It was with sadness, mixed with nostalgia that baseball fans both locally and across the country learned of the death of Frank Lucchesi, former Williamsport Grays manager, and big league manager for the Phillies, Cubs, and Rangers, last week at the age 92.

Frank — and it is hard to think of calling him anything else — left an indelible imprint on the local professional baseball landscape when he managed the Williamsport Grays at Bowman Field in 1959, 1960 and 1962, compiling an enviable 240-178 record, and leading the Grays to the Eastern League playoffs all three seasons, piloting them to a co-championship in the Eastern League in 1960, and the best regular season record in 1962, before falling to Elmira in the playoffs.

In 1999, Frank was voted the manager on the Williamsport Baseball All-Century in a poll conducted by the Sun-Gazette and the Williamsport Crosscutters. The Crosscutters brought him back to Williamsport at the beginning of their 2000 season to recognize him for this honor. It was during this visit that I got to meet Frank and spend a most enjoyable afternoon with him.

It was over lunch at Franco’s that he regaled me with a wide variety of interesting and funny stories. I wish I had a tape recorder with me while he was telling these stories. They were very entertaining and befitted the fine gentleman and baseball “lifer” that he was.

An example of the stories was the tale he told concerning an ejection while he piloted the Triple-A Arkansas Travelers in 1963. He said he exited the stadium and scaled a light tower to watch. Spied by the umpire, he was ordered down. “When I looked down, all of a sudden I realized I was afraid of heights and I’m scared to move,” he recalled. This event made national news; he told me it prompted his mother to call from California advising, “Don’t climb any more light towers.”

During his tenure here he was a fan favorite. On August 31, 1959, he was honored in a pregame “Frank Lucchesi Night” ceremony only to be ejected from the game by the third inning after he felt the men in blue had wronged his team.

I asked Frank about the legendary, mercurial, and prodigious homer hitting Dick Allen, whom he managed both here and with the Arkansas Travelers, and he smiled and said he was a “great and talented ballplayer, but at times could be difficult to manage.” He said that he would not “give in” to Allen whenever he might become difficult but was glad to have had the opportunity to have managed him.

After toiling as minor league manager in the Phillies farm system for 16 years, he was finally rewarded with the job as Phillies manager, although at this time in Phillies history that may not have been much of a reward. They were in a terrible time, though they did have several good players such as Steve Carlton, Rick Wise, Larry Bowa, Denny Doyle, Tony Taylor, and Deron Johnson. He was fired by the Phils partly through the 1972 season. He was a very popular figure in Philadelphia, and his firing was met with great sadness from Mayor Frank Rizzo on down to rank and file fans.

His managerial career was not over though; he managed again in the minors at Oklahoma City and Nashville. He returned to the Big Leagues with the Texas Rangers from 1975 to part way through the 1977 season. His last managerial post was an interim manager of the Chicago Cubs at the end of the 1987 season. He retired from baseball at the end of the 1989 season after managing the Nashville Sounds of the American Association, completing a baseball career of almost 40 years. He could truly be termed a baseball “lifer.”

Men like Frank Lucchesi don’t come around very often, and Williamsport baseball fans were blessed with his presence and leadership abilities for three very successful seasons. Baseball truly could use more men like him.