Gene William Mauch (November 18, 1925 – August 8, 2005) was an American professional baseball player and manager who played in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a second baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers (1944, 1948), Pittsburgh Pirates (1947), Chicago Cubs (1948–1949), Boston Braves (1950–1951), St. Louis Cardinals (1952) and Boston Red Sox (1956–1957).

Mauch gained a reputation for playing a distinctive "small ball" style, which emphasized defense, speed, and base-to-base tactics on offense, rather than power hitting.

Born in Salina, Kansas, he was raised there and in Los Angeles, where he graduated from John C. Fremont High School.

In 1953, the Milwaukee Braves named Mauch, then 27 years old, the player-manager of their Double-A Atlanta Crackers farm team in the Southern Association, his first managerial assignment.

His team finished 84–70, in third place, three games behind the Memphis Chickasaws, and fell in the first round of the playoffs to the eventual league champion Nashville Vols.

[1] But seven years later, John J. Quinn, who as the Braves' general manager had hired him for the Crackers' job, would give Mauch his first big-league managerial opportunity with the 1960 Phillies.

In 1958–59, he piloted the Red Sox' Triple-A affiliate, the Minneapolis Millers, reaching the Junior World Series as American Association champion each season, and winning the 1958 JWS championship.

During the off-season prior to the 1960 campaign, Mauch declined an offer to interview with Quinn for an opening on the Phillies' coaching staff, saying he wanted to focus on managing.

In the final days of spring drills, Quinn called Mauch again and asked him to replace veteran Phillies' pilot Eddie Sawyer, who had resigned after the team's opening game on April 12.

Mauch was a strong advocate of "small ball", the emphasis on offensive fundamentals such as bunting, sacrifice plays, and other ways of advancing runners, as opposed to trying to score runs primarily through slugging.

While his teams occasionally featured power hitters such as Dick Allen, Rusty Staub, and Reggie Jackson, they depended just as heavily on hitters adept at getting on base through contact hitting and patience at the plate, such as Rod Carew and Brian Downing, and on strong defensive play by such stars as Bobby Grich, Bob Boone, and Doug DeCinces.

The following year, they finished 47–107; from July 29 to August 20, they lost 23 straight games, which ranks as the third-longest losing streak in baseball history along with the longest in the 20th century.

In late September 1964, his Phillies had a record of 90–60, a 6+1⁄2-game lead in the National League with 12 games left to play, and were starting a 7-game home stand.

[8] In 1976, Minnesota Twins owner Calvin Griffith hired Mauch to manage his team, which had Rod Carew at the time.

He guided the Twins to an 85–77 that year, good enough for third place in the American League West, five games behind the Kansas City Royals.

John thought it was not a bad idea, but he noted that by waiting until after California lost Game 3 to announce the strategy, Mauch made it look like he was panicking.

In 1986, the Angels again won the Western title after going 92–70, and led in the fifth game of the (by now best-of-7) ALCS against the Boston Red Sox, just one strike away from the Fall Classic, but Boston's Dave Henderson hit a home run off Angels reliever Donnie Moore to put the Red Sox ahead.

Compounding his ill-starred reputation as a manager, he was the skipper during two of the longest losing streaks in Major League history.

His expansion 1969 Expos lost 20 in a row before finally ending it, as Mauch had to endure media reminders of his teams' previous loss streaks in 1961 and 1964.

[15] Mauch died at age 79 at Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage, California, from lung cancer.