"I can't imagine a team like we had playing two seasons under Joe McCarthy without winning a pennant. He's the best loser I ever saw. He never criticizes when you lose. He holds his tongue and words of advice until the team is winning or an individual is going well."
-Birdie Tebbetts, Boston Red Sox catcher (Baseball Digest, March 1949)
.500 MARK ALMOST ALWAYS A SPRINGBOARD
"It was Joe McCarthy who once gave utterance to the profound discourse on the importance of watching the .500 mark in a pennant race. He wasn't perhaps the first to think of it but he attached so much value to it that since then virtually all managers have come to accept it as their standard gauge of measurement.
Clubs who manage to keep themselves just a few games above the .500 figure still have a chance for the flag even when the race has reached the August turn. Unless, of course, some overpowering entry already has made a runaway of it. But when at least two teams are racing close together at the top, all the others above .500 have a chance.
Clubs which manage to keep abreast of the magic mark when things go particularly bad, especially during the first half, always remain threats in a closely bunched field. Those that fall below it at any time for any appreciable distance invariably are hopelessly sunk.
We can still recall the circumstances when McCarthy delivered his memorable lecture. It was at the close of a warm June day in Philadelphia where the Yankees that afternoon had come out on top in a torrid battle with the A's. The boys were gathered at a round table, discussing this and that, when Marse Joe suddenly blurted out, 'Do any of you fellows know why I pitched Red Ruffing out of turn today?'
'Well,' someone volunteered, 'it was a game you had to win or else you would have dropped to sixth place.'
'Shucks,' said McCarthy, 'what does dropping to sixth place mean at this stage of the race? Or even seventh or eighth? It doesn't mean a thing. But what does mean something is that .500 mark.
'This morning we were two games under that figure. Had we lost this afternoon we would now be three. But I went all out to keep us from sinking any lower. So we won and now we're only one below. Tomorrow we'll go with Lefty Gomez and if all goes well we should be back at the .500 level by tomorrow night.
'Never go below .500,' expounded Marse Joe with emphasis, although he did cautiously add, 'if you can help it.
'A club that can hold itself even with that figure, when things are going pretty badly, is never wholly out of the running,' he said. 'Let things get straightened out and the club goes on a winning streak and the next thing you know it is right up there with the leaders.
'But let a club sink anywhere from eight to ten games below .500, even in May or early June, and that club's season is pretty well wrecked. Because even if it does eventually get hot and win a bunch in a row it still isn't anywhere when the streak is stopped.'"
-John Drebinger in the New York Times (Baseball Digest, November 1949)
MCCARTHY HAD TO YANK KINDER
"The final game of the season at Yankee Stadium left a morsel for the second guessers, particularly those who live in Boston. They are asking:
'What did Joe McCarthy take out Ellis Kinder for? If he'd let him in there, the Red Sox would now be champions of the American League.'
When McCarthy took out Ellis Kinder in the eighth inning of the season's final showdown game, he made the right move regardless of what happened afterward. As John J. McGraw used to say:
'When you play your hand correctly, you can't blame yourself if you lose.'
And McCarthy played his hand correctly.
The Yankees scored one run in the first inning and then made only two singles off Kinder after the first inning, but the Red Sox were still trailing by one run when the eighth inning opened.
Birdie Tebbetts was leadoff batter in the eighth and he grounded out. It was Kinder's turn at bat, but McCarthy substituted Tom Wright, just up from Louisville after winning the American Association batting championship. Wright walked on a three-and-two pitch and Dom DiMaggio, the next batter, hit into a double play.
It was imperative that McCarthy use a pinch batter for Kinder. It is possible that Kinder could have continued pitching the same kind of ball that he had pitched since the first inning, but it is also possible that Vic Raschi, the Yankees' pitcher, would pitching the same kind of ball, in which event the game would end 1-0.
Boston had to win and to score. McCarthy had to get a stronger batter than Kinder up to the plate. Since his club seemed doomed to defeat it might as well lose by 8 or 9 to 0 as 1-0.
Mel Parnell was called from the bullpen and Henrich hit one into the lower deck of the right field pavilion, and when Berra followed with single Parnell was taken out and Tex Hughson substituted. The Yankees then scored three more runs.
Johnny Pesky started the ninth for the Red Sox and fouled out. Raschi, pitching carefully to Ted Williams, walked him on a three-and-two count. A wild pitch put Williams on second. Vern Stephens singled to left.
Doerr hit a full-blooded belt to right-center and Joe DiMaggio, running desperately, failed to reach the ball. It fell for a triple, Williams and Stephens scoring. Doerr came home on Bill Goodman's single after two were out, and the local season ended when Henrich pulled down Tebbetts' foul fly.
Had Kinder remained in the game the Yankees might possibly not have scored again, but it is also possible that the Red Sox would not have scored. It is cinch that Raschi would have been removed after Williams walked and Stephens singled in the ninth. The only reason he remained in the game was that he had a four-run lead at the time."
H.G. Salsinger, condensed from the Detroit News (Baseball Digest, November 1949)
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