T.R.'s Memoirs: Ron Washington never received recognition he deserved, so I'll say it: His style was identical to Vince Lombardi.
The only manager to guide the Rangers to the World Series is headed back to the Fall Classic as Atlanta Braves third-base coach.
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Vince Lombardi was one of the greatest football coaches in the history of the game. He led the Green Bay Packers to five NFL championships and two Super Bowl victories.
They even named the Super Bowl trophy after him.
They also did television specials and wrote books about him. One of them was a massive biography of 544 pages called When Pride Still Mattered, which may be the most pretentious title ever given to a book.
Run to Daylight is only 237 pages, but it is an excellent book. It was written by Lombardi and a sportswriter named W.C. Heinz. Run to Daylight was published in 1963 and details one week in the life of Lombardi as the Packers get ready to play the Detroit Lions in a big regular-season game.
The book is an all-encompassing view of who Lombardi was as a football coach, his philosophy, his approach, how he dealt with players. Everything Lombardi believed in and was about as a head football coach in the NFL was in that book.
I read Run to Daylight in March of 2014. I was home in Texas during my five-day break from Spring Training.
When I read that book, it hit me like the proverbial ton of bricks.
Clear as day.
Ron Washington and Vince Lombardi were one in the same.