Born: January 15, 1957
After manager Ozzie Guillen left for Miami with two games left in the season in 2011, the White Sox needed to find an interim manager to fill the spot. Thought naturally turned to Joey Cora among the fan base, but with Cora vacating the scene following Guillen to Florida, other plans had to be executed. Enter: Don Cooper. The Chicago White Sox pitching coach, who has been with the organization since 1988, was asked to run the team for the final games.
Cooper took the reigns and managed a split record, one win and one loss. With the previous manager having checked out mentally, dreaming of a Cuban tinged lifestyle in South Beach, the team had been on autopilot for quite some time, with the coaches stepping up their own influences over the team. Don had the task of managing in the wake of a hot winded Venezuelan hurricane and did the job with little fanfare and decent results.
The Don Cooper era only lasted two games, as the White Sox hired former Sox number one pick, Robin Ventura, after the 2011 season. Coop has gone back to his pitching coach duties, as of the beginning of the 2012 season.
* Although Baseball Reference lists his birth year as 1956, every Don Cooper baseball card lists his birth year as 1957, so majority rules and baseball cards rarely lie to me.
Nice card. That year is deceptively hard to reproduce with the fonts as such.
ReplyDeleteThanks. The fonts took surprisingly longer than anticipated.
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