The Era, 1947-1957: When the Yankees, the Giants, and the Dodgers Ruled the World (18 page)

“Send me a wire right now,” McLaughlin said. “Make it read ‘Please send $10,000 advance on my salary.’ Phrase it like that and I’ll personally make sure your check goes right out.”

To his dying day, Durocher maintained: “I sent the wire. I got the check. I never got another.”

Rickey could forgive Durocher most of the sins of Satan. But he would not forgive Durocher for dunning him. The friendship between the two began rapidly to fade.

Durocher told the author Ed Linn, “You know, if you asked me to explain mixed feelings, I could give you the old joke. It’s watching your mother-in-law go over a cliff in your new car. Actually I liked Laraine’s mother. Mixed feelings for me was sitting in California in the summer of 1947 and watching
my
team — the team I had worked like a dog to put together — win the pennant without me.”

In
Nice Guys Finish Last
, an entertaining book written with Linn, Durocher boasts that he pursued other Dodger trustees until finally his 1947 salary was paid in full. On page269, he swears he was never paid in full. Then on page270 he gets his money. I do not suggest that
Nice Guys Finish Last
is coherent or accurate, only that it is entertaining (and as accurate as Linn could make it, given his collaborator).

Durocher next describes Laraine sensing Rickey as a false friend. He quotes his wife: “ ‘Rickey speaks with a forked tongue. I know the type. We have them in the Mormon Church, too.’”

He is setting up a story of betrayal. Leo, the wronged knight, forced out of Brooklyn by the evil parson, Wesley Branch Rickey. That version is rather less than the whole story.

Jackie Robinson was the future in Brooklyn. You didn’t have to be a superscout to realize that. The Dodgers set up a spring base in Santo Domingo in 1948, specifically to avoid racial explosions in the South. Robinson had finished the 1947 season at a lean, hard 185 pounds. He showed up in the Dominican Republic at 210, a full 25 pounds over good playing weight.

The Dodgers paid Robinson $5,000 for 1947. With success came invitations to speak, to put on batting exhibitions, to appear onstage. Robinson needed money; he accepted every offer. As the black journalist Carl Rowan observed, “Jackie’s admirers fed him until he was fat and futile.”

Robinson loved to eat; rich meals abrim with sugars, starches, cholesterol. His attack on a wedge of apple pie, topped with two scoops of vanilla ice cream, was an exercise in passion. His discipline had been saintly across the season of 1947. After the World Series, it collapsed.

Rickey was disappointed, a fact he registered by putting Robinson on the waiver list. Any National League team could purchase Robinson’s contract for $10,000 in 1948 unless Rickey withdrew his name from the waiver list within twenty-four hours of the claim. Nobody, not one of the seven other ballclubs in the league, bothered to claim the great Jackie Robinson.

For his part, Durocher raged. “That colored son of a bitch stayed in shape for Shotton, who meant nothing. I’m the guy who knocked down the petition. I’m the guy who fought for Robinson. And when he shows up to play for me, he looks like a black tub of lard.”

Durocher ordered Robinson to put on a tan rubber shirt that covered the entire upper body and arms. He stationed Robinson between first and second base and hit ground balls to Robinson’s right and left. The temperature on the Caribbean field approached 90 degrees. Durocher ran Robinson back and forth, barking constantly: “Move, Robinson. Move. There’s plenty of fat left back in the States. Leave some of
your
fat in Santo Domingo.”

Whoosh. A grass-cutting hopper to Robinson’s left.

Whoosh. A grass cutter to the right.

Overall, Durocher’s ringing voice kept bawling. “Move it, fat boy. Move it.”

After hours of this daily routine, Durocher turned to the press. “That’s enough for the fat boy today, fellers. Stick a fork in him. He’s done.”

By the time the Dodgers broke camp at Santo Domingo, Robinson had lost fifteen pounds. He remained ten pounds overweight. And he and Durocher were locked into a blood feud that lasted for six years.

“I was wrong to report overweight,” Robinson said long afterwards, “but Durocher was wrong to humiliate me, every day, in front of the other ballplayers, in front of the rookies, in front of the sportswriters. To tell the truth, I hated the loudmouthed bastard.”

With manager and star not speaking, the Dodgers started miserably in 1948. In July, with the best talent in the league, the team was tied for fourth, eight and a half games behind the first-place Boston Braves. The Dodgers were tied with the New York Giants, by far the best home-run-hitting team in baseball and just about the slowest.

