1953 Yankee of the Past: Clint Courtney

"The stocky, rugged backstop was one of the American League's outstanding rookies in 1952. He led American League catchers in fielding with a percentage of .996. He was in 113 games and he made only two errors in 549 chances. He held his own in the batting department, hitting .286 and driving in 50 runs.

He came to the Brownies from the Yankee organization."

-1953 Bowman No. 70

"In 1952 Clint was named the [Sporting News AL] Rookie of the Year and also had the best fielding average among AL catchers. The only catcher in baseball to wear glasses, Clint broke into pro ball in '47, hit .349 for Manchester in '49 and .294 for Kansas City in '51. He played one game for the Yankees at the end of '51 and was traded to the Browns."

-1953 Topps No. 127

1953 Yankee of the Past: Allie Clark

"Allie was in 71 games for the Athletics during the course of the 1952 season, batting .274.
He has been in baseball since 1941. With Norfolk in 1942 he hit .328, then went to Newark at the end of the season.
Allie remained with the Bears, with the exception of three years of military service, until near the end of the 1947 season when he went to the Yankees. They traded him to the Cleveland Indians in December 1947."

-1953 Bowman No. 155

1953 Yankee of the Past: Tommy Byrne

"The White Sox obtained Tommy from the Browns in September of 1952.
A graduate of Wake Forest, he started his career with Newark in 1940. After chalking up a 17-4 record for them in '42. Tommy was bought up to the Yankees.
He was in military service during 1944 and '45, went to Kansas City for part of '47 and compiled records of 15-7 and 15-9 for the Yanks in 1949 and '50. Tommy went to the Browns in June of '51."

-1953 Topps No. 123

1953 Yankee of the Past: Lew Burdette

"Lew went to the mound 45 times for the Boston Braves in 1952, winning 6 and losing 11. He worked 137 innings, giving up 138 hits, and his earned run average was a respectable 3.61.
Lew has been in organized baseball since 1947. He appeared in two games for the Yankees at the end of the 1950 season but wasn't involved in any decisions. He was sold to the Braves in August of 1951."

-1953 Bowman No. 51

1953 Yankee Batboy of the Past: Alfred Kunitz

I WAS BABE RUTH'S BAT BOY
"Like the great showman he was, Babe Ruth did the most ordinary things with a grand flourish. He was pretty fast with a buck, too. One afternoon the Yankees were in their New York clubhouse, following a deluge which necessitated the calling of the game in the third inning. Ruth was one of the first to shower and dress, eager to get away. But the rain was falling in torrents and the yard outside the clubhouse was flooded with several inches of water.
Unable to contain himself any longer, Babe yelled to some of the players just coming out of the showers, 'I'll give any of you $25 to run out, just as you are, and get my car for me.' Ruth's car was inside a parking space inside the Polo Grounds about 50 yards from the clubhouse.
For a moment there were no takers. Then Truck Hannah, the Yankees' first-string catcher that year, spoke up: 'Babe, I'll get your car for you if you'll let me wear my athletic supporter.' To which the Babe replied, 'You'd be practically dressed then. In that case, I'll give you 15 bucks.' With no more on him than Adam after partaking of the forbidden fruit, Truck dashed out into the rainstorm. In a few minutes, Ruth's flashy, yellow roadster (I think it was a Stutz) drove up to the clubhouse door. Hannah dashed from the car into the clubhouse. Amid convulsive laughter, the $15 changed hands.
On another occasion there was the incident which, in my opinion, marked the beginning of the end of the Babe's playboy career and launched him into that period in which he became aware of the important place he occupied in professional baseball and of the responsibilities that went with it. The scene was the clubhouse in Yankee Stadium following the conclusion of the Yankees' dismal 1925 season. Babe came in, walked over to his locker and took out a small package. Then he went over to Doc Woods' rubbing table, near which rested a wastepaper receptacle, and started to tear to bits the contents of a package, which proved to be canceled checks. And aloud, to no one in particular but in a voice tinged with regret and resignation, the Babe sighed, 'Here goes $100,000 on the bangtails.'

How do I know about these incidents? I was there. I was bat boy for the Yankees in the early Twenties when the Babe, Bob Meusel, Home Run Baker, Ping Bodie, Wally Pipp, Duffy Lewis, Wally Schang and others were striking terror in the hearts of opposing pitchers.
This gang was the first Yankees' Murderers' Row. Others followed in the years to come. In all of them, Ruth's big bat was the most fearsome menace to opposing teams.
The awesome renown of this fabulous crew is captured with classic clarity in a story that's been making the rounds for years. After Waite Hoyt left the Yankee organization, for whom he had been a great pitcher, he joined the Pittsburgh Pirates. One afternoon the Chicago Cubs belabored him unmercifully, both with their bats and tongues.
Hoyt took the riding for just so long. Then, stepping off the mound in dramatic fashion, he headed straight for the Cubs' dugout. He scornfully ran his eyes up and down the bench. Then he snapped: 'You guys better shut up or I'll put on my old Yankee uniform and scare the hell out of you!'

As Bat Boy of the Yankees, a little of their glamor rubbed off on me. On a modified scale, I became what a later generation was to know as a V.I.P. In school the teachers treated me with kid gloves and it wasn't at all unusual to be asked by one of them in a joking, but nevertheless serious way to get him a baseball autographed by Babe Ruth.
I was a scrawny 110-pounder when I tried out for catcher on the DeWitt Clinton High School team in New York, but the coach showed me every courtesy and gave me every opportunity to show my wares. Around the block, I was much sought after as a friend by the other kids.
How did I get the job? Opportunity ... grabbing the Big Chance ... luck ... and a dash of Horatio Alger, in which the honest boy makes good.
It was during school vacation in the summer of 1919 that I got a 'position' as a turnstile boy at the Polo Grounds where the Yankees, as well as the Giants, were then playing their home games. My job was to regulate the turnstile as the fans passed through. The most attractive feature of the job, in addition to the 25 cents a day I got, was that the turnstile boys were allowed to knock off work at the end of the first or second inning, depending on the size of the crowd, and then had the privilege of a seat in the grandstand to watch the rest of the game.
One day, while watching the Yankees play after my stint as turnstile boy, I noticed that Home Run Baker, the Yankees' third baseman and, before Ruth, the most renowned home run hitter in the big leagues, had left his glove on the field after leaving the diamond in the ninth inning with the Yankees, for once, far behind. Since the Yankees would not take the field again unless the score was tied, I realized that Baker had forgotten his glove and, by golly, I was going to get it.
I was waiting for the Yankees to retire the side in much the same way a sprinter waits for the bark of a gun. The third out was the signal for me to dash out on the field, headed straight for the glove. To my dismay, I was not alone. Several also were racing madly for the glove. I must have gotten a good start for I reached the glove first and pounced on it. It was mine!
Next morning I read that some fan had run off with Baker's glove and how much Baker would miss it because it would take a long time for him to break in a new one. As much as I wanted to keep the glove- it had such a nice pocket, it was so nicely oiled and it had belonged to Home Run Baker, semi-divine to me- I was overcome with remorse. Prompted by my conscience, I hied myself to the Polo Grounds.
Phil Schenck, who was in charge of the Yankee clubhouse in the Polo Grounds and who later was head groundkeeper at Yankee Stadium, greeted me when I entered the clubhouse. He looked at me in amazement, and called out, 'Hey, Woody, come here. Some kid just brought in Frank's glove.'
Albert A. 'Doc' Woods, the Yankee trainer, came over, didn't say a word, but just fixed his eyes on me. I was half-scared to death at the thought of what he was going to do with me- you know, police, prison and so on. He scrutinized me for a long moment and finally spoke, 'You look like a nice, honest kid. We could use you around here. Do you want a job?'
Within two weeks after accepting a job of very minor importance, but with the high sounding title of general field assistant to Doc Woods, I was promoted to the most important job in a kid's world- bat boy for the New York Yankees.

For a kid to run about the Polo Grounds with the ball players was like being permitted to romp on Olympus with the gods. As soon as the wonder of it began to wear off, I felt thoroughly at home with the very same fellows who, only several weeks previously, were just as heroically grand and remote as those Greek gods on Olympus. In fact, many of the players began calling me by my first name or nickname, Allie.
One of my big disappointments, however, was that Babe Ruth, in the six years I knew him, never called me by name. The Babe had a very poor memory for names, and to him I was always 'Kid' or 'Hey, you.' However, I shouldn't have felt too badly about it, because Ruth hardly could remember the names of the fellows who played on the same team with him. They often joked about it among themselves.

In 1921 I was replaced as Yankee bat boy by hunchbacked Eddie Bennett. A mature, gnomish-looking chap, Eddie was signed because he was supposed to bring good luck- presumably resident in his hunchback. At any rate, he apparently had brought good luck and the pennant to the Chicago White Sox for whom he previously worked.
Bennett was in every sense a professional bat boy. He was under contract, he drew a salary, he had to be dressed in uniform on the field, and he accompanied the team on the road. I was none of these things when I was a bat boy. I was simon-pure- an amateur. I had done the same work but drew no salary. I wore my street clothes on the field. I did not travel with the team. So when Doc Woods retained me as his field assistant on Bennett's assumption of the bat boy job, I wasn't out a thing except the title.
To be fair to Woody and the Yankees, I did draw some type of compensation for my work, both as bat boy and as field assistant. My salary was a baseball, which Doc Woods gave me in the clubhouse after each game. There was always something humorous about the little ceremony that attended the 'receipt' of my salary. Doc Woods would reach into his ball bag and take out ball after ball, scrutinizing each one carefully to find the one with the least number of blemishes on it. I never could figure out why he didn't give me a brand new ball and let it go at that. But since he didn't, I was glad to get the next best thing- a ball that was clean and in good condition. I would make as much as ten dollars a week, a fine salary in the early Twenties, selling the balls to diamond enthusiasts in Central Park, near where I lived.
That was not all the money that I earned in my capacity as an amateur bat boy or field assistant to Doc Woods. I supplemented my income with tips I got running errands for the players. Usually the errands were to a neighboring sandwich shop to purchase light lunches for the players. It didn't take long for us kids around the clubhouse to realize that tipping was not practiced by all the Yankees. Some didn't even extend a 'thank you.' Ruth proved the most generous tipper.
As protection against the non-tippers, we kids worked out a scheme which, unfortunately, operated against the tippers as well. Without taking the players into our confidence, we set up what we called a service charge for each item of lunch. We would charge a player 15 cents for items that cost us a dime, etc.
Of course, there were other compensations for being bat boy of the Yankees. I frequently accompanied the players to movies and shows to which they were invited as guests. When Tex Rickard invited the Yankees as his guests to the Dempsey-Firpo fight at the Polo Grounds, I went along as Coach Charley O'Leary's 'grandson.'

