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Bulls Name Coaching Staff For 100th Anniversary Season |
The Durham Bulls are gearing up for their 100th anniversary season in 2002 with the announcement of their coaching personnel for their 5th season in Triple-A. Manager Bill Evers will return to continue his record-breaking winning average, along with Pitching Coach Joe Coleman and Trainer Paul Harker. Richie Hebner will round out the roster as Hitting Coach in his first season with the Durham Club.
Bulls Manager Bill Evers will return for 5th season with the team. |
The only manager in the Bulls’ Triple-A history, Evers reached a record-breaking 318 wins with the team with a victory in the next to last game of the 2001 season. The win against the Charlotte Knights propelled Evers past the former record of 317 wins by George Whitted in his 1927-1932 managing stint with the Durham Bulls in the Piedmont League.
Evers has a record of 318-250 with the Bulls, winning the IL South Division Title three of the past four years. Overall, he holds a 1,086-929 record in his 15 seasons as a manager and his teams in three different leagues have gone to four championships.
Evers, 47, began his baseball career as a catcher and first baseman in the Chicago Cubs’ organization. He has also managed in the Cubs organization, as well as in the Yankees’ and Giants’ organizations.
Pitching Coach Joe Coleman will be in his third season with the Bulls. Last season, his Bull pitching personnel racked up a 3.76 ERA, the fourth best in the league. Coleman began coaching in 1980, after a 15-year major league playing career with seven different major league clubs. The right-handed pitcher became in the first player drafted to the major leagues when he went in the first round to the Washington Senators in 1965. Coleman, 54, has also coached in the major leagues for the Anaheim Angels and the St. Louis Cardinals.
Richie Hebner, also 54, will begin his first season with the Bulls as Hitting Coach. Hebner replaces Mike Oliveras, who will now be the head coach with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays’ Double-A team in Orlando. Hebner’s major league playing career began in 1966 when he was the first round draft choice of the Pittsburgh Pirates. In almost two decades he played in 8 league championship series with the Pirates, the Phillies and the Cubs, winning the World Series with Pittsburgh in 1971. Hebner has 16 years of coaching experience with four organizations, in addition to having served as minor-league manager for Myrtle Beach (A) in 1988, Syracuse (AAA) in 1996, and Nashville (AAA) in 2000. Most recently, he filled the roll of hitting coach for the Phillies in 2001.
Harker, 33, has been the Bulls’ Trainer for the club’s entire 5-years in Triple-A. He graduated from Florida State University in 1991, and spent six years with the Seattle Mariners organization before joining the Tampa Bay Devil Rays’ organization in 1997.
The Bulls open their 100th anniversary season with an exhibition game at home against their major league sister team, the Devil Rays on Saturday, March 30.
