| Leo Durocher | |
|---|---|
 Durocher in 1948 | |
| Shortstop /Manager | |
| Born:(1905-07-27)July 27, 1905 West Springfield, Massachusetts, U.S. | |
| Died: October 7, 1991(1991-10-07) (aged 86) Palm Springs, California, U.S. | |
Batted: Right Threw: Right | |
| MLB debut | |
| October 2, 1925, for the New York Yankees | |
| Last MLB appearance | |
| April 18, 1945, for the Brooklyn Dodgers | |
| MLB statistics | |
| Batting average | .247 |
| Home runs | 24 |
| Runs batted in | 567 |
| Managerial record | 2,008–1,709 |
| Winning % | .540 |
Stats atBaseball Reference  | |
| Managerial record at Baseball Reference | |
| Teams | |
| |
| Career highlights and awards | |
| Member of the National | |
 Baseball Hall of Fame | |
| Induction | 1994 |
| Election method | Veterans Committee |
Leo Ernest Durocher (French spellingLéo Ernest Durocher) (/dəˈroʊ.ʃər/; July 27, 1905 – October 7, 1991), nicknamed "Leo the Lip" and "Lippy", was an American professionalbaseball player,manager andcoach. He played inMajor League Baseball as aninfielder. Upon his retirement, he ranked fifth all-time among managers with 2,008career victories, second only toJohn McGraw inNational League history. Durocher still ranks twelfth in career wins by a manager. A controversial and outspoken character, Durocher's half-century in baseball was dogged by clashes with authority, the baseball commissioner, the press, and umpires; his 100 career ejections as a manager trailed only McGraw when he retired, and he still ranks third on theall-time list.[1] He won three National League pennants and one world championship. In 25 years as a manager, Durocher had only 4 losing seasons.
Durocher was posthumously elected to theBaseball Hall of Fame in 1994.
Leo Ernest Durocher was born on July 27, 1905, inWest Springfield, Massachusetts, the youngest of four sons born toFrench Canadian parents.[2] His mother was a hotel maid and his father was a railroad engineer.[2] His parents were immigrants fromQuebec and both they and Durocher's older brothers spoke onlyFrench; Durocher began attending elementary school without knowing how to speakEnglish.[2]
The Durochers lived only two blocks fromRabbit Maranville, who taught Durocher the game of baseball and gave him a glove.[2] Durocher became a good athlete while in high school, and was offered a scholarship toHoly Cross, but was suspended from school after he hit a teacher, and never returned.[2] Durocher became a prominent semi-professional athlete, with several Springfield-area employers competing to have him play on their company teams.[3]
After being scouted by theNew York Yankees, Durocher broke into professional baseball with theHartford Senators of theEastern League in 1925.
Durocher was called up to the Yankees and played in two games. Durocher spent two more seasons in the minors, playing for theAtlanta Crackers of theSouthern Association in 1926 andSt. Paul Saints of theAmerican Association in 1927.[4]
Durocher rejoined the Yankees in 1928. A regular player, he was nicknamed "The All-American Out" byBabe Ruth.[5] Durocher was a favorite of Yankee managerMiller Huggins, who considered Durocher a potential managerial candidate due to his competitiveness, passion, ego, and facility for remembering situations. Durocher's outspokenness did not endear him to Yankee ownership, however, and his habit of passing bad checks to finance his expensive tastes in clothes and nightlife annoyed Yankee general managerEd Barrow.
Durocher helped the team win their second consecutiveWorld Series title in1928, then demanded a raise.
Durocher was later sold to theCincinnati Reds on February 5, 1930. Durocher spent the remainder of his professional career in theNational League.
After playing three seasons with the Reds, Durocher was traded to theSt. Louis Cardinals in mid-1933. Upon joining the Cardinals, he was assigned uniform number 2,[6] which he wore for the rest of his career, as player, coach and manager. That team, whose famous nickname "Gashouse Gang" was supposedly inspired by Durocher, were a far more appropriate match for him; in St. Louis, Durocher's characteristics as a fiery player and vicious bench jockey were given full rein. Durocher remained with the Cardinals through the 1937 season, captaining the team and winning the1934 World Series (their third title in nine years) before being traded to theBrooklyn Dodgers.
