In 1966,Bristol was named to the Reds' coaching staff,and when the team performed badly under rookie skipper Don Heffner,Bristol took over the club as manager on July 13. Bristol guided the Reds through three winning seasons,but he was dismissed following the 1969 campaign. Sparky Anderson,who took over,would go into the Baseball Hall of Fame as the leader of the "Big Red Machine".
Cincinnati (298–265,.529) represented the high-water mark of Bristol's managing career. He never managed another winning club.
Later struggles
Not long after being fired by the Reds,Bristol was hired by the Seattle Pilots as the second manager in their history. He walked into a very difficult situation;the Pilots were on the verge of bankruptcy,and went to spring training not knowing whether they would play in Seattle or Milwaukee in 1970. Just six days before Opening Day,the Pilots got word they would be moving to Milwaukee as the Brewers. The Brewers under Bristol were never able to put together a winning team;he was fired 30 games into the 1972 season.[citation needed]
In 1976,Bristol was hired as manager of the Atlanta Braves. Midway through the 1977 season,with the Braves mired in a 16-game losing streak,owner Ted Turner sent Bristol on a 10-day "scouting trip" and took over as his own manager. This only lasted for one game (a 2–1 loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates) before National League president Chub Feeney ordered Turner to give up the reins,citing major league rules which forbid managers or players from owning stock in a team.[4] After the Braves broke the streak with third-base coach Vern Benson as interim manager,Bristol was brought back to finish out what was at the time the worst season in the Atlanta portion of Braves history. He was fired at the end of the season.[5] He last managed in MLB with the San Francisco Giants late in the 1979 season and all of 1980 before he was replaced by Frank Robinson. In June 1980,Bristol got into a fight with Giants pitcher John Montefusco after a victory over the rival Los Angeles Dodgers. Montefusco was angry at Bristol for removing him from the game too early.[6] Bristol finished with a career managerial record of 657 win and 764 defeats (.462).
In addition to his first MLB season with Cincinnati as a coach,Bristol also served as the third base coach for the Montreal Expos (1973–75) and the San Francisco Giants (1978–79),plus two terms with the Philadelphia Phillies (1982–85;1988),and two additional stints with the Reds (1989;1993).
In 2018,Bristol was inducted into the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame.[7]
Post-MLB career
After retiring from professional baseball,Bristol returned to live in his beloved Blue Ridge Mountains in Andrews,North Carolina. Bristol was encouraged to help nearby Young Harris College's baseball program by Georgia Governor Zell Miller,who was a YHC baseball player and alumnus of the class of 1951. Bristol began helping the YHC Mountain Lion baseball team and has served as an on-field mentor to YHC's baseball players and coaches. Because of his generous efforts and support he was inducted into the Young Harris College Athletics Hall of Fame in 2021.[1]
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