Don Zimmer: My Start in Baseball

Infielder Don Zimmer was a baseball lifer; 12 years as a player (1954-1965), half of them with the Brooklyn Dodgers; 12 years as a manager for the Padres, Red Sox, Rangers and Cubs; and 25 years as a coach, the last 11 for the Yankees (1996-2006).

We sat in the dugout of the Yankees’ spring training camp at Legends Field in Tampa one morning in March 2000 and I asked him how it all began. - Norman L.Macht

Don Zimmer: the start of his career

I signed with the Dodgers right after graduation from high school in Cincinnati in June 1949.

I got on a train and went to Cambridge, Maryland, in the Eastern Shore League. Class D. They had told me to go to the hotel in town, an old white building.

The first thing I always did, from that day on, whenever I went into a town, I went to the local newspaper office and had the paper sent to my father.

I called the ballpark. The general manager said, “Where are you?”

“I’m at the hotel.”

“Be out in front and I’ll pick you up in twenty minutes.”

It was about four o’clock in the afternoon and it was hot. He came in a pickup truck. I got in and we go to the ballpark.

He introduced me to the players. In Class D baseball you were allowed so many veterans and so many limited service players. The rest were rookies, like me. The manager said to me, “You ready to play tonight?”

“Yes, sir.”

They had a veteran third baseman, Hank Parker, and a veteran pitcher, Zeke Zeiss. He was 28, the best pitcher on the team.

Zimmer gets off to a shaky start

In about my fourth game, I was playing shortstop. Zeiss is pitching. Here came a ground ball, took a bad hop and hit me in the neck. You figure it’s called a hit.

The next ball I went to field took a bad bounce and hit me on the right shoulder.

There was a wooden outhouse over beyond first base. The third ball hit to me, I finally caught one. I threw it over the first baseman’s head and hit the outhouse.

I figured that was my first real error. Two innings later another ball’s hit over my head between me and the left fielder. I go back figuring the left fielder’s going to run me off the ball.

I don’t hear him. I reach out. The ball hit my glove and fell on the ground.

Later I make another error and we lose. I had botched up the game. As we’re walking off the field, I happen to be walking behind Parker and Zeke Zeiss.

The pitcher said to Parker, “What are we doing with this guy? He can’t play a lick.”

Parker said, “Let me tell you something. You’re twenty-eight years old. This kid played in high school a week ago. Give him a chance.”

I never forgot that. I always respected Hank Parker for kinda sticking up for me.

Don Zimmer reflects on his first professional games

A few days later I got a call from my dad. He said, “Well, it didn’t take you long to set an Eastern Shore League record.”

I said, “What’s that, dad?”

 “You made six errors in one game.”

“Well, I remember making three legitimately.”

I had a room in a boarding house. We rode in yellow school buses, straight backs, for road trips. It was quite an experience.

Eighteen years old, scared to death, going away for the first time, the guy picks you up in a truck to take you to the ballpark.

Don Zimmer died in June 2014, having spent 66 years involved in Major League Baseball.