Fred Claire, who went from a local sportswriter to the architect of a World Series-winning Los Angeles Dodgers team, died Monday.
It was his 91st birthday.
The club announced the passing of the former general manager on Tuesday with a social media post. No cause of death was revealed, though Claire had been diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma that began on his lip in 2015, and he announced a recurrence and its spread two years later, the Los Angeles Times reported.
“The Los Angeles Dodgers mourn the passing at age 91 of Fred Claire, whose three decades with the franchise reached their pinnacle as the general manager of the 1988 World Series Champions,” the team posted on social media. “We send our deepest condolences to his wife Sheryl and children Jeff, Jennifer and Kim.”
Born in Ohio in 1935, Claire’s family moved to Southern California in 1950. After college, he went to work as a sports writer and editor at a local daily newspaper in Los Angeles County.
By the end of the 1960s, Claire was covering the Dodgers for the Long Beach Press-Telegram and, in 1969, he applied for an open assistant position in the team’s public relations office, the Times reported. He got the job and was promoted to vice president of public relations in 1975.
Never a baseball insider as a player or coach, Claire surprisingly was promoted to GM by ownership to replace Al Campanis, who made comments perceived as racist on national TV and subsequently was fired in 1987. Despite his lack of GM experience, Claire put together the team that defeated the then-Oakland Athletics in the 1988 World Series.
The enduring sounds and images of that series were from Game 1, when an injured Kirk Gibson came out of the dugout to pinch hit and parked a home run for a walkoff victory, followed by jubilant manager Tommy Lasorda pouring out of the dugout. Legendary announcer Jack Buck said on the call, “I don’t believe what I just saw” as Gibson rounded the bases.
Claire served 11 years as GM, until June 21, 1998, when he and field manager Bill Russell were dismissed by a new ownership group. The previous month, the owners traded future Baseball Hall of Fame inductee Mike Piazza to the then-Florida Marlins without the GM being involved.
In the trade, Piazza and Todd Zeile were traded for Manuel Barrios, Bobby Bonilla, Jim Eisenreich, Charles Johnson and Gary Sheffield. Piazza was flipped days later in another trade with the New York Mets.
