Bill Plummer, an Anderson High School graduate who was part of the famed Cincinnati Reds’ “Big Red Machine” team of the 1970s, has died.
He was 76.
Plummer spent more than 50 years in Major League Baseball as a player, coach and manager.
After his playing career, he worked years climbing the coaching ranks before he was named manager of the Seattle Mariners. He managed the Mariners for one season, going 64-98 in 1992, before he was replaced by Lou Piniella.
Plummer was also the first manager of the original Chico Heat from 1997-99. His teams compiled a record of 171 wins and 98 losses in those three seasons, a winning percentage of .573.
Rick Bosetti, who also graduated from Anderson High and played in the major leagues, said Plummer meant so much to so many people.
Plummer was six years older than Bosetti, who recalled watching Plummer dominate the local baseball fields growing up.
“I loved the guy,” said Bosetti, who got emotional remembering his longtime friend. “I looked up to him as a kid keeping the scoreboard at the Little League park when he was the star player, watching him.”
“I got a chance to follow in his footsteps, meeting him and then playing against him,” Bosetti added.
As a major league player, Plummer had a career .188 batting average with 14 home runs and 82 RBI.
He was originally signed by the St. Louis Cardinals before going to the Reds organization. He spent eight years in Cincinnati, a good portion of it backing up Hall of Fame catcher Johnny Bench.
Plummer’s best season was 1976, when he hit .248 and had four home runs and 19 RBI in 56 games, part of a Reds team that won the National League West title and the World Series, sweeping the New York Yankees in four games.
Bosetti, who at the time played center field for the Toronto Blue Jays, remembers playing against Plummer in 1978. Plummer by then was playing for the Seattle Mariners, his last season in the big leagues.
Plummer had plans to come to Bosetti’s house in Toronto for dinner after the game. The game went into extra innings before Bosetti got the winning hit to end it in the 12th.
Bosetti said he was asked about his clutch hit.
“I think I had a roast in the oven on a timer and Bill Plummer was coming over for dinner and I thought, ‘We need to get this thing over with,’” Bosetti recalled.
Late Wednesday morning, the Cincinnati Reds on their Facebook page posted a tribute to Plummer with his picture: “The Reds are saddened to learn of the passing of former catcher Bill Plummer.” The post had 87 comments and 143 shares as of late Wednesday afternoon.
In a 2020 Record Searchlight story recalling his time with Cincinnati and Reds teammate Joe Morgan, who had recently passed away, Plummer reflected on the clubhouse bond that propelled that mighty team.
“We had a ball club that picked each other up,” Plummer said. “We had a lot of great players and Joe was one of the biggest parts. When we got him, he completed our team.”
Plummer’s coaching career started in 1980 when he became manager of Single-A San Jose in the Seattle Mariners organization.
Plummer managed seven years in the minor leagues and compiled a 480-452 record. He also managed the Chico Heat, a now-defunct independent minor league baseball team that played in the late 1990s.
A documentary film on Plummer’s playing career, “PLUM: A Life in Baseball” was made in 2020 by Conor Fitzgerald, U-Prep graduate who started receiving hitting lessons from Plummer as a 12-year-old in 2012.
“I’ve always been big into baseball history,” Fitzgerald said in a Record Searchlight story about his documentary. “I’ve known Bill for 10 years. When you took hitting lessons from him, ‘Plum’ would say this is what Edgar (Hall of Famer Edgar Martinez) would do. You tend to listen more as a kid when you hear those things more. There’s definitely a lot to be said about his playing career, but what I’m more interested in is what he did as a coach.”
Bosetti and Plummer would often talk baseball when they got together after their playing days and Plummer spent time around the Redding Colt 45s, the summer league baseball team Bosetti runs.
“When Plum and I got together and just talked about the game, those were some of the most wonderful times I had because of his breadth and depth and experience that he had, and what he could draw from that because he was in the game,” Bosetti said.
Bosetti said there are plans to put a memorial to remember Plummer on the outfield wall this season at Tiger Field, where the Colt 45s play their games. He said Plummer’s family will decide what uniform to use for the tribute.
Also, a Bill Plummer Memorial Scholarship has been established at Umpqua Bank, Bosetti said. People “can make a contribution to any Umpqua Bank branch,” he said.
