Wednesday, November 13, 2024

How Baseball's Greatest Manager Handled Two of The Most Notorious Defeats in The Game's History - And What We Can Learn From It

 

 

When John Joseph McGraw passed away on February 25, 1934 he was mourned by many as the greatest of all baseball managers. Ninety years he left the earth the game changed in countless ways that McGraw couldn’t have foreseen – including the fact that the team he managed for thirty years the New York Giants is now playing in San Fransisco.

However while we will forever be debating who the greatest position players of all time, who the greatest hitters are, who the greatest pitchers, fielders and so on are, I think the debate of who the greatest manager of all time is now officially settled and it is still John McGraw. Because while the game has changed in ways to completely alter how it is played the standard for a successful manager is still the same as it was when McGraw started in the game way back when  it was in its infancy and will forever be. As he himself said “The main idea is to win.” And in all the years since McGraw almost every record he set is still standing as a manager and its almost certain none of them will ever be surpassed, not in my lifetime, not ever.

In his career of nearly thirty seasons of managing, spanning from 1901 to 1932 McGraw won ten pennants. In the century since he won his last one only Casey Stengel won as many and any Yankee manager since the era of Babe Ruth has an advantage McGraw didn’t for most of his career. He managed for 31 seasons more than any other manager in National League history. He managed for 31 seasons, a number surpassed only by Connie Mack and Tony La Russa and Mack was the owner of the Philadelphia Athletics. And McGraw holds the National League record for most games won 2,763, a number that only Mack surpassed and there’s an asterisk on that. His teams finished with a winning percentage of .586, 815 games over 500. Joe McCarthy is the only manager in baseball history with a higher winning percentage and McGraw won 23 games more over .500 than McCarthy.

The argument against McGraw being de facto the greatest manager of all time is the fact that the Giants only won three World Championships. But unless you happened to be the Yankee manager from 1923 to 1962 that’s always been harder than it looks for most managers. Earl Weaver, who was considered one of the greatest managers of all time only one 1 World Series in four tries, Bobby Cox only won one World Series in his tenure as the head of the Braves and Tony LaRussa won three World Series in six tries. All three men managed teams that are considered dynasties; no one considers them failures.

All of them did have levels to get through that made their jobs harder than McGraw but McGraw had burdens they didn’t. For McGraw’s entire career the only way to win the pennant was to finish first. He had no benefit of analytics, for that matter sports-writing and statistics and record keeping was still being figured out much of the time he was managing. He didn’t have the benefit of ESPN to remind him what his batter had done against the last time he’d faced the previous pitcher (though because the leagues were smaller, it was slightly easier to keep track of it then today). His teams had to travel in trains between cities and most times those travels took over eighteen hours. His players were not the athletic specimens they are today; on the contrary, many of them had come from farms and coal mines before they were athletes. Travel was excruciating, they didn’t stay in the best hotels (when McGraw was managing players were still barely considered respectable) and they had to often play double headers at an accelerated pace. With no lights in stadiums, games were frequently called on account of darkness. And if your players hurt themselves, well, teams didn’t have doctors back then. A lot of old ballplayers, McGraw among them, frequently look back on their era as a tougher one. In this particular case, he has a point.

So by that metric and when you consider that in all the years since McGraw retired no one has approached his total for wins in the National League and it is unlikely anyone ever will that he must be considered the greatest manager of all time. Yet that is not what the purpose of this article is.

John McGraw was a different type of manager than the one we are used today or even the one that might have existed a decade after he retired. McGraw was a strict disciplinarian in a way that most managers even of his era were not. He was a taskmaster in a way few could imagine. John McGraw wanted to win and was willing to do anything to do so. He was perhaps the most notorious baiter of umpires from the moment he became a player in 1891 and he never stopped until he retired. He jumped to the American League in 1902 but when President Ban Johnson suspended him for his vicious behavior he took it so harshly that he ended up moving to the Giants. McGraw gave orders and never took them. There is an anecdote whose veracity I’m inclined to believe that he once fined Irish Meusel $100 for hitting a two-run home run because he had ordered him to bunt. Every manager gives the orders on the field but McGraw could take it to a whole new level.

However few players disputed this attitude most of his career because the rewards were great. One of his players Larry Doyle once famously said: “Oh, it’s great to be young and a Giant.” And the reason that he and so many players were willing, in a sense, to subvert their personalities to McGraw was because if you played for him you would be well-compensated. In an era where most ballplayers were severely underpaid McGraw went out of his way to make sure his players received higher salaries than the league average. When the Federal League offered many of the game’s brightest stars more money to play for them, McGraw went out of his way to make sure his lineup was given handsome raises.

In an era before general managers and scouting were common McGraw had more to do with building the Giants then most managers did (and do). He had a bigger role in trades and was more than willing to have an eye for talent when it came to scouting the minor leagues. And in an unenlightened time McGraw would take chances on minorities that were frequently overlooked. This included scouting Jewish players as well as Native Americans and even the deaf.

