In what has been a season of accolades, Las Vegas Aviators manager Fran Riordan took the most recent honor for the franchise as the Pacific Coast League announced Tuesday Riordan was selected as the Pacific Coast League’s Manager of the Year. The Las Vegas franchise’s third Manager of the Year winner, this is Riordan’s first such honor.
Riordan joins former skippers Brad Mills (2002) and Wally Backman (2014) as the only Las Vegas managers to win the award after a vote of field managers, media representatives, broadcasters and team officials. Heading into this weekend’s final home series of the season, Riordan leads an Aviators team that has posted the second best record in the PCL (81-55) and has the Fly Boys up two games with three games to play in the regular season.
“It’s fun when this is your office,” Riordan said earlier this year about his job with the Aviators in their inaugural season at the new Las Vegas Ballpark. “It’s once in a lifetime opportunity to open up a new stadium. And everyone in this organization is pretty excited about it.”
A native of Virginia Beach, Va., Rordan has been in professional baseball for 18 seasons, and has been with the Oakland Athletics organization since 2015. He has an overall managerial record of 1021-978 and a 152-121 record at the Triple-A level. Prior to the Aviators’ becoming the Oakland Athletics affiliate, Riordan guided the Nashville Sounds to a 72-68 mark and a second-place finish in the American Southern Division to the eventual Triple-A Champion Memphis Redbirds.
He has served time at Double-A Midland, where he guided the team to the Texas League Championship in 2017 and also served at Low-A Beloit of the Midwest League from 2015-16. Before joining the Oakland organization, Fran Riordan spent 13 seasons as either a manager or player/manager for four other ball clubs including Dubois County, Richmond Roosters, Kalamazoo Kings and Florence Freedom.
He led Richmond to consecutive league championships in 2001 and 2002 and guided the Kalamazoo squad to a first-place league finish and championship in 2005. Riordan is the all-time wins leader in Frontier League history with 625 wins, and was even a 2014 Frontier League Hall of Fame inductee.
A player’s manager who seems to connect with players of all ages, Riordan is a baseball romantic at heart.
“You get to come out and get to hit and work out and practice on this beautiful field every day,” Riordan said. “You get to come 15 minutes before the game, look around and see the the stands filling up, feel the excitement, the energy and the crowd…It’s just been a really really great situation here in Las Vegas, and I know the guys are excited to come to the park every day.”
The Aviators finish their first season in the award-winning Las Vegas Ballpark this weekend with a three-game set with the Tacoma Rainiers with their magic number for a divisional title at just one. A win by Las Vegas or a loss by second place El Paso will clinch the Pacific Southern title. As the New York Mets affiliate last year, the former Las Vegas 51s finished third with a 71-69 record, 11 1/2 games out of first.
