With Over Six Decades In Professional Baseball, Don Zimmer Qualifies As A Great Ambassador For The Game

There aren't many people on the planet that can say they've been in professional baseball from the time of the Brooklyn (yes, Brooklyn!) Dodgers to present day.

Don Zimmer was one guy would could say that.  Don passed away June 4th at the age of 83.

Don broke into Major League baseball as a player in 1954 with the Brooklyn Dodgers, and in a career that spanned over six decades, he truly was a man who 'did it all'.  Player. Manager. Coach. Scout. You name it, if it had to do with baseball, Don Zimmer did it.  He probably sold beer and hot dogs too.

Being a true baseball fan at heart, i felt a sense of personal loss when I heard Don had passed away, even though I never had the pleasure of meeting or speaking to the man.

Don's name will perhaps never been mentioned in the same breath with icon's of the game like Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle.  He had no where near the numbers or fame those great ballplayers had.

But that doesn't mean Don wasn't just as important to the game.

In this 1999 video, then interim Yankee Manager Zimmer talks with David Letterman.

Don is somewhere up in that big ballpark in the sky now.  R.I.P.  And argue that call at home plate!