GRIFFITH'S INGENIOUS TRADE FOR A DAY: MORIARTY FOR COBB
"Some of the very young might not have heard of a type of 'trading' that doesn't involve the exchange of players between teams. A good trade of this type, though, often is worth a couple of runs in a ball game.
In the early years of the American League, for instance, rival club owners and managers always were accusing Clark Griffith, among others, of 'trading.'
It was during Griffith's last, bitter years as manager of the New York Highlanders- now the Yankees- that Uncle Clark, the current Washington owner, became less than a popular figure, particularly when the Highlanders were hooked up with the Detroit Tigers, featuring a hotheaded young outfielder named Ty Cobb.
Almost from the moment Cobb came up to the majors, it was evident he was destined for greatness as a hitter and base runner, a ball player capable of breaking any game wide open. It was also evident that Cobb had a quick temper, a fact not lost on the wily Griffith, who also reasoned it was far easier to beat the Tigers if they were minus Cobb.
Griff had some pretty fair ball players, including the immortal Hal Chase. He also had a pugnacious rookie infielder named George Moriarty, later to become an umpire. Moriarty was ever ready for fight or frolic and, while third base was his position, he found himself, on occasion, starting games at first base while the catlike, peerless Chase remained in the dugout.
Moriarty was expendable. He played first base with all the grace of a water buffalo, but he rarely had to play for long. His job was to get Cobb out of the ball game and, since Cobb was high in the Detroit batting order, fireworks usually started in the first inning.
Cobb was almost certain to hit the ball and, inasmuch as he wasn't an out-of-the-park hitter, he always was hell-bent-for-action going down to first base, or rounding the bag. It was Moriarty's chore to stick out his hip and, if possible, rack up Cobb in the field boxes. This was an assignment for which George was both physically and temperamentally qualified.
The result was invariably a fight, Cobb being no man to stand still for such shenanigans. That Moriarty was more than his match in fistic encounter mattered little to the prideful Cobb, and the almost inevitable result was that both combatants were thrown out.
To Detroit it was a catastrophe, losing the great Cobb, but for the Highlanders it was wonderful. They not only reduced the potentiality of the Tigers but they increased their own by substituting Hal Chase for the banished Moriarty."
-Francis Stann, condensed from the Washington Star (Baseball Digest, April 1951)
Saturday, December 23, 2017
Saturday, December 16, 2017
1951 Yankee of the Past: Jack Phillips
GET THREE!
"First baseman Jack Phillips of the Pittsburgh Pirates still laughs over some of his experiences playing service ball during World War II.
'It's funny how so many officers thought they knew all about baseball when they were assigned as managers,' Phillips says. 'I'll never forget playing one afternoon and relaxing on the bench, watching the opposing manager hit to the infield.
'The first time around he hollered 'get one,' then 'get two' and the boys would practice the double play. But when he took the ball in his hand and bellowed 'get three,' I had enough. Imagine practicing a triple play.' "
-Jack Hernon in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Baseball Digest, May 1951)
"First baseman Jack Phillips of the Pittsburgh Pirates still laughs over some of his experiences playing service ball during World War II.
'It's funny how so many officers thought they knew all about baseball when they were assigned as managers,' Phillips says. 'I'll never forget playing one afternoon and relaxing on the bench, watching the opposing manager hit to the infield.
'The first time around he hollered 'get one,' then 'get two' and the boys would practice the double play. But when he took the ball in his hand and bellowed 'get three,' I had enough. Imagine practicing a triple play.' "
-Jack Hernon in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Baseball Digest, May 1951)
Monday, December 4, 2017
1951 Yankee of the Past: Babe Ruth
RUTH-LESS
"Oakland President Clarence 'Brick' Laws, who conducts quite a bit of his baseball business on impulse, once almost signed the late and great Babe Ruth as manager of Oakland.
It was in 1945, Brick's second year as club president. Laws wanted a new manager and he wanted a name. What baseball name was greater than Babe Ruth? None, reasoned the Bricker- so let's grab him.
Laws called the Bambino in New York and told him he could have the Oakland manager's job.
'Fine,' said the Babe. 'I'll take it.'
'Okay,' okayed Brick. 'How much ya' want?'
'Oh,' answered Ruth, 'let's say $25,000.'
'It's a deal,' Brick said.
'And another $5,000 to bring my wife to Oakland,' threw in the Babe as an afterthought.
'Can't hear you all of a sudden, Babe. Must be a bad connection.'
Brick decided he might end up working for the Babe and canceled negotiations."
-Joe Wilmot in the San Francisco Chronicle (Baseball Digest, February 1951)
Stengel Recalls: THE FIRST TIME I SAW HIM
"In the spring of 1914, while heading North, the Brooklyn Robins stopped in Baltimore to play Jack Dunn's famous Orioles.
The Brooklyn right fielder was a knobby Dutchman with a big beak and ears- the same Casey Stengel whose New York Yankees have won the world championship the last two years.
The Baltimore pitcher was a tall boy with square shoulders and cornstalk shanks. When he took his cap off, Stengel could see that, although the boy parted his hair in the middle, small black curls hung rebelliously over his forehead. He was just out of high school, they said.
A left-hander, the boy threw very hard. Among the Robins he annoyed were Zach Wheat and Stengel.
The first time this young pitcher batted, Stengel, being a smart outfielder, shorted his position. The youth promptly belted the ball over Stengel's head for a triple.
'Where were you playing the kid?' Wilbert Robinson, Brooklyn manager, asked Stengel when the inning ended.
'In,' said Stengel. 'Where would I play a pitcher?'
'Out,' replied Robby, 'if he swung like this one. Anybody could see he could hit a ball.'
The next time the young pitcher batted, Stengel backed up twenty yards. He yelled sarcastically to Hy Myers, Brooklyn center fielder, 'I wonder if I'm back far enough this time.'
'What game you think you're in?' shouted Myers.
Stengel was still chuckling when the young pitcher hit the ball over his head- another triple. When Stengel entered the dugout, Robinson said nothing but spat expressively on the floor.
'What did say that's kid name was?' Stengel whispered to a teammate.
'Ruth- Babe Ruth,' was the answer."
-Harold Kaese, condensed from the Boston Globe (Baseball Digest, July 1951)
"Oakland President Clarence 'Brick' Laws, who conducts quite a bit of his baseball business on impulse, once almost signed the late and great Babe Ruth as manager of Oakland.
It was in 1945, Brick's second year as club president. Laws wanted a new manager and he wanted a name. What baseball name was greater than Babe Ruth? None, reasoned the Bricker- so let's grab him.
Laws called the Bambino in New York and told him he could have the Oakland manager's job.
'Fine,' said the Babe. 'I'll take it.'
'Okay,' okayed Brick. 'How much ya' want?'
'Oh,' answered Ruth, 'let's say $25,000.'
'It's a deal,' Brick said.
'And another $5,000 to bring my wife to Oakland,' threw in the Babe as an afterthought.
'Can't hear you all of a sudden, Babe. Must be a bad connection.'
Brick decided he might end up working for the Babe and canceled negotiations."
-Joe Wilmot in the San Francisco Chronicle (Baseball Digest, February 1951)
Stengel Recalls: THE FIRST TIME I SAW HIM
"In the spring of 1914, while heading North, the Brooklyn Robins stopped in Baltimore to play Jack Dunn's famous Orioles.
The Brooklyn right fielder was a knobby Dutchman with a big beak and ears- the same Casey Stengel whose New York Yankees have won the world championship the last two years.
The Baltimore pitcher was a tall boy with square shoulders and cornstalk shanks. When he took his cap off, Stengel could see that, although the boy parted his hair in the middle, small black curls hung rebelliously over his forehead. He was just out of high school, they said.
A left-hander, the boy threw very hard. Among the Robins he annoyed were Zach Wheat and Stengel.
The first time this young pitcher batted, Stengel, being a smart outfielder, shorted his position. The youth promptly belted the ball over Stengel's head for a triple.
'Where were you playing the kid?' Wilbert Robinson, Brooklyn manager, asked Stengel when the inning ended.
'In,' said Stengel. 'Where would I play a pitcher?'
'Out,' replied Robby, 'if he swung like this one. Anybody could see he could hit a ball.'
The next time the young pitcher batted, Stengel backed up twenty yards. He yelled sarcastically to Hy Myers, Brooklyn center fielder, 'I wonder if I'm back far enough this time.'
'What game you think you're in?' shouted Myers.
Stengel was still chuckling when the young pitcher hit the ball over his head- another triple. When Stengel entered the dugout, Robinson said nothing but spat expressively on the floor.
'What did say that's kid name was?' Stengel whispered to a teammate.
'Ruth- Babe Ruth,' was the answer."
-Harold Kaese, condensed from the Boston Globe (Baseball Digest, July 1951)
Wednesday, November 22, 2017
1951 Yankee of the Past: Bill McKechnie
MCKECHNIE OFFERED RED SOX REINS
But He Spurned Three-Year Pact
" 'Did I ever tell you,' asked Deacon Bill McKechnie, 'how I came close to managing the Boston Red Sox, just before they hired Joe McCarthy?'
I shook my head in the negative. The Deacon, former National League manager and Cleveland coach who now is master of 10,000 acres of perfectly manicured truck gardens and citrus groves in Bradenton, Fla., launched into a story previously untold.
'Well sir,' Bill said, 'the Indians were in Boston during the summer of 1947 when I was approached by a representative of the Red Sox. He told me Joe Cronin would be moving into the front office in 1948, and the managing job was mine if I wanted it.
'I said my contract in Cleveland had another year to run and, in any case, I couldn't talk about another job unless the Red Sox got Bill Veeck's permission to negotiate with me. Bill was in the hospital in Cleveland at the time, but one day he called me in and said, 'Joe Cronin is interested in getting you to manage the Red Sox.'
'I said, 'Bill, I have a contract with you and it has another year to run. When I sign a contract, I sign a contract. The Boston opportunity sounds wonderful. But tell me that you want me to stay in Cleveland, and I'll forget about it.'
'Veeck said, 'Wait a minute. Maybe we can make everybody happy. Get in touch with Cronin and see what he has to offer you. Then talk to me again.' Well, Cronin offered me a three-year contract calling for $135,000, with the chance to collect a bonus.
'I reported back to Veeck and he said he couldn't meet such terms as those- although I might add he paid me darn well. I told him he didn't have to meet any terms. I had a contract with his ball club.
'But Veeck had another idea. He told me to back to Cronin and see if he'd give the Indians pitcher Mickey Harris for my contract. Cronin hit the roof. He wasn't trading ball players for coaches. He was willing to buy my contract for cash, then talk about player deals. That was the last I heard about the matter. A few days later McCarthy got the job.
'That winter,' he said, 'there was an amazing sequel. Veeck asked me to talk to McCarthy and find out if he'd be interested in taking Ken Keltner in a trade for Tex Hughson. Joe said he couldn't go for that one, so the Indians kept Keltner and the Red Sox kept Hughson. I think that may have had something to do with the outcome of the pennant race.'
I didn't need to see the twinkle in McKechnie's eye to know what he meant. Keltner was a major factor in the Tribe's 1948 pennant conquest. Hughson developed arm trouble and was useless to the Red Sox- who still carried the Indians to the American League's first playoff.
Veeck always did say that the best trades were the ones he failed to make."
-Ed McAuley (Cleveland News, Baseball Digest June 1951)
But He Spurned Three-Year Pact
" 'Did I ever tell you,' asked Deacon Bill McKechnie, 'how I came close to managing the Boston Red Sox, just before they hired Joe McCarthy?'
I shook my head in the negative. The Deacon, former National League manager and Cleveland coach who now is master of 10,000 acres of perfectly manicured truck gardens and citrus groves in Bradenton, Fla., launched into a story previously untold.
'Well sir,' Bill said, 'the Indians were in Boston during the summer of 1947 when I was approached by a representative of the Red Sox. He told me Joe Cronin would be moving into the front office in 1948, and the managing job was mine if I wanted it.
'I said my contract in Cleveland had another year to run and, in any case, I couldn't talk about another job unless the Red Sox got Bill Veeck's permission to negotiate with me. Bill was in the hospital in Cleveland at the time, but one day he called me in and said, 'Joe Cronin is interested in getting you to manage the Red Sox.'
'I said, 'Bill, I have a contract with you and it has another year to run. When I sign a contract, I sign a contract. The Boston opportunity sounds wonderful. But tell me that you want me to stay in Cleveland, and I'll forget about it.'
'Veeck said, 'Wait a minute. Maybe we can make everybody happy. Get in touch with Cronin and see what he has to offer you. Then talk to me again.' Well, Cronin offered me a three-year contract calling for $135,000, with the chance to collect a bonus.
'I reported back to Veeck and he said he couldn't meet such terms as those- although I might add he paid me darn well. I told him he didn't have to meet any terms. I had a contract with his ball club.
'But Veeck had another idea. He told me to back to Cronin and see if he'd give the Indians pitcher Mickey Harris for my contract. Cronin hit the roof. He wasn't trading ball players for coaches. He was willing to buy my contract for cash, then talk about player deals. That was the last I heard about the matter. A few days later McCarthy got the job.
'That winter,' he said, 'there was an amazing sequel. Veeck asked me to talk to McCarthy and find out if he'd be interested in taking Ken Keltner in a trade for Tex Hughson. Joe said he couldn't go for that one, so the Indians kept Keltner and the Red Sox kept Hughson. I think that may have had something to do with the outcome of the pennant race.'
I didn't need to see the twinkle in McKechnie's eye to know what he meant. Keltner was a major factor in the Tribe's 1948 pennant conquest. Hughson developed arm trouble and was useless to the Red Sox- who still carried the Indians to the American League's first playoff.
Veeck always did say that the best trades were the ones he failed to make."
-Ed McAuley (Cleveland News, Baseball Digest June 1951)
Friday, November 17, 2017
1951 Yankee of the Past: George Selkirk
THEY SHOULD HAVE PUT A TAG ON HIM
"George Selkirk, who succeeded Babe Ruth as right fielder of the New York Yankees and who now manages their Kansas City farm, was a high school catcher. He worked out with Rochester in 1927, and looked good. George Stallings signed him and sent him to join a Class D team at Cambridge, Md.
When Selkirk arrived in Cambridge, the home team was playing in Crisfield. He hurried to a dressing room. The manager said, 'So you're the new boy. I've been expecting you- get into uniform, you are playing center field today.' Too bashful to argue, George played center field for the first time in his life.
The catcher on the opposing team was the team manager. It was plainly evident he was having trouble. His ungloved hand was heavily taped. Selkirk, on his first trip to the plate, singled. On his next he doubled, and on his third he hit the ball over the fence, foul by a few feet.
The opposing catcher threw off his mask and spun Selkirk around. 'Hey!' he yelled. 'What's your name?' George told him. 'Just as I suspected,' he roared. 'You're supposed to be my catcher. Oh, ump!'
George switched teams after the game, but the manager never let him switch positions. He remained in the outfield."
-Earl Ruby in the Louisville Courier-Journal (Baseball Digest, July 1951)
BUNTING TIP: ELBOWS IN AT SIDES
"Kanas City manager George Selkirk and several of the Blues were sitting in the dugout talking about bunting, an art about which some players apparently have as much knowledge as of Byzantine sculpturing.
Selkirk was making a point about the cause and prevention of bunting bad balls.
'If a man holds his elbows in at his sides in a loose, relaxed manner, he can't bunt a bad ball,' Selkirk said. 'A batter who does this will have a range of only about a foot or a foot and a half to bunt in. The pitchers, of course, are always trying to make you bunt a bad ball, but it's impossible to do if you follow this system, unless of course you hold the bat straight up to get at one.
'A man who holds his elbows out has practically an unlimited range. He can bunt a pitch that's up around his chin or he can get down for one that's around his knees. The general result is a lot of pop-ups and bad bunts.
'When Joe Sewell was with Cleveland, his ability to bunt fascinated me,' Selkirk continued. 'I had never seen him bunt a bad ball and he seldom laid down a bad bunt. So one day I got him aside and asked him how he did it. He told me about keeping my elbows in and I found out it really works.'"
-Joe McGuff in the Kansas City Star (Baseball Digest, September 1951)
"NET" PROFIT
"'If I had a son who was going to play baseball,' George Selkirk, the Kansas City manager says, 'I'd stand him against a brick wall and throw tennis balls at him all day and make him dodge them. Once he developed the quickness and knack of getting out of the way of these tennis balls, he'd have more confidence when he went up to the plate against a hard baseball.'"
-Tommy Fitzgerald in the Lousiville Courier-Jurnal (Baseball Digest, November 1951)
"George Selkirk, who succeeded Babe Ruth as right fielder of the New York Yankees and who now manages their Kansas City farm, was a high school catcher. He worked out with Rochester in 1927, and looked good. George Stallings signed him and sent him to join a Class D team at Cambridge, Md.
When Selkirk arrived in Cambridge, the home team was playing in Crisfield. He hurried to a dressing room. The manager said, 'So you're the new boy. I've been expecting you- get into uniform, you are playing center field today.' Too bashful to argue, George played center field for the first time in his life.
The catcher on the opposing team was the team manager. It was plainly evident he was having trouble. His ungloved hand was heavily taped. Selkirk, on his first trip to the plate, singled. On his next he doubled, and on his third he hit the ball over the fence, foul by a few feet.
The opposing catcher threw off his mask and spun Selkirk around. 'Hey!' he yelled. 'What's your name?' George told him. 'Just as I suspected,' he roared. 'You're supposed to be my catcher. Oh, ump!'
George switched teams after the game, but the manager never let him switch positions. He remained in the outfield."
-Earl Ruby in the Louisville Courier-Journal (Baseball Digest, July 1951)
BUNTING TIP: ELBOWS IN AT SIDES
"Kanas City manager George Selkirk and several of the Blues were sitting in the dugout talking about bunting, an art about which some players apparently have as much knowledge as of Byzantine sculpturing.
Selkirk was making a point about the cause and prevention of bunting bad balls.
'If a man holds his elbows in at his sides in a loose, relaxed manner, he can't bunt a bad ball,' Selkirk said. 'A batter who does this will have a range of only about a foot or a foot and a half to bunt in. The pitchers, of course, are always trying to make you bunt a bad ball, but it's impossible to do if you follow this system, unless of course you hold the bat straight up to get at one.
'A man who holds his elbows out has practically an unlimited range. He can bunt a pitch that's up around his chin or he can get down for one that's around his knees. The general result is a lot of pop-ups and bad bunts.
'When Joe Sewell was with Cleveland, his ability to bunt fascinated me,' Selkirk continued. 'I had never seen him bunt a bad ball and he seldom laid down a bad bunt. So one day I got him aside and asked him how he did it. He told me about keeping my elbows in and I found out it really works.'"
-Joe McGuff in the Kansas City Star (Baseball Digest, September 1951)
"NET" PROFIT
"'If I had a son who was going to play baseball,' George Selkirk, the Kansas City manager says, 'I'd stand him against a brick wall and throw tennis balls at him all day and make him dodge them. Once he developed the quickness and knack of getting out of the way of these tennis balls, he'd have more confidence when he went up to the plate against a hard baseball.'"
-Tommy Fitzgerald in the Lousiville Courier-Jurnal (Baseball Digest, November 1951)
Monday, November 13, 2017
1951 Yankee of the Past: Dick Wakefield
5-G WAKEFIELD SPLITS BONUS PLAYERS
Phils, Still Undeterred, Shell Out
"On the same day the Philadelphia Phillies endowed a young Texan with $50,000 for signing a baseball contract, there was news of another bonus baby, the most famed of them all. Dick Wakefield's silver spoon has tarnished.
