Bill James Guide to Baseball Managers, The (17 page)

Year of Birth:
1905

Years Managed:
1939–1946, 1948–1955, 1966–1973

Record As a Manager:
2,010–1,710, .540

Managers for Whom He Played:
Miller Huggins, Dan Howley, Gabby Street, Frankie Frisch, Burleigh Grimes.

Others by Whom He Was Influenced:
Unlike any other manager I can think of, Durocher was heavily influenced by one of his own coaches, Charlie Dressen. Dressen, hired by Larry MacPhail at the same time as Durocher, was seven years older than Durocher, and had experience as a manager. Durocher came to depend on Dressen, and much of what Durocher accomplished, as a manager, is probably due to Dressen’s influence.

Characteristics As a Player:
Durocher was a better player than sportswriters generally wrote that he was. He was the third-best shortstop in the National League of the 1930s, behind Arky Vaughan and Dick Bartell.

Durocher did not have a good arm, but he was quick, reliable, and alert. He would have been the Gold Glove shortstop of his time, had there been such an award, and he wasn’t an awful hitter, hitting .260 with 70 RBI in 1934, .265 with 78 RBI in 1935, and .286 with 58 RBI in 1936.

He wasn’t a
good
hitter, either, but he played 1,509 games at shortstop in the major leagues, which ranks forty-eighth on the all-time list. He was a key player on an outstanding team. He made every play that he was supposed to make, and in any sport, you just cannot overstate the importance of having smart players in the middle of the field.

WHAT HE BROUGHT TO A BALL CLUB

Was He an Intense Manager or More of an Easy-to-Get-Along-With Type?
He was extremely difficult to get along with.

Was He More of an Emotional Leader or a Decision Maker?
He was both, but he was
essentially
an emotional leader.

What made Durocher successful was his intensity, his ability to communicate to his players the urgency of winning
this
game
now!
Durocher would publicly humiliate a player who, in Durocher’s opinion, failed to give him his best effort. If a player made a bonehead play on the bases, Durocher might come out on the field and scream at him as he returned to the dugout. He once described one of his pitchers, Luke Hamlin, as “the gutless wonder” to a group of reporters.

Early in his career, Durocher would make a clubhouse production out of “taking a man’s uniform” if he thought the player wasn’t hustling. He did this about once a year, but in 1943, with the Dodgers not playing well and Charlie Dressen banished by the front office, he turned on Joe Medwick and Bobo Newsom in separate incidents, throwing them both off the team in theatrical temper tantrums. The team rebelled on him. After the tirade directed at Bobo Newsom, Arky Vaughan handed Durocher his uniform and said, “Here. If you want his uniform, you can have mine, too.” Durocher was flabbergasted, and his career as a Dodger manager almost ended right there. It took him a year and a half to get back in control of his team.

Was He More of an Optimist or More of a Problem Solver?
He was a problem solver.

HOW HE USED HIS PERSONNEL

Did He Favor a Set Lineup or a Rotation System?
A set lineup. If his team wasn’t playing well, Durocher would change his lineup frequently, but not on a day-to-day basis. He would fix a lineup and give it a few weeks; if it didn’t work out, he would try something else or somebody else. Everybody on his teams was clearly either a regular or a substitute, but the designations as to who was the regular and who was the substitute might change three or four times a season.

Did He Like to Platoon?
He never platooned in the starting lineup that I know of. He did pinch hit to gain the platoon edge in a key situation, and he was the first major league manager to place an emphasis on having a lefty in the bullpen.

Did He Try to Solve His Problems with Proven Players or with Youngsters Who Still May Have Had Something to Learn?
Veterans.

Durocher would play a young player only if the young man had exceptional ability, and he had room for about only one at a time (in the lineup). With the sole exception of Pete Reiser, his great 1941–1942 Brooklyn team was entirely built of players cast aside by or purchased from other teams. His 1951–1954 Giants team contained many of the same type of players, plus some mid-career imports from the Negro Leagues, and his late ’60s Cubs consisted mostly of players who were in the lineup before Durocher arrived in Chicago.

