HIP-NOTIZING THE YANKS
When Bucky Harris Pocketed a Victory
"Red Ruffing and Bucky Harris, the old antagonists, sat in the shade of the Tinker Field dugout in Orlando, Fla., this spring and started cutting up old touches, as friendly as you like. They reached back twenty-seven years for their first 'do you remember when ... '
'I'll remember that pitch long after I've forgotten all the million others I ever threw,' said Ruffing. 'That's the day I wanted to kill you, Bucky.'
For Coach Clyde Milan, Harris filled in the details. 'I was managing Washington then, and trying to beat out New York for the pennant. Ruffing is pitching for Boston and we're tied up in extra innings and I'm going up there with two out and the bases full.
'I tell my fellows I couldn't hit Ruffing's stuff if I was swinging a park bench but I said if he throws one close to me, I'm going to get the ball game over even if I have to take it in the head.
'And that's what happened, almost. The pitch was just a little inside and I took it on the rump, forcing in the winning run. I was surprised when the umpire let me get away with it, but I guess he was anxious to get the ball game over.'
'No pitcher ever squawked more than I did, remember, Bucky?' said Ruffing. 'I wanted to pick up your bat and brain you before you got away from the plate. It would have been a strike if you hadn't jumped in the way of the pitch.'
That's when Ruffing learned a bit of baseball philosophy, he recalled. 'Steve O'Neill came up to me and said, 'Forget it, kid, that's baseball.' '
Harris, however, had a sequel to the episode that Ruffing never before had heard. 'You mean I never told you what happened after the game? Well, that was 1925, the year I was keeping company with Liz Sutherland, my bride-to-be. She was at the game that day and we were having dinner at her house with her father, the Senator from West Virginia.
'Liz wasn't much of a ball fan, but she knew I had a habit of getting hit by pitched balls and she said, 'Stanley, it looked to me as if you didn't try to get out of the way of that pitch.'
'Then the Senator, a wonderful gentleman, spoke up. 'Oh no, Elizabeth,' he said, 'Stanley wouldn't do anything unsportsmanlike as that.' '
Ruffing is now a troubleshooter for the Cleveland Indians, after a year as coach and after a year managing their Daytona Beach farm club. At Daytona, he was probably the only manager in Class D league history to drive a Cadillac, but that was understandable. When he had quit the Yankees, he had drawn more pay than any other pitcher in history.
'You kept winning ball games for eight years after you lost your stuff,' Harris said.
'That's right,' said Ruffing. 'I had to get cute. I had those fellows swinging at my motion. I gave'em the shoulder and all those fakes and threw everything at 'em but the ball, I guess.'
'The Yankees' Ed Lopat does it the same way,' said Harris. 'You sit on the bench and watch him pitch, and you can't wait for him to get up in the morning so you can start swinging at that junk he throws. Then when you get up to the plate you can't find anything good to hit at.'
'Hey, Bucky, how about the next time you faced me, in Boston, after you stole that game by getting hit in Washington?' Ruffing said.
'I remember, you threw the first pitch right at my head and I went down.'
'Yeah, Bill Carrigan was managing, and I didn't dare not to throw at you. It was a fifty dollar fine if you didn't dust a hitter off when he said to.'
'It's all right to take it out on a hitter who has hurt you,' said Harris, 'but I never could understand why they hold it against the next hitter, too.
'I was hitting behind Joe Judge against the Yankees one day, and Judge hit one right up in the seats off Bob Shawkey, and he throws the next four pitches at my head, just to get even with Joe Judge, he thinks.' "
-Shirley Povich, condensed from the Washington Post (Baseball Digest, March 1952)
"Bucky held down second base during most of his playing career. He was first a manager in 1924, when, as the 'boy wonder, ' he led the Senators to the American League pennant. In addition to the Senators, with whom he is back again for the third time, Bucky has piloted the Tigers, Red Sox, Phils and Yanks."
-1952 Bowman No. 158
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