Wakefield commanded the sum of $52,000 and shiny new Cadillacs for himself and his Mom before he consented to sign with the Detroit Tigers back in 1941, when the value of the dollar had an honest ring. However, Owner C.A. Laws of the Oakland Pacific Coast League club has devalued Wakefield sharply.
In 1951, Wakefield will work for a $5,000 salary or he won't work with Oakland, Laws stated. Obviously he was not pleased with the performance of Wakefield last season, after the outfielder was waived out of the majors. He is offering Wakefield a wage that is the legal minimum for a major leaguer.
Thus Wakefield could tell young Ben Tompkins, the Phils' latest bonus baby, to get the dough in while the getting is good. It is nice to be born into the majors with money in the bank, because club owners can become disenchanted with bonus babes. A year ago, General Manager Billy Evans of Detroit declared his team was out of the bonus market.
It is no coincidence that the Phillies are the club which grabbed off young Tompkins despite the price tag. The Phillies are unimpressed by the Detroit's withdrawal from the bonus bidding, and with good reason. They built a pennant winner out of bonus babies last season.
The Phillies have had more luck with the bonus kids than all the other teams combined, perhaps because they go in more for that kind of talent-hunt, perhaps because their scouts are smarter operatives. But no fewer than five of Eddie Sawyer's pennant winning team- Pitchers Curt Simmons, Robin Roberts and Bob Miller, Outfielder Richie Ashburn and Catcher Stan Lopata- were bonus kids.
In the case of Tompkins, though, the Phillies were a brave outfit. They were undeterred by the fact the rugged twenty-year-old University of Texas junior is 1-A in the draft and the next uniform he will wear will be Uncle Sam's. Apparently they are willing to wait for something that resembles world peace, and take their chances.
Tompkins has one distinction, though. He's a shortstop-third baseman, one of the few young infielders to command any kind of a rich bonus figure. Usually, the big league teams are more willing to invest in pitchers.
The Tigers can flourish as much wealth, in fact more, under the responsive noses of the bonus kids than the Phillies, but if they are bonus-shy now it is understandable. Wakefield didn't pan out, and two years ago the Tigers gave a kid catcher named Frank House $75,000 for signing a contract.
They brought House up from the minors last year under the rule a bonus player can be farmed out for only one season, and it was early discerned he wasn't ready to catch in the big leagues. Manager Rolfe griped all season he was handicapped by being compelled to keep House on the roster when he preferred to make room for more helpful talent.
When the Tigers began to develop pennant possibilities last season, Rolfe declared flatly that 'House won't catch an inning as long as we are in the race.' Only when the Tigers dropped out of it, did he see action. It was a wasted year on the Detroit bench for the boy who should have been soaking up some more baseball in the minor leagues. The owners had that case in mind last December when they abrogated the rule limiting bonus kids to only one year in the minor leagues.
Wakefield's flop was a surprising one. The Tigers had come up with a rare piece of talent when they signed the fellow out of the University of Michigan ten years ago, every club that scouted him agreed. Even Clark Griffith was so impressed he telegraphed Wakefield a Washington offer of $45,000 as a bonus for signing.
Wakefield came along at a time when the Boston Red Sox, with their Ted Williams, were the envy of every other team. The facial and physical resemblance of Wakefield and Williams was startling, and the teams tumbled over themselves in the bidding before the Tigers landed the boy. He had speed, power, and everything to make good except the firm resolve to make good.
What happened is that Wakefield messed it up for himself. Whether it was his new and sudden affluence, or simply a built-in, don't'-care approach to the business of playing baseball, he never did capitalize on his natural talent. It took the Tigers nine years to give up on him, however. Because they couldn't kiss off their big investment right away, Wakefield was blessed with a nine-year tryout, one that left the Tigers weary of bonus babes."
-Shirley Povich, condensed from the Washington Post (Baseball Digest, April 1951)
Phils, Still Undeterred, Shell Out
"On the same day the Philadelphia Phillies endowed a young Texan with $50,000 for signing a baseball contract, there was news of another bonus baby, the most famed of them all. Dick Wakefield's silver spoon has tarnished.
Wakefield commanded the sum of $52,000 and shiny new Cadillacs for himself and his Mom before he consented to sign with the Detroit Tigers back in 1941, when the value of the dollar had an honest ring. However, Owner C.A. Laws of the Oakland Pacific Coast League club has devalued Wakefield sharply.
In 1951, Wakefield will work for a $5,000 salary or he won't work with Oakland, Laws stated. Obviously he was not pleased with the performance of Wakefield last season, after the outfielder was waived out of the majors. He is offering Wakefield a wage that is the legal minimum for a major leaguer.
Thus Wakefield could tell young Ben Tompkins, the Phils' latest bonus baby, to get the dough in while the getting is good. It is nice to be born into the majors with money in the bank, because club owners can become disenchanted with bonus babes. A year ago, General Manager Billy Evans of Detroit declared his team was out of the bonus market.
It is no coincidence that the Phillies are the club which grabbed off young Tompkins despite the price tag. The Phillies are unimpressed by the Detroit's withdrawal from the bonus bidding, and with good reason. They built a pennant winner out of bonus babies last season.
The Phillies have had more luck with the bonus kids than all the other teams combined, perhaps because they go in more for that kind of talent-hunt, perhaps because their scouts are smarter operatives. But no fewer than five of Eddie Sawyer's pennant winning team- Pitchers Curt Simmons, Robin Roberts and Bob Miller, Outfielder Richie Ashburn and Catcher Stan Lopata- were bonus kids.
In the case of Tompkins, though, the Phillies were a brave outfit. They were undeterred by the fact the rugged twenty-year-old University of Texas junior is 1-A in the draft and the next uniform he will wear will be Uncle Sam's. Apparently they are willing to wait for something that resembles world peace, and take their chances.
Tompkins has one distinction, though. He's a shortstop-third baseman, one of the few young infielders to command any kind of a rich bonus figure. Usually, the big league teams are more willing to invest in pitchers.
The Tigers can flourish as much wealth, in fact more, under the responsive noses of the bonus kids than the Phillies, but if they are bonus-shy now it is understandable. Wakefield didn't pan out, and two years ago the Tigers gave a kid catcher named Frank House $75,000 for signing a contract.
They brought House up from the minors last year under the rule a bonus player can be farmed out for only one season, and it was early discerned he wasn't ready to catch in the big leagues. Manager Rolfe griped all season he was handicapped by being compelled to keep House on the roster when he preferred to make room for more helpful talent.
When the Tigers began to develop pennant possibilities last season, Rolfe declared flatly that 'House won't catch an inning as long as we are in the race.' Only when the Tigers dropped out of it, did he see action. It was a wasted year on the Detroit bench for the boy who should have been soaking up some more baseball in the minor leagues. The owners had that case in mind last December when they abrogated the rule limiting bonus kids to only one year in the minor leagues.
Wakefield's flop was a surprising one. The Tigers had come up with a rare piece of talent when they signed the fellow out of the University of Michigan ten years ago, every club that scouted him agreed. Even Clark Griffith was so impressed he telegraphed Wakefield a Washington offer of $45,000 as a bonus for signing.
Wakefield came along at a time when the Boston Red Sox, with their Ted Williams, were the envy of every other team. The facial and physical resemblance of Wakefield and Williams was startling, and the teams tumbled over themselves in the bidding before the Tigers landed the boy. He had speed, power, and everything to make good except the firm resolve to make good.
What happened is that Wakefield messed it up for himself. Whether it was his new and sudden affluence, or simply a built-in, don't'-care approach to the business of playing baseball, he never did capitalize on his natural talent. It took the Tigers nine years to give up on him, however. Because they couldn't kiss off their big investment right away, Wakefield was blessed with a nine-year tryout, one that left the Tigers weary of bonus babes."
-Shirley Povich, condensed from the Washington Post (Baseball Digest, April 1951)
Sunday, November 5, 2017
1951 Yankee Scout of the Past: Bill Essick
ESSICK: COAST'S STAR STAR-PICKER
He Had Faith in DiMag, Gomez
"Bill Essick, who scouted ball players for the Yankees in California for twenty-five years, has retired. Bill made a pretty good score over the years, coming up with, among others, Joe DiMaggio, Frank Crosetti, Joe Gordon, Vernon Gomez and, I believe, Tony Lazzeri.
Not many scouts could look back on a record like that. Paul Krichell, now and for many years chief of the Yankees' staff ... Dick Kinsella of the New York Giants and Larry Sutton of the Brooklyn Dodgers, both now dead ... discovered more players than Essick. Krichell's greatest find was Lou Gehrig. Kinsella, a paint store proprietor in Springfield, Ill, a friend of John McGraw's and practically the only scout the Giants had over a span of almost thirty years, started with Larry Doyle and wound up with Carl Hubbell. Sutton, lone prowler of the sticks for the Dodgers in the time of Charlie Ebbets, stocked Brooklyn with heroes, his most illustrious being Casey Stengel. But Krichell, Kinsella and Sutton roamed far and wide, while Essick confined his operation to the Pacific Coast League and that great proving ground of baseball players in San Francisco, Golden Gate Park.
Bill was one of the scouts engaged by Ed Barrow in the reorganization of the Yankees that followed Barrow's engagement as general manager of the club in 1920. Before that, Jake Ruppert and Cap Huston, the Yankee owners, had spent hundreds of thousands for players, many of them not worth the price paid for them. Barrow, by putting together a group of competent judges of talent in the raw, not only saved the club a tremendous amount of money but built the teams that won pennants and World Series and made the Yankees famous the world over.
Essick didn't discover DiMaggio. Everybody on the Coast did, at virtually the same time. Joe's terrific hitting and his matchless fielding made him a natural, so you didn't have to be a trained observer to say, on looking at him for the first time: 'Here is one who is destined for greatness.'
It was Bill's faith in Joe that paid off. In the summer of 1934, with a dozen major league clubs bidding for DiMaggio, the late Charlie Graham, who owned the San Francisco club, was sitting still and saying nothing. The bids started at $25,000. Now they were up to $75,000. Charlie was patient. He felt he could afford to be. If he held out long enough, he could get $100,000. Maybe more.
Then, one day when the Seals were playing at home, Joe took a cab to his sister's house after the game. The game had dragged and Joe was late for a dinner party and as the cab pulled up in front of the house, he leaped from it and his left knee popped.
'Like a pistol,' Joe was to say later.
The cab driver helped him into the house. An ambulance took him to a hospital. The major league club owners who had been bidding for him stopped bidding. Who wanted a young player with a trick knee?
Well ... Bill Essick did. Trick knee or no, this was a great ball player in the making. When Joe got out of the hospital, Bill trailed him into and out of every ball park in the Coast League.
One night he called Ed Barrow.
'Buy DiMaggio,' he said.
'How about that trick knee?' Ed asked.
'Listen,' Bill said. 'That's what I've been looking at for weeks. He can run. He can pivot at the plate. He can make the fast breaks in the outfield. He can even go down for a ball and come up with it and throw it. They all think I'm crazy out here but I'm not, they are. This kid is going to be one of the greatest ball players you ever saw. Believe me, Ed.'.
Ed believed him. He called Charlie Graham. The asking price was $40,000. Ed offered $20,000. They finally settled on $25,000. This was one of the greatest bargains in baseball history. Ed never has claimed credit for it. The credit, he said, belonged to Bill Essick.
That was, undoubtedly, Essick's greatest achievement as a Yankee scout. Next to it, I would take his recommendation of Lefty Gomez, then pitching for San Francisco.
Lefty was a skinny kid out of Rodeo, Cal., a town nobody ever heard of before and that nobody has heard of since. He was ... and still is ... roughly six feet tall. At the time the Yankees bought him he weighed ... but let him tell it: 'I was in the office and they had just told me I had been sold to the Yankees,' he said. 'I wandered into the secretary's office and I saw a wire he was going to release to the papers about my sale. It said I weighed 147 pounds. There was nobody else in the office. I scratched out the 147 and made it '167.' I didn't want anyone to think the Yankees were buying a ghost.' Actually, when Gomez showed up at the Stadium, Barrow was startled. He thought he had bought a ghost. When the season ended, he turned Lefty over to the club physician, who prescribed, among other things, three months on a milk farm, where Lefty could be fattened up. It was then that Lefty pulled one of his celebrated tricks.
'You come back to us in the spring weighing 180 pounds,' Barrow said, 'and you'll make old Yankee fans forget Jack Chesbro.'
'If I come back weighing 180 pounds,' Lefty said, 'I'll make them forget Gomez.'
He didn't. That is, he didn't come back weighing 180 pounds and, after what he did in the years that followed, they'll never forget Gomez. He never weighed more than 170 and he was great. But, remember, it was Essick who caught him at 147 ... and he was keen enough to know he would make the major league grade with something to spare. Bill couldn't foresee the milk farm. He just knew the guy was a big league pitcher."
-Frank Graham, condensed from the New York Journal-American (Baseball Digest, March 1951)
He Had Faith in DiMag, Gomez
"Bill Essick, who scouted ball players for the Yankees in California for twenty-five years, has retired. Bill made a pretty good score over the years, coming up with, among others, Joe DiMaggio, Frank Crosetti, Joe Gordon, Vernon Gomez and, I believe, Tony Lazzeri.
Not many scouts could look back on a record like that. Paul Krichell, now and for many years chief of the Yankees' staff ... Dick Kinsella of the New York Giants and Larry Sutton of the Brooklyn Dodgers, both now dead ... discovered more players than Essick. Krichell's greatest find was Lou Gehrig. Kinsella, a paint store proprietor in Springfield, Ill, a friend of John McGraw's and practically the only scout the Giants had over a span of almost thirty years, started with Larry Doyle and wound up with Carl Hubbell. Sutton, lone prowler of the sticks for the Dodgers in the time of Charlie Ebbets, stocked Brooklyn with heroes, his most illustrious being Casey Stengel. But Krichell, Kinsella and Sutton roamed far and wide, while Essick confined his operation to the Pacific Coast League and that great proving ground of baseball players in San Francisco, Golden Gate Park.
Bill was one of the scouts engaged by Ed Barrow in the reorganization of the Yankees that followed Barrow's engagement as general manager of the club in 1920. Before that, Jake Ruppert and Cap Huston, the Yankee owners, had spent hundreds of thousands for players, many of them not worth the price paid for them. Barrow, by putting together a group of competent judges of talent in the raw, not only saved the club a tremendous amount of money but built the teams that won pennants and World Series and made the Yankees famous the world over.
Essick didn't discover DiMaggio. Everybody on the Coast did, at virtually the same time. Joe's terrific hitting and his matchless fielding made him a natural, so you didn't have to be a trained observer to say, on looking at him for the first time: 'Here is one who is destined for greatness.'
It was Bill's faith in Joe that paid off. In the summer of 1934, with a dozen major league clubs bidding for DiMaggio, the late Charlie Graham, who owned the San Francisco club, was sitting still and saying nothing. The bids started at $25,000. Now they were up to $75,000. Charlie was patient. He felt he could afford to be. If he held out long enough, he could get $100,000. Maybe more.
Then, one day when the Seals were playing at home, Joe took a cab to his sister's house after the game. The game had dragged and Joe was late for a dinner party and as the cab pulled up in front of the house, he leaped from it and his left knee popped.
'Like a pistol,' Joe was to say later.
The cab driver helped him into the house. An ambulance took him to a hospital. The major league club owners who had been bidding for him stopped bidding. Who wanted a young player with a trick knee?
Well ... Bill Essick did. Trick knee or no, this was a great ball player in the making. When Joe got out of the hospital, Bill trailed him into and out of every ball park in the Coast League.
One night he called Ed Barrow.
'Buy DiMaggio,' he said.
'How about that trick knee?' Ed asked.
'Listen,' Bill said. 'That's what I've been looking at for weeks. He can run. He can pivot at the plate. He can make the fast breaks in the outfield. He can even go down for a ball and come up with it and throw it. They all think I'm crazy out here but I'm not, they are. This kid is going to be one of the greatest ball players you ever saw. Believe me, Ed.'.
Ed believed him. He called Charlie Graham. The asking price was $40,000. Ed offered $20,000. They finally settled on $25,000. This was one of the greatest bargains in baseball history. Ed never has claimed credit for it. The credit, he said, belonged to Bill Essick.
That was, undoubtedly, Essick's greatest achievement as a Yankee scout. Next to it, I would take his recommendation of Lefty Gomez, then pitching for San Francisco.
Lefty was a skinny kid out of Rodeo, Cal., a town nobody ever heard of before and that nobody has heard of since. He was ... and still is ... roughly six feet tall. At the time the Yankees bought him he weighed ... but let him tell it: 'I was in the office and they had just told me I had been sold to the Yankees,' he said. 'I wandered into the secretary's office and I saw a wire he was going to release to the papers about my sale. It said I weighed 147 pounds. There was nobody else in the office. I scratched out the 147 and made it '167.' I didn't want anyone to think the Yankees were buying a ghost.' Actually, when Gomez showed up at the Stadium, Barrow was startled. He thought he had bought a ghost. When the season ended, he turned Lefty over to the club physician, who prescribed, among other things, three months on a milk farm, where Lefty could be fattened up. It was then that Lefty pulled one of his celebrated tricks.
'You come back to us in the spring weighing 180 pounds,' Barrow said, 'and you'll make old Yankee fans forget Jack Chesbro.'
'If I come back weighing 180 pounds,' Lefty said, 'I'll make them forget Gomez.'
He didn't. That is, he didn't come back weighing 180 pounds and, after what he did in the years that followed, they'll never forget Gomez. He never weighed more than 170 and he was great. But, remember, it was Essick who caught him at 147 ... and he was keen enough to know he would make the major league grade with something to spare. Bill couldn't foresee the milk farm. He just knew the guy was a big league pitcher."
-Frank Graham, condensed from the New York Journal-American (Baseball Digest, March 1951)
Tuesday, October 31, 2017
1951 Yankee of the Past: Branch Rickey
CARPETBAGGER
"One day, when Branch Rickey was still doing business in St. Louis, a friend dropped in to the Cardinal offices and found him frantically rolling up the rug in his private suite.
'What's the idea?' the visitor gasped. 'You the janitor around here, too?'
'Judas Priest,' Branch panted, 'give me a hand. I just got word from Mrs. Rickey that she's coming home tonight, and if I don't get this rug of hers home and back on the parlor floor, I'm in trouble.'
Rickey was entertaining a business acquaintance with whom he wanted to do business. To impress him how lush affairs were with the Cards (they weren't at the time) he had borrowed one of Mrs. Rickey's Orientals and laid it in his office."
-Chester L. Smith in the Pittsburgh Press (Baseball Digest, February 1951)
THE WHY OF THE MAHATMA
"How Branch Rickey got the name Mahatma is a good story because it reveals so much about the complex character of an amazing man who has been as contradictory as any to labor in baseball's vineyards.
Tom Meany, the magazine writer, was telling how Branch got the nickname at Rickey's good-bye party for the New York scribes. Meany had been reading John Gunther's Inside Asia and in his first sentence on Mohandas Gandhi, Gunther had written of Gandhi as 'an incredible combination of Jesus Christ, Tammany Hall, and your father.'
The evangelical opportunistic pattern of Rickey's ways was new to Flatbush then, but Branch had already revealed at least three sides of his many-sided self. Meany could not help but note what he had seen of Rickey was part paternal, part political, part pontifical. And so to Meany, and subsequently to all of baseball, Branch became the Mahatma.
