Ron Plaza

It looked, at first glance, like a mistake. The Associated Press’s obituary for Ron Plaza, which ran in newspapers across the US in April 2012, noted that the Oakland Athletics’ roving minor-league instructor was entering his 61st season in professional baseball, but listed his age as only 77.1

There was no error. The prodigious infielder from New Jersey had signed his first pro contract at age 16 in 1951. He’d set off to Johnson City, Tennessee, to begin a baseball odyssey that continued until his death, interrupted only by a one-year pause in which a dispirited Plaza considered going full-time into the clothing business.2

The biggest prizes in baseball, major-league playing and managing jobs, eluded Plaza. But he put in eight uniformed years as a big-league coach between 1969 and 1986 and helped develop minor-league prospects in three championship organizations – the 1960s St. Louis Cardinals, 1970s Cincinnati Reds, and 1980s and 1990s Oakland Athletics.

His presence as first-base coach on the 1969 Seattle Pilots also earned him the dubious honor of mention in Jim Bouton’s Ball Four, in which Plaza was compared to a drill instructor and characterized – as were some other coaches – as an officious meddler.3 Asked about the book in 1978, Plaza’s dismissal was crisp: “Never read it. I wouldn’t give the man the satisfaction.”4

Ronald Charles Plaza was born on August 24, 1934, in Passaic, New Jersey, the son of Poland-born Charles Plaza and his Pennsylvania-born wife, Helen.5 In Ron’s youth, Charles Plaza was first a sewing machine operator in a clothing factory and later a sewing supervisor. A second son, Kenneth, followed about nine years after Ron.6

Ron grew into an athletic teenager of 6-foot-1 and 185 pounds,7 and a star performer at multiple positions on the baseball field. In his junior year at Clifton High School in 1950, he hit .373 as a shortstop and made an all-conference team picked by local coaches.8 The following season, he hit .365 and made the same all-star team, this time as a third baseman.9 He also pitched on occasion, throwing a five-hit shutout in a semipro game in August 1950.10

After graduating from Clifton High at age 16 in June 1951,11 Plaza played with a semipro team called the Uncle Sams, whose other alumni included major-leaguers Larry Doby, Danny O’Connell, Carl Sawatski, and Ed Sanicki.12

His time there didn’t last long. On July 6 St. Louis Cardinals scout Benny Borgmann signed Plaza to a pro contract. Charles and Helen Plaza had wanted their son to consider a college athletic scholarship, but Charles said his son “wanted so very much to play baseball, we couldn’t stand in his way.” The youngster used part of his bonus, reported at $8,500 to $10,000, to buy his father his first car.13 Then he set off for Johnson City, in the Class D Appalachian League, the first of eight stops in an 11-season career as a minor-league infielder.

Plaza started strong, hitting .302 in 56 games and making the league’s All-Rookie team.14 He marked his 17th birthday on August 24 by starting both ends of Johnson City’s doubleheader sweep of the Welch (West Virginia) Miners at third base, going 2-for-7 with a double and an RBI.15

After a down year in 1952 – hitting .211 at Albany, Georgia, also Class D – Plaza regained his momentum in 1953, hitting .273 and driving in 106 runs with the Hamilton (Ontario) team of the Class D Pennsylvania-Ontario-New York League.16 Two seasons with Allentown (Pennsylvania) in the Class A Eastern League followed, in which Plaza hit .260 and .284.

Two life-changing offseason developments took place during these years. Plaza went to Mexico to play winter ball in 1954 and 1955. By his own telling he was on a team with five other Americans, who were all married and went home to their wives after each day’s game. Living alone in a hotel, Plaza was forced to learn Spanish to navigate daily life. He became fluent in the language – a skill that served him well in his later roles as a manager, coach, and minor-league instructor, working closely with Latino players who spoke limited English.17

In February 1956, after his second season in Allentown, Plaza married for the first time to Jeanne Cornelius, a native of the nearby town of Wind Gap.18 The couple had two sons, David and Mark. Unfortunately, Mark died in infancy in December 1964.19 The Plazas were divorced in early 1968.20