Durocher believed (accurately, in my opinion) that he could get more out of a player than another manager could, in part by teaching him and showing him things that he was doing wrong, and in part by getting better effort from him. Jim Hickman (1970) would be the best example of this—a player in his mid-thirties who had been around the league for ten years before Durocher got him, and who gave Durocher performance far beyond what anyone else thought he was capable of.

But Durocher had no long-term plan. Next year was next year; two years down the road was something he’d worry about two years down the road.

How Many Players Did He Make Regulars Who Had Not Been Regulars Before, and Who Were They?
Very few. Durocher was proud of his ability to work with young players, and his work in developing Willie Mays is one of the things he is most remembered for. But in his twenty-four years as a major league manager, he put less than fifteen players in the lineup who hadn’t been regulars before, and no more than half of those fifteen became quality players. His big hits were Mays and Pee Wee Reese, whom the Dodgers drafted from the Red Sox organization. He also made a regular out of Pete Reiser (1940), Whitey Lockman (1948), Monte Irvin (1950), Wes Westrum (1950), Don Mueller (1950), Hank Thompson (1950), Davey Williams (1952), Randy Hundley (1966), and Adolfo Phillips (1966).

He broke in some outstanding pitchers, too, most notably Hugh Casey (1939), Sal Maglie (1950), and Ferguson Jenkins (1966), all of whom had just limited experience before joining Durocher.

The most interesting phase of his career, in this regard, is what he did with the 1948–1950 Giants. Durocher with the Giants took over a collection of sluggers who had hit 221 home runs for Mel Ott in 1947, a major league record at the time, but had finished fourth. He experimented with them for a year and a half, keeping many of the same players in the lineup, but getting a few at bats for Monte Irvin, Wes Westrum, Don Mueller, and Hank Thompson. In 1950 he entirely turned over his lineup, putting all four of those players in the lineup, joined by Tookie Gilbert (a rookie who failed), and two trade acquisitions (Eddie Stanky and Al Dark). This planted the fuse for the mid-1951 explosion, which was lighted by the return of Sal Maglie, who had been banished for pitching in the Mexican League, and the sudden development of Willie Mays.

But most of these players had
obvious
ability. Durocher worked with veterans, and with young players who had obvious ability. If the ability wasn’t obvious, he didn’t see it.

Did He Prefer to Go with Good Offensive Players or Did He Like the Glove Men?
A balance. There is no clear pattern. There were times when Durocher would stretch a player defensively to get an extra hitter in the lineup—for example, in 1951 he moved an outfielder to third base (Bobby Thomson) to make room for both Mueller and Irvin.

With the arguable exception of Don Kessinger, Leo Durocher never used a Leo Durocher-type player as a regular. He expected everybody in the lineup to make an offensive contribution.

Did He Like an Offense Based on Power, Speed, or High Averages?
Four of Durocher’s teams led the league in home runs, while only two led in stolen bases, and only one led the league in batting average. Eight of Durocher’s teams led the league in walks drawn, far more than any other category.

Did He Use the Entire Roster or Did He Keep People Sitting on the Bench?
He used about ten players and about seven pitchers. The rest of the guys just pinch-hit and played in blowouts.

Did He Build His Bench Around Young Players Who Could Step into the Breach If Need Be, or Around Veteran Role-Players Who Had Their Own Functions Within a Game?
Almost 100% veterans, except for the 1948–1949 team. Dusty Rhodes, pinch hitter, was the best bench player Durocher ever had.

In general, Leo’s bench was his dog house. His bench players had very little role on the team, other than to try to figure out how to get back on Durocher’s good side.

GAME MANAGING AND USE OF STRATEGIES

Did He Go for the Big-Inning Offense, or Did He Like to Use the One-Run Strategies?
Neither to an extreme degree.