And more than any other man in the pre-Jackie Robinson era did McGraw try desperately to break the color barrier. He made only one overt attempt – trying to disguise an African-American Charlie Grant as an Apache – but he frequently attended Negro League games and openly expressed his admiration for much of the talent that played. When he died his widow found among his affects a list of all of the black players he’d wanted to hire over his long career. McGraw knew better than anybody in the game how talented African-Americans could be and truly rued the ‘gentleman’s agreement’ that blocked it.

All of this is a long and roundabout way of saying that McGraw had one goal in mind: to win and was willing to do anything to do so. Losing was abhorrent to him. But because it is as much part of the game as anything else, he had to accept defeat. And McGraw’s Giants suffered two of the most notorious losses in the history of baseball, one of which cost the Giants the National League pennant, the other the World Series. In both cases those defeats led to the most infamous scapegoats in sports history. And it is his reaction to both those defeats – and more importantly the men who the fans and the nation held responsible for them – that I want to discuss.

Note: There is much more detail involved in the incidents I’m going to discuss here than is summarized. However entire books have been written about both the Giants, McGraw and these events that I will leave the reader to search them out. They are worth reading on your own time.

In 1908 the Giants were battling the Chicago Cubs for the National League Pennant. The Cubs of that era were one of the greatest teams of all time – in the previous two seasons they’d won a combined 223 games – but in 1908 they had become mortal and the Giants spent much of the season fighting for the pennant.

On September 23, 1908 the Giants and the Cubs were playing in the Polo Grounds. On that day the Giants had the barest of leads over the Cubs. Fred Tenney, one of the Giants stars had been suffering from injuries and had to be seated. Rookie Fred Merkle took his place in the lineup that day.

In the bottom of the ninth with two out and pinch-hitter Moose McCormick first, Merkle hit a long single to right field that put McCormick on third. Shortstop Al Bridwell was up next. He hit the first pitch to right center, a clean single. McCormick scored the winning run. The Giants had won and 22,000 fans streamed on to the field.

What happened next has been enclaved in mystery depending on who tells the story and everyone has an opinion. The most common narrative is that Merkle assumed the winning run had scored and like the fans thought the game was over. He left the field before touching second. Cubs second baseman Johnny Evers noticed this and called for the ball from the Cub center fielder.

There is no clarity about what happened next. The Giants claimed that their pitcher Joe McGinnity saw what was happening, intercepted the throw from Hoffman and threw the ball into the bleachers. The Cubs version is that Evers somehow obtained the real ball though its never clear how. The only thing that was concluded by National League President Hank O’Day was that the game had ended in a 1-1 tie and if the two teams were tied at the end of the season, the game would be replayed to determined the winner of the pennant.

It's worth noting that there were still two weeks left in the pennant race that year and if the Giants had won just one more game during that period, the argument would have been inconsequential. The Giants pitching was weaker than both the Cubs and the Pittsburgh Pirates (who actually came close to rendering the decision irrelevant on the final day of the season) and they would lose three times in five games to a rookie Phillies pitcher named Harry Covaleski. So when the Giants ended up losing the replay 4-2 at the end of the season McGraw, who had the most reason to be angry at Merkle said the following:

“It’s criminal to say Merkle is stupid and to blame the loss of the pennant on him. In the first place he is one of the smartest and best players on the club and in not touching second base, he merely did as he had seen veteran players do ever since he’s been in the league. In the second place, he didn’t cost us the pennant. We lost a dozen games we should have won this year. Yes, two dozen. Any one of them could have saved the pennant for us. Besides we were robbed of the pennant, and you can’t say Merkle did that.”

This was a very big thing of the man who hated losing to say. Perhaps it had something to do with being a former player himself and knowing how much hostility is thrust upon you by the fans and the writers as a result. And perhaps he knew how fickle the public could be and he wanted very badly to try and spare Merkle the hatred he sensed was coming.

Because Merkle was excoriated by the press and fans across the country. Fred Merkle was a very good player by the standards of the day: he hit .273 lifetime, stole 272 bases and  played on five pennant winners (we’ll get to one of them later). But his reputation never recovered from making the ‘boner’ play. What makes it ironic is four years later he had a chance to redeem himself and instead another Giant scapegoat entered lore.

The Giants from 1911-1913 are also considered one of the greater teams of all time. They won three consecutive national league pennants, averaging 101 wins per season. They were known for being the fastest dynasty in baseball history. In 1911, they set an all-time record for stolen bases with 347. In 1912 they stole 319, third all time. The 1912 team was built through pitching and speed. Christy Mathewson, though coming to the downside of his career was still one of the greatest pitchers in the game, going 23-12. Rube Marquard when 26-11 and began his season with nineteen consecutive wins. Jeff Tesreau went 17-7 with a 1.78 era and Doc Crandall became one of the first early relief pitchers – and a pretty good pinch hitter, driving in 19 runs. The Giants had six regulars who stole 30 or more bases and a reserve player who stole 37.

