Richie Hebner, the Pirates’ thirdbaseman for eight years left the team via free agency following the 1976 season, the Pirates looked at different options for finding a hot player to man the hot corner.  Rumored deals for Don Money and Chris Speier went nowhere and Chuck Tanner, the new Pirate manager, experimented with Bill Robinson, Ken Macha and Fernando Gonzalez in spring training.  Realizing Robinson was not up to the task defensively and questioning if Macha or Gonzalez could succeed as everyday players, General Manager Harding Peterson again went looking for material to fill the position.  Instead of bringing steel back to Pittsburgh, for the price of six players, Peterson received a piece of scrap iron which would prove as valuable as gold to Tanner and Pirate fans.
   
Phil Garner had come up as a thirdbaseman through the Oakland A’s system after earning NCAA All-American honors in 1970, but had moved to secondbase when Dick Green retired following the 1974 World Series.  Garner played well at his new position, making the American League All-Star Team in 1976 when he batted .261 with 29 doubles, 12 triples and drove in 74 runs despite hitting at the bottom of the Oakland lineup.  Tanner, of course, was managing the A’s that season and Garner bought in to the manager’s running game, stealing 35 bases.  Tanner loved Garner’s hustle and willingness to do anything to help the team win and when A’s owner Charlie O. Finley put him on the trade block in hopes of rebuilding a team decimated by free agency, Tanner pushed for his acquisition.  Peterson acquired Garner, along with minor league pitcher Chris Batton and reacquired veteran Tommy Helms for one-time relief ace Dave Giusti, starter Doc Medich and four of the Bucs’ top prospects, pitchers Rick Lanford and Doug Bair and outfielders Tony Armas and Mitchell Page.  In the long run, Finley had made a good deal, but Garner proved to be a very valuable player and one of the leaders on the 1979 World Champions.

Garner opened 1977 as the Pirates’ thirdbaseman and number seven hitter.  He got off to a slow start and his average was just .207 in mid-June, but a hot streak raised him to .254 by the All-Star Game.  When Rennie Stennett was put out for the season due to a severely broken leg in August, Garner moved to second.  He finished the year hitting .260 and set career highs in doubles (35) and homeruns (17) while knocking in 77 runs and scoring 99, secondon the team.  Garner again stole over 30 bases, swiping 32.  He fit in well in the Pirates raucous club house, often initiating or being the target of practical jokes and insults.  His banter with Dave Parker was especially noted.  His hardnosed play earned him his teammates respect and the nickname “Scrap Iron.”
   
Garner got off to another slow start in 1978.  After the All-Star game, he joined his Pirate teammates in their attempt to plunder the Eastern Division away from the Phillies, by hitting .279 and belting eight of his ten homeruns.  Included in Garner’s longballs were grandslams hit in consecutive September games to help the Pirates nearly pull off a miracle comeback.  As in 1977, Garner ended the season playing secondbase as Stennett’s leg had not healed as hoped.  Actually, Phil played better defensively at second than at third for the Pirates.  He displayed good range at both positions, but his play at the keystone sack was more consistent and helped improve the club’s overall defense.
   
Unlike his slow starts in ’77 and ’78, Garner hit .294 during the first half of 1979.  His success was partially attributed to being hit in the hand by a Donnie Moore pitch in a game against the Cubs early in the season.  The injury stopped Garner from overswinging and was credited with helping him improve his average.  In late June, he permanently replaced Stennett at second when the Pirates obtained former batting champion Bill Madlock from the Giants and Tanner inserted Madlock at third.  Garner enjoyed a major surge after the break as well when he hit three homeruns and batted .409 to earn NL Player of the Week honors.  After slumping just a bit, Phil finished the season on another hot streak to end the year at .293.
   
Garner collected five hits and batted .417 with a Game 1 homerun in the NLCS.   He extended his post season hitting streak to ten games by hitting safely in all seven World Series games, tying the Seven Game Series record with a .500 average.  His 12 base hits tied Willie Stargell for the Series lead and was just one behind the all-time record.  Although he made a key error on a doubleplay grounder when he couldn’t get a good grip on the ball due to the cold and rainy conditions in Game 1, Garner played sound defense the rest of the way and established a World Series record by participating in nine doubleplays.
   
