He was player, a coach, and for the final 10 years of his life, a senior advisor for the Tampa Bay Rays. He became living history, a treasure trove of baseball memories that spanned from Jackie Robinson to the New York Yankees’ dynasty of the late 1990s and early 2000s to the Rays’ transformation from American League East also-ran to a team that reached the World Series in 2008 as part of a run that included four playoff appearances from 2008 to 2013.
His fingerprints touched many, and those impacts will remain. Zimmer died Wednesday. He was 83.