And in 1912, having won 101 games they went to face the Boston Red Sox in the World Series. In one of the most memorable World Series of all time the Giants managed to come from trailing three games to one, to tying it at three all. In what was an eighth game (Game 2 was called on account of darkness) the game was tied 1-1 after nine innings. The game went into the tenth. Smoky Joe Wood, who’d gone 34-5 that season, had won two games easily but had been knocked out in the first inning of Game 7. He was pitching his third inning of relief in Game 10. Red Murray doubled and when Tris Speaker bumbled Merkle’s base hit, the Giants were ahead 2-1.

Christy Mathewson just needed to get three outs. Clyde Engle pinch-hit for Joe Wood. Engle hit a fly ball to the center where Snodgrass was playing. “I yelled and called for the ball,” he told a historian decades later. “And then, well, I dropped the darn thing.” Engle ended up on second. Harry Hooper hit a deep drive to the center on the next pitch. Snodgrass made a brilliant catch, as Engle tagged and went to third.

Mathewson normally a master of control walked the next batter, bringing up Tris Speaker, already on his way to becoming one of the greatest players of all time. Speaker hit a routine pop fly between home plate and first.

It’s not clear what happened next. According to Snodgrass, Merkle and Mathewson both misjudged the ball. According to Hooper, Mathewson called for catcher Chief Meyers to go after it instead of Merkle and it dropped. It doesn’t matter what happened; only the aftermath, Speaker hit a single into right field, Engle scored the tying run and Speaker made it to second. After an intentional walk Larry Gardner hit a long fly to right which Josh Devore caught but not in time to stop the winning run from scoring. The Red Sox had won the World Series and Snodgrass became the goat.

In his autobiography in 1923 John McGraw dealt with it:

Often I have been asked to tell what I did to Fred Snodgrass after he dropped that fly ball in the World Series of 1912…Well, I will tell you exactly what I did. I raised his salary $1000.

This was in an era where owners had more of a way to punish their players for mistakes then they do that. That McGraw decided that the best thing for his outfielder was a raise shows again his willingness not to put the blame on someone who when he died at the age of 86 had on the first line of his obituary in the New York Times: ‘Fred Snodgrass, 86, Dead, Ball Player Muffed 1912 Fly.”

New York sportswriters are no less forgiving of ballplayers than they were a century ago and in an era of instant replay and videotape your muffs can be immortalized forever. Bill Buckner spent most of his life under the shadow of ‘losing’ the 1986 World Series for the Red Sox even though the game was tied at the time and of course, it was only Game 6. Grady Little’s hesitation in taking Pedro Martinez out in Game 7 of the ALCS cost the Red Sox the lead, set up the situation for Aaron Boone to hit a home run in extra innings and cost Little his job. In the aftermath of the 2024 World Series the now manager of the Yankees Boone was castigated after the loss of the World Series to LA because of several bad plays by his team on the field, starting with Gerrit Cole failing to cover first base, leading to a 5 run Dodger rally. The fact that the Yankees were already trailing 3 games to 1 in the series and that even a win would have forced them to go back to LA, as well as the fact that no team in World Series history has ever come back from a 3 games to zero deficit in World Series history (something the Yankees themselves are more than familiar with) did nothing to stop the press from castigating Boone, future MVP Judge and Cy Young winner Gerrit Cole for their ‘failures under pressure’.

One would do well to take a lesson from the greatest manager of all time – and that’s not just because of his impressive record. Many men who played under him over the years went on to become great managers themselves. The most famous was a part time outfield who played under him from 1921 to 1923 named Casey Stengel. Stengel used the tactics he’d learned under McGraw to instruct many other pennant winning managers, among them Ralph Houk, Yogi Berra, Gil Hodges and Billy Martin. Martin in turn managed many other players who became pennant winning managers, among them future World Series winner Lou Pinella.

Stengel also managed a player named Hank Bauer who won the 1966 Pennant with the Baltimore Orioles. One of the players on the team that beat the Dodgers in four games was second baseman Davey Johnson. Johnson himself became one of the greatest managers, winning pennants with the Mets, the Orioles and the Reds. One of the players who came up during his last year in 1997 was a rookie catcher named Aaron Boone.

Great managers understand, better than the press and we fans, that baseball is as much a game of luck as it is skill. Baseball players more than any other sport, have to understand how to be unsuccessful more than anyone else: the best hitters of all time fail seven times out of ten and the best teams lost a third of the time at the very best. John McGraw hated losing as much as any other manager but he also understood that losing was part of the game as much as it is part of life. The losses he suffered in 1908 and 1912 were the worst of his career but he never held as responsible the men who the world did at the time and history does now. It’s never easy to handle defeat gracefully but the greatest manager in baseball history managed too. Kind of raises the bar for the rest of us, especially in New York.

 

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