Jim Frey

James Gottfried Frey (born May 26, 1931 in Cleveland, Ohio) is a former manager and coach in Major League Baseball. He led the Kansas City Royals to their first American League championship in 1980, in his first year with the team. In the World Series, they lost to the Philadelphia Phillies, who won their first World Series championship.

Early career

Frey, a lifelong friend of Don Zimmer (they were teammates at Western Hills High School in Cincinnati), never reached the major leagues as a player. A left-handed-batting and -throwing outfielder, he spent much of his career in the farm systems of the Boston/Milwaukee Braves and the St. Louis Cardinals, then joined the Baltimore Orioles as a scout and minor league manager. He was promoted to the Orioles' coaching staff under Earl Weaver in 1970, and coached on three American League pennant winners and one World Series champion through 1979 before his hiring by the Royals.

The Royals

Frey led the Royals to a 97-65 mark and the American League West Division title in 1980; then, in the 1980 American League Championship Series, the Royals defeated their long-time postseason nemesis, the New York Yankees in three straight games to capture the AL title. (The Yanks had defeated Whitey Herzog's Royals for three consecutive seasons (1976–78) in the ALCS). But Frey's Royals dropped the 1980 series in six games. The following year was marked by the 1981 baseball strike and the Royals got off to a poor start. They had lost 40 of their first 70 games when Frey was replaced by Dick Howser on August 31. Ironically, Howser had managed the Yankees the year before (and was fired after the Royals swept them out of the playoffs) and, because of the split-season format in use because of the strike, the Royals were actually in first place (with a 10-10 record) in the second-half AL West standings at the time of Frey's dismissal.