No doubt Rickey likes the name because if he could be pressed to put into two words what he prefers to put into two hundred he might describe himself as a practical idealist."
-Milton Gross in the New York Post (Baseball Digest, March 1951)
BING MEETS THE MAHATMA
"Bing Crosby tells this tale of his first meeting with Branch Rickey, the new general manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates, a club in which Bing owns stock and is vice-president. 'I had a golf date at Oakmont (the famous course just outside Pittsburgh),' he recites, 'but Roy Hamey (former Pirate G.M.) says to me, 'Bing, you've gotta meet this Rickey (then of Brooklyn). He's fabulous.' So I went. The meeting was to start at 11 A.M. My golf date was scheduled for 2 P.M.
'I think they were to talk about trading Johnny Hopp, but in the two hours I was there, we didn't get around to Hopp. Rickey told us how rough the plane trip had been from Brooklyn to Pittsburgh; how he had a boy named Marv Rackley who would be a marvelous catch for somebody; how his farm system had him worried. Then he went into a dissertation on pitcher Rex Barney, who had broken training. 'I loved that boy more than my own,' Rickey lamented, and then he turned to his own son who was seated alongside. Looking over his spectacles, he apologized, 'Excuse me, my boy.'
'So it went on, all of us charmed and delighted by this magnetic man. Then I looked at my watch. I got up to go. It was almost two o'clock. 'Where are you going?' Rickey demanded. I said I was on my way to play golf. He harumphed. 'Golf,' he snorted, and then he harumphed again.
'I said I'd send up a string orchestra on my way out.'
Later, Bing continued, when Rickey joined Pittsburgh, he called the crooner to assure Bing the Pirates would be in the first division within four years and would win the pennant within five.
'Don't worry about a thing,' Rickey consoled. 'I'll take care of the ball club- you just keep on with your singing.'"
-Art Rosenbaum in the San Francisco Chronicle (Baseball Digest, April 1951)
"Branch Rickey of the Pirates stirs up tales by the bushelful but suppose we pass on one concerning Irv Noren, the outfielder who is embarking on his critical sophomore year with the Washington Senators.
When The Mahatma ran into a buyer's market fifteen months ago with surplus Brooklyn-owned talent to sell, he tried to peddle Noren to the Chicago White Sox. It was no soap, whereupon Rickey commented:
'If you're not sold you shouldn't take Noren. And incidentally, I'm glad you're not. I intend to sell Noren to the one major league club owner who has never purchased a player from me.'
'And,' the Messrs. Chuck Comiskey and Frank Lane wondered, 'who might that be?'
'I'll tell you if you don't reveal his name until the deal is consummated,' the wise man replied. 'Clark Griffith.'
And up to that moment he hadn't even broached the subject to the Senators' owner."
-Rube Samuelsen in the San Francisco Chronicle (Baseball Digest, May 1951)
"One day, when Branch Rickey was still doing business in St. Louis, a friend dropped in to the Cardinal offices and found him frantically rolling up the rug in his private suite.
'What's the idea?' the visitor gasped. 'You the janitor around here, too?'
'Judas Priest,' Branch panted, 'give me a hand. I just got word from Mrs. Rickey that she's coming home tonight, and if I don't get this rug of hers home and back on the parlor floor, I'm in trouble.'
Rickey was entertaining a business acquaintance with whom he wanted to do business. To impress him how lush affairs were with the Cards (they weren't at the time) he had borrowed one of Mrs. Rickey's Orientals and laid it in his office."
-Chester L. Smith in the Pittsburgh Press (Baseball Digest, February 1951)
THE WHY OF THE MAHATMA
"How Branch Rickey got the name Mahatma is a good story because it reveals so much about the complex character of an amazing man who has been as contradictory as any to labor in baseball's vineyards.
Tom Meany, the magazine writer, was telling how Branch got the nickname at Rickey's good-bye party for the New York scribes. Meany had been reading John Gunther's Inside Asia and in his first sentence on Mohandas Gandhi, Gunther had written of Gandhi as 'an incredible combination of Jesus Christ, Tammany Hall, and your father.'
The evangelical opportunistic pattern of Rickey's ways was new to Flatbush then, but Branch had already revealed at least three sides of his many-sided self. Meany could not help but note what he had seen of Rickey was part paternal, part political, part pontifical. And so to Meany, and subsequently to all of baseball, Branch became the Mahatma.
No doubt Rickey likes the name because if he could be pressed to put into two words what he prefers to put into two hundred he might describe himself as a practical idealist."
-Milton Gross in the New York Post (Baseball Digest, March 1951)
BING MEETS THE MAHATMA
"Bing Crosby tells this tale of his first meeting with Branch Rickey, the new general manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates, a club in which Bing owns stock and is vice-president. 'I had a golf date at Oakmont (the famous course just outside Pittsburgh),' he recites, 'but Roy Hamey (former Pirate G.M.) says to me, 'Bing, you've gotta meet this Rickey (then of Brooklyn). He's fabulous.' So I went. The meeting was to start at 11 A.M. My golf date was scheduled for 2 P.M.
'I think they were to talk about trading Johnny Hopp, but in the two hours I was there, we didn't get around to Hopp. Rickey told us how rough the plane trip had been from Brooklyn to Pittsburgh; how he had a boy named Marv Rackley who would be a marvelous catch for somebody; how his farm system had him worried. Then he went into a dissertation on pitcher Rex Barney, who had broken training. 'I loved that boy more than my own,' Rickey lamented, and then he turned to his own son who was seated alongside. Looking over his spectacles, he apologized, 'Excuse me, my boy.'
'So it went on, all of us charmed and delighted by this magnetic man. Then I looked at my watch. I got up to go. It was almost two o'clock. 'Where are you going?' Rickey demanded. I said I was on my way to play golf. He harumphed. 'Golf,' he snorted, and then he harumphed again.
'I said I'd send up a string orchestra on my way out.'
Later, Bing continued, when Rickey joined Pittsburgh, he called the crooner to assure Bing the Pirates would be in the first division within four years and would win the pennant within five.
'Don't worry about a thing,' Rickey consoled. 'I'll take care of the ball club- you just keep on with your singing.'"
-Art Rosenbaum in the San Francisco Chronicle (Baseball Digest, April 1951)
"Branch Rickey of the Pirates stirs up tales by the bushelful but suppose we pass on one concerning Irv Noren, the outfielder who is embarking on his critical sophomore year with the Washington Senators.
When The Mahatma ran into a buyer's market fifteen months ago with surplus Brooklyn-owned talent to sell, he tried to peddle Noren to the Chicago White Sox. It was no soap, whereupon Rickey commented:
'If you're not sold you shouldn't take Noren. And incidentally, I'm glad you're not. I intend to sell Noren to the one major league club owner who has never purchased a player from me.'
'And,' the Messrs. Chuck Comiskey and Frank Lane wondered, 'who might that be?'
'I'll tell you if you don't reveal his name until the deal is consummated,' the wise man replied. 'Clark Griffith.'
And up to that moment he hadn't even broached the subject to the Senators' owner."
-Rube Samuelsen in the San Francisco Chronicle (Baseball Digest, May 1951)
Monday, October 23, 2017
1951 Yankee of the Past: Johnny Lindell
"Johnny Lindell, the big ex-New York Yankee outfielder, who is being tried as a pitcher this year by Hollywood, says, 'I haven't pitched regularly since 1942, so I guess you can call me a thrower with eight years' rest."
-Emmett Watson in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (Baseball Digest, May 1951)
-Emmett Watson in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (Baseball Digest, May 1951)
Wednesday, October 18, 2017
1951 Yankee of the Past: Gabby Street
FOULED OUT OF THE BOX
"In 1936 while managing the St. Paul Saints, the late Gabby Street made one of the oddest 'strategic' moves in organized baseball. Carl Fischer, an eccentric left-hander, was pitching for St. Paul. The Milwaukee Brewers had scored a few runs in the first inning and had runners on first and second. Eddie Hope, the light hitting Brewer infielder, lined a foul ball to left. Street rushed from the dugout, called time and walked to the mound. He asked Fischer for the ball and then called in a relief pitcher.
'I guess this is the first time in history a pitcher was yanked after a batter hit a foul ball,' Street explained later. 'But when a hitter like Hope can hit such a loud foul I was convinced Fischer didn't have a thing. So, I took him out.'"
-Sam Levy in the Milwaukee Journal (Baseball Digest, April 1951)
"In 1936 while managing the St. Paul Saints, the late Gabby Street made one of the oddest 'strategic' moves in organized baseball. Carl Fischer, an eccentric left-hander, was pitching for St. Paul. The Milwaukee Brewers had scored a few runs in the first inning and had runners on first and second. Eddie Hope, the light hitting Brewer infielder, lined a foul ball to left. Street rushed from the dugout, called time and walked to the mound. He asked Fischer for the ball and then called in a relief pitcher.
'I guess this is the first time in history a pitcher was yanked after a batter hit a foul ball,' Street explained later. 'But when a hitter like Hope can hit such a loud foul I was convinced Fischer didn't have a thing. So, I took him out.'"
-Sam Levy in the Milwaukee Journal (Baseball Digest, April 1951)
Sunday, October 8, 2017
1951 Yankee of the Past: Billy Werber
PREMIUMS ON A SLIDING SCALE
"They tell a story about how Billy Werber played third base and peddled insurance at the same time.
One day, it's said, Rick Ferrell slid into third and Weber tagged him out. As they untangled in a cloud of dust, Bill starting talking to Rick, telling him he was getting pretty well along in years and that he might break a leg sliding into the bag someday.
He told Rick he needed insurance and made an appointment for after the game. Bill sold Rick- and good."
-Baseball Digest (February 1951)
"They tell a story about how Billy Werber played third base and peddled insurance at the same time.
One day, it's said, Rick Ferrell slid into third and Weber tagged him out. As they untangled in a cloud of dust, Bill starting talking to Rick, telling him he was getting pretty well along in years and that he might break a leg sliding into the bag someday.
He told Rick he needed insurance and made an appointment for after the game. Bill sold Rick- and good."
-Baseball Digest (February 1951)
Monday, October 2, 2017
1951 Yankee of the Past: Lou Gehrig
THE HOME RUN THAT WAS HIT THREE TIMES
"I don't recall the exact date, but I'll never forget the incident. It occurred in New York's Yankee Stadium more than 15 years ago.
The quiet, mild-mannered, immortal Lou Gehrig stepped into the batter's box and promptly larruped the first pitch down the right field foul line into the stands for an apparent home run. He was already nearing second when the plate umpire called him back, ruling the ball had been foul by inches.
Lou accepted the decision and ambled back to the plate for another try. The crowd, however, let the umpire know what it thought with some especially vigorous booing.
Gehrig then smashed another drive on precisely the same line, yet even further up into the right field stands. The crowd leaped to its feet and cheered the Yankees' great first baseman as he again started to circle the bases. But again the plate umpire ruled it a foul- by inches.
The patient Lou finally lost his temper and proceeded to 'beef' vehemently to the arbiter. Unable to get him to change his decision, Gehrig angrily took his stance once more in the batter's box and belted the next pitch for a sizzling line-drive home run which carried well over 400 feet.
The fans in that particular vicinity of the right-center field bleachers ducked out of the way of the murderously driven ball as it landed among them like a shot. It would have been foolhardy for any fan to have tried to spear it. If the ball had had as much lift as it had straight away power, it would have gone out of the Yankee Stadium entirely.
There was no question about this being a home run. It was one the hardest, most vicious homers ever hit anywhere, even though its abrupt collision with the right-center field bleacher seats prevented it from becoming one of the longest home runs in the history of baseball.
Lou Gehrig, still standing in the batter's box, turned to the plate umpire and pointed out toward the distant spot where the ball had scorched out of view and asked the umpire if he thought this last drive was a questionable home run, too.
The umpire smiled and gave Lou a friendly go-ahead slap on the shoulder. This caused the flushed Gehrig to snap back to his usual good-natured self and brought a sheepish grin to his face.
This time there were tumultuous cheers as Lou Gehrig triumphantly completed his circling of the bases- on a home run he had hit three times."
-Jack Nugent (Baseball Digest, May 1951)
GEHRIG'S ANALYSIS OF SLUMPS
"Hitters never accept slumps as a part of their business, not recognizing that if they never had a slump, they would hit .500 at least. Nor do they ever credit the enemy pitchers for getting them down. They blame their slumps on themselves.
'You have to,' Lou Gehrig once explained. 'What are you going to do- admit to yourself that the pitchers have you on the point of surrender? You can't do that. You must make yourself think that the pitchers are just as good as they have always been- or just as bad. So, if you are not hitting, the fault is yours. Having admitted that, what do you do? You ask everybody on the ball club: 'What am I doing up there that I shouldn't do?'
'You'd be surprised at the answers. One fellow tells you this ... another tells you that ... somebody else tells you something else. You've changed your stance. Your feet are too close together ... or too far apart. You're swinging too soon ... or too late. You take all the advice you hear ... and what happens? You're lucky you don't get hit in the head. Then, one day, you start to hit and you know that all the time it was your fault and the pitchers had nothing to do with it.'"
-Frank Graham in the New York Journal-American (Baseball Digest, May 1951)
"I don't recall the exact date, but I'll never forget the incident. It occurred in New York's Yankee Stadium more than 15 years ago.
The quiet, mild-mannered, immortal Lou Gehrig stepped into the batter's box and promptly larruped the first pitch down the right field foul line into the stands for an apparent home run. He was already nearing second when the plate umpire called him back, ruling the ball had been foul by inches.
Lou accepted the decision and ambled back to the plate for another try. The crowd, however, let the umpire know what it thought with some especially vigorous booing.
Gehrig then smashed another drive on precisely the same line, yet even further up into the right field stands. The crowd leaped to its feet and cheered the Yankees' great first baseman as he again started to circle the bases. But again the plate umpire ruled it a foul- by inches.
The patient Lou finally lost his temper and proceeded to 'beef' vehemently to the arbiter. Unable to get him to change his decision, Gehrig angrily took his stance once more in the batter's box and belted the next pitch for a sizzling line-drive home run which carried well over 400 feet.
The fans in that particular vicinity of the right-center field bleachers ducked out of the way of the murderously driven ball as it landed among them like a shot. It would have been foolhardy for any fan to have tried to spear it. If the ball had had as much lift as it had straight away power, it would have gone out of the Yankee Stadium entirely.
There was no question about this being a home run. It was one the hardest, most vicious homers ever hit anywhere, even though its abrupt collision with the right-center field bleacher seats prevented it from becoming one of the longest home runs in the history of baseball.
Lou Gehrig, still standing in the batter's box, turned to the plate umpire and pointed out toward the distant spot where the ball had scorched out of view and asked the umpire if he thought this last drive was a questionable home run, too.
The umpire smiled and gave Lou a friendly go-ahead slap on the shoulder. This caused the flushed Gehrig to snap back to his usual good-natured self and brought a sheepish grin to his face.
This time there were tumultuous cheers as Lou Gehrig triumphantly completed his circling of the bases- on a home run he had hit three times."
-Jack Nugent (Baseball Digest, May 1951)
GEHRIG'S ANALYSIS OF SLUMPS
"Hitters never accept slumps as a part of their business, not recognizing that if they never had a slump, they would hit .500 at least. Nor do they ever credit the enemy pitchers for getting them down. They blame their slumps on themselves.
'You have to,' Lou Gehrig once explained. 'What are you going to do- admit to yourself that the pitchers have you on the point of surrender? You can't do that. You must make yourself think that the pitchers are just as good as they have always been- or just as bad. So, if you are not hitting, the fault is yours. Having admitted that, what do you do? You ask everybody on the ball club: 'What am I doing up there that I shouldn't do?'
'You'd be surprised at the answers. One fellow tells you this ... another tells you that ... somebody else tells you something else. You've changed your stance. Your feet are too close together ... or too far apart. You're swinging too soon ... or too late. You take all the advice you hear ... and what happens? You're lucky you don't get hit in the head. Then, one day, you start to hit and you know that all the time it was your fault and the pitchers had nothing to do with it.'"
-Frank Graham in the New York Journal-American (Baseball Digest, May 1951)
Sunday, September 24, 2017
1951 Yankee Coach of the Past: Chuck Dressen
A LESSON FROM DRESSEN
"A cocky little fellow is Charlie Dressen. Most of the time the Brooklyn manager has been able to make his cockiness stand up.
Years ago, when he was playing third base with St. Paul, a big raw-boned pitcher, John Saladna, joined Kansas City and started a winning streak. He appeared to be invincible. He won ten straight games, all low-hitters and several of them shutouts, before the Saints had a look at him.
'We'll beat him when he comes our way,' said Dressen. 'I know how.'
'You know how?' he was asked. 'Why you haven't seen the fellow. You don't know anything about him excepting that he wins.'
'But we'll beat him,' said Dressen.
When Kansas City got to St. Paul, the big hay-shaker was still unbeaten, and he and Long Tom Sheehan hooked up in a game that had a heavy bearing on the American Association pennant race.
Before the game, Dressen was asked what his plan was and how he arrived at it.
'I've been studying the box scores,' he replied. 'I've noticed that he hardly ever walks anybody and has a lot of strikeouts. Now a pitcher with enough stuff to strike out a good many batters but who does not issue an average number of walks must be getting the batters into the hole.
'That means he is putting his first pitch in there and too many batters are taking it.
'When the time comes to put on a rally, we'll hit that first pitch. It will work perfectly against this fellow. He won't know where to go from there.'
Well, the game dragged along for a while. Sheehan held the Blues and it was scoreless until the late innings. Then Kansas City got two runs.
In the home half of that inning, the Saints decided it was time to go to work. They swung on the first pitch- no new stratagem, of course, but one for which this fellow was a setup- and they got a nice little rally going. They put the game on ice.
Dressen's whole career has been a busy, daily succession of such sound maneuvers. That is why he wins the close ones."
-Dick Cullum in the Minneapolis Tribune (Baseball Digest, October 1951)
BROOKLYN'S LITTLE NAPOLEON
Look! A Modest Dressen!
"Midnight strikes at Ebbets Field. Deep under the left field stands is a door labeled PRIVATE. That's portly Wilbert Robinson peering over his spectacles at bewildering Babe Herman, who's just socked two homers but has lost the ball game by letting a fly hit his chest instead of his glove. There's a younger Casey Stengel wise-cracking to his Daffiness Boys of the mid-30s. And a noisier, brasher Lippy Leo Durocher playing 'gin' ten minutes before the game begins in his championship year of 1941, or wrangling with striking ball players during the famous Bobo Newsom rebellion of 1943.
The manager now is Charlie Dressen, a little man with keen blue eyes, who first wore a Dodger uniform in 1939 when he became the Lip's sign-stealing, barbering third base coach. Chuck is seldom around the clubhouse at midnight- unless the Dodgers are kept up late in a game. He is no ghost, although the living memory of him did haunt the place from 1947 to 1951 when he was absent coaching the New York Yankees or piloting the Oakland Oaks of the Pacific Coast League.
Today, Chuck ought to be a most important man, the master mind of a pennant-winning team. In fact, he is nothing of the sort, as he modestly admits. He merely stepped out of minor league obscurity into the circus atmosphere of Ebbets Field last winter to lead a ball team that needed no leadership whatsoever. And, by an ironic twist of inscrutable fate, all that he has and owns today in baseball treasures was deeded him by a man he quit in 1947, Branch Rickey.
