Read Bill James Guide to Baseball Managers, The Online
Authors: Bill James
Tags: #SPORTS &, #RECREATION/Baseball/History
Bill James Guide to Baseball Managers, The (16 page)
Still, on the more general point, our model assumes that a .355 hitter is a .355 hitter, regardless of where you put him in the lineup (except for the small effects of sacrifice plays). Many people would argue that this is not true, that there might be any number of possible interactions between hitters which are not represented in the model. Our model is far from perfect, and it is absolutely possible that in the future, more sophisiticated models will be developed which will yield different results.
But for now, this discussion has two groups. On the one hand, you have the barroom experts, the traditional sportswriters, the couch potatoes, and the call-in show regulars, all of whom believe that batting orders are important. And then, on the other hand, you have a few of us who have actually studied the issue, and who have been forced to draw the conclusion that it doesn’t make much difference what order you put the hitters in, they’re going to score just as many runs one way as another. You can believe whoever you want to; it’s up to you.
Billy Southworth was the most successful manager of the 1940s; Casey Stengel, of course, was the most successful manager of the 1950s.
The two men have many things in common. Stengel was born in Kansas City in 1890; Southworth was born in a small town in Nebraska in 1893, but was raised in Columbus, Ohio.
Both were National League players, both outfielders, both left-handed hitters. Stengel reached the major leagues in late 1912; Southworth played one game with Cleveland in late 1913, then went back to the minors for a few years.
The Pittsburgh Pirates traded for Stengel in January 1918, expecting him to play right field. Stengel didn’t play well, however, complained about his salary, fought with umpires, had some minor injuries, and was frequently booed by the fans. With World War I going on in Europe, Stengel quit the team in June and joined the navy.
Southworth got his job. Playing well in the minors, Southworth was purchased by the Pirates and reported to them on July 1, 1918. He played tremendously well until the season’s early end, hitting .341 in 64 games, and was listed in some contemporary publications as the National League batting champion.
Thus, when Stengel rejoined the Pirates the next season, he was unable to get back in the lineup full time. Stengel was traded to Philadelphia, and from then on to New York. Southworth didn’t play as well after his brilliant beginning, so a year later he was traded to Boston. (Stengel, incidentally, was traded for
Possum
Whitted. Southworth was traded for
Rabbit
Maranville. The Pirates were apparently intent on collecting a menagerie.)
Anyway, Stengel spent two years as a platoon player for John McGraw, 1922–1923, after which he was traded to Boston—for Billy Southworth.
It was a trade which hurt both teams. In retrospect, one wonders why either team made the move. Stengel liked McGraw, or if he didn’t was at least smart enough not to say so. He played very well in the Polo Grounds, hitting .368 and .339. Southworth, playing regularly in Boston, had hit .319 and scored 95 runs, but McGraw apparently intended from the beginning to slip Southworth into Stengel’s platoon slot, in which case it is hard to see what Southworth might have been expected to do that Stengel wasn’t already doing.
Southworth and McGraw didn’t get along, and Southworth didn’t play well. The Boston fans, who had adored Southworth, were slow to accept Stengel as his replacement, and Stengel didn’t play well—thus, both of their careers went into a tailspin.
Both Southworth and Stengel were hustling, aggressive players, generally popular with the fans, Southworth more so than Stengel. Both were combative men, Stengel more so than Southworth. It would be hard to say who was a better player, overall; they were essentially the same. Southworth had 1,296 hits, a .415 career slugging percentage, 138 career stolen bases, 402 walks and 561 RBI. Stengel had 1,219 hits, a .410 slugging percentage, 131 stolen bases, 437 walks, and 535 RBI. Southworth played for five major league teams in thirteen seasons; Stengel played for five teams in fourteen seasons.
Both men went from being major league players one year to being minor league managers the next, Stengel starting at Worcester in 1925, Southworth at Rochester in 1928. Both were failures in their first shot at managing in the majors. Southworth took over a championship team in 1929, did nothing with it, and went back to the minor leagues for ten years to reestablish his credibility. Stengel failed in Brooklyn, failed in Boston, but went back to the minors to reestablish his credibility.
Both Stengel and Southworth managed the Boston Braves in the 1940s, Stengel unsuccessfully; Southworth, successfully.
