Hank Bauer Henry Albert " Hank " Bauer ( July 31 , 1922 – February 9 , 2007 ) was an American right fielder and manager in Major League Baseball . He played with the New York Yankees ( – ) and Kansas City Athletics ( – ) ; he batted and threw right - handed . He served as the manager of the Athletics in both Kansas City ( – 62 ) and in Oakland ( ) , as well as of the Baltimore Orioles ( – 68 ) , becoming the winning manager of the 1966 World Series , four games to none , over the Los Angeles Dodgers . Early years . Born in East St . Louis , Illinois as the youngest of nine children , Bauer was the son of an Austrian immigrant , a bartender who had earlier lost his leg in an aluminum mill . With little money coming into the home , Bauer was forced to wear clothes made out of old feed sacks , helping shape his hard - nosed approach to life . ( It was said that his care - worn face " looked like a clenched fist " . ) While playing baseball and basketball at East St . Louis Central Catholic High School , Bauer suffered permanent damage to his nose , which was caused by an errant elbow from an opponent . Upon graduation in 1941 , he was repairing furnaces in a beer - bottling plant when his brother Herman , a minor league player in the Chicago White Sox system , was able to get him a tryout that resulted in a contract with Oshkosh of the Class D Wisconsin State League . World War II - Marine Corps . One month after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor , Bauer enlisted in the U . S . Marine Corps . While serving in the Pacific Theater , Bauer contracted malaria on Guadalcanal , but he recovered from that well enough to earn 11 campaign ribbons , two Bronze Stars and two Purple Heart s ( for being wounded in action ) in 32 months of combat . Bauer was wounded his second time during the Battle of Okinawa , when he was a lieutenant in command of a platoon of 64 Marines . Only six of the 64 Marines survived the Japanese counterattack , and Bauer was wounded by shrapnel in his thigh . His wounds were severe enough to send him all the way back to the United States to recuperate . After the war - minor leaguer . Returning to East St . Louis , Bauer joined the local pipefitter ' s union , and he stopped by the local bar where his brother Joe Bauer worked . Danny Menendez , a scout for the New York Yankees , decided to sign him for a tryout with the Yankees ' farm team in Quincy , Illinois . The terms of the contract were as follows : just $ 175 a month ( with a $ 25 per month increase if he made the team ) and a $ 250 bonus . Batting . 300 at Quincy and with the team ' s top minor league unit , the Kansas City Blues , Bauer eventually made his debut with the Yankees in September . Career as player , coach and manager . In his 14 - season Major League Baseball career , Bauer had a . 277 batting average with 164 home runs and 703 runs batted in in 1 , 544 games played . Bauer played on seven World Series - winning New York Yankees teams , and he holds the World Series record for the longest hitting streak ( 17 games ) . Perhaps Bauer ' s most notable performance came in the sixth and final game of the 1951 World Series , where he hit a three - run triple . He also saved the game with a diving catch of a line drive by Sal Yvars for the final out . At the close of the 1959 season , Bauer was traded to the Kansas City Athletics in the trade that brought them the future home run king Roger Maris ( 1961 ) . This deal is often cited among the worst examples of the numerous trades between the Yankees and the Athletics during the late 1950s - trades that were nearly always one - sided in favor of the Yankees . In 1961 , the year Maris broke Babe Ruth ' s single - season home run record , Bauer , at 38 years of age , was coming to the end of the line in his playing career . On June 19 , Bauer was named as the playing - manager of the Athletics , and he retired as a player one month later . In Bauer ' s first stint as the Athletics ' manager , through the end of the 1962 season , the Athletics won 107 games and lost 157 ( 0 . 405 ) , and his teams finished ninth in the ten - team American League twice . After his firing at the close of the 1962 campaign , Bauer spent the 1963 season as first - base coach of the Baltimore Orioles . He was elevated to manager at the end of the season , as the Orioles sought a firmer hand in command of the team . The move was successful : Baltimore contended aggressively for the 1964 American League pennant , finishing third , and then — bolstered by the acquisition of the future Hall of Fame outfielder , Frank Robinson , its first AL pennant and World Series championship in 1966 . However , when the Orioles , hampered by an injury to Robinson and major off - years by a number of regulars and pitchers , finished in the second division in 1967 and then fell far behind the eventual champion Detroit Tigers in 1968 , Bauer was dismissed as the manager on July 12 , in favor of Earl Weaver , then the Orioles ' first - base coach . Weaver proceeded to forge a Hall of Fame career over the next 14½ years as the Orioles ' pilot . Bauer then returned to the Athletics , now based in Oakland , for the 1969 campaign . He was fired for the second and final time by Finley after bringing Oakland home second in the new American League West Division . Overall , his regular - season managerial record was 594 - 544 ( 0 . 522 ) . Bauer managed the Tidewater Tides , the AAA affiliate of the New York Mets , in 1971 – 72 . The Tides made the finals of IL Governors ' Cup playoffs each season , winning the playoff title in the latter campaign . Bauer then hung up his uniform , returning home to the Kansas City area , where he scouted for the Yankees and for the Kansas City Royals . Family life . Bauer moved to the Kansas City area Prairie Village , Kansas in 1949 after playing with the Blues of 1947 and 1948 . While there , he met and later married Charlene Friede , the club ' s office secretary . She died in July 1999 . The family ' s children attended St . Ann ' s Grade School in Prairie Village , then Bishop Miege High School in Shawnee Mission . Hank owned and managed a liquor store in Prairie Village for a number of years after retirement from baseball . Bauer died in his home on February 9 , 2007 at the age of 84 from lung cancer . . Quotes . Bauer was a no - nonsense leader and could be unforgiving if he felt his teammates ' off - the - field activities were hurting the Yankees ' on - the - field performance . Pitcher Whitey Ford remembered how Bauer reacted when he thought players like Ford and Mantle were overindulging themselves after hours : He pinned me to the wall of the dugout one day and said , ' Don ' t mess with my money . ' New York Times , obituary , February 10 , 2007 .