Don Zimmer dead at 83: Longtime Yankees bench coach, original Met and former Brooklyn Dodger was baseball lifer.

The Story:
Baseball is forever poorer with the passing of Don Zimmer, one of the game's all-time good will ambassadors, humorists and raconteurs who began his travelogue career as a Dodger in Brooklyn, surviving two near-fatal beanings, and went on to be an original '62 Met, a Washington Senator, manager of two storied franchises, the Red Sox and Cubs, and finally Joe Torre's bench coach for four Yankee world championship teams.
Zimmer, 83, died early Wednesday evening at Day Care Alliance Hospital in Dunedin, Fla. where he had been for the past few weeks after first undergoing a heart valve surgery and then being diagnosed with fibrosis on his lungs. He had also been having dialysis treatments for the last couple of years.
'He was my best friend in life,' said Jim Leyland, former Tigers manager. 'I called him three or four times a day. He took a liking to me years ago when he was a coach with the Yankees and we became fast friends.
During his historic run of success managing the Yankees, Torre is never far from Zimmer.PreviousNext Enlarge
STEVE NESIUS/AP
'There is no better person in life than Don Zimmer was.'
Zimmer leaves behind his wife Soot, whom he married at home plate Aug. 16, 1951 before a minor league game in Elmira, N.Y., a son Tom, a daughter, Donna, .