The Dodger regulars- with the one exception of Andy Pafko- are hand-picked, hand-trained in superlative Rickey way. They not only play Rickey baseball but look, act and think in the Rickey pattern. The coaches, including Cookie Lavagetto, have been steeped in the Rickey tactical Rickey brew. Even the club trainer treats his patients patiently with linament, bubble baths and Rickey psychology.
Mornings when the team is at home, Chuck Dressen arrives at the clubhouse, dons his uniform, sits in the office which Rickey built for Leo Durocher. He opens his mail, chats with his old coaching side-kick, and how his advance scout, Red Corriden, tries to balance his checkbook and fails, wanders through the dirt path to the dugout.
'I didn't even get to know the boys until after spring training,' Chuck says. 'The toughest break I had all season was that sickness of mine last spring. There I was flat on my back and my team was working out at Vero Beach and Miami. I wanted to know more about the boys' dispositions, and what we needed. Of course, I had wonderful coaches and they brought me reports, but I started the season without any spring skull practice of my own.'
It wasn't quite true, of course, that Charlie knew nothing about his Dodgers or that 1951 marked his debut as a major league manager. He had led the Cincinnati Reds for four seasons, beginning in 1934. And when the 1946 season ended with Charlie still a Dodger coach the roster included Pee Wee Reese, Eddie Miksis, Carl Furillo, Gene Hermanski, Bruce Edwards, Rex Barney, Joe Hatten and Ralph Branca of last spring's squad.
It is perhaps significant that, except for Branca, Reese and Furillo, the other 1946 Dodgers were not to be found on the eligible list for the 1951 World Series. 'I knew the fellows I traded, with the exception of Miksis, who never got a chance to show what he could do,' Charlie says. 'I knew Hermanski had only been batting against right-handers, that Hatten hadn't finished many games and that Edwards had been having arm trouble. The man I wanted was Andy Pafko- and I got him without spending a cent.'
This a frank admission that the famous Dodger-Chicago Cub trade of last June is Charlie's most important contribution to the success of the 1951 [Dodgers]. Various ailments prevented Pafko from adding much momentum to the team's drive, but a healthy 31-year-old Andy is still a threat at bat and a nimble fly-snatcher afield, a player who has rounded out the almost perfect Rickey lineup.
And what a lineup! 'I used to have to give a lot more signs than I do today,' admits Charlie. 'When you've got fellows like Jackie Robinson, Reese, Gil Hodges, Roy Campanella and Duke Snider out there, you don't have to tell them what to do. They are crazy about baseball. They like to play it. They like to hit and run the bases and set up squeeze plays. They're always thinking up tricks, the way I like to do.'
Between 1939 and 1946 Charlie became famous for his complex system of signs. Some were club signs, such as the hit-and-run, the take or the hit. Others were personal signs, known only to Chuck and the player who happened to be at bat and were designed to utilize that player's specialty. Others called in advance the kind of pitch the enemy was hurling.
'I still use signs for special players,' Charlie says. 'But I don't try to steal pitchers' deliveries the way I once did. With hitters like I've got, it isn't necessary. Besides, we play more night games now and it's hard to see what the pitcher is doing to the ball under the lights.
'And I've had few worries. This has been a very lucky year for the team- no one has been seriously injured. The only time I've had to look sharp was when we've been playing the New York Giants or St. Louis Cardinals. They've given us some trouble.'
And Charlie, for the first time in his major league career as manager and coach, has not been forced to labor under the shadow of a titan. Back in 1934, when he came up to Cincinnati to reform the disorganized Reds, it was Larry MacPhail who filled the titanic role. In Brooklyn from 1939 to 1942, he carried out his duties amid the huzzahs not only of Larry the Red but also of Leo the Lip. Between 1943 and 1946 none other than Branch Rickey was his leader, and when he joined the Yankees in 1947 he was working for the mercurial MacPhail once more.
Now Chuck's boss is sociable Walter O'Malley. Now the front office is led by the sociable and quiet Buzzy Bavasi, with an assist from Fresco Thompson. 'They never say 'Do this,' in our front office,' chuckles Charlie. 'They make changes, yes, but they listen to me. I wanted Pafko and they got him. I wanted Howie Pollet, too, but Rickey got him for Pittsburgh before we could get going.'
Even Dodger clubhouse meetings before games require little direction. 'Sure, we hold meetings and we talk over the lineups of the other fellows. You've got to do that. We talk about our own weaknesses of the last game. And if there's some batter on the other team who's been on a tear we talk about how to stop him. But what's the use of discussing how to pitch to another team when you've got pitchers around like Preacher Roe, Don Newcombe and Branca? They know what the other batters can do. They each have their own special ideas on how to stop them.'
Even on defensive play, Chuck relaxes. 'Who knows better how to play defense than Robby and Pee Wee?' he asks.
Yet, with all these gifts from the gods at his disposal, Chuck Dressen has had his troubles. There was that unfortunate Palica episode.
Erv Palica was seventeen years old when he reported to the Dodgers in 1945. After a turn in the minors, he made the club as a regular in 1948, appearing in 133 games during the three succeeding seasons. A fastball pitcher, he was used chiefly in relief until the last half of the 1950 campaign, when he won eight straight games. He ended the season with a 13-8 record.
Last spring, Erv was drafted by the Army but was released without reporting because his wife was pregnant. Returning to the Dodgers, he was started as a regular by Charlie. Erv was hit hard in several tries, then began to complain about a mysterious ache.
Nothing might have become of the unhappy young man's situation if Charlie had not publicly charged that Palica as malingering. (Some newspapermen insist he said 'gutless.') In defense he says: 'I did not know what was the matter with him. My coaches told me that he said he couldn't throw, but that the docs couldn't find anything the matter with him. Look at him now ...'
At that moment Palica was pitching batting practice.
'Nothing the matter with him, is there?' Charlie asked. Palica was tossing knuckleballs. 'He just won't cut loose on the fast ones.'
The Palica cloud receded over the horizon after a burst of publicity unfavorable to Dressen. His next problem was umpires. Under Burt Shotton, the Dodgers had played quiet, gentlemanly baseball, and because Burt wore green slacks and an old white shirt on the bench he was not permitted to sally on field for a typical managerial bawling-out of the men in blue. Besides, warring with umpires is not the Rickey-Shotton way.
Charlie has waged battle with umpires, even more, when his team, as in July, was more than ten games in the lead. Ousted from games he sat in a field box or in Ebbets Field's presidential box to direct Dodger traffic. On each occasion games were halted as Chuck was ousted a second time.
When this tactic drew a ruling from League President Ford C. Frick, Charlie devised a new way of combatting the arbiters. If a couple of players were sent to the showers for arguing, he ordered all his reserves to the clubhouse, a gesture of defiance overlooked by such seasoned umpire-baiters as Leo Durocher and Frank Frisch. On one occasion the game was delayed for several minutes as Charlie summoned pinch hitters from the Polo Grounds locker room, some 500 feet from home plate.
'I'm not trying to slow up games,' Charlie rebuts to charges made by newspapermen. 'I only wish they'd find some way of speeding games faster and faster. But a lot of funny things happened. One time Don Newcombe squawked from the bench, and the umpire put me and Cookie Lavagetto out of the game. Another time he put Branca out when Ralph hadn't said a word. I was afraid the whole bench would be thrown out. I did not want to find myself in the ninth inning without a pinch hitter. So I put my reserves out of reach of the umpires. I hope Ford Frick does work up some rule that'll stop a hot-headed umpire from breaking up a team when there's no cause for it.'
On the other hand, there are those who declare that Charlie Dressen had no reason for complaints against umpires' decisions. The 1951 Dodgers were the classiest club in the older league since the Cardinals of 1942, and perhaps even stronger. They have been favorably compared to the artistic Yankees of 1936-39. Charlie Dressen, some say, has no intention of being called a 'push-button manager,' comparable to the Yankees' silent Joe McCarthy. Fans might forget the Little Napoleon is around, even if he didn't evolve some way of getting his name into the newspapers.
Charlie has the last word: 'You haven't heard any squawks about how the team plays, have you? We win, don't we?'
Not even the man's severest critic can find a comeback to that last rhetorical question. Dressen's Dodgers, whatever their origin, whatever their style, have what it takes to win."
-Charles Dexter (Baseball Digest, November 1951)
"Chuck, who once was a Dodger coach, returns as their manager in 1951.
His playing days- which were mostly with the Reds- began with Moline in the Three-I League in 1919 and wound up with the Giants in 1933.
Chuck managed at Cincinnati from July 1934 to the end of the 1937 campaign. He coached for Brooklyn from 1939-46 and for the Yankees, 1947-48. He managed Oakland in the Pacific Coast League in 1949 and 1950."
-1951 Bowman No. 259 (Bowman Gum, Inc.)
"A cocky little fellow is Charlie Dressen. Most of the time the Brooklyn manager has been able to make his cockiness stand up.
Years ago, when he was playing third base with St. Paul, a big raw-boned pitcher, John Saladna, joined Kansas City and started a winning streak. He appeared to be invincible. He won ten straight games, all low-hitters and several of them shutouts, before the Saints had a look at him.
'We'll beat him when he comes our way,' said Dressen. 'I know how.'
'You know how?' he was asked. 'Why you haven't seen the fellow. You don't know anything about him excepting that he wins.'
'But we'll beat him,' said Dressen.
When Kansas City got to St. Paul, the big hay-shaker was still unbeaten, and he and Long Tom Sheehan hooked up in a game that had a heavy bearing on the American Association pennant race.
Before the game, Dressen was asked what his plan was and how he arrived at it.
'I've been studying the box scores,' he replied. 'I've noticed that he hardly ever walks anybody and has a lot of strikeouts. Now a pitcher with enough stuff to strike out a good many batters but who does not issue an average number of walks must be getting the batters into the hole.
'That means he is putting his first pitch in there and too many batters are taking it.
'When the time comes to put on a rally, we'll hit that first pitch. It will work perfectly against this fellow. He won't know where to go from there.'
Well, the game dragged along for a while. Sheehan held the Blues and it was scoreless until the late innings. Then Kansas City got two runs.
In the home half of that inning, the Saints decided it was time to go to work. They swung on the first pitch- no new stratagem, of course, but one for which this fellow was a setup- and they got a nice little rally going. They put the game on ice.
Dressen's whole career has been a busy, daily succession of such sound maneuvers. That is why he wins the close ones."
-Dick Cullum in the Minneapolis Tribune (Baseball Digest, October 1951)
BROOKLYN'S LITTLE NAPOLEON
Look! A Modest Dressen!
"Midnight strikes at Ebbets Field. Deep under the left field stands is a door labeled PRIVATE. That's portly Wilbert Robinson peering over his spectacles at bewildering Babe Herman, who's just socked two homers but has lost the ball game by letting a fly hit his chest instead of his glove. There's a younger Casey Stengel wise-cracking to his Daffiness Boys of the mid-30s. And a noisier, brasher Lippy Leo Durocher playing 'gin' ten minutes before the game begins in his championship year of 1941, or wrangling with striking ball players during the famous Bobo Newsom rebellion of 1943.
The manager now is Charlie Dressen, a little man with keen blue eyes, who first wore a Dodger uniform in 1939 when he became the Lip's sign-stealing, barbering third base coach. Chuck is seldom around the clubhouse at midnight- unless the Dodgers are kept up late in a game. He is no ghost, although the living memory of him did haunt the place from 1947 to 1951 when he was absent coaching the New York Yankees or piloting the Oakland Oaks of the Pacific Coast League.
Today, Chuck ought to be a most important man, the master mind of a pennant-winning team. In fact, he is nothing of the sort, as he modestly admits. He merely stepped out of minor league obscurity into the circus atmosphere of Ebbets Field last winter to lead a ball team that needed no leadership whatsoever. And, by an ironic twist of inscrutable fate, all that he has and owns today in baseball treasures was deeded him by a man he quit in 1947, Branch Rickey.
The Dodger regulars- with the one exception of Andy Pafko- are hand-picked, hand-trained in superlative Rickey way. They not only play Rickey baseball but look, act and think in the Rickey pattern. The coaches, including Cookie Lavagetto, have been steeped in the Rickey tactical Rickey brew. Even the club trainer treats his patients patiently with linament, bubble baths and Rickey psychology.
Mornings when the team is at home, Chuck Dressen arrives at the clubhouse, dons his uniform, sits in the office which Rickey built for Leo Durocher. He opens his mail, chats with his old coaching side-kick, and how his advance scout, Red Corriden, tries to balance his checkbook and fails, wanders through the dirt path to the dugout.
'I didn't even get to know the boys until after spring training,' Chuck says. 'The toughest break I had all season was that sickness of mine last spring. There I was flat on my back and my team was working out at Vero Beach and Miami. I wanted to know more about the boys' dispositions, and what we needed. Of course, I had wonderful coaches and they brought me reports, but I started the season without any spring skull practice of my own.'
It wasn't quite true, of course, that Charlie knew nothing about his Dodgers or that 1951 marked his debut as a major league manager. He had led the Cincinnati Reds for four seasons, beginning in 1934. And when the 1946 season ended with Charlie still a Dodger coach the roster included Pee Wee Reese, Eddie Miksis, Carl Furillo, Gene Hermanski, Bruce Edwards, Rex Barney, Joe Hatten and Ralph Branca of last spring's squad.
It is perhaps significant that, except for Branca, Reese and Furillo, the other 1946 Dodgers were not to be found on the eligible list for the 1951 World Series. 'I knew the fellows I traded, with the exception of Miksis, who never got a chance to show what he could do,' Charlie says. 'I knew Hermanski had only been batting against right-handers, that Hatten hadn't finished many games and that Edwards had been having arm trouble. The man I wanted was Andy Pafko- and I got him without spending a cent.'
This a frank admission that the famous Dodger-Chicago Cub trade of last June is Charlie's most important contribution to the success of the 1951 [Dodgers]. Various ailments prevented Pafko from adding much momentum to the team's drive, but a healthy 31-year-old Andy is still a threat at bat and a nimble fly-snatcher afield, a player who has rounded out the almost perfect Rickey lineup.
And what a lineup! 'I used to have to give a lot more signs than I do today,' admits Charlie. 'When you've got fellows like Jackie Robinson, Reese, Gil Hodges, Roy Campanella and Duke Snider out there, you don't have to tell them what to do. They are crazy about baseball. They like to play it. They like to hit and run the bases and set up squeeze plays. They're always thinking up tricks, the way I like to do.'
Between 1939 and 1946 Charlie became famous for his complex system of signs. Some were club signs, such as the hit-and-run, the take or the hit. Others were personal signs, known only to Chuck and the player who happened to be at bat and were designed to utilize that player's specialty. Others called in advance the kind of pitch the enemy was hurling.
'I still use signs for special players,' Charlie says. 'But I don't try to steal pitchers' deliveries the way I once did. With hitters like I've got, it isn't necessary. Besides, we play more night games now and it's hard to see what the pitcher is doing to the ball under the lights.
'And I've had few worries. This has been a very lucky year for the team- no one has been seriously injured. The only time I've had to look sharp was when we've been playing the New York Giants or St. Louis Cardinals. They've given us some trouble.'
And Charlie, for the first time in his major league career as manager and coach, has not been forced to labor under the shadow of a titan. Back in 1934, when he came up to Cincinnati to reform the disorganized Reds, it was Larry MacPhail who filled the titanic role. In Brooklyn from 1939 to 1942, he carried out his duties amid the huzzahs not only of Larry the Red but also of Leo the Lip. Between 1943 and 1946 none other than Branch Rickey was his leader, and when he joined the Yankees in 1947 he was working for the mercurial MacPhail once more.
Now Chuck's boss is sociable Walter O'Malley. Now the front office is led by the sociable and quiet Buzzy Bavasi, with an assist from Fresco Thompson. 'They never say 'Do this,' in our front office,' chuckles Charlie. 'They make changes, yes, but they listen to me. I wanted Pafko and they got him. I wanted Howie Pollet, too, but Rickey got him for Pittsburgh before we could get going.'
Even Dodger clubhouse meetings before games require little direction. 'Sure, we hold meetings and we talk over the lineups of the other fellows. You've got to do that. We talk about our own weaknesses of the last game. And if there's some batter on the other team who's been on a tear we talk about how to stop him. But what's the use of discussing how to pitch to another team when you've got pitchers around like Preacher Roe, Don Newcombe and Branca? They know what the other batters can do. They each have their own special ideas on how to stop them.'
Even on defensive play, Chuck relaxes. 'Who knows better how to play defense than Robby and Pee Wee?' he asks.
Yet, with all these gifts from the gods at his disposal, Chuck Dressen has had his troubles. There was that unfortunate Palica episode.
Erv Palica was seventeen years old when he reported to the Dodgers in 1945. After a turn in the minors, he made the club as a regular in 1948, appearing in 133 games during the three succeeding seasons. A fastball pitcher, he was used chiefly in relief until the last half of the 1950 campaign, when he won eight straight games. He ended the season with a 13-8 record.
Last spring, Erv was drafted by the Army but was released without reporting because his wife was pregnant. Returning to the Dodgers, he was started as a regular by Charlie. Erv was hit hard in several tries, then began to complain about a mysterious ache.
Nothing might have become of the unhappy young man's situation if Charlie had not publicly charged that Palica as malingering. (Some newspapermen insist he said 'gutless.') In defense he says: 'I did not know what was the matter with him. My coaches told me that he said he couldn't throw, but that the docs couldn't find anything the matter with him. Look at him now ...'
At that moment Palica was pitching batting practice.
'Nothing the matter with him, is there?' Charlie asked. Palica was tossing knuckleballs. 'He just won't cut loose on the fast ones.'
The Palica cloud receded over the horizon after a burst of publicity unfavorable to Dressen. His next problem was umpires. Under Burt Shotton, the Dodgers had played quiet, gentlemanly baseball, and because Burt wore green slacks and an old white shirt on the bench he was not permitted to sally on field for a typical managerial bawling-out of the men in blue. Besides, warring with umpires is not the Rickey-Shotton way.
Charlie has waged battle with umpires, even more, when his team, as in July, was more than ten games in the lead. Ousted from games he sat in a field box or in Ebbets Field's presidential box to direct Dodger traffic. On each occasion games were halted as Chuck was ousted a second time.
When this tactic drew a ruling from League President Ford C. Frick, Charlie devised a new way of combatting the arbiters. If a couple of players were sent to the showers for arguing, he ordered all his reserves to the clubhouse, a gesture of defiance overlooked by such seasoned umpire-baiters as Leo Durocher and Frank Frisch. On one occasion the game was delayed for several minutes as Charlie summoned pinch hitters from the Polo Grounds locker room, some 500 feet from home plate.
'I'm not trying to slow up games,' Charlie rebuts to charges made by newspapermen. 'I only wish they'd find some way of speeding games faster and faster. But a lot of funny things happened. One time Don Newcombe squawked from the bench, and the umpire put me and Cookie Lavagetto out of the game. Another time he put Branca out when Ralph hadn't said a word. I was afraid the whole bench would be thrown out. I did not want to find myself in the ninth inning without a pinch hitter. So I put my reserves out of reach of the umpires. I hope Ford Frick does work up some rule that'll stop a hot-headed umpire from breaking up a team when there's no cause for it.'
On the other hand, there are those who declare that Charlie Dressen had no reason for complaints against umpires' decisions. The 1951 Dodgers were the classiest club in the older league since the Cardinals of 1942, and perhaps even stronger. They have been favorably compared to the artistic Yankees of 1936-39. Charlie Dressen, some say, has no intention of being called a 'push-button manager,' comparable to the Yankees' silent Joe McCarthy. Fans might forget the Little Napoleon is around, even if he didn't evolve some way of getting his name into the newspapers.