When the Cardinals signed Plaza, they told him they didn’t consider bringing a prospect to the majors until he’d spent five seasons in the minors.21 Plaza seemed on the verge of breaking through in his sixth season, 1956. Age 21 for most of the season, he hit .297 in 121 games as the starting second baseman for a triple-A Rochester Red Wings team that finished second in the International League in the regular season and then won the postseason playoffs. After the season Plaza and double-play partner Eddie Kasko were promoted to the Cardinals’ 40-man roster.22

The Cardinals had traded future Hall of Famer Red Schoendienst in June 1956, and rookie Don Blasingame staked a claim to the second-base job the rest of the season, hitting .261. Blasingame won the job in spring training 1957, improved his average to .271, and even received minor consideration in Most Valuable Player voting.23 Meanwhile Plaza returned to Rochester for a second season. He may have tried to distinguish himself from the slender Blasingame by hitting for power. Plaza walloped a career-high 14 home runs, his only season of double-digit homers, but it came at the cost of his batting average, which fell 76 points to .221.  In the end Plaza and Blasingame had identical .368 slugging percentages in 1957. As his rival continued to hold the Cardinals second-base job through 1959, Plaza got stuck in Triple A and lost his momentum, hitting .239 in 1958, and .246 in 1959.24 “It got tougher for me to keep playing,” Plaza recalled later.25

In 1960 he gave up. Plaza had worked for several offseasons as a buyer and salesman in MacHugh’s men’s clothing store in Ridgewood, New Jersey. Lacking a college education or other options, he went back full-time. He later said the Cardinals called him during his year off, urging him to return to baseball and dangling the possibility of a minor-league manager’s job.26 Plaza came back to the Cardinals organization to play two more seasons at Triple A in 1961 and 1962, the latter as a player-coach.27 His average sagged all the way to .191 in his final year, but he formed a strong bond with his manager in both seasons, former major-league catcher Joe Schultz.

The opportunity to manage finally arose in 1963, with the Billings (Montana) Mustangs of the Class A Pioneer League, and Plaza seized it. He managed at Class A in the Cardinals’ minor-league system through 1968, including a league championship season and 96-43 record with the 1967 St. Petersburg Cardinals of the Florida State League.28 Major-leaguers who played for Plaza in this period included Hall of Famer Steve Carlton, Pedro Borbón, Reggie Cleveland, Nate Colbert, José Cruz, and Willie Montañez.

Plaza earned recognition for developing his players’ fundamental skills and smarts, like bunting and advancing runners with ground balls. “It’s hard to mold young Class A players into a baseball team. The best at it has to be Ron Plaza. His team is hardly ever guilty of glaring errors of omission,” a Florida sportswriter wrote in 1968. “Plaza has his team doing major league things. … There are few times that individuals on the Cards beat somebody – Plaza has his boys beating the others as a team.”29

Plaza admitted he had big-league aspirations. “Everybody who is active in this game wants to get to the top. I’m no different. I’m willing to go one step at a time,” he said.30 Instead, Plaza jumped straight from managing Class A to coaching in the majors, thanks in part to the expansion of the American and National Leagues following the 1968 season.

The parent Cardinals in St. Louis ranked among baseball’s most successful franchises in the 1960s, winning World Series titles in 1964 and 1967 and an NL pennant in 1968. Plaza’s former manager Schultz was a six-year member of the St. Louis coaching staff, and the team’s success made him an attractive managing candidate.31 The expansion Pilots announced Schultz’s hiring as field leader on October 10, 1968, the same day the Cardinals lost Game Seven of the World Series to the Detroit Tigers.32

Schultz had already beckoned Plaza to join his coaching staff, and Plaza’s hiring was announced the same day. Plaza was the only coach hand-picked by Schultz; the other Pilot coaches were already hired prior to Schultz coming on board.33 The former teenage infielder finally reached the big leagues at age 34 as a first-base coach, wearing uniform number 7.34 Plaza had another reason to celebrate in late 1968: He remarried that November to the former Phyllis Day. They remained married until Phyllis’s death in 2002.35

