Bobby Winkles
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| Bobby Winkles | |||||||||||||||||||
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| Manager | |||||||||||||||||||
| Born: March 11, 1930 Tuckerman, Arkansas, U.S. | |||||||||||||||||||
| Died: April 17, 2020 (aged 90) Indian Wells, California, U.S. | |||||||||||||||||||
| MLB statistics | |||||||||||||||||||
| Managerial record | 170–213 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Winning % | .444 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Stats at Baseball Reference | |||||||||||||||||||
| Managerial record at Baseball Reference | |||||||||||||||||||
| Teams | |||||||||||||||||||
| As manager
As coach | |||||||||||||||||||
| Career highlights and awards | |||||||||||||||||||
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Bobby Brooks Winkles (March 11, 1930 – April 17, 2020) was an American baseball player and coach. After an eight-year career as an infielder in the minor leagues, he became the acclaimed college baseball coach at Arizona State University (ASU) in 1959. Then, 13 years later, he returned to professional baseball as a manager, coach, front-office executive and broadcaster in the major leagues.[1]
Born in Tuckerman, Arkansas, and raised in nearby Swifton, Winkles was a graduate of Illinois Wesleyan University, where he became a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity. A right-handed-hitting and -throwing shortstop, he played minor league baseball in the Chicago White Sox organization between 1951 and 1958, hitting .270 with 890 hits in 858 games played before retiring to become Arizona State's head baseball coach at age 29.
From 1959 to 1971 Winkles was the ASU Sun Devil baseball program's first varsity head coach. His overall record while head coach at ASU was 524–173, a winning percentage of .751, and he led ASU to its first three national titles (1965, 1967 and 1969). He also coached several notable players while he was at the helm of the Sun Devils, including Rick Monday, Sal Bando, Reggie Jackson, Sterling Slaughter and Larry Gura. Winkles was named the 1965 and 1969 NCAA Coach of the Year and The Sporting News Coach of the Year in 1965, 1967 and 1969. Winkles was inducted into the ABCA Collegiate Baseball Hall of Fame in 1997. His No. 1 jersey was honored at Packard Stadium and the field was named in his honor.