Primarily ashortstop, Durocher played through 1945, though his last year as a regular was 1939; after that year he never played more than 62 games in a season. He was known as a solid fielder but a poor hitter. In 5,350 career at bats, hebatted .247, hit 24home runs and had 567runs batted in.
Durocher was named to the NL'sAll-Star team three times, once with St. Louis and twice with the Dodgers. In the1938 game in Cincinnati, Durocher hit the onlyLittle League Home Run in All-Star Game history.[7]
Also in 1938, Durocher made history of a sort by making the final out inJohnny Vander Meer's second consecutive no-hitter.[8]
After the 1938 season—Durocher's first year as Brooklyn's starting shortstop—he was appointed player-manager by the Dodgers' new president andgeneral manager,Larry MacPhail. The two were a successful and combustible combination. MacPhail spared no expense in purchasing and trading for useful players (and sometimes outright stars), such asDolph Camilli,Billy Herman andKirby Higbe. He also purchasedshortstopPee Wee Reese from theBoston Red Sox. By the middle of the 1940 season, Reese impressed Durocher enough that he gave up his spot as the regular shortstop so Reese could get a chance to play, though Durocher would make "cameo" appearances in the lineup in 1943 and 1945. Other major purchases by MacPhail included another young star,Pete Reiser, when he was ruled afree agent from the Cardinals'farm system; and MacPhail found stalwarts such as American League veteransDixie Walker andWhitlow Wyatt off the waiver wire.
In his first season as player-manager, Durocher came into his own. The most enduring image of Durocher is of him standing toe-to-toe with an umpire, vehemently arguing his case until his inevitable ejection from the game. Durocher's fiery temper and willingness to scrap came to epitomize the position for which he was to become most famous. As manager he valued these same traits in his players. His philosophy was best expressed in the phrase for which he is best, albeit inaccurately, remembered: "Nice guys finish last" (Durocher's actual phrasing "Nice guys, finish last" was a pair of clause fragments describing a team). Durocher once said, "Look atMel Ott over there. He's a nice guy, and he finishes second. Now look at the Brat (Eddie Stanky). He can't hit, can't run, can't field. He's no nice guy, but all the little son-of-a-bitch can do is win."
Durocher was also notorious for ordering his pitchers to hit batters. Whenever he wanted a batter hit, he would yell, "Stick it in his ear!"
In 1939 the Dodgers were coming off six straight losing seasons, but Durocher led a quick turnaround. In 1941, his third season as manager, he led the Dodgers to a 100–54 record and the National League pennant, their first in 21 years. In the1941 World Series the Dodgers lost to the Yankees in five games. They bettered their record in 1942, winning 104 games but just missing out on winning a second consecutive pennant.
Despite all the success of his first three years, Durocher and MacPhail had a tempestuous relationship. MacPhail was a notorious drinker, and he was as hot-tempered as his manager. He often fired Durocher in the midst of a night of drinking. The following morning, however, MacPhail inevitably hired Durocher back. Finally, at the end of the 1942 season, MacPhail's tenure with the Dodgers came to an end when he resigned to rejoin theUnited States Army. His replacement, former Cardinal bossBranch Rickey, retained Durocher as skipper. Durocher managed the Dodgers continuously through 1946 (having ceased as a player during the 1945 season), and led Brooklyn to the first postseason NL playoff series in history, where they lost to the Cardinals, two games to none.
Durocher also clashed regularly with CommissionerAlbert "Happy" Chandler. Chandler, who had been named to the post in 1945, warned Durocher to stay away from some of his old friends who were gamblers, bookmakers, or had mob connections, and who had a free rein atEbbets Field. Durocher was particularly close with actorGeorge Raft, with whom he shared a Los Angeles house, and he admitted to a nodding acquaintance withBugsy Siegel.
