Roberts latest former Bison to win World Series

Thanks to the 2020 Los Angeles Dodgers, another former Bison has claimed a World Series Championship.

Buffalo Baseball Hall of Famer Dave Roberts is the latest former Herd player or manager that has also managed a big league squad to baseball’s ultimate title. With the Dodgers’ 4-games-to-2 victory over Tampa Bay in this year’s Fall Classic, the former Buffalo outfielder won the championship that narrowly escaped him in 2017 and 2018.

And with that, Roberts is now the 12th former Bison to manage a club to a World Series title. In fact, 18% of all World Series championships (21 of 116) have been won by a club with a former Bison in the dugout.

The list goes all the way back to the first ever World Series, won by the Boston Americans in 1903. That team was managed by former Buffalo third baseman, Hall of Famer Jimmy Collins.

A former Buffalo backstop then took over when another Hall of Famer, Connie Mack, led the Philadelphia A’s to three titles in a four-year span, 1910-1911 and 1913. He was back at it again with back-to-back titles in 1929 and 1930, but not before former Bisons managers George Stallings (1912 Boston Braves) and Bucky Harris (1924 Washington Senators) also picked up titles.

Then the World Series belonged to the New York Yankees and a former Bisons infielder named Joe McCarthy. After his time as a second baseman in Buffalo from 1914-1915, McCarthy led the pinstripes to titles in 1932, 1936, 1937, 1938, 1939 and one more in 1943.

More titles came as Bisons affiliations began to change in the middle of the 20th century. In Steve O’Neill’s final of three seasons managing the Herd in 1940, the club was paired up with the Tigers. O’Neill would eventually get the big league job and lead Detroit to the 1945 World Series title. O’Neill’s centerfielder in the Queen City in 1940, Mayo Smith, played five total seasons with the Herd. Two decades later, it was Smith that managed the Tigers to a 1968 championship.

Lou Boudreau, a shortstop on the 1939 Bisons team that was affiliated with Cleveland, led the Tribe to a 1948 World Series victory over the Boston Braves. Dallas Green, a pitcher in the first two years of the Bisons’ four -year affiliation with the Phillies from 1959-1962, led Philadelphia to a title in 1990.

In recent years, championships by the Boston Red Sox have given titles to two more former Bisons, former pitcher John Farrell in 2013 and former infielder Alex Cora in 2018.

And now Roberts makes an even dozen for Buffalo Bisons alum. The outfielder who stole more bases than any other Bisons player in the modern era (97 from 1998-2001), earned a World Series title of his own on Tuesday night. Congratulations to Dave on a tremendously well-deserved championship and for continuing the tradition and success for former Bisons on the bench in the Big Leagues.