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There would be little argument amongst most baseball fans if a list of the best managers in the history of baseball included names such as Joe Torre, Tony LaRussa, Lou Piniella, Bobby Cox, Sparky Anderson, Earl Weaver, Tommy LaSorda, Walt Alston, Jim Leyland, Dusty Baker, and Whitey Herzog; just to name a few of those greats of the modern era.

All of these men won Major League Baseball's Manager of the Year award and were instrumental in leading great teams to Divisional and World Championships, and many of them had success with more than one team. But winning championships is not the exclusive measure of managerial greatness, and there's no better example of that then in the case of legendary manager Billy Martin.

Martin was the type of person you either loved or hated, but no one can deny that he was as big of a competitor that you would find in any sport, anywhere in the world. He never slept-walked through a single game, and treated them all with an intensity that made you think the man was possessed.

His off field antics also garnered him a lot of media attention and infamy, and he created a buzz that few individuals are capable of doing, simply because of his outrageous and fearless behaviour which resulted in him frequently becoming a sideshow onto himself. He will go down in history as one of the all-time great baseball men, and characters, in professional ball.

Another manager that has to be included is Cito Gaston, who became the first African-American manager to win a World Championship as he coached the Toronto Blue Jays to back-to-back World Series wins in '92/'93. Gaston was the antithesis of Martin as he was usually very calm and composed while coaching, but that didn't stop him from getting in the face of the occasional umpire, and even one of his own players (David Wells), if need be. It was good to see Toronto bring Cito back earlier this season to try to return the Jays to the glory days of their championship era, back in the nineties.

Bobby Cox won his first manager of the year award back in '85 with Toronto, and then went on to become the first manager to win in both leagues as he's won multiple times with the Atlanta Braves, including a back-to-back first in 2004-2005. Cox would definitely go down as probably the top manager of the last twenty years, as he's won numerous championships and had a consistently high winning percentage as coach of both the Jays and Braves.

Cox has also won the manager's award more than anyone else, with a total of 4, but is tied with Tony LaRussa, who has also won the award in both leagues while coaching the Chicago White Sox and Oakland Athletics of the American League, and the St. Louis Cardinals of the National League. Jim Leyland is also in this esteemed group, as he won with the Pittsburgh Pirates (NL) back in the nineties, and the Detroit Tigers (AL) in 2006.

Sparky Anderson and Tommy LaSorda are also a couple of manager's that are larger than life, as both of these gentlemen coached some of the greatest teams who ever played in MLB. Who could ever forget the incredible year the Detroit Tigers had in 1984, as they finished the season with a record 104 wins against 58 losses, for the highest winning percentage in baseball history.

Tommy LaSorda won a couple of world championships with the Los Angeles Dodgers, a team that he has been affiliated with for nearly 60 years and counting, and also coached Team U.S.A. to a gold medal at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney.

The one common denominator amongst all of these very successful managers is that their desire to win was complemented by their incredible motivational skills which enabled them to reach the highest pinnacle of success in major league baseball.

Learn more about this author, Shane Christensen.
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