BIRTH OF A MANAGER
"Bucky Harris was ticketed to be manager of the Washington Senators by Clark Griffith as far back as 1923, when he was only a rookie infielder who played pro basketball in the winter. Griff knew his boy was playing and asked him to refrain, whereupon Bucky said he would do so. And then one night Griff attended a party in Washington and he saw Bucky with a black eye and he knew that Harris was basketballing in the tough coal mine regions of Pennsylvania.
'You and Mike Martin will leave for Tampa,' Griffith informed his young second baseman. 'It is necessary to get you away from basketball. Besides, Mike might need the rest.' Martin, now dead, was the long-time trainer of the Senators. Mike and Bucky went to Florida, far ahead the rest of the Washington club, and then one night the telephone rang.
Mike answered it and the call was long distance from Washington and it was a person-to-person call to Stanley Harris. The caller was Clark Griffith.
'I will never forget that call,' Bucky says. 'Griff began the conversation by asking me if I were behaving myself.'
'I am,' Bucky said, 'because I am rooming with Mike Martin and they do not play professional basketball in this area. I no longer have a black eye and, in fact, I am waiting for the opening of the season.'
Then there was a crackle on the phone. 'How would like to be manager of the ball club?' Griff asked.
Harris, in Tampa, was dumbfounded. 'You are joking, Mr. Griffith,' he said, and he looked at Martin as if for support.
Mike nodded wisely and said: 'I have been waiting for this phone call. You have been the new manager all the time, only you didn't know it. Say yes to Mr. Griffith ... you'll take the job ... and leave us get some sleep.' "
-Francis Stann in the Washington Times-Star (Baseball Digest, January 1954)
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