Thursday, August 25, 2011
The Worst Coaches in Boston Sports History
Responding to the post immediately below, Suldog has some excellent nominees:
I still haven't heard back from Reader No. 1 and Reader AM about their nominees. If anyone else has suggestions, send 'em in. I'm particularly interested in hearing from Bruins fans, due to my own minimal knowledge of hockey. As I told Suldog, "Going through three-plus decades without a Stanley Cup suggests a rich mine of coaching incompetence, though J. Jacobs, like Yawkey, shoulders much of the blame."
Responding to the post immediately below, Suldog has some excellent nominees:
I'd have to say Pinky Higgins and Billy Herman should rank ahead of Butch Hobson as stinkers.
Higgins was responsible (along with Yawkey, of course) for the Sox being the last team to break the color barrier, and he was a renowned alcoholic as well. His .498 winning percentage over 8 seasons doesn't appear totally execrable until you see that he led them to a .545 in his first year (1955) and went down, down, down in each year following, bottoming out at .422 in 1960 (he "rebounded" with .469 and .475 in 1961 and 1962, then was canned.) Not coincidentally, other AL teams were signing and playing good darker-skinned talent as Higgins' tenure went along, while the Sox remained the whitest team in baseball.
Herman led the team to consecutive 9th place finishes in 1965 and 1966, amassing a stunning 128 - 192 record along the way. Dick Williams took over in '67 and the rest is history.
I still haven't heard back from Reader No. 1 and Reader AM about their nominees. If anyone else has suggestions, send 'em in. I'm particularly interested in hearing from Bruins fans, due to my own minimal knowledge of hockey. As I told Suldog, "Going through three-plus decades without a Stanley Cup suggests a rich mine of coaching incompetence, though J. Jacobs, like Yawkey, shoulders much of the blame."