Both managers liked to platoon. Platooning was common in 1915–1925, when Stengel and Southworth played, but fell out of favor until the 1940s. Both Stengel and Southworth were instrumental in reestablishing the strategy. Both were tremendously successful for ten years, dominating the game, and then both were essentially finished, although Stengel tried to manage again.
As personalities, they were very different. Stengel was loud, funny, charming, always the center of attention. Southworth was quiet, warm, and agreeable, if occasionally self-righteous. Stengel played hunches; Southworth was very reasonable, very logical. Stengel admired John McGraw, and emulated McGraw as a manager. Southworth, though he made peace with McGraw after he was traded away, always tried not to do things the way McGraw had done them. He felt that McGraw didn’t communicate with his players, didn’t explain what he was doing; he made it a point to make sure that his players knew what he was doing and why he was doing it. Stengel’s players often had little idea what Casey was doing, or why he was doing it. Southworth’s troubles with McGraw came to a head when he felt that McGraw second-guessed him on a play in the field, and for that reason he was obsessive about not second-guessing his own men.
Southworth’s teams dominated the National League in the 1940s almost to the same extent that Stengel’s dominated the American League in the 1950s. Southworth’s record in the 1940s was 890–557, a .633 winning percentage; Stengel in the 1950s was 955–582, a .636 percentage. Southworth’s teams won 106, 105, and 105 games in consecutive seasons, and won 90 or more six times; Stengel never won more than 103, but won 90 or more nine times. Southworth’s record is more impressive, in that he did it with two teams, neither of which was strong before he took over, but Stengel’s record is more impressive in that he won twice as many pennants in his decade (eight to four) and three times as many World Championships (six to two).
Southworth’s career reached an abrupt end. Like most of the great managers, Billy was an alcoholic. After he failed in his first shot at managing, with the Cardinals in 1929, his drinking got out of control, and he hit bottom in 1933, out of baseball. He stopped drinking then, pulled his life together, got a second wife, and earned a second chance in baseball. He lectured his teams on the virtues of temperance, restraint, and self-discipline. From his perspective, he was trying to warn his players that they were doing things that might cost them their careers, their marriages, or their money. The lectures were not always appreciated, and this created conflicts with his players.
By August 1949, Southworth was in danger of a nervous breakdown. He took the last six weeks of the 1949 season off to recuperate, and tried to come back in 1950. The team didn’t play well, and his career was over just as Stengel’s was beginning to take off.
Most Successful Managers:
1. Billy Southworth
2. Joe McCarthy
3. Leo Durocher
Most Controversial Manager:
Leo Durocher
Others of Note:
Lou Boudreau
Eddie Dyer
Steve O’Neill
Luke Sewell
Burt Shotton
Stunts:
In
The Fordham Flash
, Frankie Frisch recalled something that happened while he was managing the Pittsburgh Pirates, probably about 1946. There was a gentleman who sat behind his dugout every game in a box seat and offered his advice about when to bunt, when to hit and run, etc.
One day before the game, Frisch approached the grandstand manager and made his dreams come true:
I told him we were going to let him direct the Pirates that day… . Well, he wasn’t too bad a manager, at that. I changed pitchers at his suggestion and signaled for the hit-and-run a couple of times for him and used the pinch hitters he suggested. But we lost the ball game, about 7 to 4… .
“We enjoyed having you work with us today,” I told him (after the game), “By the way, what business are you in?”
He told me he was in the brokerage business and I said, ‘All right, Mr. Dinwiddie, I’ll be down at your office in the morning with my two coaches and we’ll tell you how to run your business.”
Typical Manager Was:
Completely different at the beginning of the decade than at the end. The typical manager until the end of the war was a holdover from the 1920s and 1930s more secure, made gentle by age.
After the war, the older managers were replaced by younger men who had played in the 1930s or early 1940s, who were more aggressive, more intense, generally more inclined to play percentage baseball.
The change in Brooklyn from Burt Shotton to Charlie Dressen, although it didn’t occur until 1951, was fairly typical of the transition. Shotton, who had played from 1909 to 1923, was ridiculed by Dick Young as KOBS, Kindy Old Burt Shotton. Dressen wasn’t young, but he was fourteen years younger than Shotton, and a lot edgier.
