"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.)
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