Chuck Tanner Started With A Home Run and Only Got Better

Chuck Tanner died today at 82.

He may not be well known outside of the baseball world but within it he was well respected.  Not only was he a manager that could run a baseball team as he proved by winning a World Series with the "We are Family" Pittsburgh Pirates in 1979.

Tanner was such a nice man.  We who have had the good fortune to meet men in baseball like Tanner and Joe Nuxhall appreciate the humility of these men in a sport/business where ego can easily be exaggerated.

Tanner didn't even know me. But after ending his managerial career after three years in Atlanta with the Braves, he continued his baseball involvement as a scout for Pittsburgh and Milwaukee.  I would sit near him in the press dining room in Sarasota during the Reds spring training.  I am not now and may never be one of the "big time" writers as a stringer and free lancer but Tanner treated me like he did everyone else.

He also had a smile, a handshake and a good story.  But he was too humble to tell me this one.

His first major league appearance was against the Cincinnati Reds on April 12, 1955 in Milwaukee's Country Stadium.  He came into the game as a pinch hitter against Gerry Staley.  He hit the first pitch he saw for a home run.

He was just fun to be around.  The world could use more like him.

Bob Hertzel, who covered him in Pittsburgh said it best, "He hit a home run in his first major league at bat and only got better after that."