Spring training had scarcely begun when Plaza rubbed Bouton, the Pilots’ resident iconoclast, the wrong way.36 Ball Four’s entry for Bouton’s second day with the team, February 27, contains his comparison of Plaza to a drill instructor while leading calisthenics: “I don’t mind the calisthenics, I think they’re good for us. I just don’t like the idea of Plaza looking as if he’s enjoying himself.”37 Bouton also criticized Plaza for keeping tabs on the number of baseballs Bouton brought with him for warmups. “[Pilots coach Eddie] O’Brien and Plaza are officious types … and cause more trouble than they smooth over. And because they try to find things to do they become nothing but annoyances.”38

While Plaza denied on more than one occasion that he’d read the book, his comments to a reporter in 1979 suggested some familiarity with it: “He would ask for five or six balls, and I’d tell him hell no he couldn’t have that many. I’d give him one ball, which is all anybody needs to warm up on, isn’t it?” Plaza went on: “Bouton wrote all about the wild and crazy things other ballplayers did, but you notice he never included the things he did, and there were some strange things.”39

Plaza’s skill at teaching fundamentals did little or nothing for the Pilots, who sagged to a sixth-place finish and a 64-98 record while drawing poorly. Plaza and pitching coach Sal Maglie were fired on October 15, less than two weeks after the end of the season.40 Schultz was fired about a month later, and the bankrupt Pilots moved to Milwaukee shortly before the start of the 1970 season, becoming the Brewers.41

Plaza later said his Seattle experience left “a sour taste in [his] mouth.”42 He was not, however, between jobs for long43 – and his next employer, the Reds, embodied the same kind of success in the 1970s that the Cardinals had in the 1960s. On October 24, 1969, the Reds announced Plaza’s hiring as a minor-league instructor and manager in the short-season Rookie-level Gulf Coast League. “He has proven very adept at developing young talent,” said Sheldon “Chief” Bender, the Reds’ director of player personnel.44

Plaza managed the Gulf Coast League Reds from 1970 through 1973, and also spent a short interim stint as manager of the Trois-Rivieres (Quebec) Aigles of the Double-A Eastern League in July 1975 after manager Jim Snyder suffered a back injury.45

When not employed as a manager, Plaza also served as minor-league field coordinator.46 Future major-leaguers who developed on his watch in the Reds’ system included  Joaquín Andújar, Tom Hume, and Pat Zachry. Zachry shared the NL Rookie of the Year award in 1976 – the season Cincinnati won its second straight World Series.47 Dan Driessen, who played on both championship teams, credited Plaza with moving him from catcher to the infield as a minor-leaguer, while also making him less introverted.48

One Reds prospect from that era, pitcher Tom Carroll, spoke decades later about Plaza’s whiteboard talks, when he would instruct young players on fundamental aspects of the game. “Ron’s depth of knowledge on fundamentals was great and the Reds were noted for having players that were a cut above in that regard and it all came back to those whiteboard sessions and related demonstrations on the field,” recalled Carroll, who reached the majors with Cincinnati in 1974 and 1975.49 Another Red, Will McEnaney, was less enthused when recalling Reds rookie camp: “Ron Plaza was an instructor, drill sergeant kind of guy, and he and Russ Nixon ran the camp. All we did was run. Florida in June! I wasn’t used to it, the discipline, constantly being schooled on baseball situations.”50

Nine seasons after the Pilots fiasco, Plaza returned to the majors when manager Sparky Anderson promoted him to the Reds’ coaching staff for the 1978 season. His ability to relate to Latino players was cited as a key reason.51 News coverage noted that he had worked directly with almost every player in the organization.52

Plaza remained on the Reds’ staff for six seasons. When Pete Rose tied Wee Willie Keeler’s NL record by hitting in his 44th straight game on July 31, 1978, Plaza appeared prominently in wire-service photos, welcoming Rose to first base.53 Plaza was among nine Reds coaches and staffers who were given Jeeps by Rose that season, as thank-you gifts for their contributions to his success.54

The 1979 season began poorly for Plaza. He started the year as the Reds’ third-base coach but was shifted back to first base in June after a series of ill-advised decisions to send runners home resulted in outs at the plate. Reportedly he lost players’ confidence to the point that some of them made their own decisions to stop at third, ignoring Plaza’s signals to keep running.55

Despite that setback, 1979 brought Plaza his only big-league postseason experience as the Reds won the NL West. A widely printed wire-service photo showed Plaza joining players Hume and Ray Knight in a post-clinching champagne shower.56 The Reds were swept by the Pittsburgh Pirates in the NL Championship Series.

