Ron Washington

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Ronald Washington (born April 29, 1952 in New Orleans, Louisiana) is a former infielder in Major League Baseball and the current manager of the American League's Texas Rangers. Prior to managing the Rangers, Washington coached in the New York Mets and Oakland Athletics organizations.

[edit] Playing career

Washington's playing career began with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1977, and he then played for the Minnesota Twins, Baltimore Orioles, Cleveland Indians, and Houston Astros respectively from 1981-89. He was primarily a middle infielder for most of his career. On May 28, 1988, Washington broke up Odell Jones' no-hit bid after 8 and 1/3 innings with a pinch-hit single. Washington also happened to be the player who replaced Cal Ripken at shortstop in the eighth inning of a game on September 14, 1987, ending Ripken's streak of 8,243 consecutive innings played.

[edit] Coaching career

Following his retirement as a player, Washington worked in the New York Mets organization for five years. After being hired as the A's first base coach in 1996, Washington has been infield and third base coach for the last ten years (1997-2006). As infield coach Washington has been credited for developing much of the A's young infield talent in the last decade, including 6 time gold glover Eric Chavez, and former MVP and A's shortstop Miguel Tejada. In 2004, Chavez expressed his appreciation by giving Washington one of his gold glove trophies, signed "Wash, not without you." [1] Washington plays a major role in the events of the book Moneyball, a book detailing how the A's have been successful despite a small budget. Washington is shown in a positive light for the way he trained Scott Hatteberg to field first base for the first time in his career. Washington is also, however, portrayed as too old-fashioned and traditional in his unacceptance of general manager Billy Beane's sabermetric strategies.

On November 6, 2006, the Texas Rangers announced that Washington had accepted their offer to manage the team [2]. Washington replaced Buck Showalter, who was fired a month earlier after failing to lead the team to a playoff appearance in four years. Washington beat out four other candidates for the job: Rangers bench coach Don Wakamatsu,then New York Mets third base coach Manny Acta, Nippon Ham Fighters manager Trey Hillman [3] and former Rangers catcher John Russell [4].