Major League Baseball Player, Manager. Born Gene WIlliam Mauch, he was raised in Los Angeles where he attended Fremont High School and was signed as an amateur free agent by the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1943. He marked his Major League debut at the age of eighteen on April 18th, 1944 and for nine seasons (1944, 1947 to 1952, 1956 to 1956), he played at the second-base, shortstop and third-base positions with the Brooklyn Dodgers, Pittsburgh Pirates, Chicago Cubs, Boston Braves, St. Louis Cardinals and Boston Red Sox. In 304 career regular season games, he compiled 176 hits with a .239 lifetime batting average. His career was interrupted while he served with the US Military during World War II. After retiring as a player, he launched his lengthy managerial career beginning with two years in the Minor Leagues (1958 to 1959), before returning to the Major League level as manager of the Philadelphia Phillies (1960 to 1968). After his first two seasons which produced futile results, the Phillies slowly rose to becoming a competitive club nearly capturing the Pennant in 1964. During that season on September 20th, Philadelphia was on top of the National League by 6-and-a-half games with visions of the World Series in their sight before the unthinkable happened. They would lose the next ten games which resulted in a second-place tie with Cincinnati at the conclusion of the season, while the Cardinals captured the pennant, leaving Phillies' fans with broken hearts. Mauch absorbed much of the blame with his questionable decision to shorten his starting staff giving the pitchers fewer days of rest. In spite of this, the Phillies maintained a winning record for the remainder of Mauch's tenure with them. In addition, he became known for his experimentation of strategy which included sacrifice bunting and hit-and-run. For 43-years, he held the Phillies' record of most wins by a manager until he was surpassed by Charlie Manuel on September 28th, 2011. In 1969, he became the first manager of the new Montreal Expos expansion team but failed to achieve a winning record in seven seasons (1969 to 1975), although he received The Sporting News Manager of the Year Award in 1973. His next managerial assignment would be with the Minnesota Twins (1976 to 1980), but the most success he achieved was a third-place finish in 1976. During the strike-riddled season of 1981, he replaced Jim Fregosi as manager of the California Angels (1981 to 1982, 1985 to 1987) and in 1982, he guided them to the American League Western Division Title. California would go up by two games over the Milwaukee Brewers, but lost the next three games and the series. Fired by Gene Autry following that season, he was rehired in 1985. The Angels would again capture the American League West crown in 1986 and hold a 3 games to 1 lead over the Boston Red Sox, however Boston came back to take the next three games and the series once again bringing back shades of 1964 for Mauch. He compiled a 1,902 win 2037 loss managerial record. Mauch was the brother-in-law of former Major League player Roy Smalley, Jr. and was the uncle of former Major League player Roy Smalley, III (whom he managed while at Minnesota).