Durocher, who encouraged and participated in card schools within the clubhouse, was something of a pool shark himself and a friend to many pool hustlers. He also followed horse racing closely. Matters came to a head when Durocher's affair with married actressLaraine Day became public knowledge, drawing criticism from Brooklyn's influentialCatholic Youth Organization.[9] The two later eloped and married in Texas in 1947.[10] In the 1950s, Day hosted a radio program calledDay with the Giants, and later authored a book by the same title describing the life of a manager's wife.
The saying "nice guys finish last" is a condensation by journalists of a quotation by Durocher[11]—he did not originally say this himself, though it has often beenattributed to him, and he did appropriate it as his own. The original quotation was "The nice guys are all over there, in seventh place" (July 6, 1946)[12][13] about the1946 New York Giants—seventh place was next to last place in the National League. This was shortly afterwards rendered as "'Nice Guys' Wind Up in Last Place, Scoffs Lippy",[14] thence its present form.[13]
In his autobiography,Nice Guys Finish Last (1975), Durocher quoted himself incorrectly, 29 years afterward, as his sayings were contradicted by the contemporary records (see references above), although they show his philosophy, as epitomized in this maxim:
The Giants, led by Mel Ott, began to come out of their dugout to take their warm-up. Without missing a beat, I said, "Take a look at that Number Four there. A nicer guy never drew breath than that man there." I called off his players' names as they came marching up the steps behind him, "Walker Cooper, Mize, Marshall, Kerr, Gordon, Thomson. Take a look at them. All nice guys. They'll finish last. Nice guys. Finish last." I said, "They lose a ball game, they go home, they have a nice dinner, they put their heads down on the pillow and go to sleep. Poor Mel Ott, he can't sleep at night. He wants to win; he's got a job to do for the owner of the ball club. But that doesn't concern the players, they're all getting good money." I said, "you surround yourself with this type of player, they're real nice guys, sure—'Howarya, Howarya' and you're going to finish down in the cellar with them. Because they think they're giving you one hundred percent on the ball field and they're not. Give me some scratching, diving, hungry ballplayers who come to kill you. Now, Stanky's the nicest gentleman who ever drew breath, but when the bell rings you're his mortal enemy. That's the kind of a guy I want playing for me." That was the context. To explain why Eddie Stanky was so valuable to me by comparing him to a group of far more talented players who were—in fact—in last place. Frankie Graham did write it up that way. In that respect, Graham was the most remarkable reporter I ever met. He would sit there and never take a note, and then you'd pick up the paper and find yourself quoted word for word. But the other writers who picked it up ran two sentences together to make it sound as if I were saying that you couldn't be a decent person and succeed.
Durocher is also credited with popularizing the metaphorical use of the phrase "capturelightning in a bottle" in a baseball context—it had previously been used to literally refer toBenjamin Franklin'skite experiment.
During spring training 1947, Durocher became involved in a very unpleasant feud with Larry MacPhail, who had become a new co-owner of the Yankees. The Yankee boss had hired away two coaches from Durocher's 1946 staff (Chuck Dressen andRed Corriden) during the off-season, causing friction. Then, matters got worse.
In person, Durocher and MacPhail exchanged a series of accusations and counter-accusations, with each suggesting the other invited gamblers into their clubhouses. In the press, a ghostwritten article appeared under Durocher's name in theBrooklyn Eagle, seeking to stir the rivalry between their respective clubs and accusing baseball of a double standard for Chandler's warning him against his associations but not MacPhail or other baseball executives.
Chandler was pressured by MacPhail, a close friend who was pivotal in having him appointed commissioner, but the commissioner also discovered Durocher and Raft might have run a rigged craps game that swindled an active ballplayer of a large sum of money. (The player's identity was never confirmed officially, but formerDetroit Tigers pitcher,Elden Auker, wrote in his 2002 memoir that it was Tigers pitcherDizzy Trout.) Chandler suspended Durocher for the 1947 season for "association with known gamblers".[15]
Before being suspended, however, Durocher played a noteworthy role in erasing baseball'scolor line. In the spring of 1947, he let it be known that he would not tolerate the dissent of those players on the team who opposedJackie Robinson's joining the club, saying:
I do not care if the guy is yellow or black, or if he has stripes like a fuckin' zebra. I'm the manager of this team, and I say he plays. What's more, I say he can make us all rich. And if any of you cannot use the money, I will see that you are all traded.