Did He Pinch-Hit Much, and If So, When?
He did, yes. His first couple of years as a manager, he had no pinch-hitting specialist. But Lew Riggs gave him a good year as a pinch hitter in 1941, and after that he was always looking for somebody to come off the bench and get a hit for him. Among his notable successes were Jack Bolling, Bobby Hofman, Dusty Rhodes, and Willie Smith.

Was There Anything Unusual About His Lineup Selection?
His lineup selection was standard.

This probably doesn’t have anything to do with lineup selection, but Durocher had the opportunity to work with four great young center fielders—Pete Reiser, Willie Mays, Adolfo Phillips, and Cesar Cedeno. (It seems absurd now to put Adolfo Phillips in a class with Willie Mays, but he could run and he had power, and at the time, it looked like he was going to be good.) Another thing notable about his teams is good bats at second base—Billy Herman, Eddie Stanky, Glenn Beckert. In Houston he had Joe Morgan for a few games, but the team traded Morgan away that winter, possibly at Durocher’s urging.

Durocher usually had one guy on his team who drew a tremendous number of walks. The most notable examples are Eddie Stanky (148 walks for Brooklyn in 1945, 137 in 1946, 144 walks for the Giants in 1950) and Wes Westrum, a catcher who in 1951 had only 79 hits, but drew 104 walks, giving him a .219 batting average but an on-base percentage of .400. Other Durocher players who led the league in walks include Dolf Camilli (1939), Augie Galan (1943–1944), and Ron Santo (1966–67–68).

Did He Use the Sac Bunt Often?
Average amount.

Did He Like to Use the Running Game?
Not much. Average/below average.

In What Circumstances Would He Issue an Intentional Walk?
Mostly to avoid a hot hitter.

I checked the play-by-play of the three World Series in which Durocher participated. He used the intentional walk frequently, and was burned by it several times. In Game Five of the 1951 World Series, he intentionally walked Johnny Mize to pitch to Gil McDougald, loading the bases with two out in the third inning, 1–0 game. McDougald hit a grand slam home run, by far the biggest hit of the Series.

There is no official IBB data from Durocher’s salad days, but the data from the Cubs in the late 1960s confirms that Durocher was liberal with the intentional walks.

Did He Hit and Run Very Often?
He did, yes. He managed three of the best hit-and-run men in baseball history—Billy Herman, Don Mueller, and Glenn Beckert.

Were There Any Unique or Idiosyncratic Strategies That He Particularly Favored?
Durocher was famous for playing hunches. He sometimes did things that didn’t seem to make sense, like putting a slow runner in motion, bunting when several runs behind, or using a light-hitting infielder as a pinch hitter when a better-hitting outfielder was available. He would explain these moves by saying he just had a hunch.

Partly, of course, it wasn’t a hunch. The optimal strategy is never a predictable strategy. By doing the seemingly irrational, Durocher was doing the unexpected, which prevented the opposition from getting comfortable in the field.

How Did He Change the Game?
As to details, Durocher was the first manager to routinely use several pitchers in a game, and the first manager to regularly switch to a left-hander out of the bullpen when the opposition had a big left-handed hitter up with the game on the line. His largest strategic impact was in leading the way toward more aggressive use of the bullpen.

On a larger scale, when Durocher was hired, he was not an established managerial “type.” He was an original, a new mold. He was hired by Larry MacPhail, an inspired, half-crazy, half-genius general manager who had once, during World War I, attempted to kidnap Kaiser Wilhelm. Without orders. Nobody but MacPhail would ever have thought to make Durocher a manager.

There were managers before Durocher who drank, swore, chased women, bet horses, and screamed at umpires—but they were, in some fundamental way, “responsible” men. They were men who obeyed the rules and asked the world for respect.

Durocher didn’t give a shit what you thought of him. He didn’t make any pretense to being a nice person. Until the 1950s, he didn’t make any pretense to being a family man. He was a rogue. He dressed in flashy clothes, drove flashy cars, drove too fast, took a punch at anybody who crossed him, made a pass at every woman he took a liking to, and bragged when he scored.