Charlie has the last word: 'You haven't heard any squawks about how the team plays, have you? We win, don't we?'
Not even the man's severest critic can find a comeback to that last rhetorical question. Dressen's Dodgers, whatever their origin, whatever their style, have what it takes to win."
-Charles Dexter (Baseball Digest, November 1951)
"Chuck, who once was a Dodger coach, returns as their manager in 1951.
His playing days- which were mostly with the Reds- began with Moline in the Three-I League in 1919 and wound up with the Giants in 1933.
Chuck managed at Cincinnati from July 1934 to the end of the 1937 campaign. He coached for Brooklyn from 1939-46 and for the Yankees, 1947-48. He managed Oakland in the Pacific Coast League in 1949 and 1950."
-1951 Bowman No. 259 (Bowman Gum, Inc.)
Thursday, September 14, 2017
1951 Yankee World Series of the Past: 1950
CATALOGING THE 1950 WORLD SERIES
Best Play by Yanks' Bauer
"The 1950 World Series, may it rest in peace:
Biggest Play: By Allie Reynolds in the eighth inning of the second game. A 1-1 score. Richie Ashburn bunted beautifully and safely to open the inning. Dick Sisler also bunted, trying to sacrifice. Reynolds swooped down on the ball, whirled and fired to Phil Rizzuto at second. Ashburn was forced in the closest play of the entire Series. The next batter grounded into a double play. The Yankees won in the tenth.
Top Surprise: Eddie Sawyer's announcement, twenty-four hours in advance, that Jim Konstanty would pitch the first game, his first start in any league since 1948.
Best All-Around Player: Jerry Coleman, Yankee second baseman. He batted .286, fielded perfectly, got four hits. So did Joe DiMaggio and Bobby Brown. Gene Woodling got six. But Coleman batted in three runs, more than any other player.
Biggest Hit: DiMaggio's line drive home run into the left-center field upper deck in the tenth inning of the second game.
Best Play: Hank Bauer's daring and sensational catch of Granny Hamner's vicious line smash to right center in the seventh inning of the first game. Bauer challenged the concrete wall, threw his full weight (185 pounds) as he backed into the barrier and nabbed the sizzling sphere high over his head at the moment of impact.
Worst Play: Andy Seminick's throw at second base in the third game, third inning. With two out, Rizzuto walked and broke for second on the next pitch. Seminick's throw struck six feet in front of the bag, bounced off Phil and into right field for an error. Phil galloped to third, scored on Coleman's single. That was the decisive run.
Best Strategy: The insertion of Johnny Hopp at first base replacing the plodding Johnny Mize, in the first game. In the ninth inning, Ashburn ripped a grounder smack over the bag that Hopp came up with on a startling play and outran Ashburn for the out. Consensus was that Mize never would have reached the ball.
Worst Strategy: The removal of Mike Goliat for a pinch runner in the third game. He was on second base, representing the winning run. His sub didn't score, either. A very slow and old player, Jimmy Bloodworth, was Goliat's replacement in the field. With two out in the ninth, both Woodling and Rizzuto singled off Bloodworth's glove. Goliat might have grabbed one of the bounders. Woodling scored on Coleman's single to win the game.
Slowest Man: Seminick.
Fastest Man: Reynolds.
Best Actor: Casey Stengel, who didn't miss a trick for the television cameras.
Smartest Play: A throw to the plate by Joe Collins, sub first baseman for Mize, in the third game, ninth inning. With Hamner on third, Goliat on first and one out, Dick Whitman hit to Collins, who could have tried for the double play by way of second base. Instead, he fired the ball home and Berra tagged out the sliding Hamner to cut off the winning run.
Dumbest Play: Bill Johnson's trap of Seminick's pop bunt that followed Hamner's double to open the ninth inning, third game. Johnson obviously thought that by failing to catch the tiny fly he might set up a double play, but he forgot that the runner was on second base instead of first.
Best Pitching: Vic Raschi's shutout in the opener. He allowed only two singles, both in the fifth inning.
Greatest Pitching: Konstanty's appearances in three games. He pitched fifteen innings, more than any other man, had only one bad time, the sixth inning in the final game, when he lost his stuff temporarily. A fine pitcher, master competitor, cold calculator.
Second Guess: On Sawyer's use of right-hander Stan Lopata to hit against right-handed Reynolds in the ninth inning of the last game. Lopata was to have hit, as a sub, against left-handed Whitey Ford. Sawyer failed to switch from Lopata to Whitman, a switch hitter, when Reynolds appeared. Yankee Stadium is a notorious graveyard for power right-handed hitters, a soft touch for a left-hander who can pull the ball. Lopata, representing the tying run at the plate, whiffed.
Best Hunch: Stengel's to let Coleman bat for himself in the third game, ninth inning. Casey had a notion to yank Coleman but relented. Coleman then batted in the winning run with a single."
-Franklin Lewis, condensed from the Cleveland Press (Baseball Digest, January 1951)
Best Play by Yanks' Bauer
"The 1950 World Series, may it rest in peace:
Biggest Play: By Allie Reynolds in the eighth inning of the second game. A 1-1 score. Richie Ashburn bunted beautifully and safely to open the inning. Dick Sisler also bunted, trying to sacrifice. Reynolds swooped down on the ball, whirled and fired to Phil Rizzuto at second. Ashburn was forced in the closest play of the entire Series. The next batter grounded into a double play. The Yankees won in the tenth.
Top Surprise: Eddie Sawyer's announcement, twenty-four hours in advance, that Jim Konstanty would pitch the first game, his first start in any league since 1948.
Best All-Around Player: Jerry Coleman, Yankee second baseman. He batted .286, fielded perfectly, got four hits. So did Joe DiMaggio and Bobby Brown. Gene Woodling got six. But Coleman batted in three runs, more than any other player.
Biggest Hit: DiMaggio's line drive home run into the left-center field upper deck in the tenth inning of the second game.
Best Play: Hank Bauer's daring and sensational catch of Granny Hamner's vicious line smash to right center in the seventh inning of the first game. Bauer challenged the concrete wall, threw his full weight (185 pounds) as he backed into the barrier and nabbed the sizzling sphere high over his head at the moment of impact.
Worst Play: Andy Seminick's throw at second base in the third game, third inning. With two out, Rizzuto walked and broke for second on the next pitch. Seminick's throw struck six feet in front of the bag, bounced off Phil and into right field for an error. Phil galloped to third, scored on Coleman's single. That was the decisive run.
Best Strategy: The insertion of Johnny Hopp at first base replacing the plodding Johnny Mize, in the first game. In the ninth inning, Ashburn ripped a grounder smack over the bag that Hopp came up with on a startling play and outran Ashburn for the out. Consensus was that Mize never would have reached the ball.
Worst Strategy: The removal of Mike Goliat for a pinch runner in the third game. He was on second base, representing the winning run. His sub didn't score, either. A very slow and old player, Jimmy Bloodworth, was Goliat's replacement in the field. With two out in the ninth, both Woodling and Rizzuto singled off Bloodworth's glove. Goliat might have grabbed one of the bounders. Woodling scored on Coleman's single to win the game.
Slowest Man: Seminick.
Fastest Man: Reynolds.
Best Actor: Casey Stengel, who didn't miss a trick for the television cameras.
Smartest Play: A throw to the plate by Joe Collins, sub first baseman for Mize, in the third game, ninth inning. With Hamner on third, Goliat on first and one out, Dick Whitman hit to Collins, who could have tried for the double play by way of second base. Instead, he fired the ball home and Berra tagged out the sliding Hamner to cut off the winning run.
Dumbest Play: Bill Johnson's trap of Seminick's pop bunt that followed Hamner's double to open the ninth inning, third game. Johnson obviously thought that by failing to catch the tiny fly he might set up a double play, but he forgot that the runner was on second base instead of first.
Best Pitching: Vic Raschi's shutout in the opener. He allowed only two singles, both in the fifth inning.
Greatest Pitching: Konstanty's appearances in three games. He pitched fifteen innings, more than any other man, had only one bad time, the sixth inning in the final game, when he lost his stuff temporarily. A fine pitcher, master competitor, cold calculator.
Second Guess: On Sawyer's use of right-hander Stan Lopata to hit against right-handed Reynolds in the ninth inning of the last game. Lopata was to have hit, as a sub, against left-handed Whitey Ford. Sawyer failed to switch from Lopata to Whitman, a switch hitter, when Reynolds appeared. Yankee Stadium is a notorious graveyard for power right-handed hitters, a soft touch for a left-hander who can pull the ball. Lopata, representing the tying run at the plate, whiffed.
Best Hunch: Stengel's to let Coleman bat for himself in the third game, ninth inning. Casey had a notion to yank Coleman but relented. Coleman then batted in the winning run with a single."
-Franklin Lewis, condensed from the Cleveland Press (Baseball Digest, January 1951)
Thursday, September 7, 2017
1951 Yankee of the Past: Dixie Walker
LEFTIES FINALLY FOIL DIXIE WALKER
As Hitter, No - As Pilot, Yes
"Pose any theoretical baseball argument and head for the cellar. It kicks up a tornado because every fan, writer and announcer fancies himself an expert ... you know, 'I've been following baseball closely for forty-six years.' From the grandstand the game looks simple, so when the question of why a left-handed batter does not hit left-handed pitching as well as he does right-handed pitching is announced, the answers come roaring in from both sides.
Dixie Walker, who pilots the Atlanta Crackers from the third base coaching box, recently touched it off when he played a radical version of the old custom and replaced Junior Wooten, a right-handed batter, with Country Brown, a left-handed batter in the first inning of a game with Chattanooga. It was a counter-move to the appearance of a right-handed relief pitcher.
Dixie is himself a man well qualified to discuss this right-left phase of the game. He was a left-handed batter of rare ability for years in the major leagues (1931-1949, Yankees, White Sox, Tigers, Dodgers, Pirates).
'It would be a great idea if left-handed batters could hit left-handed pitching well, but they just can't,' Walker began. 'Maybe they ought to, maybe it is a mental twist, but the fact remains the percentage is against them. If you know any way to cure them, you can make a fortune.'
Dixie was reminded that he had hit left-handed pitching pretty well in his best years, to which he replied:
'Well, I got into a spot where I could not be relieved with a right-handed batter and I HAD to learn. It was hard work and I hated to see those lefties out there throwing at me.'
Right there in Dixie's experience is an argument that they can learn: by hard work. My position is that it was a question of ability rather than a left or right operation.
'Now there is reason why left-handed batters are not as good against left-handed pitching,' Dixie continued. 'They see more right-handed pitching. There are fewer left-handed pitchers in baseball. They have to readjust their sense of timing, and after a long run of left-handed pitching, a left-hander's stuff looks queer.'
What about the mechanics of a left-handed batting against left-handed and right-handed pitching and vice versa? Is there anything inherent in the pitching and batting that creates difficulty?
'There is, as I can say from experience,' Dixie said. 'A left-handed pitcher throws from the side on which a left-handed batter stands. It tempts the batter to pull away from the plate when a curve ball comes right at him, then breaks over the plate. A left-handed batter can hit right-handed pitching better because he can stay in there close and meet the ball as it comes in.
'A left-handed batter does not see enough left-handed pitching to get used to the difference. It took me years to control my urge to pull away from a left-hander's curve ball.
'A right-handed batter sees so many right-handed pitchers that he becomes accustomed to seeing pitches coming in close and does not pull away as often.'
Do managers use left-handers in batting practice? Walker said he did and so did all managers as often as possible, especially when expecting to look at left-handed pitchers that day.
'We have six right-handers and two left-handers on our staff,' Dixie said. 'That's about the percentage for all the Southern Association clubs but Little Rock, which has more left-handers. We have our left-handers throw whenever they are not expected to start a game that day. All of us have been trying for years to cure that left-right condition. Only the good ones can do it. They just cured themselves by working at it.'
Dixie is right on his facts. He is a realist and percentage is on his side. Yet the styles of batting and pitching can be equalized by hard work as Dixie himself demonstrated in his major league days."
-Ed Danforth, condensed from the Atlanta Journal (Baseball Digest August 1951)
As Hitter, No - As Pilot, Yes
"Pose any theoretical baseball argument and head for the cellar. It kicks up a tornado because every fan, writer and announcer fancies himself an expert ... you know, 'I've been following baseball closely for forty-six years.' From the grandstand the game looks simple, so when the question of why a left-handed batter does not hit left-handed pitching as well as he does right-handed pitching is announced, the answers come roaring in from both sides.
Dixie Walker, who pilots the Atlanta Crackers from the third base coaching box, recently touched it off when he played a radical version of the old custom and replaced Junior Wooten, a right-handed batter, with Country Brown, a left-handed batter in the first inning of a game with Chattanooga. It was a counter-move to the appearance of a right-handed relief pitcher.
Dixie is himself a man well qualified to discuss this right-left phase of the game. He was a left-handed batter of rare ability for years in the major leagues (1931-1949, Yankees, White Sox, Tigers, Dodgers, Pirates).
'It would be a great idea if left-handed batters could hit left-handed pitching well, but they just can't,' Walker began. 'Maybe they ought to, maybe it is a mental twist, but the fact remains the percentage is against them. If you know any way to cure them, you can make a fortune.'
Dixie was reminded that he had hit left-handed pitching pretty well in his best years, to which he replied:
'Well, I got into a spot where I could not be relieved with a right-handed batter and I HAD to learn. It was hard work and I hated to see those lefties out there throwing at me.'
Right there in Dixie's experience is an argument that they can learn: by hard work. My position is that it was a question of ability rather than a left or right operation.
'Now there is reason why left-handed batters are not as good against left-handed pitching,' Dixie continued. 'They see more right-handed pitching. There are fewer left-handed pitchers in baseball. They have to readjust their sense of timing, and after a long run of left-handed pitching, a left-hander's stuff looks queer.'
What about the mechanics of a left-handed batting against left-handed and right-handed pitching and vice versa? Is there anything inherent in the pitching and batting that creates difficulty?
'There is, as I can say from experience,' Dixie said. 'A left-handed pitcher throws from the side on which a left-handed batter stands. It tempts the batter to pull away from the plate when a curve ball comes right at him, then breaks over the plate. A left-handed batter can hit right-handed pitching better because he can stay in there close and meet the ball as it comes in.
'A left-handed batter does not see enough left-handed pitching to get used to the difference. It took me years to control my urge to pull away from a left-hander's curve ball.
'A right-handed batter sees so many right-handed pitchers that he becomes accustomed to seeing pitches coming in close and does not pull away as often.'
Do managers use left-handers in batting practice? Walker said he did and so did all managers as often as possible, especially when expecting to look at left-handed pitchers that day.
'We have six right-handers and two left-handers on our staff,' Dixie said. 'That's about the percentage for all the Southern Association clubs but Little Rock, which has more left-handers. We have our left-handers throw whenever they are not expected to start a game that day. All of us have been trying for years to cure that left-right condition. Only the good ones can do it. They just cured themselves by working at it.'
Dixie is right on his facts. He is a realist and percentage is on his side. Yet the styles of batting and pitching can be equalized by hard work as Dixie himself demonstrated in his major league days."
-Ed Danforth, condensed from the Atlanta Journal (Baseball Digest August 1951)
Monday, August 28, 2017
1951 Yankee of the Past: Gus Niarhos
"Gus went to the White Sox in 1950 after one game for the Yankees. He had a seasonal batting average of .324 in 42 games.
He attended Auburn University before entering pro ball in 1941, then spent three years in the service.
Gus caught 93 games for the Kansas City Blues in 1947. He hit .321 and led the league's backstops in fielding. In 1948, his rookie year in the majors, he hit .268 in 83 games and hit .279 in 32 games in 1949."
-1951 Bowman No. 124 (Bowman Gum, Inc.)
Friday, July 21, 2017
1951 Yankee of the Past: Dazzy Vance
IT WORKS BOTH WAYS
"'One day,' recalls Dazzy Vance, 'I struck out Rogers Hornsby three times and he popped up the fourth. He was going back to the bench when a guy in the stands howled at him, 'Say, Hornsby, I paid to watch you hit.'
''All right,' Rogers told this guy. 'You paid to see that fellow pitch, too, and you're getting your money's worth. What's the squawk?''"
-Walter Stewart in the Memphis Commercial Appeal (Baseball Digest, October 1951)
SPEECH FROM THE FLOOR
"As a sample of Dazzy Vance's ever-ready wit, outfielder Rube Bressler recalls the speech he swears Dazzy made on the occasion of the double play Babe Herman hit into that memorable day in Brooklyn.
With one out and the bases loaded, Herman hit a long drive and then took off, head down, on a blind dash around the bases, while the others were waiting to see whether or not the ball would be caught. It wasn't, but just about everyone else was. Hank DeBerry scored from third, but Vance, who had been on second, was between third and home when he heard a stricken shout from the third base coach.
Thinking he was being called back, Dazzy turned and raced for third base. It didn't take him long to find out what ailed the coach, because just as Dazzy slid in from the home plate side, Herman was sliding in from the second base side. Chick Fewster, who had been running from first base, was also on the scene. He was standing on third base, hands on hips and mouth hanging open.
The Dodgers now had three men on third. Taking no chances, the third baseman tagged them all. The umpire seemed a little uncertain, and it was then, according to Bressler, that Vance spoke his piece. Still stretched out on the ground, his foot hooked into the base, Dazzy reclined on one elbow, looked up at the group around him and addressed them as follows:
'Mr. Umpire, members of the opposition, and my beloved teammates: if you will carefully scan the rules of our national pastime, you will find that the only party safe at this hassock is one Arthur C. Vance.'
He was, too."
-Bill Roeder in the New York World-Telegram and Sun (Baseball Digest, October 1951)
DEBERRY CAME FIRST
"Stories have been written and told down through the years that the Brooklyn Dodgers bought Dazzy Vance from New Orleans and just took Hank DeBerry, who died recently, along as his catcher. But Hank maintained that wasn't right. 'The Dodgers bought me long before they did Dazzy,' he explained.
'It happened like this: Brooklyn won the pennant in 1920 and came to New Orleans in the spring of 1921 to play exhibitions with the New Orleans club. I had a really great spring against them, and they bought me for 1922 delivery. They didn't buy Vance until the next year- and then on a look. You must remember that Daz knocked around with Pittsburgh and the New York Yankees and in the minor leagues for a long time.'"
-Bob Wilson in the Knoxville News-Sentinel (Baseball Digest, November 1951)
"'One day,' recalls Dazzy Vance, 'I struck out Rogers Hornsby three times and he popped up the fourth. He was going back to the bench when a guy in the stands howled at him, 'Say, Hornsby, I paid to watch you hit.'
''All right,' Rogers told this guy. 'You paid to see that fellow pitch, too, and you're getting your money's worth. What's the squawk?''"
-Walter Stewart in the Memphis Commercial Appeal (Baseball Digest, October 1951)
SPEECH FROM THE FLOOR
"As a sample of Dazzy Vance's ever-ready wit, outfielder Rube Bressler recalls the speech he swears Dazzy made on the occasion of the double play Babe Herman hit into that memorable day in Brooklyn.
With one out and the bases loaded, Herman hit a long drive and then took off, head down, on a blind dash around the bases, while the others were waiting to see whether or not the ball would be caught. It wasn't, but just about everyone else was. Hank DeBerry scored from third, but Vance, who had been on second, was between third and home when he heard a stricken shout from the third base coach.
