Remembering Dallas Green, First Phillies Manager to Win World Series

AP Photo/Rusty Kennedy

Dallas Green — the brash, iconic manager of the 1980 Phillies team that won the World Series — has died. He was 82.

The Phillies announced the news on Wednesday night. They did not announce a cause of death, but the Inquirer reports he had been suffering from kidney disease.

Green was born in Newport, Del., and went to the University of Delaware. He debuted as a pitcher for the Phillies in 1960, and spent eight seasons in the majors as starter and reliever — most of them with the Phillies.

He took over for Danny Ozark near the end of the 1979 season. He was known as a screamer. Some of his players didn’t get along with him all the time. He told the press his primary goal was to become a general manager, but he accepted a reappointment as manager for the 1980 season.

“We hated him,” catcher Bob Boone said. “He was driving us crazy. I don’t know if it was a unique approach, but it was a relationship that worked.”

It did work. Green led the Phillies to the 1980 World Series championship, the first in club history. The team went 91-71, beat Nolan Ryan and the Astros in the National League Championship Series, and then the Royals in six games in the World Series to win it all.

“I can remember people coming back from spring training in ’71, and I’m working in the ticket office, then all of a sudden you meet Dallas Green,” David Montgomery told Comcast SportsNet. “You have to step back a little bit when you meet Dallas Green — his size and his personality and his voice.”