Manager Mel Ott had joined the Giants in 1926, as a teenager. At the age of twenty Ott, a solid right fielder, hit forty-two home runs and batted in 152 runs. Across his career, he hit 511 homers. The Giants appointed him manager in 1942 and he brought the team home third. After that Ott’s Giants finished last on two occasions. They usually lost more ballgames than they won.

By 1948, with a powerful and expensive Giant ballclub going sideways, Horace Stoneham decided he had to make a change. He had known Ott since childhood. Ott was one of the most pleasant people on earth, but he wasn’t what Stoneham needed: a winning manager.

Burt Shotton
was
a winning manager. Or so he appeared. He’d brought the Dodgers home first in ‘47. One day early in July of 1948, Stoneham telephoned Branch Rickey: “I want permission to negotiate with Shotton. I’d like to bring him to the Polo Grounds.”

“Shotton is under contract to the Brooklyn club,” Rickey said. “At the moment, he’s working as my chief scout.”

“I want him to manage,” Stoneham said.

“He’s not available.”

“Damn,” Stoneham said.

After a pause, Rickey said, “If you’re interested in somebody else, we might come to an agreement.”

“Who?” Stoneham said.

“Leo Durocher.”

Rickey’s idea was for Durocher to resign. On July 4, he sent that request to his manager through Harold Parrott, the Dodgers’ traveling secretary. “I hate to tell you this,” Parrott said in Durocher’s office under the first base stands at Ebbets Field. “But I gotta. Mr. Rickey wants you to quit. He says don’t worry. He’s got something else for you that you’ll like.”

“Harold, tell the old bastard that if he wants me to resign, damn it, I will, but he’s gotta have the guts to come down here and tell me himself.”

“Mr. Rickey is away for a few days. He’s on the farm he bought in Maryland.”

“Wait a minute,” Durocher shouted. “I won’t resign. He’s gonna have to fire me and he’s gonna have to do it man to man.”

Fencing went on for several days.

“What is Leo going to do?” Rickey said. “Give me both barrels? Tell him I need more time to work out a special deal. Tell him I say to win ballgames. Win and keep on winning.”

“Keep winning?” Durocher bawled at Parrott. “Nobody knows better than that old bastard, that if I knew he was gonna fire me in the third inning — Poof! Out of work and on the street in the third! — I’d still be trying to score ten runs for him in the second!”

Durocher flew off to St. Louis on July 13 to manage the National League team in the All-Star Game. Stan Musial hit a two-run homer for Durocher, but the American Leaguers under Bucky Harris won, 5 to 2. Writers second-guessed Durocher’s lineup. They wondered why in the sixth inning, with the bases loaded and two out, he had not used Ralph Kiner or Sid Gordon to pinch hit for Richie Ashburn. Kiner and Gordon were long-ball hitters. Ashburn struck out.

Durocher’s mood was foul. When he returned to Brooklyn, Rickey ordered him into the Dodger office at 215 Montague Street. He offered Durocher Horace Stoneham’s unlisted number. “If you’re interested in managing the Giants, you have only to call him,” Rickey said.

“Gimme the number,” Durocher said. He telephoned the president of the Giants from the office of the president of the Dodgers. “Sure, I’ll manage for ya,” Durocher said.

“We have to meet,” Stoneham said. “Someplace quiet. We don’t need press here yet.”

“My place,” Durocher said. “I live at 46 East 61st Street. See ya there in half an hour.”

The Dodgers were playing in Cincinnati. (Rickey had told reporters that Durocher was “off on a special scouting trip to find the right young players to help the Dodgers get back into first place.”)

Horace Stoneham beat Durocher to the East 61st Street apartment. He introduced himself to Laraine Day Durocher and asked for a drink. “I’m waiting for Leo to get here,” Stoneham said. “I expect he’ll be managing the Giants tomorrow.”

The radio console was tuned to WHN, 1050, which carried Red Barber’s broadcast of the Dodgers’ game at Cincinnati. Laraine walked briskly to the set. “Then why am I listening to this?” She clicked off the radio and said easily, “Scotch, Mr. Stoneham, or bourbon?”

On Saturday, July 17, 1948, the front page of the
Daily News
cried out:

LIP REPLACES OTT!

BURT BACK WITH FLOCK!!

The
Herald Tribune
also played the story on the front page, but more sedately:

DUROCHER REPLACES OTT AS MANAGER OF GIANTS
RICKEY BRINGS SHOTTON BACK TO PILOT DODGERS

Horace Stoneham was so upset at dismissing Mel Ott that he announced, even as he introduced Durocher, that the Giants were retiring Ott’s uniform number “in tribute,” Stoneham said, “by golly, to a swonnerful guy.”

