#CardCorner: 1972 Topps Jose Pagan

Pagan wasn’t alone in believing that he could manage. The Pirates’ manager at the time, Danny Murtaugh, had already touted Pagan as an excellent choice to lead a major league ballclub in the future. “Pagan has the qualities to make a good manager,” Murtaugh once told Pittsburgh sportswriter Charley Feeney. “Jose has knowledge of the game. He can communicate with players and he has a good personality.”

Although Murtaugh didn’t bring up the racial angle of the issue, Pagan was clearly a candidate to become one of the first minority managers in major league history. The veteran third baseman was highly qualified for such a distinction, on several fronts. First off, Pagan had played the game from two different perspectives, first as a starting shortstop and then as a bench player. He had studied successful managers like Murtaugh with the Pirates, and Bill Rigney and Alvin Dark with the Giants.

Although he hailed from Puerto Rico, Pagan spoke English well enough to communicate with American-born players. As a bonus, Pagan’s ability to speak Spanish helped him relate to one of the game’s fastest growing constituencies, the Latino ballplayer. Only one factor seemed to detract from Pagan’s candidacy: He lacked the big-name appeal of a Frank Robinson, or an Ernie Banks, or Maury Wills. They were the three African-American stars who had been mentioned most often as candidates to become the first black manager in the major leagues.

After finishing out the 1973 season as a coach with the Phillies, Pagan returned to the Pirates’ organization the following spring, when the team named him as third base coach to replace Bill Mazeroski. Pagan served as a third base, first base and infield coach until October of 1978, when the Pirates released him.

Highly respected for his knowledge of the game, Pagan managed successfully in the Puerto Rican Winter League, but received no offers from big league teams. Pagan watched as other black and Latino managerial candidates, like Frank Robinson and eventually Cito Gaston and Felipe Alou, earned opportunities to manage. Pagan realized that he himself would never receive the chance and decided to give up the profession entirely.

In 2011, Pagan died at the age of 76, a victim of Alzheimer’s disease. It was an especially cruel irony for a man who was so intelligent, dying from a disease that attacks the mind. Upon learning of his death, several of his former teammates, including Alou and Orlando Cepeda, praised Pagan for his toughness and his qualities as a “gamer.”

Would Pagan have been successful as a big league manager? It’s hard to say with certainty, but there is little doubt of this: Pagan possessed all of the necessary qualifications. He had the strategic intelligence, the ability to communicate in both English and Spanish, the toughness, and the experience of playing for a world championship team, the team that won it all in 1971.