Background and career
Michael Lorri Scioscia ( SOH-shə; born November 27, 1958), nicknamed "Sosh" and "El Jefe" (Spanish for "The Boss"), is an American former catcher and manager in Major League Baseball (MLB). He managed the Angels from the 2000 season through the 2018 season, and was the longest-tenured manager in MLB and second-longest-tenured coach/manager in the "Big Four" (MLB, NFL, NHL, and NBA), behind only Gregg Popovich, at the time of his retirement. As a player, Scioscia made his major league debut with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1980. He was selected to two All-Star Games and won two World Series over the course of his 13-year playing career, which was spent entirely with the Dodgers; this made him the only person in MLB history to spend his entire playing career with one team and entire managing career with another team with 10+ years in both organizations. He was signed by the San Diego Padres and Texas Rangers late in his career, but never appeared in a game for either team due to injury. After his playing career ended, Scioscia spent several seasons as a minor league manager and major league coach in the Dodgers organization before being hired as the Anaheim Angels' manager after the 1999 season. As a manager, Scioscia led the Angels to their only-to-date World Series championship in 2002. He is the Angels' all-time managerial leader in wins, games managed, and division titles. Scioscia was honored with the American League Manager of the Year Award in 2002 and 2009. On May 8, 2011, Scioscia became the 56th manager to win 1,000 or more games, and the 23rd to have all 1,000 or more victories with a single team.
Michael Lorri Scioscia was born on November 27, 1958, in Upper Darby Township, Pennsylvania.
Scioscia attended Springfield High School, a public school located in the suburbs of Philadelphia, where he was a catcher for future major leaguer Bob Gibson (not to be confused with the Hall of Fame pitcher of the same name). Scioscia was drafted by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the first round (19th overall pick) of the 1976 amateur draft.
Dodger manager Tommy Lasorda helped lobby Scioscia to sign with the Dodgers after the team drafted him out of high school. Scioscia debuted for the Dodgers in 1980 (eventually replacing Steve Yeager as the starting catcher) and went on to play 12 years for the team.
Scioscia made himself invaluable to the Dodgers by making the effort to learn Spanish in order to better communicate with rookie sensation Fernando Valenzuela in 1981. When I made Mike the No. 1 catcher, the writers (referring to sportswriters in the 1980s) came to me and said, "[Competing catcher] Steve Yeager said you made Scioscia the No. 1 catcher because he's Italian." I said, "That's a lie. I made him the No. 1 catcher because I'm Italian." Scioscia went to the San Diego Padres in 1993, but suffered a torn rotator cuff injury during spring training that year and did not play in any regular season games for the team. He closed out his career with the Texas Rangers in 1994 after a failed attempt to come back from the injury, again without having played in any regular season games that year. Exclusively a catcher, the 6-foot, 2-inch, 230 pound Scioscia was primarily known for his defense. Former Dodgers vice president Al Campanis once called Scioscia the best plate-blocking catcher he had seen in his 46-year baseball career; this sentiment was echoed by other Dodger figures such as LaSorda and broadcaster Vin Scully. During one notable collision with St. Louis Cardinals' slugger Jack Clark in July 1985, Scioscia was knocked unconscious but still held onto the ball. For his part, however, Scioscia has claimed that he had an even harder plate collision the following season.
The one collision that absolutely I got hit harder than anybody else was Chili Davis in 1986 when he was with the Giants. Chili plays hard; he's 6' 3", looks like Apollo Creed, got a nice lean. I saw stars. That was the hardest I've been hit, including my years of playing football. It was a heck of a collision…He was out that time. We were both out. Scioscia's technique for blocking the plate and making a tag varied slightly from the traditional manner employed by most catchers. When applying the tag, most catchers hold the baseball in their bare hand, with that hand then being inside their catcher's mitt to apply the tag with both hands. Scioscia preferred to hold the ball in his catcher's mitt without making use of his bare hand. Also, Scioscia felt he was less prone to injury in a collision if he positioned his body so that he was kneeling on both knees and turned to the side, whereas most catchers make their tag either standing or on one knee. Indeed, Scioscia was noted for his durability. After missing most of the 1983 season after tearing his rotator cuff, Scioscia played in more than 100 games each season for the remainder of his career with the Dodgers. Offensively, Scioscia was generally unspectacular, but he was known as a solid contact hitter, striking out fewer than once every 14 at-bats over the course of his career. Because of his ability to make contact, he was sometimes used as the second hitter in the batting order—an atypical slot for a player with Scioscia's large-set frame and overall batting average. He had a particularly strong season on offense in 1985, batting .296 and finishing second in the National League in on-base percentage. Scioscia also hit a dramatic, ninth inning, game-tying home run off the New York Mets' Dwight Gooden in Game 4 of the 1988 National League Championship Series. With the Dodgers going on to win that game in extra innings, Scioscia's blast (which came after he had hit only three home runs that entire season) proved crucial to the Dodgers' ultimately prevailing in that series. Scioscia was a key player on the Dodgers' 1981 and 1988 World Series champion teams, and is the Dodgers' all-time leader in games caught (1,395). In 1990, Scioscia became the first Dodger catcher to start in an All-Star Game since Hall of Famer Roy Campanella. Alfredo Griffin, Scioscia's teammate from the 1988 Dodger team, served on Scioscia's coaching staff with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim from 2000 to 2018. Scioscia earned as much as $2,183,333/year in salary toward the end of his career, and earned the unofficial total sum of $10,109,999 over his career. Scioscia was involved in three no-hitters in his career: he was on the losing end of Nolan Ryan's fifth no-hitter on September 26, 1981 vs. the Houston Astros, and on the winning side, he caught Fernando Valenzuela's on June 29, 1990 vs. the St. Louis Cardinals and Kevin Gross's on August 17, 1992 vs. the San Francisco Giants. He caught 136 shutouts during his career, ranking him fourth all-time among major league catchers. Scioscia used the same catcher's mitt for most of his playing career. Career statistics
