2012 MLB Managers of the Year Played College Baseball

Gibson & Maddon Played College Baseball & Football… A pair of former college baseball players have received the highest honors a Major League Baseball manager can receive. Tampa Bay’s Joe Maddon and Arizona’s Kirk Gibson were named AL and NL Manager of the Year, respectively, on Wednesday. Maddon and Gibson not only share the connecting to playing college baseball. They also both played football at the college level. Gibson achieved All-American status for his football prowess at Michigan State, where he starred from 1975-1978. He only played one season of baseball for the Spartans, but it was a big one, batting .390 with 16 home runs and 52 RBIs in 48 games. After being selected by the Detroit Tigers with the 12th overall pick of the 1978 draft, Gibson went on to a big league career that saw him win World Series championships in 1984 with Detroit and in 1988 with the Los Angeles Dodgers. He was inducted into the Michigan State Hall of Fame in 1994. Gibson led the Arizona Diamondbacks to a 94-68 record and the National League West title this past season. The 94 wins were a 29-game improvement from 2010, when the Diamondbacks finished in last [...]

Source: http://collegebaseball360.com/2011/11/17/2012-mlb-managers-of-the-year-played-college-baseball/

SEC Florida State University