Robert Randall Bragan (October 30, 1917 – January 21, 2010) was an American shortstop, catcher, manager, and coach in Major League Baseball and an influential minor league executive. His professional baseball career encompassed 73 years, from his first season as a player in the Class D Alabama=Florida League in 1937 to 2009, the last full year of his life, when he was still listed as a consultant to the Texas Rangers' organization.
On August 16, 2005, Bragan came out of retirement to manage the independent Cental League Fort Worth Cats for one game, making him — at 87 years, nine months, and 16 days old — the oldest manager in professional baseball annals (besting by one week Connie Mack, the manager and part-owner of the Philadelphia Athletics. Always known as an innovator with a sense of humor — and an umpire-baiter — Bragan was ejected in the third inning of his "comeback", thus also becoming the oldest person in any capacity to be ejected from a professional baseball game.
Bragan died on January 21, 2010 of a heart attack at his home in Fort Worth. |