In Tampa, Zim wears No. 60, in honor of his 60 years in professional baseball. He is "senior adviser" of the Tampa Bay Rays (he doesn't stay in uniform during the games) and he thinks his guys have a good shot against the Red Sox.
"Of course, no one gives us a chance," he said yesterday, speaking over the phone from Florida. "I pick up the paper and I listen to talk shows and the Dodgers and Red Sox are already going to play in the World Series."
This is Zelig Zim's seventh decade in professional baseball. He met Babe Ruth when his American Legion team won a national championship in 1947. He was signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1949 and he was there when Jackie Robinson stole home in the 1955 World Series. He was a member of Casey Stengel's original Amazin' Mets in 1962 and he managed the Chicago Cubs to a division title in 1989. He was in Yankee Stadium for Don Larsen's perfect game in 1956 and again for perfect games hurled by David Wells ('98) and David Cone ('99).
But he can't get away from Boston, not when it comes to October. Zim was the Sox third base coach, yelling, "No, no, no," when Denny Doyle (thinking he heard "Go, go, go") tried to score on a bases-loaded shallow fly to George Foster in the greatest World Series game of them all. Zim was skipper of the 1978 Red Sox, who won 99 games, only to be foiled by Mr. B.F. Dent. And Zim was Joe Torre's trusty bench coach when the Yankees and Sox got into one of their famous dust-ups in the 2003 ALCS.
Zimmer was embarrassed after he charged Pedro in the heat of the moment, but could you blame him? Zim was almost killed by a beanball in 1956 and he saw Pedro threaten Jorge Posada by pointing to his head. Zim got the last laugh in that series. He was on the bench with Torre when Aaron Boone took Tim Wakefield over the wall in Yankee Stadium.