He greatly admired Robinson for his hustle and aggression, calling him "a Durocher with talent."
While Durocher sat out his suspension, the Dodgers went on to win the National League pennant under an interim skipper, scoutBurt Shotton. They then went on to lose the1947 World Series to MacPhail's Yankees in seven games.
Durocher returned for the 1948 season, but his outspoken personality and a 35-37 start again caused friction with Rickey, and on July 16 Durocher, Rickey andNew York Giants ownerHorace Stoneham negotiated a deal whereby Durocher was let out of his Brooklyn contract to take over the Dodgers' cross-town rivals. He enjoyed perhaps his greatest success with the Giants, and possibly a measure of sweet revenge against the Dodgers, as the Giants won the 1951 NL pennant in a playoff against Brooklyn, ultimately triumphing onBobby Thomson's historic game-winning"Shot 'Heard 'Round The World" home run.
Later with the Giants in 1954, Durocher won his onlyWorld Series championship as a manager by sweeping the heavily favoredCleveland Indians, who posted the highest American League winning percentage of all time (111–43) during the regular season.
Alvin Dark, who played under Durocher during this period, admired his manager. He thought that Durocher's strength was letting veterans play according to their strengths, then supporting them. An aggressive manager, he either succeeded in getting the best out of players or getting nothing out of them, depending on how they responded. "If you stood up for Leo publicly, he'd go to the wall for you. He'd take the blame for every mistake you made, and expose himself to the criticism."[16]
After leaving the Giants following the 1955 season, Durocher became an executive atNBC.[17] He was a color commentator on theMajor League Baseball on NBC and host ofThe NBC Comedy Hour andJackpot Bowling.
Durocher returned to the managerial ranks in 1966 with theChicago Cubs. In several previous seasons, the Cubs had tried an experiment called the "College of Coaches", in which they were led by a "head coach" rather than a manager. However, at his first press conference, Durocher formally announced an end to the experiment by saying:
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.[18]
At the same press conference, Durocher declared, "I am not the manager of an eighth-place team." He was right; the Cubs finished tenth in his first season, becoming the first team to finish behind the previously haplessNew York Mets. In 1967, however, the Cubs started strongly and had only their second winning season since 1946. The team steadily improved, but in1969, Durocher suffered one of his most remembered failures. The Cubs started the season on a tear and led the newly created National League East for 105 days. By mid-August they had a seemingly insurmountable nine-game cushion, and they appeared to be a shoo-in for their first postseason appearance in 25 years. However, they floundered down the stretch, losing 25 of their last 40 games, and finished eight games behind the "Miracle Mets".
In a mid-July series against the Mets, the Cubs were beaten in the first two games atShea Stadium,[19] but finally managed to salvage the third game, after which Durocher was asked if those were the real Cubs.
'"No", Durocher answered, "those are the real Mets."[citation needed]
Part of Durocher's problem was that, while the Cubs were playing well in 1969, he began starting their best pitchers on two or three days' rest. While this led to immediate success, it exhausted the pitchers in the long run, resulting in poorer performance later in the season.[20]
While with the Cubs, Durocher encountered a difficult dilemma in regard to aging superstarErnie Banks. While Banks' bad knees made him a liability, his legendary status made benching him impossible. Durocher also nearly came to blows with Cubs starRon Santo during an infamous clubhouse near-riot. The problems were symbolic of Durocher's difficulty in managing the new breed of wealthier, more outspoken players who had come up during his long career. With a mediocre record of 46–44, Durocher was fired midway through the1972 season, later stating that his greatest regret in baseball was not being able to win a pennant for longtime Cubs ownerPhilip K. Wrigley.
