The longtime baseball legend had recently undergone heart surgery.
Tampa Bay Rays senior advisor Don Zimmer has passed away, according to Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times.
Zimmer, 83, has been in baseball -- in some capacity -- from the time he was 18 years old. He broke into the major leagues as a player in 1954 as a member of the Brooklyn Dodgers. His career lasted 12 seasons and he saw time with the Dodgers (Brooklyn and Los Angeles), Cubs, Mets, Reds and Senators. He also spent time as a player in Cuba, Mexico, Puerto Rico and Japan.
He was a manager in the minor leagues before helming the San Diego Padres in 1972, the first of his 13 years as a major league manager. In addition to the Padres, he coached the Red Sox, Rangers and Cubs, finishing with an 885-858 record, good for a .508 winning percentage. He's been a senior advisor to the Rays since 2004.
He might be best remembered by the current generation of baseball fans for the incident involving Pedro Martinez in the 2003 American League Championship Series, where he was thrown to the ground.
Zimmer was a resilient sort, recovering from stroke-like symptoms during the 1995 season and undergoing surgery to repair a leaky valve in his heart in April of this year. The Rays have carried Zimmer's jersey in the dugout with them for the majority of the 2014 season, with third base coach Tom Foley recently taking to wearing it out on the field during games, a practice he wasn't planning on stopping.
He is survived by his wife, Jean, son, Tom, daughter, Donna, and four grandchildren.