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Friday, October 28, 2011

Don Mincher retiring as Southern League president

After battling health issues for several years, Don Mincher is retiring as president of the Class AA Southern League, effective immediately.

Mincher conveyed the news to Southern League owners at the league’s meetings in Pensacola.

...Mincher was elected president of the league in 2000. Before becoming president, he was general manager of the Southern League’s Huntsville Stars from 1984 until he assembled a group of local owners who purchased the team in 1994. He sold his interest in the club when he was elected president of the League in 2000. He played 13 seasons in the Major League, capped off by a World Series win in 1972 as a member of the Oakland Athletics.

A success on and off the field, Mincher was enshrined in the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame in 2008, as well as being presented with the Warren Giles Award for Minor League Baseball’s most outstanding service as a league president that same year. In 2010, Mincher was named “King of Baseball”—the highest honor bestowed by Minor League Baseball.

Repoz Posted: October 28, 2011 at 05:10 PM | 9 comment(s) Login to Bookmark
Tags: history, minor leagues

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1. Bruce Markusen Posted: October 28, 2011 at 07:48 PM (#3980136)

A good guy and a good leader of the Southern League. He had a huge pinch-hit in the 1972 World Series, one of three pinch-hits for the A's in the same game, helping them to a victory.

I'm sorry to hear that he has health problems.

2. Crispix Attacksel Rios Posted: October 28, 2011 at 07:55 PM (#3980142)

Greatest player in Pilots history.

3. vortex of dissipation Posted: October 28, 2011 at 08:01 PM (#3980151)

In the first major-league game I ever attended, Don Mincher hit a walk-off home run to win it for the Pilots.

4. frannyzoo Posted: October 28, 2011 at 11:13 PM (#3980384)

A story about an absolute OG Texas Rangers player on the day they finally...uh...maybe...probably don't finally win the World Series. I remember Mincher at Arlington Stadium, and boy did that team suck. Going from Arlington to Oakland must have felt like a resurrection or something.

5. Spencer Benedict Posted: October 29, 2011 at 02:47 AM (#3981592)

Mincher was well regarded by Jim Bouton in Ball Four.

6. ray james Posted: October 29, 2011 at 02:56 AM (#3981657)

really? I think Bouton portrayed him as something of a horse's ass. For instance, wasn't there an episode where Mincher and Joe Schultz bolted on what was supposed to be a free baseball clinic at a local park because the organizer was a little late?
Bouton was pretty condemning of the two of them.

7. Benji Posted: October 29, 2011 at 05:07 AM (#3982004)

But the story of Mincher picking up the bellhop phone and calling Wayne Comer a "Prima Donna ##########\" made up for the \"######## Minch what do you say? Let's get the #### outta here!" tale.

8. Don Lock Posted: October 29, 2011 at 01:35 PM (#3982074)

Don't know how good he was off the bench but the headline writers loved to say "It's Minch in a pinch", unless that was a sexual reference I didn't get as a boy.

9. ray james Posted: October 29, 2011 at 01:53 PM (#3982083)

Another ex-Pilot in the news lately was Merritt Ranew, who died recently. Was it Ranew who Bouton jumped all over because Georgia had Lester Maddox as governor, who never even graduated from high school? It was somebody from Georgia.

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Friday, October 28, 2011

Don Mincher retiring as Southern League president

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