Read Bill James Guide to Baseball Managers, The Online
Authors: Bill James
Tags: #SPORTS &, #RECREATION/Baseball/History
Bill James Guide to Baseball Managers, The (5 page)
So Dave Johnson leads back to Ned Hanlon, one way or the other. Don Baylor, of course, was brought to the majors and managed the first half of his career by Earl Weaver. In the minors, Baylor played two years for Joe Altobelli, who had played for Al Lopez; is this beginning to sound familiar?
Felipe Alou, the brilliant manager of the Montreal Expos, was brought to the majors in 1958 by Bill Rigney, whom we’ve already covered. Rigney was succeeded by Alvin Dark, who had played for Durocher and Billy Southworth.
In 1965, Alou was traded to Milwaukee, where he played for Bobby Bragan, who had played for Durocher. Bragan also played for several other managers. Bragan played, for example, for Hans Lobert—who had played for Hanlon, and also for John McGraw.
I don’t know who Mike Hargrove would cite as his biggest influence; he played for everybody. He was brought to the major leagues by Billy Martin, which puts us, at least arguably, back in the Hanlon family.
Another arm of the Hanlon phenomenon for many years was Hughie Jennings, who managed Detroit from 1907 to 1920 and who himself managed many managers. Fred Haney, for example, was influenced by Ty Cobb, who played most of his career for Jennings.
Donie Bush, a significant manager in his own right, played many years for Jennings. Pie Traynor thought highly of Donie Bush.
The Jennings line, however, appears to have largely died out by now, except as a supporting influence. None of Jennings’s managerial sons became a
great
manager, although many of them took a shot at it.
Then there was Fielder Jones, another Hanlon disciple who managed the White Sox in 1906, defeating Selee’s old Cub team in their finest season. I don’t mean to overstate the argument; there are at least two other families of managers which permeate baseball history, the Connie Mack family, and the Branch Rickey family. The Branch Rickey family is formed by the formidable system established by Rickey at Brooklyn in the late 1940s, and which I think constitutes a seminal experience comparable in its impact to the Ned Hanlon/John McGraw group.
The Connie Mack family is smaller and nearly extinct by now, but that’s another story. Connie Mack also played for Ned Hanlon, at Pittsburgh (then called Pittsburg) in 1891:
“Hanlon was one of the really great managers of baseball,” said Mack, “and I am proud that I once played under him. He later was fortunate in getting such great—and brainy—players as John McGraw, Hugh Jennings, Joe Kelley, and Willie Keeler; but Hanlon was smart, one of the great generals of baseball. He thought up many of the plays which McGraw, Jennings, and Keeler executed. All three had been around the league for several seasons before Hanlon brought out their full ability.”
—Fred Lieb,
Connie Mack
There’s no evidence that Hanlon had tremendous influence on Mack, and I’m not putting Mack in the Hanlon family.
Frank Selee was every bit as smart as Ned Hanlon, and his teams, in their time, were as noted for brains as were Hanlon’s, probably more so. For some reason, none of Selee’s players became outstanding managers except Frank Chance, and his influence as a manager dissipated quickly.
Johnny Evers was known as the smartest player in baseball, and he managed a couple of years, but he just couldn’t stand to sit still on the dugout bench.
Joe Tinker managed for a couple of years, but his wife was not well, and he moved to Florida for her health.
Frank Chance, of course, is in the Hall of Fame, but Chance didn’t particularly like Selee, and didn’t do anything to spread his reputation.
Bobby Lowe, Selee’s second baseman in Boston, managed just part of one season, with no success.
Fred Tenney, Selee’s first baseman in Boston, managed for four seasons with the same team, but he had no talent to work with, and his managerial record is among the worst in history.
Chick Stahl, Selee’s right fielder in Boston, managed for 18 games and committed suicide.
Jimmy Collins, his third baseman, managed for several years with good success, but did not succeed in fathering any other managers.
Hugh Duffy, Selee’s left fielder, managed four major league teams, but with no success.
John Ganzel, another one of his outfielders, managed two major league teams, a year at a time.
Kid Nichols, one of Selee’s best pitchers, managed a year and a half, with no success.
Pat Moran, probably Selee’s best shot at establishing a royal lineage, drank himself into an early grave.
As a minor league manager, Selee tried to sign Connie Mack, but Mack received two offers simultaneously, and chose the other one.
Without a John McGraw to carry on his reputation, without a Wilbert Robinson, a Miller Huggins, or a Hughie Jennings, there is no Leo Durocher or Frankie Frisch or Casey Stengel in the generation following.
Selee died of tuberculosis in July 1909, in Denver, Colorado. His great shortstop, Herman Long, also died of tuberculosis, also in Denver, just a few months later. Hanlon, who had made good money in baseball and saved it, retired to an estate by the sea, and would outlive John McGraw, Wilbert Robinson, Hughie Jennings, Miller Huggins, and Fielder Jones.
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ANLON
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All-Star Team
F
RANK
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ELEE
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All-Star Team
Most Successful Managers:
1. Fred Clarke
2. John McGraw
3. Frank Chance
Most Controversial Manager:
John McGraw
The key figure in the elimination of the “Rowdy Ball” of the 1890s was Ban Johnson. Johnson was president of the new American League, which made a pledge of clean baseball, and won over the fans by keeping that promise.
McGraw, who was employed in the American League in 1901–1902, resisted Johnson’s efforts to clean up the game, and by so doing made himself the spokesman for dirty baseball. He was also the most outspoken opponent of peace between the two leagues, and refused to play the World Series in 1904 because of his dislike for the American Leaguers.
