey Kuenn, took the club to the World Series.
After that, he went to Montreal for seven seasons, but he could never get his club to finish higher than third. He then went on to Anaheim to manage the Angels for parts of four seasons in the early '90s. He never finished higher than fourth with them, though he did pull off his first and third of three again. That came in 1992 when he started off as the team's skipper, only to be hurt in a traffic accident on the teams bus. He missed almost ninety games before finally coming back to manage the team. 1994 was the last season that Buck managed in the Majors.
Buck was the National League Manager of the Year in 1987.
'81 Donruss Tracker: 136/100
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