Thinking he was being called back, Dazzy turned and raced for third base. It didn't take him long to find out what ailed the coach, because just as Dazzy slid in from the home plate side, Herman was sliding in from the second base side. Chick Fewster, who had been running from first base, was also on the scene. He was standing on third base, hands on hips and mouth hanging open.
The Dodgers now had three men on third. Taking no chances, the third baseman tagged them all. The umpire seemed a little uncertain, and it was then, according to Bressler, that Vance spoke his piece. Still stretched out on the ground, his foot hooked into the base, Dazzy reclined on one elbow, looked up at the group around him and addressed them as follows:
'Mr. Umpire, members of the opposition, and my beloved teammates: if you will carefully scan the rules of our national pastime, you will find that the only party safe at this hassock is one Arthur C. Vance.'
He was, too."
-Bill Roeder in the New York World-Telegram and Sun (Baseball Digest, October 1951)
DEBERRY CAME FIRST
"Stories have been written and told down through the years that the Brooklyn Dodgers bought Dazzy Vance from New Orleans and just took Hank DeBerry, who died recently, along as his catcher. But Hank maintained that wasn't right. 'The Dodgers bought me long before they did Dazzy,' he explained.
'It happened like this: Brooklyn won the pennant in 1920 and came to New Orleans in the spring of 1921 to play exhibitions with the New Orleans club. I had a really great spring against them, and they bought me for 1922 delivery. They didn't buy Vance until the next year- and then on a look. You must remember that Daz knocked around with Pittsburgh and the New York Yankees and in the minor leagues for a long time.'"
-Bob Wilson in the Knoxville News-Sentinel (Baseball Digest, November 1951)
Saturday, July 15, 2017
1951 Yankee of the Past: Leo Durocher
TWO TIMES AT BAT
"The New York Giants' Leo Durocher of 1951 is a more serious Durocher than in 1928 when as a fresh young squirt of a Yankee rookie he stopped a game in Detroit by storming up to the plate umpire while Fat Bob Fothergill was at bat and, with a dead pan, screaming, 'You can't let these two guys bat at the same time.!'
-Dan Parker in the New York Mirror
DO HIM SERIOUS?
"Leo Durocher was discussing the problem of encouraging players. The New York Giants' manager told of the 1941 season when Johnny Allen pitched for the Brooklyn Dodgers against Paul Derringer. It was in Cincinnati, during a heat wave. After each inning, Durocher would pat Allen and say, 'Hold'em, Johnny, and we'll get'em for you.'
But the game was scoreless, and after fourteen innings of hearing Durocher's 'Hold'em, Johnny; we'll get'em for you,' the pitcher sighed, 'Leo, I'm beginning to think you're kidding me.'"
-Leonard Lyons in the New York Post
"Leo began in organized baseball as a shortstop for Hartford of the Eastern League in 1925. He played in the majors with the Yankees, Reds, Cardinals and Dodgers. Leo's playing career was apparently over in 1941, but he took part in a few games in 1943 and 1945.
He managed the Dodgers for eight and one-half years, beginning in 1939. He became manager of the Giants in a surprise move in July 1948."
-1951 Bowman, No. 233 (Bowman Gum, Inc.)
"The New York Giants' Leo Durocher of 1951 is a more serious Durocher than in 1928 when as a fresh young squirt of a Yankee rookie he stopped a game in Detroit by storming up to the plate umpire while Fat Bob Fothergill was at bat and, with a dead pan, screaming, 'You can't let these two guys bat at the same time.!'
-Dan Parker in the New York Mirror
DO HIM SERIOUS?
"Leo Durocher was discussing the problem of encouraging players. The New York Giants' manager told of the 1941 season when Johnny Allen pitched for the Brooklyn Dodgers against Paul Derringer. It was in Cincinnati, during a heat wave. After each inning, Durocher would pat Allen and say, 'Hold'em, Johnny, and we'll get'em for you.'
But the game was scoreless, and after fourteen innings of hearing Durocher's 'Hold'em, Johnny; we'll get'em for you,' the pitcher sighed, 'Leo, I'm beginning to think you're kidding me.'"
-Leonard Lyons in the New York Post
"Leo began in organized baseball as a shortstop for Hartford of the Eastern League in 1925. He played in the majors with the Yankees, Reds, Cardinals and Dodgers. Leo's playing career was apparently over in 1941, but he took part in a few games in 1943 and 1945.
He managed the Dodgers for eight and one-half years, beginning in 1939. He became manager of the Giants in a surprise move in July 1948."
-1951 Bowman, No. 233 (Bowman Gum, Inc.)
Sunday, July 9, 2017
1951 Yankee of the Past: Lefty Gomez
GOMEZ FIELD DAY
"Lefty Gomez, the ex-New York Yankee pitcher, managed the Caracas team in Venezuela several winters ago, although he speaks no Spanish. The team finished one game out of first place. Gomez also managed the Binghamton, N.Y. team and finished in last place. 'It proves,' he says, 'that a manager is better off keeping his mouth shut' ... He never could hit, and his dream was of some day breaking a baseball bat. 'Years after I quit playing, I broke my first bat,' he reports. 'Ran over it, while backing my car out of the garage.'"
-Leonard Lyons in the New York Post (Baseball Digest, February 1951)
EATING JIMMIE'S WORDS
"American League President Will Harridge is still chuckling over his trip to the major-minor convention in St. Petersburg. He was on the same train with Lefty Gomez and Jimmie Dykes, new manager of the Philadelphia Athletics.
Dykes and Gomez had dinner together and when they were handed the check, Gomez jumped up with it, walked down the car to Prexy Harridge and presented the tab.
'I figure you might as well pop for this check,' Gomez declared. 'With Dykes back as a manager again in this league, you'll have picked up enough fines from him by the end of the season to still leave you a handsome profit.'"
-Lyall Smith in the Detroit Free Press (Baseball Digest, February 1951)
NOT EVEN A SINKER?
"At St. Petersburg, Fla., Lefty Gomez and other baseballers watched some kids perched on the Gulf wall spearing fish, throwing their pitchfork-like poles with uncanny accuracy. 'Why don't you try it,' one gent asked Gomez. 'You ought to have good enough control.' The one-time Yankee left-hander grinned and said: 'My control is all right, but I haven't enough stuff to break the water.'"
-Max Kase in the New York Journal-American (Baseball Digest, March 1951)
WANTED: LOCAL CALL, NOT LONG DISTANCE BLOW
"Lefty Gomez once faced Jimmie (The Beast) Foxx with the bases loaded and the score tied in the ninth. Catcher Bill Dickey called for a curve, a fast ball, then a change-of-pace pitch, only to have Gomez call him off emphatically each time. Finally Dickey called time and, striding toward the mound, bellowed: 'Why don't you throw the dadgumed ball?'
Gomez swallowed, twitched, and whispered: 'I'm afraid to. Let's just wait. Maybe he'll get called to a phone.'"
-Arch Ward in the Chicago Tribune (Baseball Digest, June 1951)
WHEN SNAKEY FAST GONE ALMOST FANNED GOMEZ
"Lefty Gomez, famous as a pitcher for the New York Yankees and as a practical joker, nearly ended his career with a prank in Atlanta.
Lefty picked up a realistic-looking paper snake while on a trip to Japan and brought it with him when the Yankees played an exhibition game with the Crackers. In the hotel Lefty entertained himself by coiling his snake beside a chair, waiting quietly until a lady sat down, then yelling 'Snake!' and watching her go into hysterics. The gag worked several times in the lobby.
Then Lefty planted his snake in the night club and yelled when a bus girl stepped over it. She dropped her tray and ran screaming to the kitchen. Seconds later she came back, with a carving knife. She didn't try to kill the snake, as everyone expected, but went after Lefty.
Observers in the club said if her skirt had not been too tight for fast running, she might have amputated one of the most famous left arms in baseball."
-Willard Neal in the Atlanta Journal (Baseball Digest, July 1951)
GOMEZ OF THE KEEN EYE
"Probably Lefty Gomez's favorite press clipping is from a New York paper and the story stems from the opening game of the 1937 World Series between the Giants and Yankees. It's Gomez vs. Carl Hubbell and after six innings it's a 1-1 tie.
'I lead off the seventh and you know what kind of hitter I was,' Lefty relates. 'Hubbell gets a little careless and throws two balls in a row. I stepped out of the box and looked to Art Fletcher, who's coaching third base, and he gives me the sign you'd expect. 'Take it,' he signals.
'I took it- a called strike. Again Fletcher signals the 'take.' Hubbell threw another ball and it's three-and-one. Now, just out of habit, I step out again and look at Fletcher and, naturally, he relays the 'take' sign. Hub throws a strike and it's three-and-two.
'Now I really look at Fletch and, with three-and-two, it's 'take' again. I step out and walk down to him, but Art has orders from Joe McCarthy on the bench and he says, 'Gomez, don't swing. Maybe he'll miss the plate.'
'Sure enough, Hubbell misses by half an inch and I walk. It upsets Carl so much we have a six-run inning and win, 8-1. But the payoff was the headline in a New York paper the next day. It said: 'Gomez's Keen Eye Starts Six-Run Rally.''"
-Francis Stann in the Washington Star (Baseball Digest, August 1951)
UNSPRUNG
"One of Lefty Gomez's favorite stories is about a trap play he and Bill Dickey, his New York Yankee catcher, planned for Hank Greenberg, one of the game's greatest right-handed sluggers while he was with Detroit.
'When I got two strikes on Greenberg,' he'll tell his listeners, 'Dickey was to step out of the catcher's box as if I was going to throw a pitchout. Then he'd jump back as Hank relaxed and I was to wing one over the plate for the third strike.'
At this point of the story he'll pause and wait for someone to ask this question which invariably follows:
'Well, how did you make out?'
'I don't know,' he'll reply. 'I could never get two strikes on the guy.'"
-Ed Pollack in the Philadelphia Bulletin (Baseball Digest, November 1951)
"Lefty Gomez, the ex-New York Yankee pitcher, managed the Caracas team in Venezuela several winters ago, although he speaks no Spanish. The team finished one game out of first place. Gomez also managed the Binghamton, N.Y. team and finished in last place. 'It proves,' he says, 'that a manager is better off keeping his mouth shut' ... He never could hit, and his dream was of some day breaking a baseball bat. 'Years after I quit playing, I broke my first bat,' he reports. 'Ran over it, while backing my car out of the garage.'"
-Leonard Lyons in the New York Post (Baseball Digest, February 1951)
EATING JIMMIE'S WORDS
"American League President Will Harridge is still chuckling over his trip to the major-minor convention in St. Petersburg. He was on the same train with Lefty Gomez and Jimmie Dykes, new manager of the Philadelphia Athletics.
Dykes and Gomez had dinner together and when they were handed the check, Gomez jumped up with it, walked down the car to Prexy Harridge and presented the tab.
'I figure you might as well pop for this check,' Gomez declared. 'With Dykes back as a manager again in this league, you'll have picked up enough fines from him by the end of the season to still leave you a handsome profit.'"
-Lyall Smith in the Detroit Free Press (Baseball Digest, February 1951)
NOT EVEN A SINKER?
"At St. Petersburg, Fla., Lefty Gomez and other baseballers watched some kids perched on the Gulf wall spearing fish, throwing their pitchfork-like poles with uncanny accuracy. 'Why don't you try it,' one gent asked Gomez. 'You ought to have good enough control.' The one-time Yankee left-hander grinned and said: 'My control is all right, but I haven't enough stuff to break the water.'"
-Max Kase in the New York Journal-American (Baseball Digest, March 1951)
WANTED: LOCAL CALL, NOT LONG DISTANCE BLOW
"Lefty Gomez once faced Jimmie (The Beast) Foxx with the bases loaded and the score tied in the ninth. Catcher Bill Dickey called for a curve, a fast ball, then a change-of-pace pitch, only to have Gomez call him off emphatically each time. Finally Dickey called time and, striding toward the mound, bellowed: 'Why don't you throw the dadgumed ball?'
Gomez swallowed, twitched, and whispered: 'I'm afraid to. Let's just wait. Maybe he'll get called to a phone.'"
-Arch Ward in the Chicago Tribune (Baseball Digest, June 1951)
WHEN SNAKEY FAST GONE ALMOST FANNED GOMEZ
"Lefty Gomez, famous as a pitcher for the New York Yankees and as a practical joker, nearly ended his career with a prank in Atlanta.
Lefty picked up a realistic-looking paper snake while on a trip to Japan and brought it with him when the Yankees played an exhibition game with the Crackers. In the hotel Lefty entertained himself by coiling his snake beside a chair, waiting quietly until a lady sat down, then yelling 'Snake!' and watching her go into hysterics. The gag worked several times in the lobby.
Then Lefty planted his snake in the night club and yelled when a bus girl stepped over it. She dropped her tray and ran screaming to the kitchen. Seconds later she came back, with a carving knife. She didn't try to kill the snake, as everyone expected, but went after Lefty.
Observers in the club said if her skirt had not been too tight for fast running, she might have amputated one of the most famous left arms in baseball."
-Willard Neal in the Atlanta Journal (Baseball Digest, July 1951)
GOMEZ OF THE KEEN EYE
"Probably Lefty Gomez's favorite press clipping is from a New York paper and the story stems from the opening game of the 1937 World Series between the Giants and Yankees. It's Gomez vs. Carl Hubbell and after six innings it's a 1-1 tie.
'I lead off the seventh and you know what kind of hitter I was,' Lefty relates. 'Hubbell gets a little careless and throws two balls in a row. I stepped out of the box and looked to Art Fletcher, who's coaching third base, and he gives me the sign you'd expect. 'Take it,' he signals.
'I took it- a called strike. Again Fletcher signals the 'take.' Hubbell threw another ball and it's three-and-one. Now, just out of habit, I step out again and look at Fletcher and, naturally, he relays the 'take' sign. Hub throws a strike and it's three-and-two.
'Now I really look at Fletch and, with three-and-two, it's 'take' again. I step out and walk down to him, but Art has orders from Joe McCarthy on the bench and he says, 'Gomez, don't swing. Maybe he'll miss the plate.'
'Sure enough, Hubbell misses by half an inch and I walk. It upsets Carl so much we have a six-run inning and win, 8-1. But the payoff was the headline in a New York paper the next day. It said: 'Gomez's Keen Eye Starts Six-Run Rally.''"
-Francis Stann in the Washington Star (Baseball Digest, August 1951)
UNSPRUNG
"One of Lefty Gomez's favorite stories is about a trap play he and Bill Dickey, his New York Yankee catcher, planned for Hank Greenberg, one of the game's greatest right-handed sluggers while he was with Detroit.
'When I got two strikes on Greenberg,' he'll tell his listeners, 'Dickey was to step out of the catcher's box as if I was going to throw a pitchout. Then he'd jump back as Hank relaxed and I was to wing one over the plate for the third strike.'
At this point of the story he'll pause and wait for someone to ask this question which invariably follows:
'Well, how did you make out?'
'I don't know,' he'll reply. 'I could never get two strikes on the guy.'"
-Ed Pollack in the Philadelphia Bulletin (Baseball Digest, November 1951)
Friday, June 30, 2017
1951 Yankee of the Past: Hugh Casey
HUGH CASEY - OF ANOTHER ERA
Cutlass Personality Cursed by Timing
"Hugh Casey's personality was shaped for the business end of a buccaneering cutlass and he was cursed by timing which hurled him swearing into the opaque, gray tones of the Twentieth Century. Spiritually, he belonged in the company of Robin Hood or the Black Prince's brawling bands, but destiny chose to match him with a society based upon capital gains and a fly-blown tenor leaking in through the radio. He should have pitched for the likes of John McGraw or George Stallings. Instead, he was forced to sweat with athletic young businessmen motivated almost entirely by the figures in their contracts.
For Hugh Casey was the old-fashioned ball player who chased red likker with Tabasco sauce, doused umpires with sprays of tobacco juice and played with a passion for his profession. There was little beauty in his character, but he was bleakly sincere- a man of raw courage and physical skills.
In the early hours of a Georgia morning, Hugh Casey pressed the muzzle of a shotgun against his throat and touched it off. So he tore loose from life in a fashion geared to his primitive nature- with the burly fury of a bull smashing into granite ramparts. For Hugh Casey was not geared to subtle poisons or the cobra hiss of an open gas jet. If it had to be, it had to be by reckless violence- in a blood-dewed room with a thunderclap battering against him.
But this was only tragic anticlimax, for the essential climax of tragedy came in Ebbets Field on the afternoon of October 5, 1941.
One of baseball's noblest relief pitchers, Hugh Casey could never quite cover the price of fame for which he spent so much in craft and solid bravery. But on that autumn-tasting afternoon in 1941, the ultimate laurel seemed plastered against the palm of his soiled right hand.
This was the fourth conflict of the World Series between New York and Brooklyn- Yankees leading, two games to one. With the Dodgers grasping at the short end of 3-2, the Bronx invaders had filled the fifth-inning bases with two out and Casey strode in from the bullpen for the third time. He walked with a rowdy swagger- uniform fouled by sweat and dust- a brown sneer stained upon his face.
Joe Gordon waited at the plate swinging a bludgeon which had already claimed five hits in eight times at bat. One had been a triple, another had cleared the wall and Joe had driven in two runs. Working with a cunning patience, Casey watched the batsman lift a meek fly into the hands of Jimmy Wasdell.
In the bottom of the fifth, Dixie Walker doubled and Pete Reiser hit an Atley Donald pitch across the scoreboard to drive the Dodgers out front, 4-3. With Casey insolently in the groove, that seemed quite sufficient. For in the next three innings, he faced only 11 men. Johnny Sturm singled with two out in the fifth and Joe DiMaggio marked the seventh with a topped roller which was shabby for an infield hit. The others didn't come close.
In the ninth, Sturm was smeared on a placid nudge and Casey threw out Red Rolfe. Came Tommy Henrich, the pro, and Casey pitched with meticulous care as the count ran out at 3-2. From the press box, we could see the muscles along the Casey jaw in a rigid curve of bronze as he studied the pattern before him.
The Yankees play it by the book and, in this instance, the book called for a fastball. But the men of New York were unaccustomed to a Casey who played it like a Mississippi River gambler riding his luck on an inside straight. Casey came up with a curve against a left-handed batter.
Rearing back in a stubby windup which was without artistry but rich in power, Casey blew a blur of white across the inside. As such things are done, it was exquisitely molded. The ball came up to brush a corner and Henrich, waiting for a speed pitch, cut hard. But at the instant of destiny, the spin of the projectile screamed a warning.
Desperately he sought to check the momentum of bat's end, but it was all too late as his wrists collapsed and the swing went on as the ball swerved past his straining hands. Strike three and the game was over. Casey had beaten the Yankees and the World Series had come level once more.
But catcher Mickey Owen reached lazily across instead of shifting. The pitch caromed from his leather and rolled to the screen while Henrich went sweeping down to first. There was no fear on Casey's face- only fury seething beneath the peak of his cap. He brushed caution from his path and set out to overpower the enemy.
DiMaggio bored a single into left. With two strikes and no balls reared against Charlie Keller, Casey came in burning fast and Keller angled off the wall for two bases. Bill Dickey walked and Gordon rifled a long blow over Wasdell's questing glove. Four runs and that was the end of it.
Or was the end of it until six years later when found himself in another World Series with the Yankees? Pitching with heart and arms blended into a weapon of sinister magnificence, he entered into combat with thirty-five batsmen- allowed five far-spaced hits and a single run. He won two games, but he won them in a losing cause and losing causes are forgotten rather quickly."
