BATON ROUGE, La. – Alvin Dark, a member of the LSU Athletic Hall of Fame and an MLB World Series champion as both a player and manager, died Thursday at the age of 92 in his home in Easley, S.C.
Dark, a native of Comanche, Okla., was an all-SEC halfback for the LSU football team in 1942 , and he played for the Tigers’ SEC championship baseball squad in 1943 before transferring to Southwestern Louisiana Institute (now UL-Lafayette) through the V-12 Navy College Training Program. He was a football and baseball star for the Bulldogs (now Ragin’ Cajuns), and he was selected in the 1945 NFL Draft by the Philadelphia Eagles.
After serving in Asia during the war, he chose to begin a professional baseball career, making his Major League debut with the Boston Braves in 1946.
He played for six different MLB clubs until his retirement in 1960, helping lead the New York Giants to the 1954 World Series championship as the shortstop and team captain. Dark was a three-time National League All-Star (1951, ’52, ’54) during his seven seasons in New York.
Dark became the manager of the Giants in 1960 – the club had moved to San Francisco in 1958 – and he led them to the 1962 World Series, where the Giants lost in seven games to the New York Yankees.
After leaving San Francisco in 1964, Dark managed the Kansas City Athletics (1966-67), the Cleveland Indians (1968-71), the Oakland Athletics (1974-75) and the San Diego Padres (1977). He led Oakland to the 1974 World Series title, as the A’s defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers in five games.
Dark was inducted into the LSU Athletic Hall of Fame in 1981.