The Cats have named Waco-native Stan Hough as the club’s new manager, it was announced today. It will be his third season with Fort Worth after serving as the team’s hitting instructor and third base coach for the previous two years.

He succeeds veteran skipper Wayne Terwilliger who retired following the Cats’ 2005 Central Baseball League championship season.

Hough was named to the Cats’ coaching staff on March 8, 2004 and briefly stepped in for a six-game stint as interim manager in July of that season when Terwilliger underwent surgery.

Hough, 50, has seven full seasons of minor league managerial experience. He last managed the Class-A Delmarva Shorebirds in the Baltimore organization in 2003. He also managed the Triple-A Ottawa Lynx in 2001.

His coaching career stretches back to 1983 when he served as a player/coach with Daytona in the Houston organization. His first manager’s job came in 1987 when he led the Texas Rangers’ Gulf Coast League affiliate. Following that season, Hough was a coach in the Rangers minor-league system for a number of years. He was a member of the Tulsa Drillers’ 1988 Texas League championship team.

After taking a few years off in the early 1990s to complete his bachelor’s degree from Baylor University, Hough returned to the dugout in 1997 as manager of the Waterbury Spirit of the Northeast League where he led the team to consecutive playoff appearances in ’97 and ’98.

He was named skipper of the Yankees’ South Atlantic League Greensboro team in 1999 and guided the club to a 77-64 record and a playoff berth. He managed at Greensboro again in 2000 before being assigned to Orioles’ Triple-A managerial post in 2001. 

Hough was the hitting instructor for the Clinton Lumberkings in the Montreal system in 2002.

A second round draft pick of the New York Mets in 1974 out of McLennan Community College, Hough spent seven seasons catching in the Mets organization before being traded to Houston in a deal that included current Padres’ manager Bruce Bochy.

Hough resides in Waco, Texas with his wife Martha, daughter Casey and son Ty.