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1986 Donruss Tom Runnells (#569) - Card of the Day
There’s no single path that successful major league managers take to get from Little League to running a well-oiled team
They don’t have to be former catchers, though many of them are.
They certainly don’t have to be former All-Stars, though Frank Robinson, Joe Torre, Dusty Baker, and a few others had their day (and then some).
Heck, they don’t even have to be former big league players at all. Hello, Joe Maddon and Earl Weaver.
But if you look at the list of winning (however you might define that) managers across the centuries, you’ll find plenty who had short or fairly undistinguished MLB careers, but who scrapped for whatever they were able to achieve.
Tony La Russa, Sparky Anderson, Terry Francona, Ron Washington, Bobby Cox, and any number of others fit that bill.
Tom Runnells looked like he was on that same sort of path, too.
After going undrafted out of the University of Northern Colorado in 1977, Runnells signed as an amateur free agent with the San Francisco Giants that same year. Mostly a middle infielder with wheels but little thunder in his bat, Runnells nonetheless climbed to Triple-A Phoenix before the 1980 season was done.
He’d stay there for the next three seasons without ever getting the call to the big-league Giants. In October of 1983, Runnells became a free agent again, and he signed another minor league deal, this time with the Cincinnati Reds.
Two more seasons of Triple-A ball followed until, finally, in August of 1985, manager Pete Rose and general manager Bill Bergesch called on their man.
Runnells made his major league debut at age 30 on August 10. He pinch hit for starter Jay Tibbs and flied out to Dodgers shortstop Mariano Duncan, unable to solve Fernando Valenzuela in the top of the seventh inning.
From there, Runnells would make 27 more appearances for the Reds through the end of the season, batting an even .200 in 35 at-bats. Donruss was impressed enough to include his rookie card in their video-game, TV-line-resolution 1986 set anyway.
For his part, Runnells spent most of 1986 back on the farm, but he did pick up 11 more plate appearances for the Reds in May and June before his big league playing career was over.
The very next year, though, Runnells began another climb — as a minor league manager in the Reds system. Two years later, he was winning titles with the Triple-A Indianapolis Indians, also winning him another promotion to the bigs — as a coach for the Montreal Expos.
Then, in June of 1991, Runnells got the call when the Expos fired manager Buck Rodgers. At 36, Runnells had the key to the Montreal kingdom and the responsibility to turn around a last-place team.
That didn’t quite work out as planned, though, as Montreal finished in the basement of the old National League East division.
After a 17-20 start in 1992, Runnells was sent packing, too.
Runnells never did get another official big-league managing gig, but he had his dalliances. First up was another few-season run as a minor league skipper, then he helmed the Detroit Tigers during Spring Training in 1995, in the midst of the players’ strike.
Finally, Runnells ended up back in the majors as a coach for the Colorado Rockies from 2009 through his retirement in 2015.
All in all, that amounts to a fine baseball resume, and more than two-thirds of a life spent on and around pro diamonds for a man who turns 70 years old today.
Two “Prospects” Passing in the Night
One of Runnells’ 1986 Reds “teammates” was young Kal Daniels, who made his major league debut on April 9 that year.
The air quotes around teammates is necessary because Daniels ended up back in the minors during the last half of May and most of June, precisely the period when Runnells was back on the Riverfront.
So they never actually shared a big league field as teammates, but at least they both had 1986 Donruss rookie cards, right?
And Kalvoski kept plugging away for the Reds long after Runnells was done running, which netted him (Daniels) some nifty baseball cards down the road.
One of those was a slot in the “nice try, but they’re weird” 1988 Topps Big set (card #48). I took a deeper look at that card on the blog a while back — you can read that piece right here.
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Woohoo!
Depending on when you read this, the work week is almost half over, exactly half over, or more than half over. In any case, we’ll soon be running (Runnells-ing?) downhill toward another weekend.
Got any hobby-related plans for the days ahead? I’d love to hear about them (and partake in the concomitant vicarious thrill).
Anyway, thanks as always for reading.
—Adam