Others of Note:
Jimmy Collins
Clark Griffith
Hughie Jennings
Fielder Jones
Nap Lajoie
Typical Manager Was:
Fielder Jones. Fielder Jones had played for Ned Hanlon, as did most of the top managers of this time, and was a playing manager, as were 57% of the managers during the decade. There were more playing managers in this decade than in any other since 1880.
Percentage of Playing Managers:
57%
Most Second-Guessed Manager’s Move:
Baseball in the first decade of this century had many marvelous pennant races and World Series, and hundreds of controversial events. The press in this era was very aggressive, and would crucify
a player
who made a misplay at a critical moment, or who played poorly in a World Series. They did this, for example, to Honus Wagner, who played poorly in the 1903 World Series; to Jack Chesbro, who won 41 games in 1904, but threw a fatal wild pitch on the last day of the season; to nineteen-year-old Fred Merkle, who failed to touch second base in a game on September 23, 1908; and to Harry Coveleski, who was accused of collapsing due to teasing by enemy batters in 1909.
And yet, as I mentioned in an earlier comment, this criticism never seemed to target
managers
; always players. Managers, when attacked, would be attacked because their teams didn’t play hard. Typical was this comment by Hooks Wiltse in the New York
American
on August 9, 1908:
Frank Chance’s braves are not possessed of the proper spirit, in my estimation. Everything was lovely while the Windy City lads were showing a stern chase to the rest of the company. But when collared the Cubs have proved quite docile.
This is quoted from G. H. Fleming’s marvelous book,
The Unforgettable Season
. McGraw
could
have been criticized for putting Merkle into the game to commit his famous boner, but by and large wasn’t; the criticism fell on Merkle. The concept of a manager as a chess player still was not common. The manager, up until 1910, was still seen largely as a field leader and instructor, not as a tactical strategist.
Clever Moves:
In 1909 the Pittsburgh Pirates won 110 games for Fred Clarke. Their pitching staff included Howie Camnitz (25–6), Vic Willis (22–11), and Lefty Leifield (19–8) as well as a pair of thirty-seven-year-old veterans of the 1903 World Series, Sam Leever (8–1), and Deacon Phillippe (8–3).
Crossing up everybody, Clarke decided to start Babe Adams, a twenty-seven-year-old rookie, in the first game of the World Series. Adams had also pitched brilliantly down the stretch, finishing 12–3, but, because of his inexperience, no one thought he would start in the World Series.
Clarke, however, was listening to National League President John Heydler. Heydler had seen a game in which Dolly Gray, a mediocre pitcher for Washington, had been very effective against the American League champion Detroit Tigers. Heydler thought that Adams’s delivery and pitching style was similar to that of Dolly Gray,
Adams stopped the Tigers 4–1 in Game One of the series, came back in Game Five to beat them again (8–4), and, on two days rest, shut them out in Game Seven, vaulting overnight to superstar status.
Evolutions in Strategy:
The sacrifice bunt, in use since the 1880s, swept the baseball world shortly after the turn of the century, becoming far more common than it was before, or has been since.
The assumption that the starting pitcher would finish every game began to deteriorate, as Frank Chance, John McGraw, and Clark Griffith began to use their best pitchers to finish out the wins of their second-line pitchers, and McGraw began to experiment with pitchers who were primarily relievers.
The number of pinch hitters used increased enormously. Dode Criss, in St. Louis, became the first player commonly used as a pinch hitter, as he pinch-hit 147 times between 1908 and 1911. The manager who defined this role for him was Jimmy McAleer.
Evolution in the Role of the Manager:
The role of a baseball manager changed tremendously in the first fifteen years of this century. First, the rapid development of in-game strategies such as bunting, pinch hitting, and relief pitching greatly increased the number of game decisions that a manager was required to make.
Second, it was during this period that teams first hired coaches. The hiring of coaching staffs changed the relationship of the manager to his team, forcing the manager to become a kind of chief of staff, as opposed to a hands-on teacher.
Third, press attention to baseball exploded between 1900 and 1915, which forced managers to devote vastly more of their time and attention to the role of press spokesman.
Fourth, an equally rapid growth in the minor leagues changed the way that managers acquired talent and forced managers into a permanent competition to find, evaluate, and acquire the best talent buried in the bush leagues. Since scouts or other emissaries had to be used to accomplish that, this again required managers to spend time and energy organizing the work of other people.
Because of these changes, professional managers, of whom there was only one in the nineteenth century (Harry Wright) suddenly appeared in significant numbers. The average length of time that a manager held his job increased steadily.
Robert G. (Colonel Bob) Allen was a nineteenth-century shortstop who managed the Cincinnati Reds in 1900.
Allen was the son of a banker, and a childhood friend of Warren G. Harding. A light hitter but a brilliant fielder, Allen played in the National League from 1890 to 1894. Out of the majors a few years, he attracted the attention of Reds owner John T. Brush by managing Indianapolis to the championship of the Western Association.
Allen’s managerial season was attended by misfortunes. The Reds’ park burned down, and they acquired the rights to a young pitcher named Christy Mathewson, but traded him to New York before he reported.
After leaving Cincinnati Allen purchased the Knoxville team in the Southern Association, which he owned and operated for many years with great success. From Rudy York’s letter to his son, in the first
Fireside Book of Baseball
, “Somebody told Colonel Bob Allen in Knoxville about me. This Colonel Allen … was known as a smart baseball man … But Colonel Allen made a mistake. He released me. If he had held onto me another year, he could have sold me for $50,000 or more.”
Allen died in Little Rock in 1943.