Lefty Phillips

Who was Lefty Phillips?

Harold Ross "Lefty" Phillips was an American coach, manager, scout and front office executive in Major League Baseball. Phillips was the second manager in Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim franchise history.

A native of Los Angeles, Phillips was a left-handed pitcher in his playing days but, because of a sore arm, his professional playing career consisted of fewer than five games with the Bisbee Bees of the Class D Arizona-Texas League in 1939. After the Second World War, Phillips returned to baseball and became a highly respected scout for the Cincinnati Reds and the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers.

In 1965, Phillips reached the Major Leagues when he was named pitching coach of the Dodgers. During his first two seasons in that post, he worked with Hall of Famers such as Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale and Don Sutton, as Los Angeles won back-to-back National League pennants and the 1965 World Series. Although the Dodgers fell back in the standings in 1967–68, after Koufax' retirement, they still boasted one of the strongest pitching staffs in the majors.