The Last ManagerThe Last Manager

The Last Manager uncovers the story of Weaver's St. Louis childhood with a mobster uncle, his years of minor league heartbreak, and his unlikely road to becoming a big league manager, while tracing the evolution of the game from the old-time baseball of cross-country trains and "desk contracts" to the modern era of free agency, video analysis, and powerful player agents. Weaver's career is a critical juncture in baseball history. He was the only manager to hold a job during the five years leading up to, and five years after, free agency upended baseball in 1976. Weaver was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1996. In his retirement, he even admitted that "if he had been an umpire, he would have thrown himself out of more games than he actually was." Belligerent, genius, infamous-The Last Manager tells the story of one man who left his mark on the game for generations.