Green spent 62 years in baseball as a player, manager, general manager, team president and other roles.
“He was a big man with a big heart and a bigger-than-life personality,” Phillies Chairman David Montgomery said in a statement.
As a pitcher, Green went just 20-22 in the 1960s. His most notable distinction on the mound might have been giving up the only grand slam launched by all-time hits leader Pete Rose.
In 1980, with Rose playing first base on a team that included future Hall of Famers Mike Schmidt and Steve Carlton, Green guided the Phillies to the World Series championship, ending a drought that stretched back nearly a century.
“Baseball world lost a giant,” Rose tweeted. “Dallas was a hell of a guy and a real leader.”
My thoughts go out to his family and friends.
Green was probably a better GM than manager. His breed of tough, demanding, sometimes abrasive managers seems to be disappearing. While that type will never quite disappear, the better managers today are somewhat more likely to lead with carrots rather than sticks.
Green was old school in a different way. He resisted making lots of pitching changes. In the Bill James Guide to Baseball Managers, Bill is looking for a way to measure the use of the bullpen, and settles on “relief games”, the number of relief appearances in a season for a team. in 1995 and 1996, Don Baylor‘s teams made the most. In those same two years Dallas Green’s teams made the fewest. Maybe we need more Dallas Greens to speed the game along.