That's the old ballgame Shreveport, chapter 20 (managers, Part III)

Chapter 20
The managers, Giants' era (1979-2002)

     ANDY GILBERT -- He was 65 when he came to manage in Shreveport. He was a bit major-league player, but a 17-year minor leaguer and then he managed for 29 years in the minors -- around a 1972-75 coaching stop with San Francisco. His Amarillo teams won Texas League titles in 1969 and 1971, and his 1979 Captains (73-62) won a second-half division title and he was chosen the TL "Manager of the Year". But his 1980 Captains were 39 games below .500. He died Aug. 29, 1992, in Davis, Calif., at age 78.

DUANE ESPY -- When he managed the Captains for three seasons (1983-85), he was the first to manage the Shreveport team and also have played for it since Les Peden in 1961. He had been a second baseman and outfielder for the 1974 Captains, batting .260 with 100 hits (15 doubles, nine homers, 46 RBI) in 104 games. He played eight minor-league seasons in the Milwaukee Brewers' system, mostly in Double-A with two stints in Triple-A. He began a 15-year minor-league managing career in 1979. His Captains' teams had only moderate success (72-64 records in '83 and '85). He was a longtime coach/instructor, with 16 years in the Colorado Rockies' chain through 2018 (he was the Rockies' major-league hitting coach in 2003-06 and 2017-18).

Duane Espy (center), with hitting coach Jim Lefebvre (right) and Captains’ general manager Jon Long.

     JACK MULL -- The man from Chambersburg, Pa., was a minor-league catcher who reached Triple-A, then managed for almost two decades in the minors. He was in the San Francisco Giants' chain for 15 of those years (plus one as a coach in the majors), and managed Shreveport in two stints -- 1981 and '82, then '87 (78-57 record) and '88 (74-62) when each of those teams made the playoffs by winning a half-season division title. Both years they lost first-round playoff series. 

  WENDELL KIM -- He began his post-playing career as a coach with the 1980 Captains, then returned as manager in 1986 -- the first year of Fair Grounds Field -- and his team's 80-56 record was the second-best for a Shreveport team since 1933. Only a first-round playoff series loss to Jackson spoiled it. Hawaii-born and -raised, media-savvy and friendly, the little (5-foot-5, 160 pounds) second baseman in the Texas League for Lafayette in 1975-76 was a minor-league manager for 10 seasons, starting at age 31, and a major-league coach for four teams over 15 years, most notably for the Giants (eight years), Cubs and Red Sox. His aggressive, send-'em-home style of coaching third base earned him the nickname "Wavin' Wendell." He died Feb. 15, 2015, in Phoenix, Ariz., at age 64, after early onset Alzheimer's disease.

     BILL EVERS -- He managed the Captains for three seasons (1989-91), and the final two were Texas League championship years -- Shreveport's first since 1955. His first Captains team won a "half" division title, went 75-61 in the regular season, but lost in the playoffs' first round. The 1990 team, despite a 65-68 record, won a half-division title, then caught fire in the playoffs. And the 1991 team was one of Shreveport's best ever, 86-50, and rolled through the playoffs. Evers, briefly a minor-league catcher/first baseman and then a coach, managed in the minors for 19 years (Shreveport was his second job), the final eight with the Durham Bulls in Triple-A. Five of his teams won championships. He was bench coach for the Tampa Bay Rays in 2005-07 and their minor-league field coordinator from 2010 to 2018. In 2019, he joined the Minnesota Twins' coaching staff (under first-year manager Rocco Baldelli), working with catchers.

    BILL ROBINSON -- Between major-league jobs as first-base coach and hitting instructor for World Series champions -- the 1986 New York Mets and 2003 Florida Marlins -- the 16-season MLB outfielder was the 1992 Captains' manager and his team went 77-59 in the regular season and reached the Texas League championship series. Originally an Atlanta Braves’ signee, traded to the New York Yankees for the 1967 season, his best seasons as a player were with the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 1970s, including the 1979 World Series champions. He was working as the Los Angeles Dodgers' minor-league hitting coordinator visiting its Triple-A affiliate when he died July 29, 2007, in a hotel room in Las Vegas, Nev., at age 64.

    RON WOTUS -- Like Bill Evers, he managed the Captains for three seasons (1993-95). His first two teams, 66-70 and 73-63 in the regular season, won "half" division titles and made the playoffs, but lost in the first round. But the 1995 team was Shreveport's best ever and its 88-47 record was the best in the minor leagues that year and preceded a Texas League championship finish. The Captains beat Midland, four games to one, in the title series. Wotus, an infielder who made the majors for 32 games with the Pirates in 1983-84, has been in the San Francisco Giants' organization for 32 years as of 2019 -- the first seven (including Shreveport) as a minor-league manager, for 17 years as the Giants' bench coach, and for three, including 2018-19, as third-base coach. He worked with three Giants' managers and was part of the 2010, 2012 and 2014 World Series champions.

       FRANK CACCIATORE -- He managed in the minor leagues for eight seasons and the Captains' 73-66 record in 1996 -- two years after he was their hitting coach -- was the only winning record for his teams. But that season also snapped Shreveport's 10-year streak of making the Texas League playoffs. Cacciatore, a Florida Southern College Hall of Fame player and star on its 1975 Division II national championship team, was a minor-league player for a couple of years, then a college coach, before a three-decade stay in pro baseball, winding up with a decade as a hitting coach in the Phillies' organization, mostly in Class AA.

     CARLOS LEZCANO -- The Puerto Rico native managed the 1997 Captains to a 76-62 regular-season record and into the Texas League championship series. A cousin of Sixto Lezcano, a Captains' star outfielder in 1973 before he starred in the majors, Carlos played outfield at Florida State and in the TL for Midland in the late 1970s before bit roles with the Chicago Cubs in 1980-81. He was a manager for more than 20 years in a variety of leagues and, notably, was Alex Rodriguez's first minor-league manager.

    
MIKE HART -- Hitting coach for the Captains in 1996 and '97, he took over as manager in 1998, but it was a difficult season (57-83). An outfielder from Michigan, he played 12 years in pro ball, most of it in Triple-A, and got into five games for the 1980 Texas Rangers, going 1-for-4. He managed for a decade in the minor leagues.

     SHANE TURNER -- Manager of the 1999 Captains, who went 71-69 and made the Texas League playoffs but lost in the first round. It was one of his 11 seasons as a minor-league manager for the San Francisco Giants, and in 2019, he was in his 22nd year in the organization, the last four as director of player development. An infielder who helped Cal State Fullerton win the College World Series in 1984, he played professionally for 11 years, reaching the majors in three separate seasons -- different team each time -- for 56 games.
   

    BILL HAYES

-- In 2000, he managed the last Captains team to
make the Texas League playoffs, thanks to a first-half division title. But the team's final regular-season record was 58-81 and it lost in the first round of the playoffs. "Wild Bill" Hayes came out of Indiana State as a catcher and briefly made the Chicago Cubs in 1980-81. He managed in the minor leagues for 11 seasons, then was bullpen catcher and coach for the San Francisco Giants for 12 years (and three World Series championships) and first-base coach for two years. The Giants' minor-league catching coordinator in 2018, he returned to managing with Class A San Jose in 2019.