| Pinky Higgins | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Third baseman /Manager | |
| Born:(1909-05-27)May 27, 1909 Red Oak, Texas, U.S. | |
| Died: March 21, 1969(1969-03-21) (aged 59) Dallas, Texas, U.S. | |
Batted: Right Threw: Right | |
| MLB debut | |
| June 25, 1930, for the Philadelphia Athletics | |
| Last MLB appearance | |
| September 29, 1946, for the Boston Red Sox | |
| MLB statistics | |
| Batting average | .292 |
| Home runs | 140 |
| Runs batted in | 1,075 |
| Managerial record | 560–556 |
| Winning % | .502 |
Stats atBaseball Reference  | |
| Managerial record at Baseball Reference | |
| Teams | |
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| Career highlights and awards | |
Michael Franklin "Pinky"Higgins (May 27, 1909 – March 21, 1969) was an Americanthird baseman,manager, front office executive andscout inMajor League Baseball who played for three teams and served as manager orgeneral manager of theBoston Red Sox during the period of 1955 through 1965. During his playing days, he batted and threw right-handed, and was listed as 6 feet 1 inch (1.85 m) tall and 185 pounds (84 kg).
Higgins was born inRed Oak, Texas. He was nicknamed "Pinky" as a baby, and according to some reports detested it. Alternatively, he was called by either of his given names. He signed some autographs asFrank Higgins, but was predominantly known asMike, especially later in his career. Higgins graduated fromW. H. Adamson High School in Dallas, where he played on the 1926 state championship runner-up team. He attended theUniversity of Texas at Austin before beginning his career with thePhiladelphia Athletics on June 25, 1930. After only 24at bats that year, he did not play in the majors again until 1933, when he began to play full-time for the A's. In hisrookie season of 1933, hebatted .314 with 13home runs and 99RBIs.[1] Hehit for the cycle on August 6 in a 12–8 win over theWashington Senators.[2] The A's of that year finished third in theAmerican League.[3]
In December 1936, he was traded to theBoston Red Sox for fellow third basemanBilly Werber.[4] He was not only considered one of the better-hitting third basemen in the league but led them in batting average in 1933 and 1934.[5][6] In his first two years with the Bosox (1937 and 1938), he hit over .300 with a career-high 106 RBIs in both years.[1] In June 1938, he set (and still holds) a major league record withbase hits in 12 consecutiveat bats, accomplishing the feat over 14plate appearances because he also received twobases on balls during that streak. His mark was tied byWalt Dropo in 1952, who made his 12 straight knocks in 12 appearances, with no bases on balls in between.
He would next head to theDetroit Tigers in a trade forsubmarine pitcherElden Auker, where he would spend the majority of his playing career. It was also where his hitting numbers dropped while his power numbers still stayed fairly strong, but not in the same realm as his career-high of 23 homers with Philadelphia in 1935.
Boston got Higgins back in mid-1946 as the team's regular third baseman, winning the AL pennant by 12 games (but losing the1946 World Series to the Cardinals in seven). The Red Sox then released him, and he retired to become a manager in the Red Sox farm system. His final numbers included a .292 batting average with 140 home runs and 1,075 RBIs in 1,802 games. He accumulated 1,941 careerhits in 6,636 at bats, with 931runs, 374doubles, 51triples, 61stolen bases and 800bases on balls and made theAll-Star team three times (1934, '36, '44).
Higgins played in twoWorld Series: one with Detroit in1940 and one with Boston in1946, losing both in seven but amassing a .271 Series batting average with 1 home run (for Detroit), 8 RBIs (6 for Detroit and 2 for Boston) and 13 hits in 48 at bats.
Higgins started his managing career with the Class BRoanoke Red Sox of thePiedmont League in the Red Soxfarm system in 1947. After eight seasons of managing in the minors—including four (1951–1954) at the helm of the Red Sox'Triple-A affiliate, theLouisville Colonels of theAmerican Association—he became Boston's skipper in 1955. Before taking the Red Sox promotion, he was under consideration as manager-in-waiting for theBaltimore Orioles, where fellow Texan and former Tiger teammatePaul Richards had just been installed as the O's general manager and field manager in September 1954.[7]
Higgins'first team saw a hot July and August but a September debacle and a fourth-place finish. Although he had winningfirst-division teams through 1958 andTed Williams won two more batting titles (1957–58), the Red Sox never seriously contended—never finishing less than 12 games in arrears of the first-placeNew York Yankees. In1959, with the 40-year-old Williams injured (and turning in the only sub-.300 season of his career), the Red Sox lost 42 of their first 73 games,[8] and on July 3, Higgins was replaced as manager byBilly Jurges, a coach with theWashington Senators (and former star shortstop of the Cubs in the 1930s). However, Higgins stayed in the organization as special assistant to Bosox ownerTom Yawkey, a personal friend.
After a promising end to the 1959 season, Jurges' Red Sox plummeted into last place in the opening weeks of the 1960 campaign. Jurges was fired on June 10, 1960. Then, aftercoachDel Baker handled the Red Sox for seven games, Higgins was re-installed as manager, but the pitching-poor Red Sox continued to lose. Nonetheless, on September 30, 1960, he was signed to a three-year contract extension as field manager and given control of all player personnel in the Boston organization—effectively adding the responsibilities ofgeneral manager (without the formal title) to his managerial role.[9]
He hung up his uniform and joined Boston's front office full-time as executive vice president and general manager after the 1962 campaign, finishing his managerial career with a record of 560–556 (.502) in 1,119 games. He was the second-winningest manager in Red Sox history untilTerry Francona passed him in 2009. His best finish was third place, in 1957 and 1958, although his bestwinning percentage was achieved in both 1955 and 1956 with 84–70 (.545) fourth-place finishes.
