In the history of Major League Baseball, only four managers have won a World Series with multiple teams:
Bucky Harris – 1924 Washington Senators, 1947 New York YankeesBill McKechnie – 1925 Pittsburgh Pirates, 1940 Cincinnati RedsSparky Anderson – 1975 & 1976 Cincinnati Reds, 1984 Detroit TigersTony La Russa – 1989 Oakland Athletics, 2006 & 2011 St. Louis Cardinals
Make it five!
Not only did Texas Rangers manager Bruce Bochy join this exclusive club, which includes four Hall of Famers, but he has the most World Series titles of any of them, having won three with the San Francisco Giants (2010, 2012, 2014) and this most recent one with Texas.
Many have had the opportunity to join this list, such as Terry Francona, who won two World Series with the Boston Red Sox and had an opportunity to win another with Cleveland in 2016, before falling to the Chicago Cubs in seven games. Or Al Dark, who won a World Series with the Oakland Athletics in 1974 and took the San Francisco Giants to the World Series in 1962, ultimately falling in seven games to the New York Yankees.
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Still, Bochy stands above them all.
How many World Series has Bruce Bochy won?
Of course, we just witnessed Bochy win a championship in his first season with Texas, but Bochy was an integral part of the early-2010s Giants dynasty. Bochy’s Bay Area boys won three World Series over the course of five years, most recently in 2014 against the Kansas City Royals, who won the World Series the following year. Two years prior, his Giants swept the Detroit Tigers.
Two years before that, the Giants took down the Texas Rangers, 4-1 in the series.
That’s right. Bochy has now won a World Series with the Texas Rangers and beaten them in a World Series.
Has this ever been done before?
In short, no. This is the first time a manager has ever beaten a team in the World Series and then gone on to manage that team to a title. None of the managers on that list above accomplished the feat Bochy has.
That said, there is someone who accomplished something similar.
Casey Stengel won seven World Series as the manager for the New York Yankees between 1949 and 1958. In that stretch, he took down the Brooklyn Dodgers, Philadelphia Phillies, New York Giants, and Milwaukee Braves.
Coincidentally, Stengel won two Fall Classics as a player, in 1921 and 1922, as an outfielder for the New York Giants. Both of those came against the New York Yankees. So, not only was Stengel on both sides of a title with the Yankees (beating them as a Giants player; winning as Yankees manager), but he was also on both sides of a title with the Giants (beating them as Yankees manager; winning as a Giants player).
Where does Bruce Bochy rank all-time among MLB managers?
Bochy is a shoe-in for Cooperstown at this point in his career. Here is where he ranks all-time in several key managerial categories:
Games: 4,032 (7th all-time)Wins: 2,093 (10th)Playoff wins: 56 (4th)Pennants: 5 (T-9th)World Series Titles: 4 (T-4th)