I can't believe what a great career they ended up having ...

They also got away with having hacky ad pitchman Sy Flembeck reincarnated as Frasier's dad.

 

It didn't work out THAT well.

 

True dat.

 

How about Joe Torre? He'd gotten the boot from three managerial jobs before taking over the Yankees and was regarded as mediocre at best -- remember the "Clueless Joe" headline when he was hired? Sure, he worked with great talent with the Yankees, but you've got to at least give him credit for not screwing it up.

 

Along these same lines, Terry Francona.

 

Torre was a modern day Stengal. Good, but not great player (though torre clearly was better than stengal) who managed unsuccessfully for several teams; lambasted by the media when hired by the Yankees and then popped out a dynasty almost immediately.

 

The Stengel comparison occurred to me, too.

And traveling in the wayback machine again, how about Vince Lombardi? His only head coaching job before taking over the Packers at age 46 was at St. Cecilia High School in New Jersey.

 

Because they balanced it with the gruff and limpy blue-collar father and the quasi-cutie pie with a British accent. And that little runt of a dog.

They also followed the basic tenet of comedy: serve it up, knock it down.

 

Stengel retired from the Mets on this day in 1965 (on his doctor's advice) after being in baseball since 1910. He was 75.

 

that is spooky

 

Speaking of which, "Cheers" the show itself.

Nearly canceled when it was ranked 74th of 77 shows in the ratings in its first season (yes, I looked it up), and eventually became a ratings smash.

 

If I recall from David Maraniss' book, Lombardi's first head coaching job at St. Cecilia was boys basketball, even though he barely knew anything about the sport. He was a football assistant for a year or two, then was promoted to head coach.