Plaza might have made a second trip to the playoffs two seasons later, except for the jerry-rigged nature of the 1981 schedule. That strike-torn season was divided into halves, and the first round of the playoffs pitted the first-half champion in each division against the second-half champion. With a record of 66-42 for the full season, Cincinnati had the best record in the major leagues – but they were shut out of the postseason because they didn’t win the NL West Division in either half.57

Major-league coaches, like the managers they serve, are hired to be fired. After the Reds fell to last place in 1982 and 1983, Plaza received his second big-league pink slip on October 4, 1983, as part of a housecleaning by Reds president Bob Howsam. Also fired that day were manager Nixon, pitching coach Bill Fischer, Triple-A manager Roy Hartsfield, and minor-league pitching instructor Fred Norman.58

It took Plaza only slightly longer to find a new position than it had in 1969. He was announced as a minor-league instructor with Oakland in early January 1984, joining former A’s infielders Dave McKay and Fred Stanley in the role.59

Plaza was one of three new coaches to join Oakland manager Jackie Moore’s big-league staff for the 1986 season, following the retirements of coaches Billy Williams and Clete Boyer.60 In a small twist of baseball fate, Moore had been one of the coaches named to the 1970 Brewers’ staff following the banishments of Schultz, Plaza, and the rest of the Pilots brain trust.

Hired as a dugout coach, Plaza was credited with providing hitting guidance to AL Rookie of the Year José Canseco, as well as youngsters Tony Phillips and Walt Weiss.61 Oakland had also traded for Andújar following the pitcher’s tantrum and ejection in Game Seven of the 1985 World Series while pitching for St. Louis. As a friend and former minor-league manager of Andújar, Plaza was seen as a welcoming presence to help the pitcher settle in.62

Moore was fired on June 26, 1986, with the Athletics tied for last in the AL West with a 29-44 record. As coach Jeff Newman served as interim manager, Plaza was one of numerous names rumored as a potential full-time successor.63 The Athletics’ eventual choice, future Hall of Famer Tony La Russa, won three AL pennants and one World Series in 10 seasons with the team. He also exercised a manager’s prerogative to bring in his own coaching staff – so after the season Plaza returned to his role as a minor-league instructor.64

Plaza never held another on-field major-league position but remained part of the Oakland organization for the rest of his life. Over the years he would periodically receive newspaper mentions in A’s minor-league outposts like Modesto, California, as he passed through town to counsel young players on hitting or fielding.65 His itinerary in 1995 took him to Modesto; the Dominican Republic; Grand Rapids, Michigan; Florida; and Medford, Oregon. “It’s a grind, but it’s something I like to do,” Plaza told a reporter.66

Plaza was present in Medford in July 1990 when Todd Van Poppel, the Athletics’ first-round pick in the June 1990 draft and a hotly touted prospect, made his professional debut.67 He was also involved in the development of six-time All-Star, Most Valuable Player, and All-Star Game MVP Miguel Tejada, who played for the Athletics from 1997 to 2003 at the start of his 16-season career. “He’s our shortstop of the future. He’s special. Only God could give him what he has,” Plaza said in 1996.68

Plaza also stayed closely involved with player development activities in the Dominican, where the Athletics established a boarding-school instructional facility in 1987.69 On several occasions, Plaza spoke frankly about work visa defections. He estimated that as many as nine out of 10 Dominican players released from baseball contracts in the US stayed in the country illegally, rather than return home to limited prospects. “The first thought most of these kids had when they signed a contract is that this is their ticket out of the country,” he said in 2001. “There were a few times when we were going to release a player out of spring training and those kids knew it before we told them. We went one morning to talk to three kids, and they had left the night before. We don’t know where they went.”70

