Wednesday night’s game against the A’s was halfway through when Derek Jeter learned his friend Don Zimmer had died at age 83.
“That’s a tough one to swallow,” said Jeter, who played under Zimmer during his tenure as Yankees bench coach from 1996-2003. “He’s someone that taught me a lot about the game. His stories, his experiences, he was close to my family, he was good to my family. … His attitude, he was always positive, he liked to have fun. This can be a long season. That’s what you’ll miss.”
Like Jeter, manager Joe Girardi got choked up thinking about a man who reminded him of his grandfather, who gave him his first opportunity as a player with the Cubs in 1989 and who managed or coached him in 10 of his first 11 seasons in the majors.
“He was a mentor to me … a close friend and I’m going to miss him,” Girardi said after the Yankees’ 7-4 loss. “I spoke to him right before he had his heart surgery [on April 16]. … Our relationship continued to be the same. Talked to him all the time on the phone and [saw] him every time we went to Tampa, [saw] him sitting in the stands during the game. It’s going to be really strange not seeing him.”
Upon hearing the news, Torre, now MLB’s executive vice president, said he felt sadness for the game’s loss, as much as his own. Together, Torre and Zimmer won four World Series titles and six AL pennants.
“I hired him as a coach, and he became like a family member to me,” Torre said in a statement. “He has certainly been a terrific credit to the game. The game was his life. And his passing is going to create a void in my life and my wife Ali’s. We loved him. The game of Baseball lost a special person tonight. He was a good man.”
Zimmer, who began working for the Rays in 2004, was Tampa’s senior advisor in his 66th season in professional baseball — and the last Brooklyn Dodger still working in the game.
After a 12-year playing career and decades spent coaching and managing, Zimmer may end up being best remembered for charging Pedro Martinez during a near-brawl in the 2003 ALCS, with the Red Sox pitcher throwing the 72-year-old to the ground.
“Don spent a lifetime doing what he loved,” Hal Steinbrenner said in a statement. “He was an original — a passionate, old-school, one-of-a-kind baseball man who contributed to a memorable era in Yankees history. The baseball community will certainly feel this loss.”