I must tell you something about the husky young man who reported to the Yankees in 1923, fresh from Columbia University. I was in the clubhouse when this tall, big-shouldered, dimple-cheeked, handsome chap came in and was shown a locker.
Though a college man, he didn't appear to have the polish and savvy of one. His pants were baggy. He didn't wear the vest, which was in high fashion then, and his coat jacket was unbuttoned- more because of his big chest and shoulders than because of any disdain for style. None of the players took much notice of him. To them, he was just another kid who had joined the mad scramble to break into professional ball. He might and he might not have 'what it takes.'
To me, however, this green, awkward giant had it. His name and fame as a home run hitter at the High School of Commerce was already a legend to every high school kid in New York City, of which I was one. I went over and greeted him by name and introduced myself. We walked out to the field together, but once there he didn't seem to know what to do. He appeared shy. Charley O'Leary yelled to him, 'Hey, Gehrig, get up there and take a few cuts.'
Boom! The first ball Gehrig hit roared deep into the right-field bleachers. I was standing at the batting cage watching him take his cuts. Near me was Frank 'Lefty' O'Doul, who was destined to become one of the finest hitters in history, but who, at that time, was a fleet-footed, jovial kid who thought he was a left-handed pitcher. I heard Lefty, who was then with the Boston Red Sox and had come out to the park early, say, 'I never saw the Babe hit one that far up there.' Gehrig hit a couple more into the bleachers, and I gathered from the buzzing among the players that they were very much impressed.
Lou Gehrig, the green rookie, and I, the kid assistant to Doc Woods, became fast friends. And it is with pleasure I recall that I was on the scene at the Yankee Stadium in June, 1925, when Gehrig pinch-hit for Peewee Wanninger, the Yankee shortstop, to begin his unprecedented streak of playing in 2,130 consecutive games.
At the end of 1925, I quit my job with the Yankees. I was now completing my freshman year at Columbia, Gehrig's alma mater, and I felt that I had outgrown the work I was doing. But I had learned a lot of baseball in my years as bat boy and general handyman, skills which began to pay dividends in college and which, in June, 1928, led me back to my old haunts in the Polo Grounds.
However, I was returning in a different capacity- not as a kid carrying the bats, but with the hope that some kid would by carrying MY bat! I was reporting to Manager John J. McGraw for a trial as a catcher for the Giants. I was recommended by Andy Coakley, my baseball coach at Columbia who had recommended Gehrig to the Yanks.
It was quite a thrill to be greeted by Fred Logan, the clubhouse man, with whom I had worked for many years and knew intimately. Fred showed me to my locker in which hung a nicely laundered, gray road uniform with the classic name 'Giants' embroidered across the chest. I was very proud as I walked across the field for my first workout.
But I didn't tarry long in the old pastures. McGraw, who preferred his catchers big and brawny like Pancho Snyder, didn't think I was big enough to be a major league catcher. Maybe he was right. I only weighed 135 pounds. In any event, the experience was a big moment in my life.
Which leads up to the 'last chapter.' In 1935 I was coaching the baseball team at Richmond Hills High School in Queens, New York. I had a little fellow playing shortstop who could do better than the best I had seen around short in my bat boy days with the Yankees. This little chap could hit; he could throw; he could bunt; he [could] field; he had oomph!
I tried time and time again to line up a pro job for my small protege, but he was always turned down because of his size. In 1937 I approached Ed Barrow, general manager of the Yankees. He was not interested in my small player. Undaunted, I made a vigorous appeal, comparing my 'midget' to that other highly talented little shortstop- Rabbit Maranville. Mr. Barrow became interested. He asked for the kid's name and address. Shortly after my talk with Barrow, the Mitey Atom was signed to a Yankee farm contract.
It was thus the former bat boy of the Yankees was instrumental in bringing to his old team one of the greatest players the Yankees have ever had- little Phil Rizzuto!"

-Alfred Kunitz, Baseball Digest, August 1953

Alfred Kunitz is at present director of athletics at Rhodes School, New York, and chairman of the physical education department at the High School of Music and Art, New York.

-Baseball Digest, August 1953

1953 Yankee of the Past: Dixie Walker

GREATEST FIGHT ON A BALL FIELD
When Dixie Walker Took On Senators
"The other day the Cardinals were playing the Phillies and Dixie Walker was on the coaching lines and there was a man sitting in the press box who said:
'Every time I see Dixie, practically, I think about him in the middle of the darndest fight I ever saw on a ball field except, maybe, the Dempsey-Firpo fight that was held at the Polo Grounds. It was at Griffith Stadium at Washington away back in 1933, when Dixie was a young man, and I have seen many a fight since then, in ball parks and out of them, but this one I will always remember.
'Dixie didn't start it but, you might say, he wound it up. By the time he quit punching there were cops and detectives hanging all over him and he would have wound up in the pokey if it hadn't been for old Griff, although all he had done was to go the aid of a pal who was in trouble.
'Everybody was surprised to see him in there, slugging in all directions, because by nature he was a very peaceable fellow, as he is now. But he showed that day in Washington, as he was to prove in Brooklyn later on, that he was a very bad guy to monkey with and anybody who did was likely to wind up minus a few teeth. Like that hoodlum who started something with one of the other Dodgers one day at Ebbets Field and got sloughed by Dixie.
'Anyway,' the man said, 'this day in Washington, when Dixie was with the Yankees, his pal, Ben Chapman, slid into Buddy Myer, the Senators' second baseman, and knocked him down. While they were both on the ground, Buddy took a swing at Ben and then they got up and were trading punches when the umpires broke it up and chased the two of them out of the ball game.
'Buddy left the field without an argument, but Ben, who was a red neck kid if I ever saw one, kept yelling that Buddy had hit him first and wanting to know why he should be put out. Joe McCarthy knew he had to go, of course, and said to Dixie, who was on the bench: 'Run down to the bullpen and warm up in a hurry because you will have to take Chapman's place in left field as soon as they get the ball game going again.'
'Dixie grabbed his glove and ran down there. He was throwing a couple to the bullpen catcher to get his arm loosened up quick because Chapman was out on the play at second and that was the third out. About this time, Ben decides he has said about everything he can think of to the umpires and starts for the clubhouse. He is still steaming and when he gets to the Senators' dugout, through which he has to pass to get to the clubhouse, there is Earl Whitehill standing at the top of the stairs leading to the tunnel.
'Whitehill was one of the best pitchers in the league in those days and a handsome dark-haired guy, and cocky, too, and, as Chapman was about to pass him, Earl said:
' 'Well, you swell-headed -----, you finally got what was coming to you, didn't you?'
'Chapman hit him in the mouth with a right hand that almost knocked him down the stairs and then the fight really started. All the Washington players were trying to hit Chapman and fans were climbing out of the stands, trying to get at him, too, and cops were running in to put a stop to it and all of a sudden there was Dixie. He was yanking guys off his pal Chapman and belting them, which left Ben free to do some more punching on his own, and I never saw anything like it.
'The two of them kept a small circle about them and hit everybody in range- Senators, fans, everybody. It seems that a couple of the guys in store clothes they hit were detectives, although, of course, they didn't know who they were. But they soon found out because the detectives and the uniformed cops closed in on them and hauled them off and down the steps to the clubhouse. The cops told them to shower and dress because they were pinched and there was a police car waiting to take them to the pokey. Just then old Griff came in and said to the cops:
' 'Look, don't arrest these boys. The Yankees are going to Philadelphia right after the game. Let them leave town with their ball club. The league will take of them, I am sure, because I am going to call Mr. Harridge in Chicago and tell him what happened and I want Chapman, anyway, suspended and fined.'
'So,' the man said, 'the cops agreed to do as Griff asked but to make sure Ben and Dixie would leave town, they took them down to the Union Station in the police car and made sure they got on the train for Philadelphia with the rest of the Yankees. My recollection is that Harridge, who flew to Philadelphia to hold a hearing in the Yankees' clubhouse at Shibe Park, fined Chapman and Myer and suspended Chapman for three days and let Dixie off with a small fine, if any, and a slight lecture, and I have liked him for that, among many other things, ever since.' "

-Frank Graham, condensed from the New York Journal-American (Baseball Digest, June 1953)

"Dixie joins the Cardinals' coaching staff after three years as manager of Atlanta. He put in 23 seasons as an active player- 17 in the majors. Dixie played with the Yankees, White Sox, Tigers, Dodgers and Pirates. He hit .300 or better 11 times and won the National League batting crown with .357 in 1944.
In Brooklyn, Dixie is still known as 'The People's Cherce' because of his ability to come through with men on base."

-1953 Topps No. 190

1953 Yankee of the Past: Dick Wakefield

PROMISE TO A MOTHER
It Was A Real Nice Pitch
"The name of Dick Wakefield cropped up in the conversation. It does frequently when baseball men are talking, because baseball men have been trying for years to figure out how one guy can look as good in a baseball suit as Wakefield does, and play so poorly.
'When Wish  Egan signed him for the Tigers,' a fellow was saying, 'he bought a million dollars' worth of ability for $52,000. On top of everything else, Dick is just about as decent, pleasant a guy as you could meet.'
'He is that,' said Birdie Tebbetts, the old catcher and new manager of Indianapolis. 'Of course, I've always felt especially close to him because when he joined the Detroit club I was catching there and Dick's mother wrote me a sweet letter asking me to look after her boy.'
'And did you?'
'It's not for me to say,' Birdie said, 'but I'll tell you a story. I was with Cleveland last season, you know, and you remember that Wakefield was out in Tucson trying for a job with the Indians. You never saw anybody, a rookie or a veteran, work harder than Dick did. He really gave it everything and everybody liked him.
'Before spring training ended, though, Manager Al Lopez took him aside and told him, 'Dick, I don't want to hurt you. The way things are, you can only sit on the bench as my sixth outfielder, and that means that the first time we have to cut the squad you have to go. I think it would be better for you if we turned you loose now so you could hunt up a job before all the managers have their clubs set.'
'Dick agreed that would be best, too, so the Indians released him and he joined the Giants to try out with them. He worked just as hard with New York as he had with us. Durocher was fond of him.
'On the way home, we were playing the Giants in Shreveport. We beat 'em, 1-0. I remember particularly because I got the base hit that drove in the run. I was catching a kid pitcher when Dick came up as a pinch hitter in the ninth. I think it was his first time at bat with the  Giants.
'Now, I happened to know the score on the kid pitcher. It had already been determined that the Indians would send him out, so his future wasn't at stake here. I called for the pitch I thought Dick would be most likely to hit well.
'He did. He knocked the cover off the ball. A line drive to left-center for two bases. The next batter popped up and the game was over, 1-0.
'Walking off the field, I met Herman Franks, the Giants' coach. 'You took pretty good care of your boy,' he said to me.
'I said, 'What was the pitch? Did it have anything on it?'
' 'Yes,' Herman said. 'Pretty good stuff.'
' 'And what was the next pitch?' I said. 'The one the next hitter popped up. It was the same pitch, wasn't it?' Herman said it was.
' 'All right,' I said, 'so what are you popping off about?'
' 'Listen,' I told him, 'I don't take care of any guy when he's up there hitting against me. Spring training game or a championship, batters are all alike to me. I wouldn't take care of you. I wouldn't take care of my mother.' '
As Birdie finished the tale, his face was as straight as bonded rye.
'It was a real nice pitch,' he said. 'The one I figured Wakefield would be least likely to look very bad on. I told Franks I wouldn' take care of my mother. I didn't say Dick's mother.' "

