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John Gibbons

John Michael Gibbons (born June 8, 1962[1]) is an American professional baseball player, coach, and manager. Gibbons played in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a catcher with the New York Mets in 1984 and 1986.

For other people named John Gibbons, see John Gibbons (disambiguation).

John Gibbons

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Gibbons became a coach for the Toronto Blue Jays in 2002 and then became manager in 2004. He was fired during the 2008 season. He coached for the Kansas City Royals from 2009 to 2011 and managed in the minor leagues in 2012 before managing the Blue Jays again from 2013 to 2018. He is currently the bench coach for the New York Mets.

Early life[edit]

Gibbons was born in Great Falls, Montana, and raised in San Antonio, Texas, where he attended Douglas MacArthur High School.[2][3] The son of United States Air Force colonel William Gibbons, he had his first Little League Baseball at-bat while playing in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Labrador, Canada, where the family lived temporarily.[4]

Playing career[edit]

Gibbons was selected by the New York Mets with the 24th overall pick of the 1980 amateur draft. He spent the next three years moving up through the Mets minor-league system.[5] In 1984, he was considered to be the Mets' top catching prospect, and was set to start the season in the majors.[6] However, a collision with the Phillies' Joe Lefebvre in late March landed him on the 15-day disabled list.[7] He eventually started six games at catcher in April 1984, but batted only .040 in that stretch.[5] He went back on the disabled list with a sore arm at the end of April, and was sent back to AAA Tidewater after that.[5]


Gibbons was next called up to the majors in the 1986 Mets season. He appeared in 8 games and batted .474 (9 for 19), but the Mets already had the majors' best catcher in Gary Carter and an established backup in Ed Hearn. Gibbons served as the Mets' bullpen catcher during the 1986 postseason, and earned a World Series ring when the Mets won the World Series.[3][8]


Gibbons spent the next four seasons on five different AAA teams. He retired as a player after the 1990 season.[5]

Coaching and managerial career[edit]

Minor leagues[edit]

Gibbons began his coaching career with the Mets in 1990 as a minor league roving catching instructor.[9] In 1994, he joined the Mets' South Atlantic League franchise, the Capital City Bombers, as a hitting coach.


Gibbons began his minor-league managing career in the Mets' organization with the Kingsport Mets, guiding them to the Appalachian League championship in 1995.[10] He followed that by guiding the St. Lucie Mets to the Florida State League title the next season. In 1998, he led the Eastern League's Binghamton Mets to the playoffs, and then followed that with three seasons as manager of the Norfolk Tides. He led the Tides to the International League playoffs in 2001.

On May 28, 2005, Gibbons chastised former Toronto starter in the dugout after the right-hander showed his displeasure on the mound about being removed from a game. The next day, Bush was sent to the minor leagues and after the season, he was traded to the Milwaukee Brewers.[38]

Dave Bush

Gibbons was again involved in controversy in July 2006, after his feud with came to a head. After the Blue Jays infielder and designated hitter wrote negative comments about the team on a display board in the Blue Jays clubhouse, Gibbons confronted him in a closed team meeting and challenged him to a fight.[39] Hillenbrand declined to fight.[40] Hillenbrand was upset about his lack of playing time and that no one in the Blue Jays front office had made an attempt to congratulate him on recently adopting a child. Three days later the Blue Jays traded Hillenbrand, who was hitting .301 at the time, to the San Francisco Giants.[39] In 2012, after Gibbons was re-hired as the Blue Jays manager, Hillenbrand endorsed the hiring and acknowledged that he, not Gibbons, was at fault for the controversy, saying "I think he handled the situation that we had very professionally and I didn't handle it professionally at all. I think John's going to be a great addition to that ball club and he's a great guy."[39]

Shea Hillenbrand

On August 21, 2006, Gibbons walked to the mound in the third inning to remove pitcher from Toronto's game against the Oakland Athletics. Visibly frustrated at his own performance (having given up seven runs in that inning to erase an 8–0 lead), Lilly initially refused to surrender the ball to Gibbons. Words were exchanged and Lilly left the mound and headed for the clubhouse.[40] When Gibbons returned to the dugout, he followed Lilly into the clubhouse tunnel where, according to eyewitnesses, he confronted his pitcher regarding his insubordination. Cameramen saw Gibbons push Lilly first.[40] "Gibbons just went at him," photographer Aaron Harris said.[40] The two exchanged shoves, and a number of players and Blue Jays staff rushed in from the dugout to break it up.[41] During MLB's 2014 winter meetings, Lilly was working as a front-office member of the Chicago Cubs. Signalling that he harbored no hard feelings, Gibbons stuck his head into a Chicago hotel suite filled with media and laughingly called Lilly out.[42]

Ted Lilly

At the beginning of the 2008 season, Gibbons benched future Hall-of-Famer , who had a batting average of .167 after the first 20 games of the season. Thomas, typically a slow starter, was livid over his lack of playing time. He claimed that the Blue Jays were giving him less playing time to prevent him from getting 364 at-bats in the season, which was the required amount for his $10 million 2009 option to become guaranteed. The Blue Jays responded the next day on April 20, 2008, by releasing Thomas. Blue Jays general manager J.P. Ricciardi met with Thomas and they agreed that the best thing for the team and for Thomas would be to let him go.[43] Thomas returned to the Oakland Athletics and hit well despite some struggle with injury. It was his last season in the Major Leagues.

Frank Thomas

After striking out for the second time in three innings in a game against the on August 16, 2016, Blue Jays third baseman and reigning American League MVP Josh Donaldson returned to the dugout and angrily threw his bat against a bat-rack very close to where Gibbons was standing. Gibbons quickly confronted Donaldson, and the pair got into a short argument in an incident that was caught on camera. Blue Jays' players Troy Tulowitzki and Josh Thole stepped in to restrain Donaldson.[44] The incident, while creating "fabulous talk-show fodder",[42] was ultimately quickly forgotten. Said Gibbons after the game, "I told him after the first at-bat, get a new bat, that one ain't working. He took the same one up the second time. That didn't work. He chose to break it. So I went down and told him, you should have listened to me. That was basically it."[44] Donaldson downplayed the altercation as well, saying that Gibbons simply wanted a better smell of a new cologne Donaldson was wearing.[45]

New York Yankees

Career statistics and player information from , or ESPN, or Baseball Reference, or Fangraphs, or Baseball Reference (Minors)

MLB

Archived March 21, 2006, at the Wayback Machine

Toronto Blue Jays page

John Gibbons addressing a school assembly with a motivational speech

Waldstein, David (April 19, 2018). . The New York Times. Retrieved April 20, 2018.

"An old-school manager thrives in a new baseball age"