Bowa Enshrined in A's Hall of Fame

Post date: Jul 29, 2016 3:16:18 PM

Original manager and longtime coach Larry Bowa becomes 9th enshrinee

The A's organization today announced that current bench coach and original team manager Larry Bowa is being honored with enshrinement into the Philadelphia Athletics Hall of Fame. Bowa becomes the 9th individual and 2nd manager to receive the honors since the Hall was first established back in 2007.

When the franchise was first founded in July of 1998, General Manager Matt Veasey made Bowa his first hiring to skipper that first Athletics team. "Larry was brought in on an interim basis, knowing that we wanted Paul Molitor as our manager. However, we had to wait until Molly finished out that final season as a player. Larry was professional and gracious in accepting the job under those terms, did a fine job in the role, led us to a winning season and a playoff berth that first year. We've never even considered not having him as a part of our staff ever since."

Bowa guided that first Athletics club to a 4-3-2 record in the short WFBL Inaugural season of 1998 and a 2nd place finish in the new Owens/East Division. The club dropped their playoff game to the eventual league champions from Middle Village. Then after Molitor was hired following the season, he asked Bowa to remain on as his bench coach. Bowa accepted, and has been retained by each manager who the team has hired ever since.

When asked about the possibility of Bowa returning as a full-time manager at some point, Veasey has always been up-front regarding the position. "Every manager who we have hired since, we thought was the best person for the position at the time. There was a time where that could have happened, but the timing just didn't turn out to be right."

It is believed that Bowa was approached about the full-time job after Molitor retired following the 2002 championship season, but that Bowa instead recommended the next skipper, John Marzano, for the position. When Marzano resigned for personal reasons following the 2004 season, the A's were hot to hire Buck Showalter, who got the job and remained in the position for years. When he was relieved of the role back in 2014, Bowa had established that he was only interested in remaining as bench coach.

In enshrining Bowa, the team recognizes their only remaining uniformed tie to the original founding of the franchise. It also honors Bowa for his longtime continued loyal and what Veasey calls "irreplaceable service" to the team, which continues now for an 18th season. Bowa will be back next year as well, and current head coach Torey Lovullo has already stated that Bowa will be his right-hand man as long as he wants to be here.

Previous enshrinees to the Athletics Hall of Fame:

Founding/2007 - Paul Molitor, 2008 - Mike Piazza, 2009 - Jeff Kent, 2010 - Carlos Delgado, 2011 - Billy Wagner, 2014 - Roy Halladay & Roy Oswalt, 2015 - Derek Jeter