-Red Smith, condensed from the New  York Herald Tribune (Baseball Digest, March 1953)

1953 Yankee of the Past: Lefty O'Doul

MANAGER MEANS ONLY 5 PER CENT TO TEAM: O'DOUL
"Francis J. O'Doul, San Diego manager, generalizes the art of managing, thus:
'Some fans expect miracles of managers like they do of a football coach. There are no trick plays, no short cuts. Everything is standardized. In a certain situation, you do a certain thing. Fundamental baseball is the same, whether it's in the majors or Class D.
'For every tough manager who wins a pennant, I can show you an easy manager who did just as good. I guess I'm an easy manager. There is no fool-proof formula. Unless you have the players, the bat boy could do no worse than a $20,000 manager. An ordinary smart bat boy knows when to bunt, when to pull in the infield, when to fill an open base. High school kids know that.'
By this time O'Doul knew he was talking himself out of the manager's guild.
'Don't get me wrong,' Lefty amended. 'A team needs a manager like Boy Scouts need a scoutmaster. Somebody has to be in charge. What I'm saying is the difference between a winning manager and a losing manager is about 5 per cent- if they both have teams of equal ability.
'The small difference is in guessing right. Guessing when to yank a pitcher. Guessing when to put in the right pinch hitter, and even then it's mostly luck. In the long run, the 5 per cent edge comes from knowing your players, knowing their personal problems, getting next to them so they'll put out for you, and keeping discipline, but not like a cop.'
For all his protestations that baseball strategy is standardized and conventional, O'Doul does admit room for the unexpected. Once in a while he defies conventions by playing baseball backwards, so to speak. More so than any other manager.
'What's the word I'm reaching for?' he appealed. 'Intuition. That's it. Thanks. Intuition means the right hunch, depending on which side of the bed you tumbled out that morning. I win some games on intuition. About 1 per cent of the 5 per cent.'"

-Will Connolly, San Francisco Chronicle (Baseball Digest, February 1953)

1953 Yankee of the Past: Johnny Lindell

HIS 119 WINS SPUR LINDELL'S COMEBACK BID
"Johnny Lindell has a lifetime pitching record of 119 victories and 61 defeats.
Few major league pitchers will carry such a record into the 1953 campaign.
Mostly, if hurlers cop two-thirds of their games, they're well above the average.
Lindell reported to the New York Yankees in 1942 as a pitcher, but most of his big league career found him playing the outfield.
Now he's trying to come back in the big show, but not as an outfielder. He's up again as a pitcher with the Pittsburgh Pirates after a lapse of more than ten years.
I caught up with Lindell just before he left for spring training.
'Yes, I think can pitch winning ball in the majors,' said good-looking Johnny, who not only looks good but has the air of a champion if he's only out walking. Standing six-foot-five and weighing well over 200 pounds, Lindell even at 36 is a pretty fine physical specimen.
John's smart, too, and a fine team man. Once when he was being considered for the 'most valuable' award at Hollywood, I asked Manager Fred Haney to compare him with another player under discussion.
'Lindell's worth more on the bench than ----- is on the field.'
'I didn't get a chance to pitch much with the Yankees,' said Lindell, 'because when I went up they had the best pitching staff in baseball.
'Picture me trying to break in against Red Ruffing, Spud Chandler, Marius Russo, Hank Borowy, Atley Donald, Ernie Bonham and Fireman Johnny Murphy! It couldn't be done.
'On top of that I was trying to throw the knuckler and they didn't want me to do that. Said it'd make my arm sore. Shucks, Dutch Leonard threw it a long, long time and never had a sore arm.
'But I'm not kicking ... it was great fun with the Yankees, and it was lucky for me I could hit a bit so they played me in the outfield.'
Hit a bit is right. In the 1947 World Series Lindell batted a cool .500.
Back to that 119-61 pitching record. With the exception of two- one with the Yankees in 1942, all of John's hurling games were in the minor leagues.
So the question before the house is this: Can he win in the majors?
Lindell says he can and so does Haney, who'll manage him at Pittsburgh.
'That knuckler is just as hard to hit in the majors as in the minors,' says Haney. 'Lindell's only problem is getting it over. The major leaguers won't bite at as many bad pitches as the minors.'
Now there's one other question ... Can Lindell win with the Pirates?
When Lindell won 23 and lost but four with Newark in 1941 he was tabbed as the minor league player of the year. Of his four defeats three were 2-1, 1-0 and 2-1, one of these in 12 innings.
Last year with Hollywood, Big Jawn led the Pacific Coast League moundsmen in several departments.
His won and lost record was 24-9. He led in total victories, winning percentage (.727) and complete games (26).
And he was top man in strikeouts (190) and low-hit games, as well as most bases on balls (108).
This latter is important because it indicates that work is needed to gain mastery of the difficult knuckler.
'I'm lucky that Mike Sandlock is going up with me,' said John. 'The right kind of catching is most important to a knuckleball pitcher.'
Lindell worked out a bit every other day during the off-season. His winter league pitching was curtailed on orders from Commissioner Ford Frick.
'It seems that as an ex-major leaguer now headed back to the majors, I came under the rule which prohibits any baseball competition 30 days after the close of the season,' said Lindell.
Having known Big Jawn for a long time I have an idea he'll be fully ready for his second big chance. If only it wasn't with the hapless Pirate crew!"

-Braven Dyer, Los Angeles Times (Baseball Digest, April 1953)

"After eight seasons in the majors as an outfielder, Johnny returned to the majors again in 1953, this time as a pitcher. He broke in with Joplin in 1936 with a 17-8 mark and joined the Yankees after a 23-4 season in 1941 at Newark. The Yanks converted him into an outfielder, [where he remained] until returning to the mound for Hollywood of the Pacific Coast League in 1950."

-1953 Topps No. 230

1953 Yankee of the Past: Jerry Priddy

"Gerry Priddy of the Tigers has made a courageous comeback after breaking his leg last year. He was told by doctors last Christmas he would never play ball again but Priddy refused to believe them. 'I decided I had to get that broken leg out of my mind,' Priddy said, 'so the first thing I did when I threw away the crutches was to practice sliding. The first time was the hardest but when I got rid of that mental block, I knew I had the thing licked.'"

-Bob Addie, Washington Times-Herald (Baseball Digest, September 1953)

"Jerry came up to the Yankees from Kansas City in 1941 after four straight seasons of batting over .300 in the minors. He was traded to the Senators in '43, the Browns in '47 and to the Tigers in December of '49.
A great fielder, Jerry topped all second basemen in assists in '46, '50 and '51 and in putouts in '47, '48, '49 and '51. In 1950, he broke a 15-year-old major league record for second basemen by taking part in 150 double plays."

-1953 Topps No. 113

1953 Yankee of the Past: Mike McNally

IT WENT INTO EXTRA ROUNDS
"Mike McNally, the Cleveland Indians' farm chief, tells how his wife discovered early in their married life at Wilkes-Barre, Pa., that ball games often last extra innings.
'But she didn't know much about prize fights,' McNally added. 'So this night I went to a boxing show with a few of the boys and didn't get home until 1:30 in the morning. My bride naturally wondered what had happened to me.
''The fight,' I told her, 'lasted 43 rounds. You wouldn't want me to walk out on that kind of battle, would you?''"

-Ed McAuley in the Cleveland News (Baseball Digest, March 1953)

1953 Yankee of the Past: Frank Shea

"'Hey, you're getting freckles on your hand, Spec,' said one of the Washington Senators sunning himself next to Spec Shea by the clubhouse after a workout. 'Yeah, funny thing,' Shea replied, 'but that's the only aftermath I have from that burn I got during the war. A few freckles when I stay in the sun too long, but for five days I thought I'd be blind for life.'
The incident occurred two weeks after the Normandy invasion. 'I don't know what happened,' said Frank, the laughing boy of the Senators, 'but I was standing too close to a gasoline drum in the woods when it blew up and the gasoline sprayed all over my  hands and head.'
Shea ran around blind, screaming, out of his mind, until a buddy from Chicago grabbed him, shoved Spec in a jeep and headed for a first aid unit. 'I owe a lot to that kid,' Shea said, 'because if he hadn't acted as quickly as he did I'd probably be blind.
'He got help for me in a hurry,' Shea continued. 'They put enough goo on me to grease a fleet of trucks. All I could think of was going blind. I was scared, real scared.'
Five days later, Sgt. Shea could distinguish light. 'I don't know, maybe somebody else has been happier,' Frank said, 'but I think I established a new record for happiness when I knew I was going to see again.'
Shea has a large photograph of himself with 'no hair on my head, no eyelashes, no eyebrows, and my head twice the size it is now. I looked like something out of a Frankenstein movie. Man, you guys don't appreciate how handsome I am now.'
That frightening experience didn't teach Frank to keep his distance from gasoline. During the off-season he operates a gas station in his home town, Naugatuck, Conn., making a living from what nearly blinded him."

-Burton Hawkins in the Washington Star (Baseball Digest, May 1953)

"After a 1951 season with the Yankees that wasn't too successful, Frank was sent to Washington, and his work was a bright spot for the Senators. He appeared in 22 games, won 11 and lost 7, and his earned run average was a nice 2.93.
Frank first came to the Yankees in 1947 and had a 14-5 record that year, giving him a .737 winning percentage, best in the league."

-1953 Bowman No. 141

"In 1952, Spec turned in his best season since breaking into the majors in spectacular fashion with the Yankees in 1947. That year he had a league leading [.737 winning percentage] (14-5 record), won two World Series games and gained the victory in the All-Star Game.
Arm trouble plagued Frank after '47. He had a 9-10 record in '48, went to Newark in '49 and Kansas City in '50. In '51 he was 5 and 5 for the Yanks and was traded to the Senators in May of '52."

