1951 Yankee of the Past: Steve O'Neill

RELIEF WHEN NO RELIEF

"'You don't know what a blessed relief it is to see a well-pitched game,' says manager Steve O'Neill of the Boston Red Sox.

'I can't understand why pitchers make it so hard on themselves. Years ago the only time a pitcher threw one high or low or outside was when he wanted to ... when he had a reason.

'It wasn't that he had any more stuff; it was because he got the ball over the plate. He kept men off the bases so he could take advantage of his windup. We had a game a few years ago in which our pitcher walked the first man in seven innings. Imagine that! He forced himself to pitch with a man on first almost the whole game and couldn't use his normal windup to increase the effectiveness of his delivery.'"

-John P. Carmichael in the Chicago Daily News (Baseball Digest, November 1950)

"Steve belongs to a famous baseball family- he's one of four brothers who played in the majors.
His career started in 1910. The following season he was in the majors with the Indians. He played through 1934 and was in one game in 1942.
Steve was first a manager at Toronto in the International League in 1929. He later managed the Indians and Tigers. He joined the Red Sox as a coach and became manager upon Joe McCarthy's resignation."

-1951 Bowman No. 201 (Bowman Gum, Inc.)

STEVE O'NEILL TOUGHENS UP
Too Easygoing as Boss of Indians and Tigers, He Has Become the Toughest Red Sox Manager in the Last Quarter Century
"When Steve O'Neill picked up the hot potato Joe McCarthy dropped last June, it was questionable how long he could hold it. The Boston Red Sox had been too hot for the easygoing Joe Cronin and too hot for the phlegmatic McCarthy. O'Neill, one of baseball's nicer guys, had a reputation of being as easygoing as Cronin and if the Red Sox needed one thing less than any other, it was an easygoing manager. So, when Steve took over, Boston's vast baseball intelligentsia figured he wasn't the right man, either.
That was a mistake. The Irishman from the anthracite belt, after a quiet start, has turned out to be the toughest boss the Red Sox have had in a quarter of a century and, as of this moment, he has the most solid backing from the fans of any Red Sox manager since Bill Carrigan's time. For Steve O'Neill is doing something none of his predecessors either dared or cared to do. He has cracked the whip.
The man who said recently, 'We've gotta stop beating ourselves,' is the same man who was supposed to have been too soft on the boys when he was managing the Detroit Tigers. The man who would not let Ted Williams have his head is the same man who was supposed to have coddled Dick Wakefield right out of the American League, via New York. The man who would take no nonsense in Sarasota this spring is the same man who was supposed to have let everyone in Cleveland walk over him when he was managing the Indians.
Steve O'Neill may be completely out of character, but he is exactly what the Red Sox have needed ever since Tom Yawkey bought the club from the indigent syndicate headed up by Bob Quinn eighteen years ago. He realizes the Red Sox need a strong boss, and without being obnoxious about it, he has made a strong boss of himself. By his handling of Williams, he has proven he's willing to risk his job to put his point over, for no one in the Red Sox organization crosses Williams without leaving himself open to trouble from the top. If O'Neill were fired tomorrow, he would leave town as the best manager the modern Red Sox ever have had- even though he's managed them for barely half a season and finished third with them, at that.
He is walking a tightrope without even an umbrella to help him balance his huge bulk as he teeters his way along. He must satisfy high-priced ball players, a petulant press and a fickle public. When he answers a question, he can't give too vague an answer, for fear of being like Cronin, or too short an answer, for fear of being too like McCarthy. And, whatever he says, he must be careful about hurting the feelings of anyone making more than $25,000 a year.
It is in that last regard that O'Neill is gaining stature every day. He isn't afraid to hurt the feelings of ball players, and he doesn't care whether he hurts them or not. All he wants is $25,000 or more of baseball out of a man and, in at least one case, $100,000 worth. Yet he is being tough with kid gloves on his gnarled knuckles, for Steve O'Neill is, basically, a nice guy. He is not scattering the pieces around without regard for the consequences. Rather, O'Neill is stubbornly expressing his wishes, and stubbornly refusing to accept anything even slightly less than he demands.
He could have considered himself in an embarrassing position because of Lou Boudreau's presence on the club, for Boudreau the ball player is fresh from an eight-year career as Boudreau the playing manager. Instead, O'Neill welcomes Boudreau with open arms, for he knows the former Cleveland manager is going to help him as a ball player and not hurt him as an ex-manager. He knows it, even though most people won't accept that knowledge- for most people feel certain O'Neill was never meant to be more than a stopgap manager, with Boudreau standing by to take over the reins when the time comes.
What most people don't realize is that Boudreau and O'Neill are, as they have been for more than ten years, close friends and mutual admirers. O'Neill was Boudreau's manager when Lou was playing at Buffalo, a green kid fresh out of the University of Illinois. And three winters ago it was Boudreau who kept O'Neill from sliding back into the oblivion of the minor leagues. Just when it appeared that Steve, who had been fired as the Tigers' manager at the end of the 1948 season, was through, Boudreau called him to offer a job as a coach with the Indians. O'Neill knows Boudreau didn't sign with the Red Sox to take over his job. O'Neill isn't afraid of Boudreau. He doesn't have to be.
Since he has been the Red Sox manager, O'Neill has had only one explanation to make. That was the Birdie Tebbetts deal. No one knows for sure whether Tebbetts was peddled by O'Neill or by someone in the front office, but the solution is O'Neill's baby. Last January, when O'Neill was in Boston, just before the Baseball Writers' Dinner, he was asked why Tebbetts had been sold to Cleveland. The scene was the press room at Fenway Park and most of the baseball writers were present. Cronin sat at O'Neill's elbow and Cronin made no move to answer the ticklish question. O'Neill's reply was a lengthy discourse which added up to gibberish. Maybe Steve had no alternative. In any event, Cronin's failure to give the answer made it apparent that the front office wasn't willing to take responsibility for the deal.
Yet O'Neill and Tebbetts are friends, another point that most people don't realize. In 1947, when the Tigers sent Tebbetts to the Red Sox in return for Hal Wagner, the deal was made by O'Neill, then the Detroit manager, at the direct request of Tebbetts. Tebbetts certainly didn't want to leave Boston. It's just possible that O'Neill didn't want him to."

-Al Hirshberg, condensed from the Boston Post (Baseball Digest, June 1951)