Charlie Fox

Born in New York City, Fox appeared in only three games as a Major League player—garnering three hits in seven at bats for a career batting average of .429—with the 1942 New York Giants. However, Fox would spend another 33 years at the Major and Minor League level as a player, manager, scout and coach for the Giants, who relocated to San Francisco in 1958.

Fox spent eight years as manager of the Giants' Class C St. Cloud Rox team in the Northern League, scouted from 1957 to 1963, then managed the Giants' Triple-A Tacoma affiliate in the Pacific Coast League in 1964 before coming to the Major Leagues as a San Francisco coach under Herman Franks in 1965. He returned to the PCL to pilot the Giants' Phoenix affiliate in 1969–70 until he was summoned to San Francisco on May 24, 1970 to replace Clyde King as the manager of the MLB Giants. The Giants were stalled in fifth place in the NL West at 19–23 (.452), and had just lost a 15-inning game to San Diego, 17–16, the day before.[1] Under Fox, the 1970 Giants recovered to go 14 games over .500 and finish third, 16 games behind Cincinnati.

Fox led the Giants to the NL West title in 1971. His team built an early lead in its division, winning 37 of its first 51 games, and enjoyed a 10½-game margin over the Los Angeles Dodgers on May 31. On September 1, San Francisco still held a comfortable, eight-game edge over the Dodgers. Then they withstood a furious assault by their in-state rivals during the pennant stretch to prevail by a single game. But the Giants lost to the eventual world champion Pittsburgh Pirates in the 1971 National League Championship Series, three games to one. Subsequently, they made a series of bad trades and fell from contention thereafter. On June 27, 1974, after compiling a record of 348–327 (.516), Fox was replaced as manager by former stalwart Giants catcher Wes Westrum.

According to Willie Mays, Fox tried to tell the infielders where to play on the Giants, even though Mays had handled that for years. Mays came up with a system to get around this. "I told the kids (Chris Speier at short and Tito Fuentes at second) that we had to play two games with Fox—his and mine. I would position them first, then let them do what Fox wanted. If he told you to take two steps back, then take three steps forward and back up one. This way they'd be in the same spot they started at. We did that all season (in 1971). Fox never found out."[2]

In 1976, he joined the front office of the Montreal Expos as a special assignment scout and served as the club's " emergency " manager when Karl Kuehl was fired on September 4. After winning only 12 of 34 games to close out the season, Fox was named as the general manager and was later succeeded on the field by Dick Williams. He held the GM title in Montreal through the 1978 season.

Fox, however, was destined to serve another term as an interim manager. In 1983, while working as a special assistant to Chicago Cubs general manager Dallas Green, Fox took over from embattled skipper Lee Elia on August 22 and managed the Cubs for the final 39 games of the season, winning 17 and losing 22. In 1984, he was replaced by Jim Frey. Later on he coached under Green in 1989 with the New York Yankees, and scouted for the Houston Astros.

Fox's career major league managing record was 377–371 (.504).

Fox died at age 82 in Stanford, California and his cremated remains were interred in Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery, Colma, California.

• Baseball-Reference.com – career managing record and playing statistics