Durocher managed theHouston Astros for the final 31 games of the 1972 season (posting a 16–15 record in that span), replacing Harry Walker while being tapped by general managerSpec Richardson in the belief that he could lead the Astros to a pennant.[21] He would manage just one full season (1973), posting an 82–80 record despite dealing with intestinal problems (Preston Gomez stepped in to manage a portion of the season in his absence) as the Astros finished a middling fourth as Durocher drew the ire of multiple people that ranged from players such asLarry Dierker toMarvin Miller.[22] On October 1, he resigned as manager, despite requests from Richardson to stay another year (Gomez was named his successor). Durocher stated upon his retirement, “Baseball has been 45 years of a wonderful life. But I have got a lot of things to do now. I'm going out to Palm Springs and I'm going to tee it up and play a lot of golf.”[23]
He later served as a coach for the Dodgers, by then relocated to Los Angeles, from 1961 to 1964.
During this period, Durocher, who had made his screen debut in the 1943Red Skelton comedyWhistling in Brooklyn, played himself in many television shows. Durocher appeared on theCBSgame showWhat's My Line? twice as a mystery guest (January 28, 1951 and May 31, 1953), the latter when his wife Day was a guest panelist. In an April 10, 1963 airing ofThe Beverly Hillbillies, Durocher plays golf with Jed Clampett (Buddy Ebsen) and Jethro Bodine (Max Baer, Jr.) and tries to sign Jethro to a baseball contract after discovering Jethro has a strong pitching arm. In 1964, he appeared as himself in an episode ofMr. Ed, when the talking horse gave batting tips to the Los Angeles Dodgers, helping them win the pennant. In an episode ofThe Munsters titled "Herman the Rookie," on April 8, 1965, Durocher believes Herman (Fred Gwynne) is the nextMickey Mantle when he sees the towering Munster hit long home runs. Football greatElroy Hirsch also appears with Durocher.
Durocher made a brief comeback in 1976 in the JapanesePacific League with theTaiheiyo Club Lions, but he retired due to illness (hepatitis) before the beginning of the season.[24] Supposedly, the Lions made special jerseys based onAmerican football jerseys to honor Durocher joining the team, but were retired halfway through the season due to their designs being ridiculed, and due to Durocher, as mentioned, not joining the team.[25]
Dark thought that Durocher's managerial style changed in the 1960s and 1970s. Instead of making moves regardless of how others felt about them, he began to make what Dark called "safe" decisions. Dark thought that openly negative comments by Cubs players during the 1969 season "really hurt Leo", and that by managing games more safely, he stopped using the style that had once been successful for him.[20]
Durocher finished his managerial career with a 2,008–1,709 record for a .540 winning percentage. He posted a winning record with each of the four teams he led, and was the first manager to win 500 games with three different clubs.
Durocher, withEd Linn, wrote a memoir titledNice Guys Finish Last, a book that was recently re-published by theUniversity of Chicago Press.
