Bob Watson

Bob Watson played first base for the Yankees from 1980 to 1982, then returned to the organization in 1995 as general manager and built the roster that won the 1996 World Series -- making him the first Black general manager in Major League Baseball history to win one. He also hit .307 in his first Bronx season, got run over in a famous relay-throw play in the 1980 ALCS, and later spent nearly a decade as MLB's disciplinarian, deciding suspensions for brawls and beanballs. Two very different Yankees careers, both of them real.

The Bull From Los Angeles

Watson grew up in Los Angeles, starred as a catcher at John C. Fremont High School on a team that won the 1963 city championship, and signed with the Houston Astros as an amateur free agent in January 1965 -- a few months before MLB even had a draft. He debuted with Houston on September 9, 1966, and spent 13 seasons there, making two All-Star teams (1973 and 1975) and becoming enough of a fixture in the middle of the Astros' order that everybody just called him "The Bull."

He also owns one of the weirder footnotes in baseball history. On May 4, 1975, Watson scored what got called Major League Baseball's one millionth run, crossing the plate on a Milt May homer against the Giants at Candlestick Park a few seconds ahead of Cincinnati's Dave Concepcion, who was rounding third 2,000 miles away in a different game entirely. Tootsie Roll sponsored the whole promotion and gave him a million Tootsie Rolls (he split them between the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts) plus a million pennies for charity. (Baseball historians later recalculated the totals and decided Watson probably didn't actually score the true millionth run. He kept the candy anyway.)

Houston traded him to Boston on June 13, 1979, for pitcher Pete Ladd, cash, and a player to be named later, and Watson mashed -- .337 with 13 homers in 84 games down the stretch for a Red Sox team chasing Baltimore. Then the season ended, he hit free agency, and the Yankees came calling.

First Base in the Bronx Zoo

Watson signed with New York for 1980 and immediately took over first base from Chris Chambliss, hitting .307 with 13 home runs and 68 RBI as the 1980 Yankees won 103 games and the AL East. It's easily his best season in pinstripes, and it came on a club that also had Reggie Jackson hitting 41 homers and Rick Cerone trying to fill Thurman Munson's shoes behind the plate.

That 1980 club never got past the first round. In Game 2 of the 1980 ALCS, Watson doubled in the eighth inning with the Yankees down 3-2 in Kansas City, and Willie Randolph tried to score behind him on the play. The relay throw -- Willie Wilson to George Brett to catcher Darrell Porter -- nailed Randolph at the plate, the Royals held on to win, and Kansas City finished the sweep two nights later on a George Brett homer off Goose Gossage. Watson's double is a trivia footnote now, but it's the answer to the question of how that whole ugly series actually turned.

1981 was worse and then, suddenly, a lot better. A players' strike split the season in half, Watson hit just .212 in an injury-shortened 59 games, and by October nobody was expecting much from him. Instead he hit .438 in the Division Series against Milwaukee, chipped in during an ALCS sweep of Oakland, and then opened the World Series against the Dodgers with a three-run homer in the first inning of Game 1. The Yankees still lost that series in six games -- the last World Series they'd play in for 15 years -- but Watson's October had nothing to do with the collapse.

By 1982 he'd lost his everyday job, and on April 23 the Yankees traded him to the Atlanta Braves for a minor-league pitcher named Scott Patterson. In Atlanta, Watson became a backup and pinch-hitter behind Chris Chambliss -- the same guy he'd taken the Yankees' first-base job from two years earlier. Baseball has a sense of humor sometimes. He retired after the 1984 season.

Building a Champion From the Front Office

Watson's second act started far from New York. On October 5, 1993, the Houston Astros hired him as general manager, making him the second Black GM in MLB history -- Atlanta's Bill Lucas had run the Braves' baseball operations from 1976 until his death in 1979, the first to do it, but never got the chance to build a champion. Watson ran Houston's front office for two seasons before the Yankees hired him away on October 23, 1995.

His biggest early call as GM barely needs an introduction now: he hired Joe Torre to manage the 1996 club, a decision the back pages mocked at the time (the "Clueless Joe" headlines are still famous for being wrong). Watson also went out and got the offense some thump, sending Ruben Sierra and minor-league pitcher Matt Drews to Detroit on July 31, 1996, for Cecil Fielder. Fielder hit .260 with 13 homers down the stretch, then added 3 more homers and 14 RBI in the playoffs as the Yankees beat the Braves in the 1996 World Series, their first title in 18 years.

That made Watson the first Black general manager in MLB history to win a World Series. Lucas built barriers down. Watson's the one who actually got to hold the trophy.

The job kept getting harder from there, mostly because George Steinbrenner never fully let go of it. Watson kept clashing with the Boss over who actually controlled baseball decisions -- late in his tenure, Steinbrenner personally took over trade talks for Minnesota's Chuck Knoblauch rather than leave it to his own GM.

On February 2, 1998, Watson resigned, one week before spring training opened. Brian Cashman, his 30-year-old assistant GM, got the job the very next day. Two more years under Watson, in fact, were part of the résumé that made Cashman the obvious in-house choice.

Life After the Bronx

Watson wasn't done with baseball. In 2002, MLB hired him as vice president of on-field operations, later focusing on discipline -- suspensions and fines for brawls, beanball incidents, and other on-field messes, succeeding Hall of Famer Frank Robinson in the role. He was still the guy signing off on fines when Don Zimmer charged Pedro Martinez in the 2003 ALCS; Watson handed down $50,000 to Martinez and lesser fines to Manny Ramirez, Karim Garcia, and Zimmer himself after reviewing the tape. He retired from the role at the end of the 2010 season.

Watson died on May 14, 2020, in Houston, after a battle with kidney disease. He was 74. He's not in the Baseball Hall of Fame -- his playing numbers were never going to get him there -- but between the millionth run, the two GM jobs, and the ring he delivered a franchise that had gone 18 years without one, he left more of a mark on the sport than most Cooperstown plaques manage to explain.

Two Yankees front offices, one starting first baseman's job, and one championship ring nobody in the organization ever really talks about enough. Watson isn't walking into Cooperstown, and he never got a plaque in Monument Park either. But the 1996 title happened because he hired the right manager and made the right trade, and that's a bigger legacy than a lot of guys who did get the plaque.