-Walter Stewart, condensed from the Memphis Commercial Appeal (Baseball Digest, September 1951)
Cutlass Personality Cursed by Timing
"Hugh Casey's personality was shaped for the business end of a buccaneering cutlass and he was cursed by timing which hurled him swearing into the opaque, gray tones of the Twentieth Century. Spiritually, he belonged in the company of Robin Hood or the Black Prince's brawling bands, but destiny chose to match him with a society based upon capital gains and a fly-blown tenor leaking in through the radio. He should have pitched for the likes of John McGraw or George Stallings. Instead, he was forced to sweat with athletic young businessmen motivated almost entirely by the figures in their contracts.
For Hugh Casey was the old-fashioned ball player who chased red likker with Tabasco sauce, doused umpires with sprays of tobacco juice and played with a passion for his profession. There was little beauty in his character, but he was bleakly sincere- a man of raw courage and physical skills.
In the early hours of a Georgia morning, Hugh Casey pressed the muzzle of a shotgun against his throat and touched it off. So he tore loose from life in a fashion geared to his primitive nature- with the burly fury of a bull smashing into granite ramparts. For Hugh Casey was not geared to subtle poisons or the cobra hiss of an open gas jet. If it had to be, it had to be by reckless violence- in a blood-dewed room with a thunderclap battering against him.
But this was only tragic anticlimax, for the essential climax of tragedy came in Ebbets Field on the afternoon of October 5, 1941.
One of baseball's noblest relief pitchers, Hugh Casey could never quite cover the price of fame for which he spent so much in craft and solid bravery. But on that autumn-tasting afternoon in 1941, the ultimate laurel seemed plastered against the palm of his soiled right hand.
This was the fourth conflict of the World Series between New York and Brooklyn- Yankees leading, two games to one. With the Dodgers grasping at the short end of 3-2, the Bronx invaders had filled the fifth-inning bases with two out and Casey strode in from the bullpen for the third time. He walked with a rowdy swagger- uniform fouled by sweat and dust- a brown sneer stained upon his face.
Joe Gordon waited at the plate swinging a bludgeon which had already claimed five hits in eight times at bat. One had been a triple, another had cleared the wall and Joe had driven in two runs. Working with a cunning patience, Casey watched the batsman lift a meek fly into the hands of Jimmy Wasdell.
In the bottom of the fifth, Dixie Walker doubled and Pete Reiser hit an Atley Donald pitch across the scoreboard to drive the Dodgers out front, 4-3. With Casey insolently in the groove, that seemed quite sufficient. For in the next three innings, he faced only 11 men. Johnny Sturm singled with two out in the fifth and Joe DiMaggio marked the seventh with a topped roller which was shabby for an infield hit. The others didn't come close.
In the ninth, Sturm was smeared on a placid nudge and Casey threw out Red Rolfe. Came Tommy Henrich, the pro, and Casey pitched with meticulous care as the count ran out at 3-2. From the press box, we could see the muscles along the Casey jaw in a rigid curve of bronze as he studied the pattern before him.
The Yankees play it by the book and, in this instance, the book called for a fastball. But the men of New York were unaccustomed to a Casey who played it like a Mississippi River gambler riding his luck on an inside straight. Casey came up with a curve against a left-handed batter.
Rearing back in a stubby windup which was without artistry but rich in power, Casey blew a blur of white across the inside. As such things are done, it was exquisitely molded. The ball came up to brush a corner and Henrich, waiting for a speed pitch, cut hard. But at the instant of destiny, the spin of the projectile screamed a warning.
Desperately he sought to check the momentum of bat's end, but it was all too late as his wrists collapsed and the swing went on as the ball swerved past his straining hands. Strike three and the game was over. Casey had beaten the Yankees and the World Series had come level once more.
But catcher Mickey Owen reached lazily across instead of shifting. The pitch caromed from his leather and rolled to the screen while Henrich went sweeping down to first. There was no fear on Casey's face- only fury seething beneath the peak of his cap. He brushed caution from his path and set out to overpower the enemy.
DiMaggio bored a single into left. With two strikes and no balls reared against Charlie Keller, Casey came in burning fast and Keller angled off the wall for two bases. Bill Dickey walked and Gordon rifled a long blow over Wasdell's questing glove. Four runs and that was the end of it.
Or was the end of it until six years later when found himself in another World Series with the Yankees? Pitching with heart and arms blended into a weapon of sinister magnificence, he entered into combat with thirty-five batsmen- allowed five far-spaced hits and a single run. He won two games, but he won them in a losing cause and losing causes are forgotten rather quickly."
-Walter Stewart, condensed from the Memphis Commercial Appeal (Baseball Digest, September 1951)
Wednesday, June 21, 2017
1951 Yankee of the Past: Bucky Harris
"There's little doubt that Eddie Sawyer of the Philadelphia Phillies will justifiably grab most of the votes in any 'manager of the year' competition. But it's quite an honor being named top man in the American League and it seems to us Bucky Harris should rate the nod.
The sincere, hard-bitten pilot did a marvelous job breathing life and fire into a collection of second-division ball players. When Harris took over the Senators last spring, his many friends felt sorry for him. Clark Griffith had very few talented players on the roster. Most were so used to losing, they only went through the motions on the field.
Washington had finished eighth under the guidance of Joe Kuhel, in 1949, with only fifty victories against 104 defeats. You might say anything Harris did would be an improvement, but it's the extent of the improvement that stamps Bucky for consideration as top manager in the A.L. He jumped the Senators to fifth with seventeen more wins.
By tactful, yet firm, handling of his players; through smart trades and common sense handling of the games as they progressed, Harris changed the Senators from a joke into a scrappy team which gave everyone a fight. Bucky, a battler all his life, wouldn't stand for quitting. He developed a winning habit in men who'd never had it before.
Bucky took charge of lefty Mickey Harris and outfielder Sam Mele, Boston Red Sox castoffs who had shown little indication of being much aid to him. He made Harris a competent relief pitcher and built up Mele's confidence so firmly Sam became a near-.300 hitter.
Gene Bearden, who couldn't win for Cleveland in nearly two years, was obtained from the Indians and immediately became a regular and successful starter under Harris.
Harris made shrewd trades to help his ball club, too. Owner Griffith put the manager in charge of all personnel dealings, and Bucky made changes freely. His big deal was the June swap which principally sent pitcher Ray Scarborough and first baseman Ed Robinson to the Chicago White Sox in exchange for second sacker Cass Michaels and lefty Bob Kuzava.
Through the trade proved a standoff from the point of view of the players' performances in new uniforms, it sticks out as a good one for Washington, because Harris got young players for old ones.
Bucky has two more years to go on his present contract, and he's confident he'll be able to make a contender of the Senators in that time. He has a fine, young infield and three good young outfielders in Irv Noren, Gil Coan and Mele. But he needs catching strength and more mound help."
-Joe Trimble, condensed from the New York News (Baseball Digest, January 1951)
WHY YANKS FIRED BUCKY HARRIS
'Gate' Ready Before He Was Hired!
"To fully appreciate how deeply Bucky Harris' animosity toward the New York Yankees still festers, you need to sit with him for merely a few moments. This is the third season since General Manager George Weiss fired the field manager under whom the Yankees had won a pennant in 1947 and lost on the next to the last day in 1948, but Bucky takes you back long before that time to prove that he actually was fired before he was hired.
In the fashion of an actor waiting for his laugh, Harris allows the shock of the seeming contradiction to show and then the pleasant man, who is managing the Washington Senators, spins a tale that took place the day after the World Series ended in 1946.
'You'll remember I wasn't the manager then, but something like Larry MacPhail's ambassador. Later that fall I consented to take the club when MacPhail couldn't get anyone else he wanted. But this was at French Lick, Indiana. It was an organizational meeting.
'Every scout, manager and farm system man was there,' Harris said. 'MacPhail stood up and outlined each man's duties as they were to be from that point. MacPhail said I would be in charge of the Newark and Kansas City clubs. I didn't realize it then, but that was the moment I was done. Only one more moment needed to be added. The one when MacPhail left the Yankees.'
Tortuous and twisted as it seems, Harris' logic becomes clear when it is understood that Newark and Kansas City as Yankee farms were born and nurtured under Weiss. When MacPhail charged Bucky with what had been Weiss' responsibility, an uncementable cleavage was begun.
How much it grew beneath the surface Bucky was to learn the day after the famed battle of the Biltmore Hotel. This was the 1947 Yankee victory celebration, which was turned into a brawling mess when MacPhail canned Weiss, only to be cut loose himself the next day when Co-owners Dan Topping and Del Webb made George the supreme authority as general manager.
How supreme Harris knew as soon as he entered the swank Yankee suite high above New York's Fifth Avenue. Bucky walked to what had been his private office for two years but it was no longer his. There were others occupying it now, and Harris was told his desk and effects had been moved into a larger office occupied by stenographers and typists. Only they didn't remove the office help already there.
'I knew it then,' Bucky said. 'I was trying to win another pennant in 1948 and I didn't care what they thought when I insisted they bring up Bob Porterfield from Newark.'
Undoubtedly, Harris' insistence, which took the form of pointed statements to the press that with Porterfield in a Yankee suit the team could not miss, needled Weiss into the promotion of the talented but unfortunate pitcher who somehow has been unable to avoid injury and win.
Later that season when the rift between the front office and its field management became barroom conversation, Weiss flew into Detroit one day. The obvious reason for his quickie visit was to disprove that a breach existed between manager and general manager.
For all of his success, Weiss has never been a self-assured man. When you speak to him he gives the impression of wanting to back off, not certain of what he wants to say or how it should be said.
That was the way he appeared standing before Harris and the writers traveling with the Yankees that afternoon in a Detroit hotel when of the scribes asked, 'George, can we take your visit here today as a vote of confidence in Bucky as your manager?'
Weiss stammered and was about to make an answer that never will be known when Harris, himself, interrupted. 'The heck with that,' Bucky said. 'What's to be gained by bringing that up now?'
As New York writers, who are fond of him as a man, a manager and an information source visit Bucky, Harris recalls that question as though it had just been spoken.
'I've never forgiven myself for keeping Weiss from answering then. It was the only thing that was said that made any sense. In the time that has passed since that day, there's been only one other question in my mind. It's simply this:
'How would have Weiss have explained firing me, if we had won in 1948? He would have, you know, because I was done back in French Lick. What a dilly of an explanation that would have been.'"
-Milton Gross, condensed from the New York Post (Baseball Digest, August 1951)
"Bucky became manager of the Senators for the third time in 1950.
His playing days began in 1916 and lasted through 1931. He came into the majors with Washington at the end of the 1919 season. Given the job of managing the club in 1924, Bucky won the pennant during his first two seasons at the helm. He managed Detroit, 1929-34, and again led the Senators, 1935-42. He piloted the Phillies in 1943 and the Yankees, 1947-48."
-1951 Bowman, No. 275 (Bowman Gum, Inc.)
The sincere, hard-bitten pilot did a marvelous job breathing life and fire into a collection of second-division ball players. When Harris took over the Senators last spring, his many friends felt sorry for him. Clark Griffith had very few talented players on the roster. Most were so used to losing, they only went through the motions on the field.
Washington had finished eighth under the guidance of Joe Kuhel, in 1949, with only fifty victories against 104 defeats. You might say anything Harris did would be an improvement, but it's the extent of the improvement that stamps Bucky for consideration as top manager in the A.L. He jumped the Senators to fifth with seventeen more wins.
By tactful, yet firm, handling of his players; through smart trades and common sense handling of the games as they progressed, Harris changed the Senators from a joke into a scrappy team which gave everyone a fight. Bucky, a battler all his life, wouldn't stand for quitting. He developed a winning habit in men who'd never had it before.
Bucky took charge of lefty Mickey Harris and outfielder Sam Mele, Boston Red Sox castoffs who had shown little indication of being much aid to him. He made Harris a competent relief pitcher and built up Mele's confidence so firmly Sam became a near-.300 hitter.
Gene Bearden, who couldn't win for Cleveland in nearly two years, was obtained from the Indians and immediately became a regular and successful starter under Harris.
Harris made shrewd trades to help his ball club, too. Owner Griffith put the manager in charge of all personnel dealings, and Bucky made changes freely. His big deal was the June swap which principally sent pitcher Ray Scarborough and first baseman Ed Robinson to the Chicago White Sox in exchange for second sacker Cass Michaels and lefty Bob Kuzava.
Through the trade proved a standoff from the point of view of the players' performances in new uniforms, it sticks out as a good one for Washington, because Harris got young players for old ones.
Bucky has two more years to go on his present contract, and he's confident he'll be able to make a contender of the Senators in that time. He has a fine, young infield and three good young outfielders in Irv Noren, Gil Coan and Mele. But he needs catching strength and more mound help."
-Joe Trimble, condensed from the New York News (Baseball Digest, January 1951)
WHY YANKS FIRED BUCKY HARRIS
'Gate' Ready Before He Was Hired!
"To fully appreciate how deeply Bucky Harris' animosity toward the New York Yankees still festers, you need to sit with him for merely a few moments. This is the third season since General Manager George Weiss fired the field manager under whom the Yankees had won a pennant in 1947 and lost on the next to the last day in 1948, but Bucky takes you back long before that time to prove that he actually was fired before he was hired.
In the fashion of an actor waiting for his laugh, Harris allows the shock of the seeming contradiction to show and then the pleasant man, who is managing the Washington Senators, spins a tale that took place the day after the World Series ended in 1946.
'You'll remember I wasn't the manager then, but something like Larry MacPhail's ambassador. Later that fall I consented to take the club when MacPhail couldn't get anyone else he wanted. But this was at French Lick, Indiana. It was an organizational meeting.
'Every scout, manager and farm system man was there,' Harris said. 'MacPhail stood up and outlined each man's duties as they were to be from that point. MacPhail said I would be in charge of the Newark and Kansas City clubs. I didn't realize it then, but that was the moment I was done. Only one more moment needed to be added. The one when MacPhail left the Yankees.'
Tortuous and twisted as it seems, Harris' logic becomes clear when it is understood that Newark and Kansas City as Yankee farms were born and nurtured under Weiss. When MacPhail charged Bucky with what had been Weiss' responsibility, an uncementable cleavage was begun.
How much it grew beneath the surface Bucky was to learn the day after the famed battle of the Biltmore Hotel. This was the 1947 Yankee victory celebration, which was turned into a brawling mess when MacPhail canned Weiss, only to be cut loose himself the next day when Co-owners Dan Topping and Del Webb made George the supreme authority as general manager.
How supreme Harris knew as soon as he entered the swank Yankee suite high above New York's Fifth Avenue. Bucky walked to what had been his private office for two years but it was no longer his. There were others occupying it now, and Harris was told his desk and effects had been moved into a larger office occupied by stenographers and typists. Only they didn't remove the office help already there.
'I knew it then,' Bucky said. 'I was trying to win another pennant in 1948 and I didn't care what they thought when I insisted they bring up Bob Porterfield from Newark.'
Undoubtedly, Harris' insistence, which took the form of pointed statements to the press that with Porterfield in a Yankee suit the team could not miss, needled Weiss into the promotion of the talented but unfortunate pitcher who somehow has been unable to avoid injury and win.
Later that season when the rift between the front office and its field management became barroom conversation, Weiss flew into Detroit one day. The obvious reason for his quickie visit was to disprove that a breach existed between manager and general manager.
For all of his success, Weiss has never been a self-assured man. When you speak to him he gives the impression of wanting to back off, not certain of what he wants to say or how it should be said.
That was the way he appeared standing before Harris and the writers traveling with the Yankees that afternoon in a Detroit hotel when of the scribes asked, 'George, can we take your visit here today as a vote of confidence in Bucky as your manager?'
Weiss stammered and was about to make an answer that never will be known when Harris, himself, interrupted. 'The heck with that,' Bucky said. 'What's to be gained by bringing that up now?'
As New York writers, who are fond of him as a man, a manager and an information source visit Bucky, Harris recalls that question as though it had just been spoken.
'I've never forgiven myself for keeping Weiss from answering then. It was the only thing that was said that made any sense. In the time that has passed since that day, there's been only one other question in my mind. It's simply this:
'How would have Weiss have explained firing me, if we had won in 1948? He would have, you know, because I was done back in French Lick. What a dilly of an explanation that would have been.'"
-Milton Gross, condensed from the New York Post (Baseball Digest, August 1951)
"Bucky became manager of the Senators for the third time in 1950.
His playing days began in 1916 and lasted through 1931. He came into the majors with Washington at the end of the 1919 season. Given the job of managing the club in 1924, Bucky won the pennant during his first two seasons at the helm. He managed Detroit, 1929-34, and again led the Senators, 1935-42. He piloted the Phillies in 1943 and the Yankees, 1947-48."
-1951 Bowman, No. 275 (Bowman Gum, Inc.)
Saturday, June 10, 2017
1950 Yankees of the Past Alumni Team
Former Yankees on 1950 Spring Training Rosters
MGR - Joe McCarthy (Boston Red Sox)
CH - Leo Durocher (New York Giants)
CH - Red Rolfe (Detroit Tigers)
CH - Eddie Sawyer (Philadelphia Phillies)
C - Aaron Robinson (Detroit Tigers)
C - Buddy Rosar (Boston Red Sox)
C - Clyde McCullough (Pittsburgh Pirates)
1B - Dick Kryhoski (Detroit Tigers)
2B - Joe Gordon (Cleveland Indians)
2B - Gerry Priddy (Detroit Tigers)
3B - Hank Majeski (Chicago White Sox)
SS - Pete Suder (Philadelphia Athletics)
OF - Hank Sauer (Chicago Cubs)
OF - Charlie Keller (Detroit Tigers)
OF - Allie Clark (Cleveland Indians)
P - Ellis Kinder (Boston Red Sox)
P - Bill Wight (Chicago White Sox)
P - Randy Gumpert (Chicago White Sox)
P - Hank Borowy (Philadelphia Phillies)
RP - Gene Bearden (Cleveland Indians)
Sunday, June 4, 2017
1950 Yankee of the Past: Lou Gehrig of Columbia
"Lou Gehrig batted from a wide stance, spread-eagling the plate and taking a short strike. It wasn't as noticeable as it might have been in other players because of his tremendous bulk. Power, of course, was the great characteristic of his hitting, but he had all the attributes of great batsmen, the eyes to follow a curve ball, the judgment to pick out the right ball to hit, the ability to hit through a hole. He didn't have anything but power at first, of course, but all these came later, along with the ability to bunt when he had to do so.
To get the true worth of Gehrig's batting prowess it is preferable to take his runs batted in marks rather than any of his other figures. For instance, in 1931, when he set the A.L. record with 184 RBI's there were at least 47 times when he came to bat with no chance to drive in a run, except by a homer, since Babe Ruth, batting ahead of him, had hit a home run which meant there was nobody on base when Lou came to bat.
When you consider that Gehrig batted home no fewer than 1,991 runs in his time with the Yankees and that for ten of those seasons Ruth was hitting home runs to empty the bases ahead of him, you get some idea of the devastating power Lou packed in his bat. Since 1920, when records were first kept on this form of endeavor, Lou totaled more RBI's than anybody except Ruth himself.
Perhaps the first person to realize the raw power of Gehrig was Harry Kane, a high school coach of note who had Gehrig as his first baseman on the 1920 High School of Commerce team. Commerce won the Greater New York P.S.A.L. title and with it the right to a trip to Chicago to play Lane Technical High, the Chicago champions.