-1953 Topps No. 164

1953 Yankee of the Past: Dutch Leonard (acquired but traded before playing for Yankees)

"Hubert 'Dutch' Leonard, star pitcher for the champion 1916 Boston Red Sox, who died recently, authored for that team one of the screwiest no-hitters known to man or boy. On August 29, 1916, he started against St. Louis, a club that had beaten him only once in his career, and was knocked out of the game in the first inning, according to Jerry Nason of the Boston Globe. Leonard was enraged when Manager Bill Carrigan refused his request to face the Browns the following day. Carrigan finally relented and started Leonard, who pitched a 4-0 no-hitter on August 30."

-Baseball Digest, January 1953

1953 Yankee of the Past: Karl Drews

OPERATION FOR VICTORY
Skull Fracture Turned Drews Into Winner
"After you've been up to the majors and you go down it is never the same. The promise for Karl Drews had been bright in the post-war year of 1946, but now it was 1950 and the tall pitcher from Staten Island had gone from the Yankees to the Browns and then down to Baltimore. He'll always remember what happened that year and what happened on Memorial Day when he tried to complete the last out in the opener of the double-header.
It was a routine play. A ground ball between the pitcher's mound and first base. The Baltimore first baseman came over for the play, but he couldn't reach the grounder. Second Baseman Eddie Pellagrini raced to field the ball and Drews, making a play that pitchers make hundreds of times, sped to first to cover.
Pellagrini's throw was low and off the base. It forced Drews into a stretch and into the baseline. Dutch Mele of Syracuse, who was the runner, crashed into Karl, his pumping knee catching Drew in the left temple.
Karl never made the play. He collapsed, blood gushing from his skull. For 12 hours the bleeding couldn't be stopped and when it was finally halted, a surgeon probed into Karl's fractured skull for three bone splinters which had pierced his brain.

They found the bone fragments and removed them. In their place they put a three-by-three silver plate. They laugh about it on the Phillies bench now. It's a running gag that when Drews goes to bat he doesn't need the protection of a batting helmet, at least not on the left side of his head.

It's no longer a gag, though, about Drews' ability to pitch winning baseball and when you talk to Karl about it he traces it all back to the operation. It not only saved his life, it changed his outlook and made him what he was unable to be before.

'I lay in that hospital and wondered what was going to happen to me,' Karl said. 'I figured the accident would finish me as a pitcher and frankly I didn't care much one way or the other. I wasn't going anywhere or getting any younger. All the time I'd been in the Yankee chain I was a strange kind of guy. I worried about a heart murmur I was supposed to have. I couldn't get the ball over the plate. I was losing my taste for the game.

'Then a funny thing happened after the accident. I developed some sort of personality change. I became eager to pitch and eager to win. I became a different kind of guy off the field and a different one on it.'

By late August Karl was well enough to pitch again. Before the season was done he won six in a row. The pitcher who couldn't get the ball over the plate when he was with the Yankees and couldn't throw well enough to stay with the Browns almost miraculously became possessed of control. The Browns broke their working with Baltimore and the Phils decided to take a chance.

'When I came back to pitch,' Karl said, 'I found I couldn't hurry myself. I used to be the kind of pitcher who would throw to the plate as soon as the catcher got the ball back to me. Because of the operation, I couldn't do it; I had to save my strength. Everything I did I had to do slower. Even talking. My speech was affected an awful lot, my appetite was different. I seemed to like different things. When I pitched before was wild I'd just keep throwing faster and faster and getting wilder and wilder. Now I took my time. The ball started going where I wanted it to go. It got to be so much fun I even stopped worrying about my heart.'

When Drews became a starter with the Phils last year, few considered him of any special importance on the pitching staff. Behind Robin Roberts and  Curt Simmons it would have next to impossible for him to attract too much attention. Yet even in the shadow of the Phils' great pitching duo, Drews' success managed to stand out. The season's statistics show how he really rates a place among Manager Steve O'Neill's three certain starters.

Karl's record last season was only 14-15. It is deceiving. Among his victories were five shutouts, three over the Dodgers, whom he beat four times. Among Drews' 15 defeats last year were eight in which he lost by one run.

'I'll tell you something about my pitching,' said O'Neill. I've got the three best starting pitchers in the league and I'll put Drews right up there behind Roberts and Simmons. Those two boys, of course, remind me of Lefty Grove and George Earnshaw, and Stan Coveleski and George Uhle for a two-man punch, but put that Karl in there and I've got a better big three than the Yankees have with Reynolds, Raschi and Lopat.'

I asked Steve how he accounted for Drews, a pitcher the Yankees once refused to have pitch against them in batting practice, now coming up with a 2.71 ERA.

'Control,' the pleasant Philadelphia manager said. 'He just found it somehow. He never had it before, but he's sure got it now.'"

-Milton Gross, condensed from New York Post (Baseball Digest, May 1953)

"Karl has been in baseball since 1939, and he had his best major league season last year with the Phillies. He appeared in 33 complete games, pitching in 15 complete games. He won 14 games and lost 15. However, his earned run average of 2.71, always the true test of a pitcher's effectiveness, was the seventh-lowest in the league.

He first hit the majors with the Yankees briefly at the start of the 1946 season."

-1953 Bowman No. 113

"Karl had his best big league season in 1952. He won twice as many games as he ever won before in the majors and his earned run average was topped by only six other pitchers in the National League.

Karl has been with 13 different clubs since the Yankees signed him for their Butler team in 1939. The Yanks brought him up after he posted a 19-9 record for Newark in '45. After winning 17 games for Baltimore in '51, he joined the Phillies."

