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)
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