Ron Plaza’s baseball travels ended in the spring of 2012. According to his Associated Press obituary, he suffered several small strokes that spring, and was receiving treatment at a residential care facility in St. Petersburg, Florida. He died there of unspecified causes on April 15 at the age of 77.71 His burial details were not publicly released.72 Plaza, who had remarried after Phyllis’s death, was survived by his wife, Jannette; sons Rony and David; daughters Sherida, Tina, and Allison; three grandchildren; and many great-grandchildren, according to a brief obituary in the Tampa Bay Times. The obituary ended simply: “Baseball was his life.”73

Acknowledgments

This article was reviewed by Rory Costello and Rick Zucker and fact-checked by Paul Proia.

Sources and photo credit

In addition to the sources credited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for background information on players, teams, and seasons. The author thanks the Giamatti Research Center of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum for research assistance.

Image of unnumbered 1969 Seattle Pilots promotional photo downloaded from the Trading Card Database.

Notes

1 “A’s Instructor Ron Plaza, 77,” Palm Springs (California) Desert Sun, April 17, 2012: B6.

2 Bob Hertzel, “Reds’ Plaza Has Earned His Job,” Cincinnati Enquirer, March 9, 1978: D1.

3 Jim Bouton, Ball Four (New York: Dell Publishing Co., 1970).

4 Hertzel, “Reds’ Plaza Has Earned His Job.”

5 As of the end of the 2023 season, Plaza was one of 13 major-league players, coaches, managers, and umpires to list Passaic as their birthplace.

6 Information on the Plaza family taken from the 1940 US Census and 1950 US Census, accessed via Familysearch.org in December 2023.

7 “Ronnie Plaza, Clifton 3B, Signs Contract with Cardinals for Reported $10,000 Bonus,” Paterson (New Jersey) Morning Call, July 7, 1951: 10. Plaza’s playing height and weight are listed in Baseball-Reference as a smaller 5’11” and 175 pounds.

8 “Clifton, East Rutherford Get Seven All-Star Spots,” Passaic Herald-News, June 15, 1950: 41.

9 “All-Conference Nine Dominated by Garfield,” Passaic Herald-News, June 14, 1951: 41; “Ronnie Plaza, Clifton 3B, Signs Contract with Cardinals for Reported $10,000 Bonus.”

10 “Cameron’s One-Hitter Ousts DeMuro Comets from Tourney,” Passaic Herald-News, August 24, 1950: 33; “Mustang Nine Whips Herald-News, 9-7,” Passaic Herald-News, August 26, 1949: 15. As of December 2023, Baseball-Reference had no record of Plaza pitching professionally.

11 “242 Clifton High School Seniors Graduate Friday,” Passaic Herald-News, June 13, 1951: 7. Several stories in New Jersey newspapers about Plaza’s signing with the Cardinals in July 1951 also mention that he graduated from high school. They don’t specify whether he took any specific action – such as skipping a grade – to graduate at such a relatively young age.

12 “Ronnie Plaza, Clifton 3B, Signs Contract with Cardinals for Reported $10,000 Bonus.”

13 “Ronnie Plaza, Clifton 3B, Signs Contract with Cardinals for Reported $10,000 Bonus;” “Clifton’s Ronnie Plaza Inks St. Louis Cardinal Contract,” Passaic Herald-News, July 7, 1951: 12; Tom Kelly, “The New Breed,” Tampa Bay Times (Floridian magazine), August 27, 1967: 12. An online inflation calculator provided by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics indicated that $8,500 to $10,000 in July 1951 would have been worth about $100,770 to $118,553 in November 2023.

14 “Cardinals Receive Awards” (photo and caption), Johnson City (Tennessee) Press-Chronicle, September 5, 1951: 12. Plaza received a ring for making the all-rookie team; he said years later he lost it the following spring while swimming in the ocean at Daytona Beach, Florida.

