Dave Garcia | |||
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Manager | |||
Born: East St. Louis, Illinois |
September 15, 1920 |||
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MLB statistics | |||
Games | 618 | ||
Win–loss record | 307–311 | ||
Winning % | .497 | ||
Teams | |||
As manager As coach |
As manager
As coach
David Garcia (born September 15, 1920 in East St. Louis, Illinois) is an American retired coach, scout and manager in Major League Baseball who spent over 65 years in the game. He served as manager of the California Angels (1977–78) and Cleveland Indians (1979–82). Including three games as acting manager of the 1975 Indians, during his first coaching tenure there, he compiled a career record of 310 wins and 311 defeats (.499).
Garcia was a minor league infielder for almost 20 seasons — much of that time in the farm system of the New York Giants — and never made it to the Major Leagues. He began managing at age 27 in 1948 with the Giants' Knoxville Smokies farm team of the Class B Tri-State League. He managed in the minor leagues and scouted for the club (the San Francisco Giants after 1958) through 1968, before joining the San Diego Padres as a minor league manager in 1969, their maiden National League season.
The following season, in his 50th year, Garcia finally reached the Majors as San Diego's third-base coach. He coached with the Padres (1970–73), Indians (1975–76; 1979) and Angels (1977) and in 1977 he was named manager of the Angels when Norm Sherry was fired on July 11. While the Angels continued to stumble in '77, the Halos stood at 25–20 when Garcia was released in favor of Jim Fregosi on June 1, 1978.