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Robert Randall Bragan (October 30, 1917 – January 21, 2010) was an American shortstop, catcher, manager, and coach in Major League Baseball. He also was an influential executive in minor league baseball. He was born in Birmingham, Alabama. On August 16, 2005, Bragan came out of retirement to manage the independent Central League Fort Worth Cats for one game, making him — at 87 years, nine months, and 16 days old — the oldest manager in professional baseball annals (besting by one week Connie Mack, the manager and part-owner of the Philadelphia Athletics). Always known as an innovator with a sense of humor — and an umpire-baiter — Bragan was ejected in the third inning of his "comeback", thus also becoming the oldest person in any capacity to be ejected from a professional baseball game. Bragan died on January 21, 2010 of a heart attack at his home in Fort Worth. ==Career as player and field manager== During his Major League managerial career, Bragan never skippered a game past his 49th birthday. He managed the Pittsburgh Pirates (1956–57), Cleveland Indians (1958), and Milwaukee/Atlanta Braves (1963–66), each time getting fired in the mid-season of his final campaign. In Cleveland, he lasted a total of only 67 games of his maiden season before his dismissal — at the time of his firing, his was the shortest stint for a Cleveland Indians manager.〔Roger Maris: Baseball’s Reluctant Hero, p.97, Tom Clavin and Danny Peary, Touchstone Books, Published by Simon & Schuster, New York, 2010, ISBN 978-1-4165-8928-0〕 His career big-league managerial win-loss record was below .500: 443–478 (.481)〔Sports Illustrated, February 1, 2010, p.18〕 and he was the first manager of the Braves when they relocated to Atlanta. Despite his lack of success in the majors, Bragan was highly respected as a minor league manager, winning championships in 1948–49 at Fort Worth of the Double-A Texas League during a successful five-year run, and with the 1953 Hollywood Stars of the Open-Classification Pacific Coast League. A photograph of Bragan lying at the feet of an umpire who had ejected him, still arguing, was published in ''Life'' magazine at the time. Bragan also was a Major League coach for the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Colt .45s. Bragan began his seven-year (1940–44; 1947–48) Major League playing career as a shortstop for the Philadelphia Phillies, but by , his first season with the Brooklyn Dodgers, he had learned how to catch and was for the most part a backup receiver for the Dodgers for the remainder of his MLB playing days. A right-handed batter, Bragan hit .240 in 597 games, with 15 career home runs. He was listed as tall and . Bragan was a protégé of Branch Rickey, the Hall of Fame front office executive, who hired him as an unproven young manager at Fort Worth when both were with Brooklyn and then brought Bragan to Hollywood and the Pittsburgh organization, where Rickey was general manager from 1951–55. Bragan started the 1948 season with Brooklyn, but Rickey wanted to bring up Roy Campanella from the minors. Rickey offered Bragan the managerial job with the Fort Worth Cats and he took over in July of ’48, remaining with the Cats for five years. Bragan had clashed with Rickey in over the Dodgers' breaking of the baseball color line after the big-league debut of Jackie Robinson. Bragan — the Dodgers' second-string catcher at the time — was one of a group of white players, largely from the American South, who signed a petition against Robinson's presence. He even asked Rickey to trade him. But Bragan quickly relented. "After just one road trip, I saw the quality of Jackie the man and the player," Bragan told mlb.com in 2005. "I told Mr. Rickey I had changed my mind and I was honored to be a teammate of Jackie Robinson." When Bragan attended Rickey's funeral in 1965, he stated that he decided to attend because, "Branch Rickey made me a better man." 〔''Baseball (TV series)'' by Ken Burns〕 Furthermore, as a manager, Bragan earned a reputation for fairness and "color-blindedness." When he was the skipper of the Dodgers' Triple-A Spokane Indians PCL farm club in , Bragan played an influential role in helping Maury Wills, a speedy African-American shortstop whose baseball career had stalled until he learned to switch hit under Bragan. Said former Dodger general manager Buzzie Bavasi, "Bobby would call six times a day and tell me over again how Wills had learned to switch-hit and how he was a great team leader, off and on the field, and how I was absolutely nuts if I didn't bring him up right away." Wills would fashion a 14-year MLB career, play on three world champions, make seven NL All-Star teams, and in win the National League Most Valuable Player Award and set a new record for stolen bases in a season, with 104 thefts, breaking Ty Cobb's 47-year-old mark. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Bobby Bragan」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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