15 He also committed a run-scoring error on an easy grounder, which cost teammate Gary Blaylock a shutout but not a win. “Blaylock, Hollingsworth Lead Cardinals to Double Victory,” Johnson City Press-Chronicle, August 25, 1951: 10.

16 Plaza’s RBI total was good for third in the PONY League, trailing two hitters who reached the majors: Wellsville’s Ted Sepkowski (145) and Jamestown’s Ken Walters (128). Plaza hit only six home runs in 1953.

17 Kelly, “The New Breed;” Hertzel, “Reds’ Plaza Has Earned His Job.” In Kelly’s story, Plaza said he could also speak Polish.

18 “Jeanne C. Cornelius to Wed Ronald C. Plaza,” Passaic Herald-News, November 10, 1955: 11; “Plaza-Cornelius Vows Said,” Allentown (Pennsylvania) Morning Call, February 26, 1956: 28.

19 “Mark Plaza” (obituary), Allentown (Pennsylvania) Sunday Call-Chronicle, January 3, 1965: D11.

20 “4 Divorce Suits Filed,” Passaic Herald-News, February 16, 1968: 17.

21 Hertzel, “Reds’ Plaza Has Earned His Job.”

22 “Birds Call Up Five, Switch Two Others,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, October 15, 1956: 2C.

23 Blasingame tied for 12th place in MVP voting; he was one of 25 players to receive at least one vote. Kelly’s “The New Breed” claims that Cardinals general manager Frank Lane had “promised” the second-base job to Blasingame. However, Blasingame’s performance in the late 1950s, including an All-Star Game appearance in 1958, suggests that he earned the job on his own merits.

24 The Cardinals’ Triple-A team moved from Rochester, New York, to Omaha, Nebraska, before the 1958 season.

25 Kelly, “The New Breed.” Newspaper profiles of Plaza do not highlight a specific explanation for his late-50s fade – no injuries, for instance. Kelly’s story mentions that Plaza tried eyeglasses in hopes of regaining his hitting stroke.

26 Kelly, “The New Breed;” Hertzel, “Reds’ Plaza Has Earned His Job.”

27 The Cardinals’ Triple-A teams were based in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Charleston, South Carolina, in 1961 and Atlanta in 1962.

28 Al Levine, “FSL Flag Flies Over St. Petersburg,” St. Petersburg Times, September 9, 1967: C1.

29 Jimmy Mann, “Yes, Sir, It’s the Little Things that Count,” St. Petersburg Times, April 30, 1968: 3C.

30 Kelly, “The New Breed.”

31 In addition to his Cardinals coaching job, Schultz’s resume also included nine seasons as a major-league catcher and 13 as a minor-league manager.

32 “Schultz Named Seattle Manager,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, October 10, 1968: 1C; “Schultz Is Pilot Pilot,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, October 11, 1968: 2B.

33 Harland Beery, “Coaches Come…and Go,” Daily Herald (Everett, Washington), September 3, 1969: 29.

34 Uniform number from the numeric roster on Seattlepilots.com, a fan site devoted to all things Pilots, accessed December 2023. http://www.seattlepilots.com/numbers.html Plaza can also be seen wearing Number 7 in a team photo posted on the same site: http://www.seattlepilots.com/teamphot.jpg Plaza’s game-worn Pilots road uniform sold at auction for $11,011 in January 2017: https://catalog.scpauctions.com/1969_RON_PLAZA_SEATTLE_PILOTS_GAME_WORN_ROAD_UNIFO-LOT37974.aspx.

References to Plaza as first-base coach include Associated Press, “Harper’s Magic Words: Run When You’re Ready,” Lancaster (Pennsylvania) Daily Intelligencer Journal, May 30, 1969: 18, and Jim Jones, “That Knuckle-Baller Likes Seattle,” Ridgewood (New Jersey) Herald-News, July 17, 1969: 18. On one occasion, Bouton referred to Plaza as a third base coach, but he may have just been filling in for Crosetti. Bouton, Ball Four, (June 30 entry), 238.  

