THE BREAK THAT MADE CRAFT A MANAGER
"When the Kansas City A's played the Reds this spring, Manager Harry Craft, one-time Cincinnati center fielder (there was never a better one defensively in a Red uniform), renewed acquaintances with Frank McCormick, his one-time roommate. McCormick works these days as an expert on televised Cincinnati games.
To a fellow who happened along as these old chums talked over old times, Craft said, 'I could never forget McCormick, even if I wanted to. He's the fellow responsible for my becoming a manager.'
Craft was traded to the Yankee organization by the Reds in 1942. (Remember the deal? Harry went with pitcher Jim Turner to the Yankees for two outfielders, Francis Kelleher and Eric Tipton.)
'In 1948, I'm with the Kansas City Blues when they are a farm club for the Yankees,' Craft recalled. 'We're playing a spring exhibition at Lake Wales, Florida, against the Boston Braves. Frank's playing first base for Boston. Well, Hank Bauer hits one down to first and McCormick rifles the ball into second to force me. I slide in there hard as I can to try to break up the double play and I feel some bones pop in my knee.
'They put me on a stretcher and send me John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. Dr. Bennett takes one look at the knee and he says, 'Harry, if you want to stay in baseball, you'll have to find another medium. You're through as a player.' I finished the season as a player-coach; they used me to pinch-hit a few times, and the next season the Yanks hired me to manager their farm at Independence, Kansas.
'If McCormick had fumbled that ball Bauer hit to him, or if he hadn't gone for the double play, I'd have kept right on playing and I might have never had my chance to manage.' "
-Si Burick, Dayton News (Baseball Digest, June 1959)
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