-1953 Topps No. 59

1953 Yankee of the Past: Sherm Lollar

IT'S GENERAL SHERMAN OF THE WHITE SOX
Lollar's Orders Spark Slabbers
"Something made the White Sox go-go-go this year and in the words of Sherman Lollar it was 'spirit.' Mr. Webster's dictionary defines 'spirit' (among many other meanings) as 'liveliness, energy, vivacity, ardor, enthusiasm, courage.' Mr. Lollar, who did most of the White Sox catching after the first few weeks of the campaign, says, 'The team has a bunch of extra competitors, guys like Fox, Fain, Minoso and Rivera.' With seeming modesty, Mr. Lollar omits a name from this list- his own.
Sherm Lollar, it happens, wears a rather glum expression most of the time; and it isn't his fault- he was born with that kind of face. Unlike Fox, Fain, Minoso and Rivera he doesn't run like an enraged gazelle; in fact, he is rather slow afoot. Working as he does behind the plate he has few opportunities to cavort on-field like his speedier teammates. Which accounts for his being largely overlooked as a key factor in the spurt of the South Side Chicagoans.
Despite the fact that the Sox lineup was mostly comprised of castoffs from the other seven American League teams, Paul Richards' aggregation won 39 games and lost only 15 between June 13 and August 7. Against the New Yorkers they had performed an even more extraordinary feat, winning nine straight at Yankee Stadium.
How was it done? In his soft Arkansas speech, Sherm Lollar credits Paul Richards with masterly generalship. 'He gives a team confidence,' says Sherm. 'He makes the right moves at the right times. He knows exactly when to remove pitchers or stick in a pinch hitter or runner. During spring training he spent days on fundamentals, which is why you seldom see us make silly mistakes.
'Pitchers report to Paul from some other club and he works with them himself. He helps them smooth out their motion if there's a hitch in it. If a pitcher like Connie Johnson, who came up from the minors and pitched a shutout against Washington in his first time out, lacks control, Paul immediately starts to help him by giving him extra drill in finding the plate.
'Paul's always trying to find a new pitch for his staff. If a guy's got a good curve, he tries to find a way of making it break sharper. He shows him how to get a better spin. If he can throw hard, he asks him to work on his fast ball so it'll ride better.
'As for mistakes, Paul doesn't get sore at a player who pulls a boner. At the next clubhouse meeting he analyses a play, shows the player what he did wrong and what he should have done. It all adds up to the feeling that we're getting better and better day by day.'
This is all very true and explains why Chicago plays interesting and winning ball, far beyond the individual capabilities of the players. But Paul Richards sits on the bench when the game begins and the nine men on the diamond have the responsibility of putting his lessons into practice. And it is then that Sherm Lollar plays his role, that of the Sox' secret weapon.
For Sherm, in his quiet way, acts as the translator of Paul's ideas, especially in respect to pitching. It is no mere happenstance that Billy Pierce, Virgil Trucks, Harry Dorish and Bob Keegan boasted earned run averages of 2.80 or less in August; or that three others, Mike Fornieles, Joe Dobson and Sandy Consuegra, were hoving around the 3.50 mark. Pierce and Trucks, of course, are stars of the first water, but others were pitching well above their lifetime averages.
The trick is done in special meetings of Sox batterymen prior to the opening of each series. Richards begins such meetings with a few words on enemy batters such as Billy Goodman, Phil Rizzuto and Bobby Avila, whose versatility at bat adds to the problems of infielders, especially on bunts and topped hits to the infield.
Then Paul turns the meeting over to Sherm, and the young man from Fayetteville, Arkansas, proceeds to act like a walking encyclopedia of batters' strengths and weaknesses.
'Whatever I know about batters is from observation,' he says. 'I don't keep book, don't take notes. I just have the habit of watching batters, noticing the kind of pitches they go for and the kind they can't reach.'
It was Sherm, for example, who baffled the powerful central batting force of the Yankees by analyzing the weaknesses of Mickey Mantle, Hank Bauer, Gene Woodling and Yogi Berra. It's no secret that Mantle can be pitched to or that Bauer does not like a sidearm curve from a right-hander; that Woodling usually taps to the wrong side of the diamond on a low pitch over the plate or that Yogi can't do much with a low outside curve. But Sherm also knows what they can hit and has the knack of communicating his knowledge to his teammates, including the Sox second-string catchers, Bob Wilson and Bud Sheely. The result is that Sox battery meetings are lectures, with Sherm the professor, the pupils dutifully respectful. Few are their corrections. Most of the interruptions are in the form of questions. And the result speaks for itself in terms of earned run averages.
'You can analyze batters in many ways,' he says. 'The kind that swing for the fences usually pull and have blind spots where they can't meet the ball. The toughest hitters are those with the power to the opposite field on outside pitches, and the spray hitter like George Kell will go after everything- in his case the pitcher has to keep the ball moving from place to place so as to cross him up.
'I've been catching all my life. I started catching in corner lots in Fayetteville when I was no more than six. I guess I always knew there's more to catching than sticking out your mitt and waiting for the pitcher to plunk the ball into it.'
Sherm was born 29 years ago in Fayetteville, which is in Ozark county of northwestern Arkansas, not far from the Oklahoma border. 'And not hillbilly country, either,' he says. 'It's been modern in every respect, as long as I can remember. The only other big leaguer from our area is Preacher Roe, who hails from the northeastern part of the state.'
Arkansas is considered a southern state, which requires a bit of explaining about Sherm's first name. 'The 36-30 line which separates Missouri from Arkansas divided the North from the South in Civil War days,' he says. 'There were folks from both camps in that section, and my great-grandfather fought on the Union side in the war, and General Sherman was a hero to him, which is how the Sherman name got into the family.
'We Lollars are Irish, though there aren't many families by that name. We'd been farming in Washington county, but my father came into Fayetteville and opened a grocery store.
'I was wild about baseball from my kid days, played on any old team I could find. Of course, Fayetteville is a long way from the big cities and there wasn't much chance of my catching on in organized ball. I caddied on the links for golfers at country clubs, went to high school and spent a year and a half at the State Teachers College at Pittsburg, Kansas, which probably accounts for the fact that I can talk so well at meetings.
'Meantime, I was catching a lot of baseballs. I joined an American Legion team, I played in a tournament at Pittsburg. Like almost every other kid my age I made no plans then, for the United States had gotten into the war and I was waiting for my draft number to come up. It did, and I was rejected. And that changed the picture completely.'
Not far from Fayettevills is an area where the four states of Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma almost meet. Just across the Oklahoma border is a town that has become famous in baseball circles as the birthplace of Mickey Mantle- Commerce. 'I took a job working underground in the very same zinc mine at Picher where Mickey's father worked,' says Sherm. 'It was in 1943 and Barney Barnett ran a ball club at Picher, ten miles away. Naturally enough, I got on the club and the breaks came my way.
'One day, a pitcher, Sam Weist, told me he'd had an offer from Baltimore. There was a shortage of ball players because of the war and the minor league teams were signing any likely-looking boy. 'Why don't you ask Baltimore to give a tryout?' he asked me. I did, and there I was in organized ball, without much effort.
'By 1944 there were so few ball players around the Commerce-Picher section that Barney Barnett decided to organize a kid's team. One of the boys who reported to him was Mickey Mantle, which explains how Mickey got such good experience at an early age.'
The Lollar story is typical of the youngster who has to fight his way against indifference and 'the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.' Sherm arrived in Baltimore in September 1943, when the Orioles still had a chance to win a place in the playoffs. 'I managed to get into 12 games and did about as well as you could expect- I batted .118. And the Orioles dropped out of the first division and playoffs, so there was nothing to do but go home again.
'The following year I was first-string catcher and by 1945 either I'd improved a lot or the pitching was poor, for I hit .364, winning the batting title, leading the league in putouts and assists.
'The Cleveland Indians had a working agreement with Baltimore and by 1946 I was in the big leagues, so to speak. I didn't get much chance to catch, Jim Hegan doing most of the work. And the Indians were having a poor season.
'Then came what looked like another good break- I'd spent part of 1946 in Baltimore but finished the season with the Indians. And they shipped me that fall to the Yankees in the deal which put Gene Bearden on the Indian staff. That meant not what I thought, a chance to play on the Yanks, but another season in the International League, this time with Newark.
'Well, you never can tell about baseball. Just before the September 1 deadline, the Yankees brought me up to the Stadium so that I could be eligible for the World Series. The chances were 100-to-1 that I would get into the Series, but, as it happened, there I was. And when the third game began, I started behind the plate.
'I was jittery- who wouldn't be? But I managed to get two hits, including a double, in that game; and another double in the only time I went to bat in the sixth game. My average was .750- 3 for 4.
'That was enough to convince Bucky Harris, I suppose, that I was worth keeping on the roster for 1948. Again I was second string, this time to Yogi Berra and it looked as if that would be my dish for a while. But when 1949 began I was on the Browns.'
Sherm was part and parcel of the famous- or infamous, depending on how you look at it- $100,000 deal which brought Fred Sanford to the Yankees. Sanford has vanished into the minors and the other chattels in that deal, Red Embree, Dick Starr and Ray Partee, have also drifted off the big league scene. Sherm remained, through the closing days of Zack Taylor's managership of the St. Louisians and into the Bill Veeck era. Midgets, beauty contests and countless players rotated around Sportsman's Park but Sherm stayed on.
'I welcomed the chance to catch regularly on the Browns,' he says. 'I was 23 years old, I didn't think of the future or of my security. And it didn't matter that I was one of a handful of players who stuck around waiting for the team to get going. I studied by job and watched how star catchers worked and learned all I could about opposing batters.
'The biggest kick I got on the Browns was catching Satchell Paige. Old Satch was quicker then than now. I'd give him a sign. He'd take it, then stand around and often change his mind before he threw the ball. He's living proof that the more you use your head the better you'll play.
'And while in St. Louis I became convinced that I'd stay in the majors quite a while myself. I'd met Connie Metard in Cleveland. She knew nothing about baseball- it was at a social affair that I first encountered her. We started talking about getting married, but in 1949 we decided to stop talking. Meantime, she'd moved to Chicago and it was there that we married. We have two kids, Sherman III, whom we call Pete; and baby Kevin.'
By 1951 the resourceful Frank Lane, general manager of the White Sox, had decided that Sherm would solve his catching problem if only Bill Veeck would let him go. It took a lot of palavering- the deal which made Sherm a member of the Go-Go Boys on November 27, 1951, involved no less than seven players. One of these was Jim Rivera, who was subsequently re-traded from the Browns to the Sox.
It was Sherm's first real chance to display his merits as top receiver for a contender. He quickly fell into the Richards pattern. 'This is a team,' he says, 'which is afraid of no one. We play our best ball against the Yankees, Indians and Red Sox. We're not afraid of the Yankees because we know they're human like ourselves, and can be beaten by any team which gives them as good as it takes.
'And speaking of thrills- mine have occurred in games against the Yanks. This year a two-run homer against Johnny Sain beat the Yanks and gave me a wallop. In that game I picked Rizzuto off second, threw out three runners, and my home run in the ninth salted the game away. And it was my third hit of the day.
'As for hitting, well, a catcher sometimes has so much on his mind he doesn't pay attention to his batting form. My best year with the Browns was .280 in 1950; and last year with the White Sox I only hit .240.
'But during the winter I worked hard with a loaded 52-ounce bat to build my shoulder muscles. Then I sat down and figured why so many of my drives were being caught. In St. Louis I'd been strictly a pull hitter because the left-field wall is only 351 feet away. Comiskey Park swings out to nearly 425 feet in left center- and I decided to change my style at the plate and go for hits to right.
'As a result I've been around .300 all year and hope to wind up the season with an average well above .280, my best big league mark. And I've even tried my hand at bunting- I know how difficult it is for a pitcher to outguess a batter who has more than one trick up his sleeve.'
All of which adds up to a sound explanation of Sherm Lollar's advance into the front ranks of major league catchers. He is one more example of Paul Richards' magic, a much-traded player rising rapidly to stardom after earthbound years with other clubs."

-Charles Dexter, Baseball Digest, October 1953

"Sherman appeared in 132 games for the White Sox during the 1952 season and his batting average was .240. His hits included 15 doubles and 13 homers.
Sherman formerly was on the roster of the Cleveland Indians, New York Yankees and the St. Louis Browns. He began in 1943 with Baltimore. He came to the Sox in November 1951."

-1953 Bowman No. 157

"Sherm played two seasons with the Yankees and three with the Browns before joining the White Sox for the 1952 season. He broke in with Baltimore and hitting .364 for the Orioles in '45, he was given a trial with the Indians in '46. Sherm didn't get into many games for the Yankees in '48 and was traded to the Browns where he got a chance to catch regularly. He hit .280 for them in 1950 and .252 in 1951."

-1953 Topps No. 53

1953 Yankee of the Past: Zack Taylor

HE WANTED TO BE A "FREE" AGENT
"Zack Taylor, who has joined the Chicago White Sox as manager of their Waterloo (Iowa) farm, had an audience for one of his remembrances of managing the St. Louis Browns.
'We had a guy on the club who was a real toughie,' said Zack. 'I was afraid he might make trouble, so I persuaded Bill DeWitt (president) to get rid of him. I didn't think he'd make the grade, anyway.
'Well, one day DeWitt got a letter from the gent, who had wound up in prison for life. He wanted us to send him a copy of his official release from the Browns ... so he could be free to demand a bonus to sign with somebody else when he got out.'"

-John P. Carmichael in the Chicago Daily News (Baseball Digest, February 1953)

HE SHOULD HAVE THROWN A SPITTER!
"Zack Taylor, former manager of the St. Louis Browns and now manager of Waterloo, was reminded of a story- as he almost always is.
'I was with Brooklyn in 1920 and we were fighting for the pennant,' he said. 'We went into St. Louis on the last swing and we had to win almost all of them. Jeff Pfeffer, the fellow who put a silver plate in Chick Fewster's head, was throwing for us and it began to rain hard in the last of the fifth, with the Cards at bat and us leading.
'Umpires like to get these important games completed, and Uncle Charley Moran, who coached the Centre football team, was behind the plate. Everybody had his fingers crossed as one batter went down and then another. Just one more hitter and just one more pitch. Wilbert Robinson, our manager, was sweating hard as Jeff leaned to get his sign.
'Then Pfeffer asked Moran for a dry ball. That was all the excuse needed and the umpire called the game on account of rain. I thought that Robinson would go crazy. He was that mad. So was everybody else on the club, but I guess that was a sort of pattern for the Brooklyn team of that day.'"

-Walter Stewart in the Memphis Commercial Appeal (Baseball Digest, June 1953)

1953 Yankee of the Past: George Selkirk

RUTHLESS MAJORS
"Major league bosses are an ungrateful lot at times. The front office of the New York Yankees, goaded by Casey Stengel, appointed Harry Craft, veteran outfielder,  to succeed George Selkirk as manager of the Kansas City Blues.
All Selkirk did last summer was to win the American Association pennant, carry his club to the seventh game before losing the Junior World Series and finish with a most respectable attendance total.
In return, he was fired because he was in Casey Stengel's doghouse. The Yankee pilot blasted minor league managers in general, but Selkirk in particular, for failure to a better job of developing talent.
Stengel was rebuked in no uncertain terms by Kansas City writers as well as others throughout the minor leagues.
Selkirk had been ailing throughout the first weeks of the 1952 season, but he gamely stuck to his post and got the best results possible even though his parent club was breaking up his lineup regularly."

-Charles Johnson in the Minneapolis Star (Baseball Digest, February 1953)

1953 Yankee of the Past: Muddy Ruel

"Muddy Ruel, farm director of the Detroit Tigers, explaining the team's newest splurge into the bonus-player market:
'We looked into the barrel and found that the bottom was closer to the top than we thought.'"

