Danny Ozark
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Born: November 24, 1923 Buffalo, New York |
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Died: May 7, 2009 (aged 85) Vero Beach, Florida |
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Daniel Leonard Ozark, born Daniel Leonard Orzechowski (November 24, 1923 – May 7, 2009) was an American coach and manager in Major League Baseball. As manager of the Philadelphia Phillies (1973 through August 31, 1979), Ozark led the Phils to three consecutive National League East Division championships (1976-77-78), but each year his team fell in the National League Championship Series.
A native of Buffalo, New York, Ozark was a minor league first baseman who spent his playing career (1942; 1946–1961; 1963) in the labyrinthine Brooklyn Dodgers farm system. He batted and threw right-handed. In 1956, Ozark became a playing manager with the Dodgers' Class B Wichita Falls farm club (Big State League) and rose through their system in succeeding years all the way to the AAA level, winning a division championship with the 1963 Spokane Indians of the Pacific Coast League.
In 1965, he came to the Major Leagues — and the Los Angeles Dodgers — as a coach for Walter Alston. Ozark served eight years (1965–72) on Alston's staff until his hiring as manager by the last-place Phillies in October 1972.
The Phillies showed steady improvement in Ozark's first three seasons, and in 1976 broke through by winning 101 games, a club record at the time. The Philadelphia club featured a core of players led by two future Hall of Famers: third baseman Mike Schmidt and left-handed pitcher Steve Carlton. But in the 1976 NLCS, they faced one of the most powerful teams of the era, the defending world champion Cincinnati Reds, and they dropped the Series in three straight games, as the Reds went on to a second successive title.
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