Evers Returns To Manage Bulls For Seventh Season

Bill Evers led the Bulls to a league championship last season.

That’s right! The man who has led the Bulls to five division titles and two league championships in the last six years will return as the Bulls go for a “three-peat”. Evers will keep his staff in tact as Pitching Coach Joe Coleman and Hitting Coach Richie Hebner also return to the Bulls this season.

Evers, 49, the only manager the Bulls have had in their seven-year run in the International League, is the all-time winningest manager in team history with 471 wins. Last season, he led the Durham Bulls to their second consecutive Governor’s Cup Championship while becoming the only manager in the 120-year history of the league to sweep back-to-back championship series. In the last two seasons, the Bulls are 12-1 in the Governor’s Cup Playoffs. In 17 years as a minor-league manager, Evers holds a record of 1,239-1,060.

Coleman, 56, enters his fifth season as pitching coach for the Bulls. Coleman began his coaching career in 1980 after a fifteen-year major league career with Washington, Detroit, Chicago (NL), Oakland, Toronto, San Francisco, and Pittsburgh. He twice won 20 or more games in a season with Detroit (1971, 73).

Hebner, 56, begins his third season with the Bulls. He has sixteen years of coaching experience with the Toronto, Boston, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia organizations. Hebner compiled a 184-182 (.503) record in three seasons as a minor league manager with Myrtle Beach (A) in 1988, Syracuse (AAA) in 1996, and most recently Nashville (AAA) in 2000. He spent the 2001 season as hitting coach for the Philadelphia Phillies.

Originally a first round draft choice of the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1966, Hebner had an eighteen-year major league playing career with Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, New York (NL), Detroit and Chicago. In 1,908 career games, he batted .276 with 203 home runs and 890 RBI. He was a member of the 1971 World Champion Pittsburgh Pirates.

Thanks to DBBC’s Matt DeMargel for this capcom story & photo.