It’s About Damn Time: Return of the Player Manager

Pete Rose killed a lot of things: Betting on baseball, Cincinnati pride and dinosaurs, to name three. But not everything he touched went extinct. Until today, I thought this special subset – things Rose didn’t kill – was limited to hot Asian women liking old white men with money. But no, OH NO, there’s one more entry for that category… THE PLAYER-MANAGER.

And who else to pick up where Rose left off than baseball’s other most-controversial once-superstar: Jose Canseco.

The Yuma Scorpions, an independent team with a big-league idea for a gimmick, named Canseco both manager and all-around bad ass. Their reasoning? Easy: “He’s very ready at this point in his career to smoothly transition to managing.” Yes. at THIS point.

But Canseco aside, it brings up a very important question, one that should be thought of somewhere between how to solve the national debt and how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll pop (it’s not three, don’t proffer up that malarkey)…That is, who would you (more importantly me, as I’m writing this) like to see as the next player managers?

So, without further ado (and a pay-per-word agreement) I’ll cut to the chase.

Top Five:

5. Kirk Gibson. If the man could hit a home run half gimp in 1988, the 53-year-old second year manager of the D-backs surely could make a contribution.

4. Texas General Manager Jon Daniels. At 33, he’s really only a few years past his prime. And with his body type, his skill set should be deteriorating slowly… right, Jon?

3. Charlie Manuel. Father Time could probably teach these whipper snappers a thing or two… Unless that thing has anything to do with using statistics in managing a team?

2. Ozzie Guillen. Rumor has it he’s three parts man and one part honey badger. If you know anything about the honey badger you know it’s not their size or their age that matters, they’ve got a fight in them measured only by the kiloton.

1. Obviously, Don Mattingly. This by no means is a criticism of James Loney. It’s not that I don’t like the guy – in fact, I think he’s a great person on tops of a being a darn good ball player. But you have to ask yourself this one question: Was he ever on the Simpsons? Has he jacked six grand slams in one year? Is his last name “Baseball”? No. Donnie Baseball is the clear choice.

Who would you like to see bring back the player manager?