Percentage of Playing Managers:
19%
Most Second-Guessed Manager’s Move:
1948, the American League pennant race ended in a tie. Joe McCarthy elected to start Denny Galehouse, rather than Mel Parnell, in the playoff game—a decision for which he is still being second-guessed today.
In the fourth game of the 1946 World Series, Bill Bevens of the Yankees was working on a no-hitter with two out in the ninth inning. The score was just 2–1, however, and the tying run was on second base due to a walk and a stolen base. Apparently trying to protect the no-hitter, Bucky Harris ordered an intentional walk to Pete Reiser. This went against “the book,” which prohibits putting the potential winning run on base. A pinch hitter doubled off the wall, giving Brooklyn a 3–2 victory.
Player Rebellions:
Cleveland, 1940, vs. Ossie Vitt; Brooklyn, 1943, vs. Leo Durocher.
Evolutions in Strategy:
The peculiar baseball of the war years forced adjustments, which reshaped the postwar game. Without star pitchers, almost every team began using an old guy like Jittery Joe Berry, Ace Adams, Gordon Maltzberger, or Joe Heving as a relief ace.
The stolen base, moribund during the 1920s and 1930s, made a brief revival, as the dead baseballs of the war era reduced batting averages and all but eliminated home runs in some parks. (In 1945 the only home run hit by the Washington Senators in Griffith Stadium was an inside-the-park home run by Joe Kuhel on the last day of the season.)
Platooning, uncommon since 1925, returned due to the advocacy of Billy Southworth and Casey Stengel.
Evolution in the Role of the Manager:
In the first fifty years of major league baseball, the manager was almost entirely responsible for the personnel on his roster. In the 1920s and 1930s, the responsibility for finding and developing
young
players shifted to the front office, but until about 1940, making trades remained a function of the manager. Bill Terry made his own trades; Joe Cronin made his own deals unless the deal involved a sizable hunk of Tom Yawkey’s money. Even Frankie Frisch, working for Branch Rickey in St. Louis, had latitude to get the players he wanted and get rid of those he didn’t.
About 1940, general managers began to assume responsbility for making trades. Larry MacPhail was probably the first general manager to take full responsibility for the roster, effectively telling the manager to get used to the idea or look for another job.
To a large extent, I think this was an inevitable transition. Every October, some teams would fire their managers. In 1930, when a team fired one manager they would rush to hire the next one, so that the new manager would have time to make his own deals. At some point, General Managers were bound to realize that all they had to do was wait a couple of months to hire the new manager, and the power to make trades would fall to them by default.
Of course, general managers in 1997 still usually make personnel moves in close consultation with their managers. There was also a profound change, after the war, in the after-hours relationship of the manager and his player. It’s hard to draw any solid conclusions about this, because nobody wrote about it until Bouton in 1970, but managers in John McGraw’s time closely supervised the private lives of their ballplayers. There is a story about a rookie who was so terrified of McGraw that one time a reporter asked him whether he was married, and kid stammered out “I-I-I don’t know, sir; you’d better ask Mr. McGraw.”
At some point the managers surrendered this control. When exactly did baseball players, including the married ones, start keeping girlfriends in every city? I’m sure there was always some of that, but the practice seems to have exploded in the late 1940s. This was a source of conflict between Billy Southworth and his men in Boston, and also, I believe, between Frankie Frisch and his team in Pittsburgh.
In part, this change occurred because supervising the players became logistically complicated after the war. The cities became larger, and transportation around the cities became more convenient. Rogers Hornsby said, “When I played, the only entertainment for players was movies or baseball or a speakeasy if you could sneak in one.”
Night baseball rendered the traditional 11:30 curfew obsolete. More significantly, the culture changed. The new generation of players did not accept the right of employers to supervise their off-hours activities. Sexual mores changed, and more women began to throw themselves at the players.
Not that everything happened at once—some managers still have curfews for some situations in the 1990s—but I believe the fundamental paradigm shift in this area occured about 1948. Leo Durocher became the norm, rather than the exception. The older generation of managers—McCarthy, Mack, Shotton, Southworth, Frisch—were pushed aside, in part, by this change.