-Baseball Digest, September 1953

1953 Yankee of the Past: Johnny Neun

LIMITED ABILITY
"Johnny Neun likes to recall a conversation he heard in the stands back of the bench in Crosley Field one day while he was managing the Cincinnati Reds. 'Dot Neun!' said one Reds fan, 'vot's he effer done?' 'Vunce he make a unassisted dribble blay,' said the other. 'Ja, bud vot else can he do?'"

Baseball Digest, January 1953

1953 Yankee of the Past: Bill McKechnie

"When Bill McKechnie was a manager, he had a trick to catch players who were roughing it up on the night shift. McKechnie would accost the suspect in the lobby and ask for a match. The manager would examine the match folder with elaborate interest. More than once the cover advertised a night club. McKechnie made no comment. The offender was usually in the sack early the next night."

-Jimmy Cannon in the New York Post (Baseball Digest, April 1953)

A HIT-AND-RUN YEAR?
"'I think big league baseball is coming back to a hit-and-run era,' Bill McKechnie, the Boston Red Sox coach and former big league manager, said this spring.
'I've heard a lot of talk about the difference between the National League and the American League, how the National League features curve ball pitching and scoring one run at a time while the American is supposed to depend on big, powerful fast ball pitchers and home run slugging.
'That was true when Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, Harry Heilmann, Al Simmons, Hank Greenberg and Rudy York were playing. But Case Stengel has moved his Yankees into four straight pennants with hit-and-run baseball, base running and getting the important base hit when it is needed.
'Every manager would like to have a team of fellows who can hit the ball out of the park. But the emphasis now is on the fellow who can hit singles and doubles to opposite fields and on fast, alert base running. I think we'll see a lot of that kind of ball this year.'"

-Frank Yeutter in the Philadelphia Bulletin (Baseball Digest, May 1953)

1953 Yankee of the Past: Bucky Harris

WELL, WHY NOT?
"A reader wants to know why Bucky Harris was not named manager of the year. We, too, have wondered. The title was bestowed on Casey Stengel.
Harris took a club of discards and supposed misfits that was an all but unanimous choice to finish last (see March and April predictions) and landed in fifth place, only one game out of fourth place and only three games out of third.
Consider the material he had to work with in Washington:
Mickey Grasso, a third- or fourth-rate catcher who batted .216.
Pete Runnels, shortstop and .285 hitter who batted in the number four slot.
Two long ball hitters: Mickey Vernon (.251) and Jackie Jensen (.280).
Jim Busby, an outfielder who batted .236, and another outfielder, the aging Gil Coan, whose speed has been greatly diminished by time.
A pitching staff that included three Pan-Americans- Conrado Marrero, Julio Moreno and Sandalio Consuegra; Bob Porterfield and Frank Shea, both Yankee castoffs; Walter Masterson, a Red Sox castoff,  and Lou Sleater, a recruit.
Considering the material at Stengel's command and the talent that Harris had to work with, any neutral observer would award the palm to Bucky. He did the finest job of managing in the major leagues."

-H.G. Salsinger in the Detroit News (Baseball Digest, February 1953)

"One of the favorite Bucky Harris anecdotes reverts to the time he caught Eddie Robinson coming in at 4 A.M. The next day Robby went four times for the collar at bat. In the clubhouse that night, Harris tapped him gently on the arm and said: 'It can't be done, Eddie. I've tried it.' That was all, but Robby caught on quickly."

-John P. Carmichael in the Chicago Daily News (Baseball Digest, May 1953)

"Bucky Harris is the most patient manager I've met- bar none. He's one of the few who welcome visits from newspapermen because he gets as much information from them as they get from him."

-Bob Addie, Washington Times-Herald (Baseball Digest, September 1953)

FAMOUS LAST WORDS
"Bucky Harris recently told these circumstances leading up to his dismissal by the Yankees in 1948:
Neither Frank Shea nor another pitcher, Bill Bevens, was showing much and both were being used infrequently. George Weiss was peeved.
One day in front of Del Webb and Dan Topping, the Yankee owners, Weiss addressed Harris and asked, 'Why can't you make him (Shea) behave?'
'Look, George, you had him in the farm system and should have taken care of that before he came up here,' Harris is alleged to have replied. 'I'm a manager, not a house detective.'
Harris was on the way out from that time.
That's the way the story was related to me."

-Sec Taylor in the Des Moines Register (Baseball Digest, October 1953)

"Bucky was called 'The Boy Wonder' in 1924 when at the age of 27 he was named manager of the Washington Senators. He had been playing in organized ball since 1916, and with Washington since the end of the 1919 season.
In 1929 he moved to Detroit as player-manager. He also managed the Boston Red Sox, Philadelphia Phillies and New York Yankees. Bucky led his teams into the World Series in 1924, 1925 and 1947, with New York.
This is his third managerial assignment with Washington."

-1953 Bowman No. 46

1953 Yankee Coach of the Past: Chuck Dressen

"The cocky little manager of the Dodgers led them to a pennant in 1952, after losing one in 1951 in the third play-off game with the Giants.
Charlie has been in baseball since 1919. As a player, he spent the majority of his major league career with the Cincinnati Reds and managed them from 1934 through 1937. He was a coach for the Brooklyn Dodgers for many years, then went to the Yankees as a coach.
After managing Oakland in 1949 and 1950, Charlie came back to the majors as Dodger manager in 1951."

-1953 Bowman No. 124

"Chuck's Dodgers won the National League pennant in 1952 after missing out in the playoffs in 1951.
Chuck played third base through most of his active playing career which started with Moline in 1919 and ended with the Giants in 1933. He managed Nashville for four years, Cincinnati for four years and Oakland for two years. Chuck was a Dodger coach from 1939-46 and a Yankee coach in 1947 and '48."

-1953 Topps No. 50

"In his second season as manager of the Dodgers, Charlie brought a pennant to Brooklyn. All baseball fans know he lost the pennant the previous year in the third and last play-off game after the Dodgers finished the regular season tied with the Giants.
He started playing baseball in 1919. He also managed the Cincinnati Reds."

-1953 Red Man No. NL-1

1953 Yankee of the Past: Leo Durocher

UMPIRE SPIKING HANGS OVER LIPPY
Bill Stewart's Leg Still Under Treatment
"Will Leo Durocher quit baseball during 1953 or will he be fired as manager of the New York Giants?
These two questions have been bandied about by sportscasters and sportswriters ever since Leo made some remarks about the advantages of television and motion pictures. Harry Wismer, the freelance telecaster, went the prognosticators one better recently when he predicted Durocher would be missing come spring training time.
We have yet to hear speculation for the real reason for Durocher's quandary- baseball or television?
If Santa Claus bought Leo a new pair of skates for Christmas someone ought to warn him about the thin ice. He has been skating on it ever since June 29 when he spiked an umpire in Philadelphia's Shibe Park.
We happen to know that the National League office, headed by the capable Warren C. Giles, has received a medical bill as the result of the spiking of Umpire Bill Stewart.
After five months, Stewart's left leg has apparently failed to heal properly. This is all the more unusual when one takes into consideration all the National Hockey Leagues Stewart refereed. The ice game left him without a scar. And at 57 he appears as healthy as a prize bull, except for his left leg.
Therefore, it is our guess that League President Giles has told Durocher to be the little Lord Fauntleroy he was during the four years following his full-year suspension of 1947. A.B. Chandler was the commissioner when Durocher was told to sit out a season because of 'conduct detrimental to baseball.' While Chandler remained as commissioner, Durocher was a goody-goody and often looked the other way rather than arouse the rath of an umpire.
But in 1952, Durocher was ejected from a game in the spring by Umpire Artie Gore. Two other ejections followed.
These were followed by three suspensions and left the Giants, who were making a vain pursuit of the pennant-winning Dodgers, without their dandy little leader for a total of 11 days. One suspension was for spiking Stewart who ruled against the Giants on a catch by Del Ennis. Stewart refused to accept Durocher's 'I'm sorry' apology. The more recent suspension came in August when Leo put up his dukes a la Sullivan against another umpire. Of course, no blows were struck.
Thus, the collective look over Durocher's 1952 record and the recent medical bill received at Carew Tower in Cincinnati gave a strong hint that either League President Giles or Commissioner Ford C. Frick has told Leo to watch his diamond matters.
Durocher recently stated he would manage the Giants in 1953 and 'as long as they want me.' The 'they' appears to pertain to more than just Giant President Horace Stoneham who last September signed his pilot to a one-year contract for 1953.
Stoneham apparently feels that a suspended manager, even if he sits out one day, is very harmful to his team. He probably also feels that Durocher, who gets about $50,000 a year, no longer draws fans at the gates as he did at Brooklyn.
It is our guess, then, that Mrs. Durocher, better knows as actress Laraine Day, has put here canasta cards on the table and said in effect: 'Look, Leo dear, why go through another humiliating year like 1947? Please be careful.'
Another suspension for Durocher could be his last."

-Frank Eck, Associated Press (Baseball Digest, March 1953)

Leo Durocher, hanging his head in make-believe shame: "Warren Giles (NL prexy) is ruining my reputation fining me only $10. If only he had made it $100 ... "

-Baseball Digest, August 1953

LIP SERVICE
"Leo Durocher of the New York Giants, the noted umpire baiter, occupied a table at the Chez Paree one night recently a half-hour longer than he expected- just to torment two National League umpires. Durocher dropped in to see Jimmy Durante. Because of the huge crowds, tables were at a premium. Just as Durocher was about to depart, he spotted Umpires Larry Goetz and Frank Dascoli in the lobby, waiting for a reservation. Lippy summoned the head waiter and told him, 'Tell those men that I'm leaving in a minute and they can have my table.' Durocher then whiled away 30 minutes, all the time keeping an eye on the two umpires who were fretting in the lobby!"