He was 53 when he retired from managing. As a skipper, Higgins was known for being well liked by players and very easygoing. He would not go out to the mound to talk to hispitcher very often and in fact once said, "I don't believe in that business of walking out to the mound every time a pitcher's in trouble. You can't tell him anything new."
Higgins' record as a general manager, like his managing record, was mediocre. During the 1960 offseason, he traded 6 ft 6½ -in (1.99 m)starting pitcherFrank Sullivan to thePhiladelphia Phillies for another tall right-hander, 6 ft 8 in (2.03 m)Gene Conley, who was alsoBill Russell's backupcenter for theBoston Celtics; Conley would give Higgins two healthy seasons and win 15 games in 1962. But apart from swappingshortstops with Paul Richards'Houston Colt .45s, acquiringEddie Bressoud forDon Buddin, Higgins made no other significant trades during the remainder of his two-year (1961–62) tenure as both manager and supervisor of playing personnel.
Once he was named full-time general manager, in the autumn of 1962, he did make a few major trades, one of them netting sluggerDick Stuart from thePittsburgh Pirates, but they did not materially improve the club on the field. He made no further major deals until after the 1964 campaign, when he sent Stuart to the Phillies for left-handed starting pitcherDennis Bennett, who suffered from a sore arm and would win only 12 games (losing 13) in286+1⁄3innings over2+1⁄2 seasons in a Boston uniform. Higgins also clashed with his managerial successor,Johnny Pesky, who had been personally chosen by Yawkey. By the end of the1964 season, Higgins had pushed Pesky aside, replacing him with his own man,Billy Herman.
The Red Sox continued to struggle at the major-league level, and in1965 they lost 100 games for the only time during the Yawkey era for lack of pitching. But meanwhile, in theirfarm system directed byNeil Mahoney, they were amassing talented young players (includingAfrican-American players such as outfielderReggie Smith, first basemanGeorge Scott and third basemanJoe Foy) who would lead them to an improbable AL pennant in 1967, aided and abetted by 22-game winnerJim Lonborg andTriple Crown winnerCarl Yastrzemski.
Higgins, however, was finally ousted by Yawkey on September 16, 1965, ironically the same day 21-year-old Boston righthanderDave Morehead threw ano-hitter. He then joined Houston as a scout, hired by old friend and teammate Richards. It would be his last job in baseball.
Red Sox historians often single out Higgins, along with Yawkey, when they discuss the root of the club's reputation for resisting racial integration. The Red Sox were the last (in 1959) of the then 16 major league teams to play a black player and fielded an all-white team fromJackie Robinson's Brooklyn Dodger debut in 1947 through Higgins' first managerial term. He was quoted by one Boston baseball writer,Al Hirshberg, as saying, "There'll be noniggers on this ball club as long as I have anything to say about it."[10] He also reportedly called sportswriter Cliff Keane "a fucking nigger-lover"[11] after hearing Keane praise the talents of White Sox outfielderMinnie Miñoso, a Cuban of African descent. The Red Sox' firstAfrican American player,utility infielderPumpsie Green, was recalled from theminor leagues in July 1959, during Jurges' brief tenure as pilot. But Higgins had no control over the big league roster until he became Red Sox manager in 1955, and the club's policy of refusing to break thecolor line appeared to be in place well before then under Yawkey and his front office bosses,Eddie Collins andJoe Cronin.[12]
When Higgins returned to his managerial post and then assumed player personnel responsibilities, from mid-1960 through late in 1965, he oversaw an integrated roster and acquired a few nonwhite players (outfieldersRomán Mejías,Lenny Green,Al Smith andWillie Tasby and infielders Green,Billy Harrell andFélix Mantilla). Tasby was enthusiastic about playing for Higgins when he was quoted in a Boston newspaper in late 1960. (He spent only a half-year with the Red Sox before his selection in the1960 Major League Baseball expansion draft.)
| Team | Year | Regular season | Postseason | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Games | Won | Lost | Win % | Finish | Won | Lost | Win % | Result | ||
| BOS | 1955 | 154 | 84 | 70 | .545 | 4th in AL | – | – | – | – |
| BOS | 1956 | 154 | 84 | 70 | .545 | 4th in AL | – | – | – | – |
| BOS | 1957 | 154 | 82 | 72 | .532 | 3rd in AL | – | – | – | – |
| BOS | 1958 | 154 | 79 | 75 | .513 | 3rd in AL | – | – | – | – |
| BOS | 1959 | 73 | 31 | 42 | .425 | reassigned position | – | – | – | – |
| BOS | 1960 | 105 | 48 | 57 | .457 | 7th in AL | – | – | – | – |
| BOS | 1961 | 162 | 76 | 86 | .469 | 6th in AL | – | – | – | – |
| BOS | 1962 | 160 | 76 | 84 | .475 | 8th in AL | – | – | – | – |
| Total | 1116 | 560 | 556 | .502 | 0 | 0 | – | |||
In February 1968, Higgins was arrested after killing one and injuring three others with his car. He suffered twoheart attacks between conviction and sentencing. He pled guilty to driving while drunk and was sentenced to four years,[13] but wasparoled after serving only two months. The day after he was paroled, he died of a heart attack inDallas at the age of 59.[14]
| Achievements | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Hitting for the cycle August 6, 1933 | Succeeded by |