“Scrap Iron” made his first of two All-Star appearances as a Pirate in 1980.  Playing secondbase in 151 games, Garner hit .259 and stole 32 bases.  He boldly stated that he was the best all-around secondbaseman in the league as he played well in the field and provided a clutch bat.
   
After making the All-Star Team again in 1981, Garner became one of the first members of the 1979 World Series team to be traded away as he was sent to the Houston Astros just before the trade deadline for young Johnny Ray, a switchhitting secondbaseman who was tearing up the Pacific Coast League.  Garner went on to have success in Houston as he had in Pittsburgh.  He knocked in a career high 83 runs in 1982, but was mercilessly kidded by his former Pirate teammates when he was chosen to bat cleanup in the Astros lineup the next year.  The development of Bill Doran as a secondbaseman for the Astros pushed Garner back to third in 1983.  He remained a valuable player, one who’s skills were not always well shown in his stats and helped Houston to a division title in 1986.  He moved to the Dodgers in 1987 before finishing his career with the Giants in 1988. 

With the Brewers, Garner kept a previously uninspiring squad in the division race until the last week of the '92 season and finished second in the AL Manager of the Year voting to Tony LaRussa. 1993, however, was a different story. After Paul Molitor, Chris Bosio and Dante Bichette all departed in the offseason, Garner spent the disastrous 69-93 season in a slow boil, watching his team stall in seventh place. He was ejected and suspended for three games after participating in a late-September bench-clearing brawl with the Oakland A's.

Although Garner snarled during the offseason that next year his players could "leave their golf clubs at home," the strike-shortened 1994 wasn't much better for the talent-barren Brewers -- they finished fifth with a record of 53 wins and 62 losses. Fifth place became fourth place in '95, and the team rose to third place finishes in the AL Central division in '96 and '97. Optimism reigned when the Brewers announced they would raise their payroll for the '98 season, but resulted in familiar disappointment when the Brewers slipped back to fifth.

Garner was finally fired along with GM Sal Bando in August 1999, but attracted interest from a number of teams before signing on to replace Larry Parrish at the helm of the Detroit Tigers for the 2000 season. Garner's hiring was marked by two blunders -- not only did the Tigers neglect to inform Parrish he was fired until Garner was introduced as the team's manager, they ignored commissioner Bud Selig's dictum by not considering any minority candidates for the job.

Despite his team's consistently mediocre finishes Garner has managed -- and won -- the most games in Brewers history.

The 2004 season was different for Garner. After a slow start under then manager Jimy Williams, Garner was brought in mid-season to replace Williams and led the Astros to a National League Wild Card berth, eventually losing to St. Louis in the National League Championship Series in seven games. The team experienced another slow start in 2005 but made a run once again late in the season and came back to win another National League Wild Card. This time, Houston would beat The St. Louis Cardinals in the National League Championship Series in six games and win the pennant only to be swept by the Chicago White Sox in the World Series.

Under his leadership in the last 12 games of the 2006 season, the Astros won 10 and lost 2 putting them a game and half behind the Division winners. Garner's contract was extended through the end of the 2008 season by the Astros. As manager of a pennant winning team the year before, Garner managed the 2006 National League All-Star Team in Pittsburgh on July 11 2006. Garner cites Chuck Tanner, his manager during his time with the Pirates, as one of his biggest coaching influences .

Garner is a strong advocate of having six relief pitchers on the roster as opposed to an extra hitter on the bench.

On August 27 2007, Phil Garner was released from the position of Manager from the Astros, along with General Manager Tim Purpura. Cecil Cooper was named interim manager for the remainder of the season.

Post-MLB career

In 2008, Phil Garner served as interim head coach for the UHV Jaguars baseball team of the University of Houston–Victoria. Garner temporarily replaced former Astros teammate Terry Puhl while he fulfilled his obligation as manager of the Canada National baseball team.