Leo Durocher

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I never did say that you can't be a nice guy and win. I said that if I was playing third base and my mother rounded third with the winning run, I'd trip her up.

Leo “The Lip” Durocher, born July 27, 1905 in Springfield, Massachusetts, was by all accounts a players' player. He was rough and tumble and said what was on his mind. Durocher spent a good deal of his youth in pool halls, and probably stopped attending public school around the age of 12. He claimed in his autobiography ,Nice Guys Finish Last, that he could have received a college scholarship had he not punched out by a high school teacher, but evidence supports that he never attended high school, or not for long. He played amateur baseball and football for the Wico Electric Company where he worked as a mechanic in his youth. The family barely got by as his father worked occasionally and his mother stitched baseballs for the AG Spalding company.

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Durocher began his pro baseball career with the Hartford Senators in the Eastern League. It was his defense that attracted the attention of the Yankees, where he made his debut in 1925. He was sent to the minors for two years before getting the call to rejoin the parent club. He was a favorite of manager Miller Huggins, who sensed Durocher's baseball IQ, but was disliked by the general manager and his teammates because of his foul mouth, his nightlife, running up debt and trying to pay for it with bad checks.

There were many descriptive terms for Durocher, such as abrasive, slick fielding, light hitting, hustling and an umpire-baiting-bench jockey. To say his career was colorful is an understatement. He played and managed baseball for almost five decades. His first full year was as a shortstop/second baseman for the '28 pennant winning team that included the likes of Lou Gehrig, Tony Lazzeri, and Babe Ruth.

Following the 1928 season, Durocher demanded a raise, and the Yankees responded by giving him his release. He signed on with the Cincinnati Reds where he played 399 games over the next 3 years before being traded to the St. Louis Cardinals for Paul Derringer, Sparky Adams and Allyn Stout early in the '34 season. This St. Louis team became the famous “Gas House Gang” captained by none other than Durocher. This was a much better fit personality wise for Durocher, as his fiery characteristics matched that of the rough and tumble Cards.

By most accounts, the Cardinals earned this nickname when Durocher claimed that the players in the American League probably thought his team was a bunch of “gashousers”, referring to the smelly gas used to provide lighting and cooking from coal before the use of natural gas. The coal plants that produced the foul smell were most often located in the poorer sections of town by the railroad tracks, further adding to their image of a rag tag outfit.

The brawling, five o'clock shadowed Cardinals often played their games in dirty, smelly uniforms on purpose, feeling this tactic gave them an edge over their competition. "I'm wearing the same socks, shirt and underwear, too!" Durocher was quoted as saying during the '34 campaign. Most of the players on this team came from the South and working class backgrounds, including the Dean brothers, Paul and Dizzy, Pepper Martin, Spud Davis, and playing manager Frankie Frisch. This was truly a band of brothers who went to war every game. This was Leo Durocher baseball.

"There are only five things you can do in baseball - run, throw, catch, hit, and hit with power."

Durocher played for the Cardinals until he was traded to Brooklyn for four players, Johnny Cooney, Jim Bucher, Joe Stripp nd Roy Henshaw, before the start of the 1938 season. Burleigh Grimes was manager of the perennial losing team and, sensing he was about to be fired, suggested that Durocher be his replacement. Durocher was hired as player/manager and led the team to a third place finish in 1939, second place in 1940 and a pennant in 1941, winning 100 games but ultimately loosing to the Yankees in the World Series. By that time the Dodgers had acquired little known shortstop Pee Wee Reese, who was given the position so Durocher could concentrate on managing. In 1942, the Dodgers won 102 games but finished two games out as the Cardinals won 104.

All of this was not without controversy, however. For example, during the 1938 season, before Durocher became manager, Babe Ruth was a Dodger coach and thought he was in line for the managerial job. Durocher made a comment about Babe's intelligence and a fistfight ensued. Also, the endless feuding with the high strung, big drinking Larry McPhail was almost a daily occurrence. Many times, in the midst of a night of drinking, McPhail would fire Durocher and then rehire him the next morning. It was said that this event alone may have occurred at least 100 times over the years the two worked for the Dodgers.

“If you don't win, you're going to be fired. If you do win, you've only put off the day you're going to be fired.”

In the minds of most people, the image of Leo Durocher is that of a manager fighting for his players. As a manager, his temperament took on a whole new life as now he had the authority to charge out of the dugout headlong towards the umpire who had made the bonehead call. The most enduring image is that of the 5'7” Durocher going toe to toe and nose to nose with the ump until the inevitable ejection from the game. (With 95 lifetime ejections, Durocher ranks fourth on the all time list.) Durocher insisted on assembling teams to match his temperament and competitiveness.

One of the ugliest times in baseball history occurred before the 1947 season when one time friend, McPhail, hired two of Durocher's coaches, Charlie Dressen and Red Corrigan, away from the Dodgers to work for the Yankees. This incensed Durocher and the battle was on. Publicly both McPhail and Durocher accused each other of associating with known gamblers. The baseball commissioner, A. P. "Happy" Chandler, who was a close associate of McPhail and had McPhail to thank for his current position, suspended Durocher for the entire upcoming season after investigating the accusations, Chandler claimed that Durocher had an "accumulation of unpleasant incidents in which he has been involved, which the commissioner construes as detrimental to baseball."

