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The recently appointed Detroit Tigers manager is expected to become as successful a manager as he was a player during his 18-year major league playing career.
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Brad Ausmus / Getty
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When Brad Ausmus was appointed as manager of the Detroit Tigers last November, a few eyebrows were raised in the world of baseball.
Ausmus, a former All-Star catcher who retired from the game in 2010, albeit as a veteran at the age of forty after a rich career spanning eighteen years at the top of his profession, could boast very limited managerial experience, other than having served as the manager of the Team Israel that took part in the World Baseball Classics of 2012 and 2013. Under the rules of the Classic tournament Non-Israeli citizens of Jewish heritage are entitled to both play for and manage the team
So when Brad Ausmus moved upstairs to become the new manager of the Detroit Tigers, a first major milestone in baseball history was achieved, with the likeable Brad becoming the first Jewish baseball exponent to both play for, skipper and manage a US baseball franchise, with Ausmus turning out for the Tigers during two separate spells of his long career, for the 1996 season as well as for two seasons between 1999 and 2000.
Yet baseball pundits are now predicting that, while Ausmus’s acheivements as a player are indeed significant, there is a very strong possibility that he is liable to cause them to fade into insignificance by becoming the first Jewish manager to lift a World Series title with the Detroit Tigers.
In the very short time that Brad Ausmus has been managing the Tigers, the media has been described the difference on the team’s performance as no less than dramatic. Now just 44 and only two years since he doffed his playing kit for the last time, Brad has reportedly succeeded in establishing a remarkable affinity with the players and his wealth of experience in Major League Baseball, not only with the Detroit Tigers but also with the Houston Astros, Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres and his understanding of the tactics required in modern baseball make him an example of the latest generation of manager, and one that looks like having a rosy future as the 37th in the 119 year history of the Detroit Tigers.
Brad Ausmus’s career also saw him rated the all-time greatest among all of the Jewish major leaguers in terms of career games played at 1971.
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