Why is it "baseball manager"?

What if coaches from other sports wore team uniforms the way baseball managers do?

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Try and find George Carlin's routine comparing baseball ("a 19th century pastoral game") with football ("a 20th century technological struggle"). It's hilarious!

 

Lol

 

That is actually *the* distinction. Unless you're a Player/Coach [emoji14]

"The pheasants are beneath me." - SoCal to az
"I have very few pet peeves in life . . . " - PeterS
"Change is inedible" - fc2

 

Consider what Carlin says at the start of his dialogue: in nearly all team sports, the offense handles the ball and needs the ball to score. In baseball, only the defense handles the ball and they use the ball to keep the offense from scoring!

 

I like the way baseball does it with the uniforms. It fits.

 

My guess is that it's because managing players is really what the top guy on a baseball team does. There are batting coaches and hitting coaches who do the actual instructing/training of the players (see: dictionary definition of "coach"), while the manager makes all the big personnel decisions like batting line-ups, starting pitcher order for the week, when to tap the bullpen, who to trade, etc. Soccer teams typically refer to the main guy as a manager as well for what I suspect is the same reason. If anything, it's probably more accurate to call the main guy in other sports a manager rather than a coach, since they all seem to have people working for them who do the direct player training, ie coaching.

 

Exactly.

 

Matt

 

Another of my favs from my youth is this version from Bob Newhart - here he is acting as Abner Doubleday heading to the US Patent office

 

Swinging Strikeout is K.

Looking Strikeout is Reverse K, which said in reverse is "ache."

Coincidence?

I.think.not.

"The pheasants are beneath me." - SoCal to az
"I have very few pet peeves in life . . . " - PeterS
"Change is inedible" - fc2