BIO - DON ZIMMER

Will enter his 52nd season in professional baseball and his fifth consecutive season as the Yankees' bench coach...also coached here in 1983 and 1986...was interim manager for the first 36 games (21-15) of the [1999] season while Joe Torre was recovering from prostate cancer...he enters his 30th season as a Major-League coach or manager...he is the only individual to be in uniform for all three Yankee perfect games...he was the bench coach for David Wells and David Cone and was an infielder for the Brooklyn Dodgers when Don Larsen tossed his perfect game in the 1956 World Series...was a member of the Colorado Rockies staff from their inaugural season in 1993 until he retired in the fifth inning of the Rockies-Cardinals game on June 6, 1995...joined the Rockies' original coaching staff in 1993 as bench coach to manager Don Baylor...spent part of the 1993 and '94 seasons as Colorado's third-base coach...has been a manager or coach since his playing career ended in 1967...in 13 seasons as a Major-League manager, Zimmer compiled an 885-858 (.508) record with the Padres, Red Sox, Rangers and Cubs...in 1989, he was named National-League Manager-of-the-Year after leading the Cubs to the NL East title with a 93-69 record...he received 23 of 24 first-place votes from the Baseball Writers Association of America...has appeared in the postseason as a coach for the Red Sox in 1975, the Cubs in '84, the Giants in '87 and the Yankees in '96, '97, '98 and '99...was manager of the 1978 Red Sox club that lost the playoff game to the Yankees...in 1990, he managed the Major League Baseball All-Star Team that traveled to Japan...began his professional playing career in 1949 after signing with the Brooklyn Dodgers...an aggressive player, he stole home 10 times in 1950 while playing for Hornell of the Pennsylvania-Ohio-New York League...was American Association Rookie-of-the-Year in 1953 for St. Paul...made his Major-League debut the next season...in his first Major-League at-bat on 7/2/54 at Philadelphia, tripled off Curt Simmons...in 12 Major-League seasons, he hit .235 with 91 HR and 352 RBI in 1,095 games for the Dodgers, Cubs, Mets, Reds and Washington Senators...played second base, third base, shortstop, outfield and 35 games at catcher...had two seasons cut short by injuries...for St. Paul in 1953, he was leading the American Association with 23 HR and 63 RBI when on 7/7 he was hit in the head by a Jim Kirk pitch in Columbus...did not play the rest of the season...while playing for Brooklyn on 6/23/56, Zimmer suffered a fractured cheek bone when he was hit by a pitch from Cincinnati's Hal Jeffcoat...also missed the rest of that season...was the Dodgers' starting second baseman in the deciding game of the 1955 World Series, a 2-0 victory over the Yankees...was drafted by the expansion Mets in 1961 and was their Opening-Day third baseman in '62...in 1960, in his first game with the Cubs, he homered off Don Drysdale in front of 67,500 fans at the Los Angeles Coliseum...in his first American-League at-bat on 6/27/63 at Kansas City, he hit a solo homer for the Senators...attended Western Hills High School in Cincinnati with former Kansas City and Cubs manager Jim Frey...received the Frank Slocumb Award at the 1999 Baseball Assistance Team dinner in New York City for his extraordinary work in support of B.A.T....married his high school sweetheart, Jean (Soot) on 8/16/51 at home plate in the baseball stadium at Elmira, New York.