Born in New Castle, Alabama, Harris began his playing career with the Atlanta Crackers of the Southern Association in 1937. His catcher that season was Paul Richards, who in 1938 became Atlanta's player-manager. Richards and Harris would form a decades-long association in baseball at the minor and Major League levels.
The remainder of Harris' Major League career would be spent working in tandem with Richards, initially as a coach with the Chicago White Sox (1951–1954), Baltimore Orioles (1955–1961) and Houston Colt .45s (1962–1964). In each case he worked under Richards, who was either his manager, general manager, or (in Baltimore from 1955 to 1958) both. Despite his playing background, Harris was never a pitching coach; he usually served as a third-base coach.
Manager of Astros and Braves
Harris' first managerial experience came late in the 1961 season. On August 30, Richards stepped down as the skipper of the Baltimore Orioles to become the general manager of the expansion Houston Colt .45s, and Harris took command as interim pilot on September 1. He led them to 17 wins in 27 games (.630), as Baltimore finished third in the American League. After the season, however, Harris rejoined Richards in Houston as a coach, while Billy Hitchcock took over as Baltimore's skipper for 1962.
Harris served for almost three full seasons as a Colt .45 coach under Harry Craft, until September 19, 1964, when Richards promoted him to manager.[2] In 1965, Harris helmed the re-christened Houston Astros, serving for the team's debut season in the Astrodome. But the 1965 Astros went only 65–97 to finish ninth in the ten-team National League and, at the end of the year, Richards was fired, and Harris was replaced by Grady Hatton as the Astros' pilot. Harris then served as a Houston scout in 1966.
In August 1966, Richards returned to the major leagues as the vice president for baseball operations (in effect, general manager) of the Atlanta Braves. After that season, Harris rejoined his old boss in 1967 as skipper of the Richmond Braves, Atlanta's Triple-Afarm club. Then, from 1968 to the middle of the 1972 season, Harris managed the big-league Braves (ironically, succeeding Hitchcock).
Harris led Atlanta to 93 victories and the first National League West Division championship in 1969—an expansion year when both the National and American leagues grew to 12 teams and adopted divisional play for the first time. It was the franchise's first postseason berth since losing the 1958 World Series as the Milwaukee Braves; however, Harris' squad lost the 1969 National League Championship Series to the eventual world champion New York Mets in three straight games. When the Braves slumped in ensuing years, Richards was fired during the 1972 season, on June 1; slightly more than two months later, on August 6, Harris was replaced as manager by former Braves' third basemanEddie Mathews.[3] Harris' final managerial record was 466–488 (.488).