Some Dodgers, notably Jackie Robinson, felt relieved. “I loved playing for Shotton,” Robinson said. “It’s gonna be a lot different. When Shotton bawls out a player, he takes him aside and does it in private. If Leo has something on his mind, you hear about it in front of everybody.”

Gene Hermanski, the outfielder, said, “It makes no difference, none at all. All I want to know is who’s pitching.”

Ralph Branca said, a little glumly, “You have to play as hard for one as you do for the other.”

Carl Furillo, who five years later would assault Durocher at the Polo Grounds, sounded philosophical. “Hell, may the best man win.”

The Giant players truly were shaken. Everybody liked Mel Ott. The team was in Pittsburgh, staying at the Hotel Schenley, a block and a half from Forbes Field. Al Laney wrote: “It was as though a wake were being held in the lobby. Men sat around or wandered around, saying nothing. Ott was through. The players had an air of bereavement, as though a well-loved member of the family had died suddenly and unexpectedly. Most appeared stunned.”

As soon as Durocher flew into Pittsburgh, he called a team meeting. “You’re a good ballclub,” he said, “but from now on I want more life out on the field. I want more spark.”

“Cooper.” This to Walker Cooper, the mighty catcher. “You’re a good ballplayer, Coop, but from now on when a pitcher throws up a lazy pitch, I want you to fire that baseball back at him. Wake him up.

“Mize.” To Johnny Mize, the huge first baseman. “You’re no Hal Chase [a legendary great fielder] out there, but you’re a good ballplayer and a wonderful hitter. I want you to show some
life
out there.”

One by one Durocher went down the Giant lineup, mixing criticism with controlled praise.

“And tonight,” he said, “we’re really gonna show the people something. Winning baseball. Winning baseball, gentlemen.” That night it rained and the game had to be postponed.

Later in a suite at the Schenley, Durocher sat soberly with Stoneham and a few friendly, hard-drinking writers. “Pally,” Stoneham said. “Tell me the truth. What do you really think of this team?”

“The truth?”

“Sure, pally. The truth is what I want.”

Durocher issued a withering critique. “Back up the truck.”

“Whas that, pally?”

“He means a moving van, Horace,” the columnist Bill Corum said. “He wants some changes. He wants to ship some people out.”

“Back up the truck,” Leo Durocher repeated.

Harry Truman said the state of the nation worried him. The Republicans and a number of southern democrats were trying “to fool the people with poppycock.” Truman urged Congress to reconvene, in the heat of midsummer, and pass legislation “that deals with eight critical areas.”

1. Control skyrocketing prices. Sirloin steak had reached $1. 10 a pound.

2. Provide housing to ease the present shortage. Home construction had stopped during World War II. Now, three years after the war, couples were crammed in with parents and grandparents.

3. Increase federal aid to education.

4. Provide a national health insurance program. Doctors were charging more and more; surgical fees were getting ridiculous. The medical monopoly hooted at national health insurance as “creeping socialism.”

5. Guarantee civil rights. The Jackie Robinson experience was echoing through America.

6. Increase minimum wages. How else could you afford $1.10 a pound for sirloin steak?

7. Broaden social security coverage. Large numbers of small businessmen and independent contractors were unprotected.

8. Fight the utility monopolies by providing more low-cost public power “through quasi-government agencies like the Tennessee Valley Authority.”

“The Democrats clearly are desperate,” began a statement from the Republican National Committee. “They know that this President is sure to be voted out of office in November” [when the Republicans would run mustached Tom Dewey].

The next day the
Daily News
skipped the political debate. But the
News
ran an editorial on the Durocher-Shotton switch. The headline announced:

REALLY MOMENTOUS NEWS!

The Dodgers played better baseball for Shotton than they had for Durocher, but they could catch neither the Braves, who won the pennant, nor the St. Louis Cardinals. Incredibly, a superb Brooklyn team finished no better than third.

The Giants played better baseball for Durocher than they had for Mel Ott, but only slightly. The team finished one game above .500, in fifth place. With such mighty musclemen as Cooper and Mize, the Giants hit 164 home runs, better than 50 homers more than any other team in the league. (The winning Braves hit 95.) But the mighty musclemen couldn’t run much. The wisecrack said that Mize and Cooper could score
only
when they homered. Their top speed was a walk around the bases.