"Leo Durocher is like the man who is hailed into a traffic court for passing through a red light and then is sentenced to the electric chair. In this instance, the penalty does not fit the crime and is much too severe." Time'sArthur Daley

Prior to his suspension in '47, Durocher played a crucial role in erasing the “color line” in baseball by sticking up for Jackie Robinson. At the time Durocher said:

"I don't care if the guy (Jackie Robinson) is yellow or black of if he has stripes like a $&!*@#$ zebra. I'm the manager of this team and I say he plays."

Durocher liked the hustle and aggression of Robinson, referring to him as “a Durocher with talent.” He was quoted in the Daily Worker as saying that there were "about a million" blacks who could play in the major leagues if it were not for baseball's unwritten policy barring black players. The remark got Durocher into hot water with baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who issued a statement denying (falsely) that any such policy existed.

Although Durocher did not have the opportunity to manage Robinson for his rookie season, he returned for the 1938 season, but that turned out to be short lived. Branch Rickey became agitated with Durocher's histrionics and made a deal with the cross town rival Giants owner, Horace Stoneham. The deal would allow Durocher to be let out of his Dodger contract and picked up by the Giants, which stunned Dodger fans who could not imagine “The Lip” managing their arch rivals.

The Giants showed steady improvement under Durocher's watchful eye, from fifth place finishes in both 1948 and '49 to third place in 1950. Following the start of the 1951 campaign, Durocher insisted that the Giants promote their sensational rookie, Willie Mays from AAA Minneapolis. Mays started slowly and struggled, but Durocher stuck with him, sensing the talent Mays possessed. Durocher was a father figure and nurtured Mays along to help him understand the strains of major league life. 1951 turned out to be one of the most memorable in baseball history. The Giants battled the Dodgers all season, needing to win 37 of their final 44 games to end up in a virtual tie. In a three game playoff, Bobby Thompson's “shot heard 'round the world” off Ralph Branca, sealed the pennant for the underdog Giants. This was truly sweet revenge for Durocher as he was able to “stick it” to the Dodgers. Durocher went on to win his only World Series in 1954, as his Giants beat the favored Cleveland Indians, who had won an amazing 111 games that season.

Durocher managed the Giants through the 1955 season, but too many disagreements with Stoneham made Durocher have second thoughts about the life of a major league manager and all that it entailed. He decided to give broadcasting a shot and became the annalist for baseball's Game of the Week from 1956 through 1960. He actually enjoyed being on television, and over the years made appearances on shows such as Mr. Ed, The Beverly Hillbillies , The Munsters, and even hosted two episodes of Jackpot Bowling.

Durocher was still a baseball man and baseball was still in his blood. He accepted the third base coaching position for the L.A. Dodgers in 1961 and stayed there through the 1964 season. Phil Wrigley of the Cubs came calling in 1966, and Durocher took over the perennial second division club for the next six and a half years. The Cubs had experimented with their coaching staff for several seasons, preferring to have head coaches rather than a manager.

“If no announcement has been made about what my title is, I'm making it here and now. I'm the manager. I'm not a head coach. I'm the manager.”

Durocher claimed "I am not the manager of an eighth place team.” He couldn't have made a more accurate statement, as that year the Cubs became the first team to finish worse than the Mets. They showed improvement as the Cubs finished third for two straight seasons in '67 and '68. 1969 was the first year that major league baseball split into divisions, and the Cubs became members of the National League East. For all intents and purposes it was a wonderful year for the Cubs. They were in fist place for 155 days and by mid August held an eight and one half game lead and was the hands down favorite to be in post season play for the first time in 25 years. The inevitable happened and the Cubs lost 17 of their final 25 and finished second behind the “Miracle Mets”.

As the skipper of the Cubs, Durocher had constant run ins with aging star Ernie Banks, whose worsening knee problems made him a liability in the field, but because he was a legend it was almost impossible to bench him. Durocher's biggest problem was with the players of the day, with the large salaries and special treatment that the now dominant player's union demanded. He nearly came to blows a number of times with Cubs third baseman Ron Santo. This was not the baseball that Leo Durocher knew and he didn't like it. He felt out of touch with a newer generation of baseball players and they resented his autocratic style of managing.

Durocher managed to get himself fired midway through the '72 season and true to form took over as Houston's manager for the final 31 games of that season. He returned for the 1973 campaign and guided the Astros to an 82-80 season before retiring again. He actually considered taking the helm of the Saitama Siebu Lions of the Japanese Pacific League in 1976 but begged off due to his health at the age of 71.

Leo “The Lip” Durocher passed away in 1991 at the age of 86 in Palm Springs, CA.

He was inducted posthumously into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1994.

As a player, Durocher had a lifetime batting average of .247 with 1,320 hits. He played in 3 All Star Games and 2 World Series.

As a manager his record was 2,008-1,709 and won a World Series.

Leo was married 3 times and divorced 3 times. He married Grace Dozier in 1934, actress Laraine Day in 1947 and Chicago socialite Lynne Walker Goldblatt in 1969.