-Irv Kupcinet in the Chicago Sun-Times (Baseball Digest, September 1953)

TOO MUCH OF AN ANGEL
More of the Old Durocher Needed
"In the course of completing the Little Miracle of '51, Leo Durocher ostensibly underwent so drastic a personality change that such as Red Smith referred to him as 'The Shepherd of Coogan's Bluff.' The diamond's spitfire became one who swallowed his own wrath. The man who gambled on a turn of a card became an advocate of turning the cheek. Baseball's original brat cast himself as a new Fauntleroy.
The suspicion, however, existed that Leo's new halo was as ill-fitting as a lion in lamb's wool. It seemed as though he had picked it up in a pull-in shop. There was always the feeling that the Giants manager had begun to walk about as stiff as a deb, knowing that if he but shook his head the halo would flop around his ears.
The time has now come for Leo to stop rubbing his wings together. The feathers have been plucked and the gilt is off the halo. Leo has been signed again for another two years, in the face of critical observers and a dreadful slump which changed the Giants from pennant contenders to a team contending for the leadership of the second division. Leo's retention and the length of the new contract are viewed as President Horace Stoneham's vote of confidence in his new manager, which it is. It is an indication that Stoneham regards Leo as blameless for what happened and that the team must be drastically altered for next year. That, too, may be so.
But if it is, I have the feeling that Durocher can show his gratitude to Horace by getting rid of his Buster Brown collar and again becoming the Durocher Stoneham hired in 1948 as Mel Ott's replacement. This could be the major alteration.
Leo was an exciting baseball man then. It was not just his rhubarbing. That we can still do without, although many of his scuffles were designed affairs based on elementary gutter psychology Durocher always used whether it was in baseball, poker or pool. It was more than profanity and showmanship. Leo played D-day baseball and every day he wanted his players to come roaring from the bench and storm the beach.
It was gambling baseball, with Leo on the coaching lines every day. It was hunch baseball, sometimes playing the percentages and sometimes disdaining them. It was the kind of game where Leo couldn't be figured by the opposition because they couldn't keep a book on Leo's brain. It was baseball played with a lot less talent than Leo had under him this year. And one other thing it was not. It was not smug baseball, overestimating the talent of the men he had or underestimating the opposition's.
That was Durocher's fault this season. For once he miscalculated. He thought he had more than he really did and his constant shifting of the hired hands through the full first half of the season was more of Leo the Angel Face than Leo the Lion. It was an admission of his own error, whether he said so or not. He had the room to maneuver because he had the men to do it, but big league baseball was never meant to be played with every man but the catcher playing more than one position.
I wouldn't know if this made the players unsure of themselves. It is more likely that it made Leo unsure of himself. And for Durocher, that is the strangest twist of all because he once was a man whose confidence was his weapon. But it was the kind of stuff that had to be stoked up regularly as though Leo shoveled coals on the fire of his own being.
At Durocher's re-signing, he said: 'You can bet that there will be changes made. Plenty of changes, if I can get what I want.'
The first change should be the change to the old Leo. After that Leo must go into the market place where he's competing with others besides himself.
What will the Giants need? Pitching, obviously, but not too much. Leo has Ruben Gomez and Al  Worthington, who have been carrying the staff. Sal Maglie, if spotted properly with sufficient rest, can be a winner still, even if no longer the staff leader. Hoyt Wilhelm can be magnificent again as he once was, but not if he's pitched until the rubber's gone out of his arm. This is a fair start. There are some kids on the farm who can fit in as Worthington did, if their promotion is delayed until next spring.
With Willie Mays back next season, the Giants get more than just the center fielder who helped make the last miracle possible. There's real life in this kid and a spark that's contagious. With Willie here, Bobby Thomson, a moody and unreliable player, can be shifted back to the infield or be used as trade bait unless sentiment again keeps him with the Giants. They can use a first baseman, who can spring Whitey Lockman back to the outfield. They can use a catcher who can hit and play every day without being hurt. Stoneham signed Leo because they can use him, too. But without the wings, halo and sanctified look. There's nothing wrong with an angel with a dirty face."

-Milton Gross, condensed from the New York Post (Baseball Digest, October 1953)

"Leo is one of the more controversial figures in baseball, and also one of its very best managers.
He joined the Giants as manager during the 1948 season and brought the team to a fifth-place finish. They finished fifth the next season, then were third in 1950, and the miracle team of 1951 won the pennant. They were second in 1952.
Prior to managing the Giants, Leo managed the Dodgers from 1939 through 1946. He began 1948 with Brooklyn, then participated in the historic switch which brought him to the Polo Grounds."

-1953 Bowman No. 55

1953 Yankee of the Past: Branch Rickey

RICKEY'S FLOPPING! HE'S LOST TOUCH
1953 May Be His Last Year
"When Branch Rickey, Sr., moved to Pittsburgh in October, 1950, to take over as generalissimo of the disorganized Pittsburgh forces, he uttered for the benefit of the press:
'This is the greatest challenge I have faced in my more than 40 years in baseball.'
A little more than two years later this heretofore highly successful man is still wrestling with his 'greatest challenge,' apparently on his way to the worst setback of his career.
The Pittsburgh problem has turned out to be much tougher than what the Mahatma bargained for. It threw him for a loss in his first year (1951) when the Pirates managed to finish seventh. It pinned him for a second straight fall in 1952 when the most woeful looking conglomeration of so-called big league ball players staggered home last, 22 1/2 games behind the seventh place Braves. The third and last fall is coming up soon.
Through it all, the 71-year-old Rickey remains optimistic, the same double-talking champion of the major leagues. Failure and the 'emotions of defeat' which he abhor still embrace him, yet he continues to promise Pittsburgh fans a first division ball club 'within the very near future.'
It was also his promise when he first moved to Pittsburgh in 1950 that within three years 'the Pirates would be in a position to challenge for the pennant.' In 1953, his 'third year,' the only challenge sober-minded Pittsburghers can look forward to is a challenge to get out of the cellar, a long shot possibility at best.
Despite warnings by baseball men not to underrate the wise, old Branch, we string along with the growing mob that sincerely believes Rickey is doomed to failure in Pittsburgh; that time will run out on him before he tastes the fruit of success he enjoyed so much in his younger days at St. Louis and Brooklyn.
'The Old Man has lost his touch,' was the succinct comment of a man who has been close to the baseball scene for as many years as Rickey.
'This Pirate thing is too much for him,' said another.
'He hasn't made one good move since he took over,' whiplashed a third. 'Show one good move he has made,' he challenged.
'I feel sorry for Rickey,' said a more charitable client. 'This club was hopeless when he took it over.'
'If it was hopeless, he helped make it that way,' countered a nearby listener.
And so it goes on. The gentle breeze of protest which greeted Rickey's faltering efforts in 1951 grew into a raging gale in 1952. It threatens to develop into a typhoon of all-sweeping proportions if some miracle doesn't happen this year.
It could very well sweep the  Rickey regime out of office even he has two more years to go on a five-year contract that calls for a handsome $100,000 per annum, plus $25,000 for his son, Branch, Jr., for each of the five seasons.
The mounting resentment over Rickey's failure to make good on his promises can't help but sizzle the ears of the embarrassed owners, millionaires John Galbreath, Tom Johnson and Bing Crosby.
How long they can continue to stand an insufferable situation is a matter of conjecture. My opinion is that this is a make or break year for Branch Rickey, with either he or the owners throwing in the towel and admitting defeat.
Before pardoning or indicting the man, let us see what Rickey has done since he took over the swivel chair in the plush office at Forbes Field.
He was brought to Pittsburgh in 1950 as a vice president and a general manager as a desperation measure by the owners, a silent admission that the previous four years of their guidance were a miserable mess, something they would like to forget.
Rickey was the Moses they turned to in their moment of darkness. He would lead them out of the wilderness. Rickey, given the bounce by his once-beloved Brooklyn Bums, was available. His good luck was still holding out for him. He bounced right into the lush Pittsburgh post. Men of three score and ten don't often find jobs paying a hundred G's. And the job seeking them to boot.
Naturally, Rickey was delighted to accept. He frowned upon the Pittsburgh situation as he first surveyed it, his bushy eyebrows forming quizzical chevrons. 'There's a lot of work to be done here,' was the first understatement he hurled at a corps of newsmen.
And Rickey has worked. I do not agree with anyone who charges that Rickey has laid down on the job. True, his many excursions into the after-dinner-speaking league have brought censure down on his shaggy pate, but the fact remains, there isn't a harder worker in the Pirate organization or probably any baseball organization.
At 71, he still puts in 14 to 16 hours a day traveling or working on Pirate problems. He can wear out men 30 years his junior who try to keep up with him. But all his work has yet to produce results.
Prior to Rickey's arrival on the scene, the gold-plated owners had tried to buy their way into the favor of Pittsburgh fans. They succeeded turnstile-wise but outside of one year, 1948, they could not brag about the kind of club they put on the field.
There was a Barnum touch to many of the moves McKinney, Galbreath, Johnson, Crosby, et al, made during the first four years. Roy Hamey, now with the New York Yankees, was the general manager for that period. McKinney was Frank McKinney, the Indianapolis banker and big-name politico. He was the president of the club until mid-1950 when a tiff with the other owners over a proposed change from Bill Meyer to Al Lopez as manager found McKinney departing the scene.
The four new owners had taken over in a blaze of publicity and glory at the end of the 1946 season. This marked the end of the highly successful Dreyfuss dynasty, then headed by the late Mrs. Dreyfuss and her son-in-law, Bill Benswanger.
Billy Herman was brought in as manager in a deal that should have warned Pittsburgh fans more bad ones were to come. Bob Elliott, a competent third sacker and an excellent hitter, was sent to the Boston Braves in exchange for Herman's services.
Had the new owners been smart, they could have obtained Herman for no more than the waiver price. Billy, a good one in his day, was on his last legs as a player. He was worth very little to the Pirates this way and because of his failure to last more than one year as a manager, the deal was a lopsided one in favor of Boston.
What a lot of people in Pittsburgh like to refer to as the Barnum era began with the signing of Hank Greenberg, whose salad days had withered in the American League after a long career.
It was a one-year shot designed to oil the rusty Forbes Field turnstiles. Big Hank was paid something like $110,000 in salary and stock in the ball club, but he was worth every penny. Announcement of his becoming a Pirate sent the season ticket sale to record heights.
A strip of ugly chicken wire was placed in left field and dubbed Greenberg Gardens. It housed the pitching bullpens and brought the fences in some thirty feet for Greenberg and a young Mr. Ralph Kiner, who was going into his second year as a home run slugger.
The Garden also paid off. Kiner racked up 51 homers and Greenberg 25 that year, but despite the long ball pyrotechnics the Pirates finished deadlocked for seventh and eighth with the Phils. This cost Herman his job as a manager.
From the start, Rickey played a hand in the Pirate deal. It was to him McKinney, Galbreath and Hamey went for help in the way of players. 'Why not?' answered the big 'humanitarian' from Brooklyn, who when it comes to making a deal will trade you a snowball any day for a Frigidaire.
He talked the Pirates into giving him Preacher Roe and Billy Cox for Dixie Walker, Vic Lombardi and Hal Gregg. Roe and Cox helped the Bums to two pennants and are still big men there, while Walker, Lombardi and Gregg have long departed the major league scene.
He also sold the Pirates an assorted lot what the more outspoken fans call 'garbage' in the way of big league material. In all, Rickey and Brooklyn took more than a million dollars from the Pirates in a succession of deals.
That is why, ironically, a large segment of Pittsburghers blames Rickey for most of the headaches he had to take over when he came here.
The one good year in six the new owners enjoyed came in 1948 when Billy Meyer, a highly successful minor league manager, was pried loose from the Yankee chain. He succeeded Herman and did a tremendous job of getting a lot of mileage out of some worn-out playing material.
Three aged Methuselahs of the mound- Rip Sewell, Fritz Ostermueller and Elmer Riddle- kept the club in the flag race until mid-September when it came apart at the seams and finished fourth. This was better than expected and Meyer was hailed as Manager of the Year.
Pittsburgh's cup of baseball joy wasn't to last. The million and a half customers who turned out set a new attendance record. The money was poured right back into the club. But 1949 was different. The club slumped to sixth place, then to eighth the following year.
With this came Rickey. He said he would feel his way around in the first season, build up in the second and by the third he would give Pittsburgh a team able to contend in the first division.
Luckily for him and the club, the Pirates defeated the Cubs in the final game of the 1951 season to gain seventh place, a one-notch improvement over the previous year.
The 'feeling around' stage over, Rickey went to work in earnest. He spent over $800,000 signing every worth-while young prospect recommended to him. Some 400 players, 90 per cent of them in their teens, became Pirate property.
'Out of quantity we get quality,' the Mahatma intoned. The plan worked for him in St. Louis and Brooklyn. Why not Pittsburgh?
Rickey faced 1952 with optimism not shared by others. These rookies will come through for him, by gosh, like the Pepper Martins, Dizzy Deans, Pete Reisers, Gil Hodges and others had done for him before.
The Old Man let his enthusiasm run away with him. His 'Rickey-dinks,' as the Pirates were laughingly referred to, and his 'Operation Peach Fuzz' proved utter failures. He insisted on using seven Class C and D rookies in the lineup at the same time with the result the club threw away one ball game after another.
The situation became so disgusting that the fans kept away from the parks in large numbers. The attendance dropped to $600,000, still a remarkable figure in view of the sandlot type of play.
The rookies were 'skeered' and the old-timers on the club like Kiner, Dickson, Pollet, Metkovich, McCullough and one or two others were secretly disgruntled, a few others openly so.
This apathetic congregation managed to win 42 games while losing 112, the worst blotch in the once proud Pirate history. How it managed to win 42 is a mystery that demands a recount.
Rickey was prodded for the first time by the Pittsburgh newspapers. The Mahatma answered by changing managers. The easy-going Meyer, who stood the brunt of the abuse Rickey and the others should have taken, was permitted to resign because of ill health. To no one's surprise, Fred Haney was brought in from Hollywood to inherit Bill's headaches.
The Pirates have only one way to go. They're bound to improve. How much, is what the fans would like to know. This promises to be a very interesting year for the Pirates."