With the score tied at 8-8 and the bases filled with New York high school kids in the ninth, Gehrig hit one clean out of Wrigley Field. Probably the least surprised person in the park was Coach Kane. Harry had seen Lou bust'em before, and for farther distances, too. It was this blow, however, which first focused the national spotlight on Gehrig. Nobody could believe then, though, that a dozen years later Gehrig would be teamed up with Babe Ruth blasting home runs in that same ball park in a World Series.
Gehrig has been labeled a plodder. In many respects he was if plodding means thorough and painstaking application to the job at hand. Terribly green and awkward when he came up to the Yankees in 1923, Lou was an accomplished first baseman before his star had set.
When Gehrig started as a high school ball player, all he had was weight, power and willingness. He could hit a fast ball but he had to learn to hit the curve. And learn he did. Then he had to learn to field. That he learned, too, one phase at a time. One of his most exacting mentors was Wally Pipp, the man whose job he had taken with the Yankees. Pipp, one of baseball's finest characters, knew his career had run its course when he first saw the big kid from Columbia come up, yet Wally worked many hours with Lou teaching him the niceties of first basing.
Methodically, Gehrig set about mastering the art of first base. In high school and college he had pitched and played the outfield as well as first and he hadn't too much actual experience around the bag when the Yanks optioned him to Hartford in the Eastern League. One of the last faults Lou had to overcome to become a flawless first baseman was to curb himself on balls hit to his right. This last fault was indicative of Gehrig's character. He couldn't do enough work, so he repeatedly went so far to his right that he was fielding balls which properly belonged to the second baseman and there was no one to cover first after Lou had fielded the ball. It was a fault born of overeagerness.
Gehrig conquered this in characteristic fashion. Before each pitch, he mentally calculated how many steps he could go to his right for ground balls, taking into consideration the batter, the speed of his own pitcher, etc. He didn't work it out to a precise mathematical formula but it worked. As Pipp said of him, 'He didn't learn quickly but he learned thoroughly. He sweated each detail out and mastered it before he moved on to the next.'
In 1927, when what many consider the greatest of all baseball teams defeated the Pirates four straight in the World Series, Gehrig made some astonishing catches of foul flies in the first two games in Pittsburgh. Gehrig, in practice, had paced off the distance between the bag and the field boxes so he knew precisely how far he could go without running into the stands.
Pipp, Gehrig's predecessor, had a genuine fondness for Lou and even today Wally never tires of telling the story of how Gehrig took his job. He was bothered with a headache one day and asked Doc Woods, the trainer, to get him a couple of aspirin tablets.
Miller Huggins, the Yankee manager, overheard the request and told Wally to take the day off and he would start Gehrig at first base.
'Maybe you need a rest, Wally,' remarked Hug solicitously.
'A rest,' grins Wally when he tells the story now. 'What I got was a vacation! Gehrig went to first base and stayed there for fifteen years. The next time I played first base it was for Cincinnati in the National League, a year later!'
Gehrig's consecutive game record (2,130) actually began June 1, 1925, the day before he replaced Pipp when he had to pinch-hit for Pee Wee Wanninger, the Yankee shortstop of the moment. The Yankees never again played an American League game without Lou's name in the batting order until May 2, 1939, in Detroit when he told Joe McCarthy it would be better for himself and for the team if he were benched. He never played in another ball game and was dead twenty-five months later."
-Tom Meany, Baseball's Greatest Hitters (Baseball Digest, June 1950)
Sunday, May 28, 2017
1950 Yankees of the Past: Clark Griffith and Joe McCarthy
CLARK GRIFFITH
GRIFF PULLS OFF A FULLER It's Brushoff Of The Year
"The most determined brushoff in baseball history apparently has paid off and it's just one more example of the fierce, fighting spirit of Clark C. Griffith, the eighty-one-year-old bantam.
Griffith made up his mind last Christmastide that he wasn't going to like John Jachym, who had just bought 40 per cent of the Washington Senators and had completely astounded the old-line organization which thought it was entirely secure.
Griff never forgave Jachym for the latter's method of going about buying the Senators. Actually, it was all above-board and if Griff had any complaint coming it should have been against the Richardson estate which had promised him the 'right of refusal.' That meant that if and when the Richardson stock was sold Griff had the first right to refuse. Conversely, that meant that Griff would have the first option if buying up the block.
So Jachym, in a sense, was the innocent victim of a vendetta. The young ex-Marine was entirely unaware he was stepping into something about as clannish as a mountain family. His attempts to be the nice, young man with eager eyes made about as much impression as a man trying to whittle away mountain with a nail file.
Jachym was rebuffed at the winter stockholders' meeting. He fully expected to be named general manager or perhaps treasurer. He came out of that meeting with no more prestige than any reporter who covers the club. In fact, you could say less.
Jachym's next try was in March when the Philadelphia Athletics played the Senators at West Palm Beach, Fla. Jachym had a place down the road at Del Ray Beach. He came up to see the Senators and was avoided like a poor relation looking for a touch. The rebuff wasn't lost on Jachym.
At dinner one night he said wistfully that he was sorry about the way things had turned out. Then he gave his first intimation that he would sell when he said: 'I might dispose of the stock at the right price.'
Up to that point, Jachym was a bit nettled himself and vowed he'd fight it out in cold war. There were those who said that if the Senators did a nose-dive, Griffith would be on the spot and the fans would be clamoring for a change in ownership.
This school of thought believed that all Jachym had to do was bide his time and popular opinion would force Griffith's hand. But the trouble was the Senators got off to a good start.
When the Senators started to go down, the feeling was that the old regime was going to have a tough time keeping Jachym out. An added factor was that the Senators, thus far, were 57,000 below their home attendance of last year. The total Washington attendance last year was 770,745, a drop of about 15,000 from the previous year. The Senators claimed they lost money on that figure- that is, counting only the baseball admissions and not including concessions and rental for various functions in addition to the Redskin pro football games.
Maybe Jachym just got tired of being pushed around. For a man who had spent over a half-million dollars, Jachym had less standing around Griffith Stadium than one of the batboys. Jachym was never really aware how intensely his intrusion was resented. He wasn't quite aware, either, of Griffith's salesmanship.
Griffith controlled 44 per cent but when the time came for the showdown the old gentleman had his friends who gave him the voting power. You can't fight tradition and friendship- not even with money.
As for the brand new owner of the floating stock, there's a suspicion that H. Gabriel Murphy, the ex-Georgetown University manager of athletics, has plenty of hometown backing- undoubtedly from some fellow-members of the city's leading lights.
But Gabe Murphy is already entirely acceptable to the inner sanctum. He's a great friend of Calvin Griffith, fellow vice president of the Senators, and he isn't likely to make it embarrassing for Uncle Clark.
With Gabe Murphy in there, it is an entirely home-grown operation. The Senators have that 'no trespassing' sign out for strangers. Griffith is still a tough man to beat in a rough and tumble fight."
-Bob Addie, condensed from the Washington Times-Herald (Baseball Digest, September 1950)
JOE MCCARTHY
MCCARTHY COULD MANAGE"Joe McCarthy is too grim a fighter, too stubborn and too proud ever to quit under fire. Hence one almost has to accept as gospel truth the reasons of bad health that he offers for his sudden and unexpected resignation as the manager of the Boston Red Sox. There is little likelihood that he ever again will return to the game he loved and served with such distinction.
Marse Joe failed at Boston. It's unfortunate that his departure had to come on such a sour note because the small-minded men who don't know any better will derisively remark that he never could manage a ball club anyway and that it's good riddance. They'll even add that the records are false in proclaiming that the square-jawed Irishman from Buffalo won more pennants than John McGraw and Connie Mack.
They won't argue with the statistics but they are certain to revive the flippant crack that the needling Jimmie Dykes once tossed off thoughtlessly, never dreaming that it would gain a dubious sort of immortality. Jimmie only meant to be funny and to penetrate McCarthy's hide when he termed Marse Joe 'a push-button manager.' It sure penetrated and Joe never quite forgave him.
The inference, of course, was that the then Yankee skipper merely had to push a button and the belt-conveyer [sic] system instituted by Ed Barrow and George Weiss instantly would produce a Charlie Keller, a Joe DiMaggio, a Phil Rizzuto or some other great star from the minor league system.
Merely having good ball players isn't the sign of a good manager. He has to know what to do with them. It was there that McCarthy was so supreme that Barrow never hesitated when the time came for him to pick the greatest manager in his memoirs. He selected McCarthy. It should be kept in mind that Barrow is a blunt, outspoken citizen who says only what he thinks, let the chips fall where they may.
'In developing young ball players McCarthy never had an equal,' wrote Barrow. That is praise from Caesar.
It probably should be understood that Marse Joe never had the warm personality of either Bucky Harris or Casey Stengel. McCarthy they never loved. They admired and respected him tremendously but there was no depth of affection for the man. Sports writers who knew the three men intimately felt just about the same way.
Yet even today any Yankee player will tell you- preferably off the record so as not to hurt the feelings of Harris or Stengel- that McCarthy was the greatest of them all. Old ball players who have retired and have no ax to grind, such as Lefty Gomez, say the same thing.
Opinion is so unanimous that it just has to be believed. Perhaps it should be confessed that this reporter had an open mind on McCarthy's proper place in the managerial picture but finally was bowled over by the weight of evidence in his favor from those who know from actual experience far more than he does.
Marse Joe was never an easy man to know. He was a suspicious man with the press and it was only on the rarest occasions that he'd let down his guard and talk expansively. Yet even then he'd sometimes suddenly whip up his guard and begin sparring cautiously.
In Florida one day last spring he was sitting with three newspaper men he liked and trusted. Conversation was flowing easily when Marse Joe started to laugh.
'That reminds me of a story,' he chuckled. 'It's a very funny story. But- no. I guess I better not tell it.'
'Why?' asked Frank Graham.
'Because the fellow involved is still in baseball, 'and it might reflect on him. I know that you and Arthur and Red wouldn't write if I asked you not to. But it's so good that you'd tell it to someone else and he'd use it. Sorry, fellows, I'd better not.'
We never did hear that presumably hilarious tale. Yet is so typical of the man and his super caution. If someone asked him to compare Joe DiMaggio to Tris Speaker, particularly as to their abilities in going back for a fly ball, Marse Joe would clam up. Speaker played so shallow a center field that he was unequaled in going back for a catch. If McCarthy publicly admitted as much some writer might distort his words so that McCarthy would be saying Speaker was better than DiMadge.
Sounds silly, doesn't it? But that's the way he was, the toughest man in the world ever to interview. 'Let me worry about that,' was his now classic rejoinder to most questions.
When McCarthy quit as manager of the Yankees, the reason was obvious. He and Larry MacPhail were as insoluble as oil and water. Just before that, though, McCarthy's health began to fail. He was such a perfectionist that he died a thousand deaths with his wartime ball players and his now famed gallbladder attacks became more frequent. He even stepped out of character that year by giving Joe Page an unmerciful tongue-lashing in front of the other athletes. He'd never done anything like that before and it showed his jagged nerves.
But he was calmer and more like the old McCarthy when he took the Red Sox assignment before the 1948 season. Then he lost in a photo-finish playoff to Cleveland and on the final day of the campaign to the Yankees a year later. Perhaps he has now given up on the Fenway Millionaires just as everyone else has. This is the now-or-never year for the Red Sox, the last gasp for aging players before a complete retooling job is done.
McCarthy is too old at sixty-three to suffer through that. Besides, he has all the money he'll ever need. This isn't the most graceful way out but it almost had to come. Outwardly unemotional, he seethes inside. Another half season would have seen him consumed by his own inner fires, perhaps even killed him.
But don't let anyone tell you that McCarthy could never manage. The fellows who know more about it than anyone else, the impossible-to-fool baseball players, say he was the best. Suppose we let it go at that."
-Arthur Daley, condensed from The New York Times (Baseball Digest, September 1950)
Saturday, May 20, 2017
1950 Yankee Catchers of the Past
STEVE O'NEILL
O'NEILL - HARD BUT HUMANE
Unsinged by Many Firings
"During the opening day of the mid-winter minor league baseball meetings, the telephone in Joe Cronin's Baltimore hotel suite rang. Joe picked up the receiver half expecting a report on the long argued broadcasting regulations or a trade for the Scranton club. It was neither. Steve O'Neill was calling from his home in Cleveland. A broken foot had kept him from attending the baseball meeting, but it hadn't prevented him from being fired as a coach of the Cleveland Indians. Now he was looking for a job, any kind of job with the Boston Red Sox. Not a coaching job. He couldn't expect that because he wasn't an old Yankee or an old Cub and had no personal ties with Joe McCarthy.
Even the former Red Sox coaches under Cronin had gone when the new manager came in. Del Baker, who had won a pennant in the major leagues, went back to the minors. Larry Woodall had been named to a created job, super-sleuth in charge of quick looks at ball players. The head of the farm system was replaced by a McCarthy man, Johnny Murphy, the ex-Yankee pitcher. Even the trainer, the likeable Win Green, was shipped to the minors.
O'Neill knew he couldn't break in on a coaching setup such as this, so he didn't ask to be in the uniform-wearing department of the Red Sox. All he wanted was a job so he could stay in baseball.
The Red Sox general manager told Steve to sit tight and there would be a job for him somewhere, even if one had to be created. It was- Steve was named to scout the Midwest territory. Cronin knew, just as everyone around baseball knew, that Joe McCarthy was a well-heeled man of sixty-three years who might decide suddenly that he couldn't take it anymore. Two years earlier the Red Sox management had Del Baker for insurance in case McCarthy folded, but when Del Baker left, McCarthy's assistants were Earle Combs and Kiki Cuyler, neither of whom wanted to be a major league manager, having found that they couldn't take it with them when they departed.
Not every baseball man wants to be a major league manager. There are many coaches who have been offered big-paying jobs as managers but prefer coaching. Clyde Sukeforth, the man from Maine, refused the Dodger job despite the pleas of his players and his boss, Branch Rickey. Red Rolfe could have been a manager long before he decided to gamble on it. Some of the great players have refused to take the responsibility for producing a winning team. Bill Carrigan of Lewiston, Maine quit when he had perhaps twenty years of major league managing left in him. Bill knew that the money was good and the season was short, but he also knew that running a team from the sidelines is no life for a worrier. Take a look around the big time, even going back a few years, and you'll find that the only unscarred managers are Connie Mack, who owned the team he managed and couldn't be fired, Bucky Harris and Leo Durocher.
Most of the others are troubled by physical ailments induced by tension and constant internal turmoil. A few quit in time. Others, like Red Rolfe and Billy Meyer, keep charging on because they love the game more than they dread the pain.
McCarthy stewed and fretted and fumed inside, maintaining a cold, frozen look on the exterior to conceal the inner grumblings and growlings. Billy Southworth, although he looks calm and placid, is what is known among coaches as 'a bleeder,' but he controls his tension by working on the coaching lines.
O'Neill is not a worrier, not a pop-off. He has more animation than Burt Shotton, less nervous energy than Frankie Frisch. Steve found out long ago that today's bum is tomorrow's hero. He doesn't believe the ballyhoo when his team is winning and he doesn't believe the abuse when his team is losing. He has been fired often enough to know that the world doesn't end because of a personal failure. When he was fired, he didn't start blasting the owner or general manager who fired him. He just went out and started looking for another job.
At Detroit, Steve had his problems, among them Dick Wakefield. Steve was supposed to make a major league star out of Wakefield, who had been signed for a large handsome bonus and who was being carried year after year in an attempt to justify the management's original expenditure. Steve finally decided Wakefield was not his problem anymore. We sat with Steve in Lakeland, Fla. three years ago and asked him what he was going to do with Wakefield.
'I'm not going to do anything about Wakefield,' he answered, rubbing his chin. 'Wakefield is going to do something about Wakefield. He's a big boy now. I'm not a psychiatrist. I'll use only ball players who like the game.'
When Cuyler died just before the opening day of spring training this year, McCarthy, at the strong request of Yawkey and Cronin, hired as O'Neill as coach.
The portly one was not a natural choice for McCarthy. In fact, when the Boston Post's Jack Malaney wrote that O'Neill would probably replace the late Kiki Cuyler, the story was politely hooted by the baseball sharps. The Red Sox management hoped that McCarthy would give in on O'Neill, hoped that Joe would stop considering Steve the crown prince. McCarthy, naturally, didn't want to be nervously looking over his shoulder wondering when O'Neill would succeed him, but eventually, on March 1, okayed the proposition.
An hour after the announcement had been made, McCarthy was sitting in his office in the dressing quarters at Sarasota talking about his days at Louisville and his days at Chicago when suddenly he thought of something.
'One thing you can always remember about O'Neill,' he said, 'is when he handled Bob Feller as well as any manager that was ever was in this game. No one could have done better, probably not as well. What Feller is today he owes in a big way to Steve. A lot of managers would have ruined the kid. Steve handled him right. He wasn't tough with the kid and he wasn't soft. Feller was big and strong, and Cleveland needed pitching help. He was a tremendous drawing card, too, and the front office wanted him used to help the box office.
'Steve could have followed orders and injured the kid's arm. But he didn't. He told the front office that he would use him every Sunday. One game in seven days. That would help the box office and save Feller's arm. He wouldn't use him for a midweek game to drag in extra money. For that, you've got to respect Steve. He made a hard decision and he made it the humane way.'
Now O'Neill, as McCarthy's mid-season successor as manager of the Red Sox, is again making the hard decisions- the humane way."
-Gerry Hern, condensed from the Boston Post (Baseball Digest, September 1950)
ROLLIE HEMSLEY
THE BOY FROM SYRACUSE"The locale was Pomeroy, Ohio. Pomeroy was sadly in need of a catcher. The area in and 'round was combed for a backstop, but none could be found. Finally one of the more adventurous of the townsfolk heard of a youngster living in Syracuse, twelve miles away, who was highly praised.
When the young man appeared, the pitcher- fellow by the name of Grimm- refused to pitch him. 'Only fifteen,' Grimm scoffed. 'I'd break every bone in the kid's hand.'
After a prolonged discussion, the kid got into his pads and cage and caught Grimm amazingly well. Two years later, at seventeen, the kid was with the Pittsburgh Pirates. He was Rollie Hemsley, new manager of the Columbus Red Birds."
-Russ Needham in the Columbus (O) Dispatch (Baseball Digest, June 1950)
AARON ROBINSON
"Aaron batted .269 in 110 games in 1949 and drove in 56 runs. He is one of the game's better fielding catchers.
He has been in organized baseball since 1937. He came into the majors with the Yankees in 1943 but finished that season with Newark. He spent 1944 in military service and rejoined the Yankees the following season. Aaron was property of the White Sox at one time."
-1950 Bowman No. 95
BUDDY ROSAR
"Buddy was traded by the A's to the Red Sox at the close of the 1949 season. He caught 32 games for Philadelphia in '49 and hit .200.
After five years in the minors, Buddy came to the Yankees in 1939. In 1942 he joined the Indians and in 1945 was traded to the A's. Buddy went through 1946 [117 games] without an error. In 1948 he caught 90 games, hit .255 and continued his superior fielding, leading American League catchers with a .997 average."
-1950 Bowman No. 136
CLYDE MCCULLOUGH (Yankee Prospect of the Past)
"Clyde hit .237 in 91 games for the 1949 Pirates.
Clyde's first pro experience was in 1935 with Lafayette of the Evangeline League. He hit the majors in 1940 with the Cubs but finished the season with Buffalo. He bounced to the Cubs in 1941 and remained with them until traded to the Pirates.
His highest batting average was .287 in 1942. He was in military service for three years."
-1950 Bowman No. 124
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