Today In Brewer History: Happy Anniversary, Ron Roenicke

Since firing Phil Garner, the winningest manager in franchise history, in 1999 the Brewers have had no less than seven managers over a span of 13 seasons. That's an average of less than two seasons per manager even when you include Ned Yost, who got six years with the club.

On this day two years ago the managerial carousel stopped spinning for the moment as the Brewers hired first-time manager Ron Roenicke. Roenicke had been at the helm of various minor league teams for five seasons in the 90's but most of his coaching experience came with the Angels, where he was an assistant to Mike Scioscia for eleven seasons.

At the time of his hiring it looked like Roenicke was taking over a rebuilding team: The Brewers had fallen off pretty significantly since their 2008 playoff appearance and were pretty widely expected to trade Prince Fielder and set their sights on a more distant return to the postseason. Instead, they doubled down by trading for Zack Greinke and Shaun Marcum and assembled a team that went on to win 96 games.

After being at the helm for 83 more wins in 2012, Ron Roenicke is already the sixth winningest manager in franchise history. He's even won more games than Harvey Kuenn (160), the only manager ever to guide the Brewers to the World Series.

With help from the B-Ref Play Index, happy birthday today to:

• Taylor Green, who turns 26.
• 2000-01 Brewer Paul Rigdon, who turns 37.
• 1984 Brewer Paul Hartzell, who turns 59.
• UW-Madison alum John Sullivan, who would have turned 92. Sullivan played six major league seasons between 1942-49, mostly as a Washington Senator.

Today is also the anniversary of the 1974 trade that brought Hank Aaron back to Milwaukee as a member of the Brewers. We covered that event in this space last year.