Leo Durocher died in 1991 inPalm Springs, California, at the age of 86 and is buried inForest Lawn, Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles. He was posthumously inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1994, wearing a Brooklyn Dodgers cap. His third wifeLaraine Day accepted the honor of speaking on his behalf for the ceremony.[26]
| Team | Year | Regular season | Postseason | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Games | Won | Lost | Tied | Pct. | Games | Won | Lost | Pct. | Notes | ||
| BKN | 1939 | 157 | 84 | 69 | 4 | .548 | 3rd in NL | – | – | – | – |
| BKN | 1940 | 156 | 88 | 65 | 3 | .574 | 2nd in NL | – | – | – | – |
| BKN | 1941 | 157 | 100 | 54 | 3 | .646 | 1st in NL | 1 | 4 | .200 | LostWorld Series (NYY) |
| BKN | 1942 | 155 | 104 | 50 | 1 | .674 | 2nd in NL | – | – | – | – |
| BKN | 1943 | 153 | 81 | 72 | 0 | .529 | 3rd in NL | – | – | – | – |
| BKN | 1944 | 155 | 63 | 91 | 1 | .410 | 7th in NL | – | – | – | – |
| BKN | 1945 | 155 | 87 | 67 | 1 | .565 | 3rd in NL | – | – | – | – |
| BKN | 1946 | 157 | 96 | 60 | 1 | .615 | 2nd in NL | – | – | – | – |
| BKN | 1948 | 73 | 35 | 37 | 1 | .486 | dismissed* | – | – | – | – |
| BKN total | 1,318 | 738 | 565 | 15 | .566 | 1 | 4 | .200 | |||
| NYG | 1948 | 79 | 41 | 38 | 0 | .519 | 5th in NL | – | – | – | – |
| NYG | 1949 | 156 | 73 | 81 | 2 | .474 | 5th in NL | – | – | – | – |
| NYG | 1950 | 154 | 86 | 68 | 0 | .558 | 3rd in NL | – | – | – | – |
| NYG | 1951 | 157 | 98 | 59 | 0 | .624 | 1st in NL | 2 | 4 | .333 | LostWorld Series (NYY) |
| NYG | 1952 | 154 | 92 | 62 | 0 | .597 | 2nd in NL | – | – | – | – |
| NYG | 1953 | 155 | 70 | 84 | 1 | .455 | 5th in NL | – | – | – | – |
| NYG | 1954 | 154 | 97 | 57 | 0 | .630 | 1st in NL | 4 | 0 | 1.000 | WonWorld Series (CLE) |
| NYG | 1955 | 154 | 80 | 74 | 0 | .519 | 3rd in NL | – | – | – | – |
| NYG total | 1,163 | 637 | 523 | 3 | .549 | 6 | 4 | .600 | |||
| CHC | 1966 | 162 | 59 | 103 | 0 | .364 | 10th in NL | – | – | – | – |
| CHC | 1967 | 162 | 87 | 74 | 1 | .540 | 3rd in NL | – | – | – | – |
| CHC | 1968 | 163 | 84 | 78 | 1 | .518 | 3rd in NL | – | – | – | – |
| CHC | 1969 | 163 | 92 | 70 | 1 | .567 | 2nd in NL East | – | – | – | – |
| CHC | 1970 | 162 | 84 | 78 | 0 | .519 | 2nd in NL East | – | – | – | – |
| CHC | 1971 | 162 | 83 | 79 | 0 | .512 | 3rd in NL East | – | – | – | – |
| CHC | 1972 | 91 | 46 | 44 | 1 | .511 | dismissed* | – | – | – | – |
| CHC total | 1,065 | 535 | 526 | 4 | .504 | 0 | 0 | – | |||
| HOU | 1972 | 31 | 16 | 15 | 0 | .516 | 2nd in NL West | – | – | – | – |
| HOU | 1973 | 162 | 82 | 80 | 0 | .506 | 4th in NL West | – | – | – | – |
| HOU total | 193 | 98 | 95 | 0 | .508 | 0 | 0 | – | |||
| Total[27] | 3,739 | 2008 | 1709 | 22 | .540 | 7 | 8 | .467 | |||
Durocher was married four times. He was married to Ruby Hartley from 1930 to 1934. He was married toSt. Louis socialite Grace Dozier from 1934 to 1943. In 1947 he married actressLaraine Day, and they divorced in 1960. His fourth wife was Lynne Walker Goldblatt, to whom he was married from 1969 to 1980.[28][29]
In 1943, Durocher was deemed ineligible for service inWorld War II due to apunctured eardrum.[30]
With Ruby Hartley, Durocher had a daughter named Barbara (born 1931).[31]
He adopted two children with Day, daughter Melinda Michele (1944–2012)[32] and son Chris (born 1945).[33][34]Willie Mays used to babysit Chris on Giants' roadtrips—the two would room together and go see movies as well.[35]
Durocher had real comedic talent, and portrayed himself on episodes ofThe Munsters,The Joey Bishop Show,Mister Ed,The Beverly Hillbillies,Screen Directors Playhouse,What's My Line, and other shows.[36]
In the 2013 film42 aboutJackie Robinson, Durocher is played byChristopher Meloni.[37]
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