35 “Phyllis M. Plaza” (obituary), Tampa Bay Times, March 10, 2002: 9. The date of their marriage is confirmed by transcribed records from the Florida Marriage Index for Ronald Charles Plaza and Phyllis Marie Day, available through Familysearch.org and accessed in December 2023.

36 Bouton was impressed by one aspect of Plaza, mentioning the coach’s “California-tan good looks, All-American” in his February 27 entry. Bouton was perhaps unaware that Plaza hailed from Bouton’s own home state of New Jersey; Bouton’s birthplace, Newark, and Plaza’s birthplace, Passaic, are only about 10 miles apart.

37 Bouton, Ball Four, 14.

38  Bouton, Ball Four, 100. (This passage occurs in Bouton’s entry for April 10.)

39 Gus Schrader, “Long Relief,” Cedar Rapids (Iowa) Gazette, April 1, 1979: 2E.

40 Associated Press, “Pilots Dump Maglie, Plaza Overboard,” Bremerton (Washington) Sun, October 16, 1969: 17. The Pilots played their final game – a loss to Oakland – on October 2. All five of the Pilots’ coaches were let go by the club in the offseason; the 1970 Brewers took the field with an entirely new on-field staff led by manager Dave Bristol. In addition to Plaza and Maglie, the other members of the Pilots’ coaching staff were Frankie Crosetti, Eddie O’Brien, and Sibby Sisti.

41 Associated Press, “Schultz Is Fired; Bristol to Pilots?,” Atlanta Journal, November 19, 1969: 1D.

42 Hertzel, “Reds’ Plaza Has Earned His Job.”

43 Between baseball jobs, that is. At the time, Plaza worked in the offseason for the city recreation department in St. Petersburg, Florida. Gus Schrader, “It’s All Hash Today,” Cedar Rapids (Iowa) Gazette, October 23, 1969: 23A.

44 Al Brewster, “SporTalk,” Bedford (Indiana) Daily Times-Mail, October 24, 1969: 9.

45 Frank Klein, “The Monday Wash,” Tampa Times, July 14, 1975: 1D.

46 Associated Press, “Reds Sign Minor Coaches,” Chillicothe (Ohio) Gazette, October 16, 1974: 25.

47 Zachry tied in the NL Rookie of the Year voting with Butch Metzger of the San Diego Padres.

48 Arnie Robbins, “Inside Dan Driessen,” Cincinnati Enquirer, August 22, 1974: 50.

49 Gregory H. Wolf, “Tom Carroll,” SABR Biography Project, accessed December 2023.

50 Greg Rhodes and John Erardi, Big Red Dynasty: How Bob Howsam and Sparky Anderson Built the Big Red Machine (Cincinnati: Road West Publishing, 1997), 176. https://archive.org/details/bigreddynastyhow0000rhod/page/176/mode/2up?q=%22ron+plaza%22&view=theater.

51 Hertzel, “Reds’ Plaza Has Earned His Job.”

52 “Ron Plaza Joins Reds as 5th Cincy Coach,” Logan (Ohio) Daily News, November 3, 1977:10.

53 One example: New York Daily News, August 1, 1978: 52.

54 Several years later, Rose took the US Internal Revenue Service to court after the IRS disallowed $36,000 in business expenses Rose claimed in relation to the purchase of the Jeeps. “Rose, IRS Rests Cases [sic],” Hattiesburg (Mississippi) American, December 22, 1983: 6C.

55 Paul Meyer, “Nixon to Replace Plaza as Reds’ Third Base Coach,” Dayton (Ohio) Journal Herald, June 21, 1979: 14; “Reds’ Mistakes on Bases Lead to Coaching Switch,” Arizona Republic (Phoenix, Arizona), June 22, 1979: D2.

56 One example: The Marion (Ohio) Sunday Star, September 30, 1979: 21.

57 The Reds finished a scant half-game behind the eventual World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers in the first half, and 1½ games behind the Houston Astros in the second half. To a lesser extent, a similar fate befell Plaza’s former employers, the St. Louis Cardinals, who had the best full-season record by winning percentage in the NL East but missed the playoffs because they didn’t finish first in either half.