-Al Abrams, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Baseball Digest, May 1953)

DOG-GONE CONTRACT
"'Mr. Rickey is very clever about money,' said Ralph Kiner this spring. 'I remember one time Preacher Roe was holding out from the Dodgers when Rickey was there. After a couple of conferences, Rickey told Preach to stay home and think the offer over.
''And by the way,' Rickey told him, 'you can have my two hunting dogs if you want them.'
'So Preacher took the dogs out, and they were the finest hunting dogs he had ever seen. He got to thinking that Mr. Rickey was a pretty nice guy, and, well, maybe he should sign after all. So he signed the contract and sent it back.
'And you know the day Preach put that contract in the mail, those dogs took out across the field and he hasn't seen'em since!'"

-Emmett Watson in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (Baseball Digest, May 1953)

NOT A GEM RICKEY
"Branch Rickey, the Pirates general manager, has a cagey reputation as a trader. But usually in dealing off a star at the age of 31, he picks up opposite talent that is young and hungry. Some of the players Rickey got this time are neither young nor hungry."

-Pat Harmon in the Cincinnati Post (Baseball Digest, August 1953)

RICKEY CAUGHT ON THIS ONE
"Branch Rickey doesn't claim to be right all the time. Last winter he insisted the strongest feature of the Pirates was catching. Even this spring he enthused, 'We have catching good enough for the World Series.' So Ed FitzGerald was peddled to Washington and Joe Gariagola was traded to the Cubs."

-Les Biederman in the Pittsburgh Press (Baseball Digest, August 1953)

NOW THAT RICKEY OWNS STOCK-
Did 'His Money' Influence Kiner Deal?
"Perhaps a lot of questions were answered recently when the Post-Gazette found out that General Manager Branch Rickey now owns stock in the Pittsburgh Pirates (between 5 and 10 per cent purchased about a year ago).
This could be the main reason why Rickey is trading off his highly paid stars, whenever the opportunity arises, and is worried so greatly about the money in the treasury.
His Ralph Kiner deal- being criticized boisterously in Pittsburgh- roughly lopped $122,000 off the Pirate payroll. Along with Kiner's $75,000 salary, the Chicago Cubs accepted responsibility of paying George Metkovich on his $14,000 contract; Howie Pollet is signed for $18,000 and Joe Garagiola for about $15,000.
The Bucs have made no secret in the past year that the exchequer is causing them big headaches. It even has been rumored around the league that the name of the ball club is no longer acceptable to float a loan. Only the signatures of Co-owners Tom Johnson and John Galbreath will bring the Pirates a bank loan, if necessary.
It has been estimated that the Kiner deal, which shifted five Cubs to Pittsburgh, added about $38,000 in salaries.
So, with a little mathematics, Rickey added $183,500 to the treasury. Since he received 100 G's in cash from the Cubs, and the difference in the players' salaries amounts to $83,000, Rickey helped things pretty well financially.
Rickey has slacked off noticeably in the past year or 18 months in signing bonus players. Whether it has anything to do with his now owning stock is open for argument.
But the Mahatama is known for not appreciating high priced ball players on his club.
During the first two years of Rickey's regime in Pittsburgh he let the dough flow as easily as you could turn on a water faucet.
He went through better than a half-million dollars during his first summer in Pittsburgh, giving out bonuses to young players.
The only youngsters who showed anything worthwhile were Dick Groat, the shortstop from Swissvale, Pa., and Jimmy Waugh, the pitcher from Lancaster, Ohio.
Both reportedly received about $25,000 to sign with the Pirates.
There were many others and, although the draft stepped in to hinder their advancement, none showed enough ability, to sideline observers, to justify any large bonuses.
A prominent example has been Dick Hall, the Swarthmore College athlete. Hall nicked the Bucs for $30,000. In two seasons they haven't been able to find a place where this six-foot-six giant can play. Even his minor league tenure has been very disappointing.
Hall's kind of money isn't being spent at Forbes Field any more. And the fact that the Mahatma now owns stock in the Pirates could very well be an enlightening reason."

-Jack Hernon, condensed from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Baseball Digest, August 1953)

Branch Rickey, anent the 1953 home run barrage: "It isn't the rabbit in the ball, but the quail in the pitchers that's responsible."

-Baseball Digest, October 1953

1953 Yankee of the Past: Jacob Ruppert

OCEANS OF "LOVE"
"The late Col. Jake Ruppert is the subject anecdotes. A recent one making the rounds is centered on baseball's battle with the Federal League. Harry Sinclair, one of the federal millionaires, thought he should have a one-third interest in the Yankees (owned by Ruppert and Tillinghast Huston) after the outlaw circuit had folded. He outlined his ideas to Ruppert who thoughtfully asked: 'Do you know where the Atlantic Ocean is?' Sinclair said he surely did. 'Well, then go jump in it,' answered Ruppert."

-Baseball Digest, September 1953

1953 Yankee of the Past: Red Ruffing

"Cleveland scout  Charley Ruffing revealed the other day why the Indians were pushovers while Charley was with the Yankees. 'I stooped over to pick up some dirt while batting one day and as I started to straighten up I turned my head a little and there I was looking right at catcher Frankie Pytlak's signs. After that, of course, all our hitters needed plenty of dirt on their hands. We picked off nearly every pitch and the Cleveland pitchers went crazy. They blamed Art Fletcher and Earle Combs, the coaches."

-Ken Smith in the New York Mirror (Baseball Digest, March 1953)

1953 Yankee of the Past: Lefty Gomez

COACH WITH A CURVE
"It was a dining car discussion en route north from St. Petersburg the other spring. Joining in the chatter were Lefty Gomez, one-time great New York Yankee hurler, and his alter ego of those days, Johnny  Murphy, now head of the Boston Red Sox farm system.
'Remember one day,' said Murphy, addressing Gomez, 'I relieved Red Ruffing and got Greenberg out on five fast balls, each one against his fists. He finally popped up.
'The next day I relieved you,'- again indicating Gomez- 'Greenberg was the batter. Coming in from the bullpen Joe DiMaggio called me. 'You got him out on fast stuff yesterday,' Joe said. 'He'll be looking for it today. Better curve him.'
'So after I warmed up the first pitch was a curve ball. Hank hit it upstairs. When we finally got the side out, Joe sat down beside me on the bench and said, 'I guess I'd better stick to center fielding and let you do the pitching.' '
'From the way Greenberg hit me, it would have been better to let Joe do the pitching and me play the outfield,' cracked Gomez.
The train rounded a sharp curve.
Beers, glasses, chairs and talkers careened to one side.
'What a curve!' said Gomez. 'If I had one like that, I'd make a comeback.'"

-Frank Yuetter in the Philadelphia Bulletin (Baseball Digest, January 1953)

SHINE BOY BOOTS ONE
"During the baseball meetings at Phoenix, Lefty Gomez was perched on a shoe-shine chair, with a young man working away on one foot and talking baseball.
'I don't like them Yankees,' he was saying. 'I wish somethin' would happen to those guys. Cry-babies, too, and ...'
The shoe was suddenly jerked from under his hands and he found Lefty standing beside him. 'I used to pitch for the Yankees and I liked them,' cracked Gomez. 'I still like'em. A great team and a great organization. Here ... ' and he handed the guy a quarter and walked off ... one shoe shined, the other not."

-Baseball Digest, February 1953

THE ONE TIME GOMEZ WAS SILENT
"'Know something?' offered Lefty Gomez. 'If I was in charge of the development of a young first baseman who was awkward around that bag, I'd make him take dancing. It's just the thing to develop the footwork that you need for that position. But I'm not always free with advice. There's a kid out West that some big league club signed, a pitcher.
'His high school coach asked me to give him some pointers on motion, delivery, etc. I asked what the kid signed for and the coach said $40,000. I said holy mackerel, $40,000 and he needs to learn about delivery? Suppose I teach him something and he hurts his arm. No, sir, let the outfit that paid $40,000 have somebody teach him. Not me.'"

-Halsey Hall in the Minneapolis Tribune (Baseball Digest, April 1953)