Rick Down died at age 68 after a long illness.
He was one of those guys who never quite got over the top in the minor leagues, an outfielder who came up through the Montreal Expos system at a time when they had an impressive stable of major league outfielders that included Hall of Famer Andre Dawson, Ellis Valentine and Warren Cromartie.
Down made it to the Triple-A level before retiring as a player and knocking around the low minors as a coach in the late 1970s. He then spent six seasons coaching at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas under UNLV coaching legend Fred Dallimore.
His big break in professional baseball came when he was hired by the California Angels as a roving hitting instructor. Four years later, the Yankees hired him and he started working his way up the minor league managerial ladder.
Though he had great success leading the Triple-A Columbus Clippers to several International League titles, he never got a chance to manage in the majors. Instead, he spent three seasons as Yankees hitting coach under manager Buck Showalter (1993-95) before moving on to the Orioles.
Down also served as hitting coach for the Dodgers (1999-2000), Red Sox (2001), the Yankees again (2002-2003), and the Mets (2005-2007). His final major league job was as an advance scout for the Giants.
He will be remembered fondly in Baltimore for the two years he spent working under manager Davey Johnson, but he obviously spent much more of his career in pinstripes. The Yankees led the majors in batting average in his first two seasons as hitting coach (1993-94) and he was also hitting coach for two of their nine straight AL East titles from 1998-2006.
“He was knowledgeable, very loyal, a lot of fun to be around,’’ Showalter said. “A lot of people didn’t get that about him. He didn’t take himself too seriously. Players loved him because he didn’t want to do anything but make you better as a hitter.