58 Earl Lawson, “Rapp’s Appointment Caps Howsam’s Housecleaning,” Cincinnati Post, October 5, 1983: 1C; Tom Groeschen, “Reds Fire Nixon, Hire Vern Rapp,” Cincinnati Enquirer, October 5, 1983: A1.

59 Glenn Schwarz, “A’s Unlikely to Land Either Goose, Niekro,” San Francisco Examiner, January 5, 1984: F5.

60 “Herzog Wants Ump Suspended,” Modesto (California) Bee, October 31, 1985: D2; Susan Fornoff, “McCatty, Williams Leave A’s,” Sacramento Bee, October 31, 1985: D3. The other two new coaching hires were former big-leaguers Bob Watson and Jeff Newman.

61 Kit Stier, “McCatty is Gone; Collins Headed for Another Club,” Oakland Tribune, October 31, 1985: F1; King Thompson, “A’s Burning Up the Road,” San Francisco Examiner, April 22, 1986: F1; King Thompson, “Phillps’ [sic] Perspective Could Benefit A’s,” San Francisco Examiner, March 21, 1986: F4; King Thompson, “Canseco Claims His 0-29 Isn’t a Slump,” San Francisco Examiner, August 19, 1986: F1; John Godwin, “Weiss Puts Bat On Display, Awaits A’s Next Move,” Durham (North Carolina) Morning Herald, June 8, 1986: 2B.

62 Rick Hummel, “Winter Meetings End; Rosters of 24 Likely,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, December 13, 1985: D1; Kit Stier, “Andújar and A’s Coach Plaza Have Been Friends for Many Years,” Oakland Tribune, December 15, 1985: F5. Andújar went 12-7 in an injury-shortened 1986 season.

63 Rick LaPlante, “Morgan a Candidate for A’s Job if Moore Is Fired,’ Peninsula Times Tribune (Palo Alto, California), June 15, 1986: C2; Rick LaPlante, “A’s Seek Tougher Guy,” Peninsula Times Tribune, June 27, 1986: D1. In the latter story, an A’s official denied that anyone currently working for the organization was a candidate, deflating Plaza’s potential candidacy.

64 Kit Stier, “A’s Find Coach; Bochte Retires,” Oakland Tribune, November 26, 1986: D1.

65 A few examples: Rich Estrada, “8-Run 8th Catapults Li’l A’s Past Spirit,” Modesto Bee, June 16, 1988: D1; Rick Weber, “Pitching Pays Off for Li’l A’s,” Modesto Bee, May 9, 1994: C1; Ron Agostini, “Hust Is a Hit Despite the Misses,” Modesto Bee, August 19, 1995: C1.

66 Jeff Jardine, “Modesto Update,” Modesto Bee, May 10, 1995: C4.

67 Randy Hammericksen, “Van Poppel Has the A’s Buzzing,” San Francisco Examiner, July 23, 1990: B2.

68 Marcos Breton, “Prospects Come Cheaply,” Sacramento Bee, October 16, 1996: F1.

69 Brian VanderBeek, “Dominican Dandies,” Modesto Bee, June 10, 2001: C1.

70 Marcos Breton, “Lost Souls,” Sacramento Bee, October 13, 1996: C1; Brian VanderBeek, “Program Has Had Many Trials, Triumphs Over Course of Years,” Modesto Bee, June 10, 2001: C8.

71  “A’s Instructor Ron Plaza, 77,” Palm Springs (California) Desert Sun, April 17, 2012: B6.

72 Findagrave.com entry for Ronald Charles Plaza, accessed December 2023. (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/89365765/ronald-charles-plaza) Plaza’s Associated Press obituary made no mention of funeral or burial details, nor did the brief obituary that ran in the Tampa Bay Times in April 2012 and is available on Legacy.com, accessed in December 2023. “Plaza, Ronald ‘Ron,’” Tampa Bay Times, April 22, 2012: B7. https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/tampabaytimes/name/ronald-plaza-obituary?id=11310294.

73 “Plaza, Ronald ‘Ron,’” Tampa Bay Times, April 22, 2012: B7, reprinted on Legacy.com, cited above.