| Red Rolfe | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Third baseman /Manager | |
| Born:(1908-10-17)October 17, 1908 Penacook, New Hampshire, U.S. | |
| Died: July 8, 1969(1969-07-08) (aged 60) Gilford, New Hampshire, U.S. | |
Batted: Left Threw: Right | |
| MLB debut | |
| June 29, 1931, for the New York Yankees | |
| Last MLB appearance | |
| September 27, 1942, for the New York Yankees | |
| MLB statistics | |
| Batting average | .289 |
| Home runs | 69 |
| Runs batted in | 497 |
| Managerial record | 278–256 |
| Winning % | .521 |
Stats atBaseball Reference  | |
| Teams | |
| |
| Career highlights and awards | |
Robert Abial "Red"Rolfe (October 17, 1908 – July 8, 1969) was an American baseballthird baseman,manager and front-office executive inMajor League Baseball (MLB). He played in MLB for theNew York Yankees from 1931 to 1942 and managed theDetroit Tigers from 1949 to 1952.
Rolfe was a native ofPenacook, New Hampshire. He graduated fromPhillips Exeter Academy andDartmouth College and signed with the Yankees. Rolfe played in fourMLB All-Star Games and won fiveWorld Series championships before he retired after the 1942 season. He coached incollege baseball forYale University from 1943 to 1946 and served as athletic director for Dartmouth from 1954 to 1967, while coaching baseball during the 1954 and 1955 seasons.
Rolfe was born on October 17, 1908, inPenacook, New Hampshire. His father, Herbert, earned a living in the lumber business.[1] Rolfe was the fifth of seven children; he had four older sisters and one younger sister. A younger brother died in infancy in 1910.[2]
While he was in theseventh grade, Rolfe started to play forPenacook High School's baseball team, as the school did not have enough players. Playing for Penacook's team again in theeighth grade, the school won the league championship.[1] He played for Penacook's baseball team in all four years that he was a student at the school, before he graduated in 1926. Rolfe then attendedPhillips Exeter Academy for one year and played as ashortstop on their baseball team, which wasmanaged bySimmy Murch.[1][3] At Phillips Exeter, he began to be known as "Red" due to the color of his hair.[1]
Rolfe enrolled atDartmouth College and playedcollege baseball for theDartmouth Indians. He played on the freshman team as their shortstop in his first year and wasteam captain.[4] He also played for thefootball andbasketball teams.[1] Rolfe then played for three years on thevarsity team for the next three years, underhead coachJeff Tesreau as a shortstop.[3] Tesreau made Rolfe hiscleanup hitter.[1] While a student at Dartmouth, Rolfe spent the summer of 1930 playing for theOrleans town team in theCape Cod Baseball League, where he was managed by longtime major league player and managerPatsy Donovan.[5][6] Rolfe graduated from Dartmouth in 1931.[4]
During the 1931 collegiate season, Rolfe met withConnie Mack, themanager of thePhiladelphia Athletics, while Dartmouth was playing thePenn Quakers.[7] Rather than sign with the Athletics,scoutGene McCann signed Rolfe to theNew York Yankees days after his graduation from Dartmouth for $600 per month and a $5,000signing bonus.[1][8][9]
Rolfe reported directly to the Yankees[10] and made his professional debut with the Yankees on June 29 as a defensive replacement.[8][11] It was customary at the time for the Yankees to introduce aprospect to the major leagues briefly before sending him to theminor leagues.[8] In July, the Yankeesoptioned Rolfe to theAlbany Senators of theEastern League.[12] He batted .333 in 58 games for Albany.[13] Assigned to theNewark Bears of theInternational League in 1932, Rolfe took the starting shortstop job fromBobby Stevens.[14] Rolfe batted .330 in 147 games for Newark in 1932, as Newark won the International League pennant. Returning to Newark for the 1933 season, Rolfe batted .326 and won theInternational League Most Valuable Player Award as Newark again won the pennant.[13]
Rolfe became the Yankees starting shortstop in 1934, withDon Heffner, who playedsecond base alongside Rolfe with Newark, becoming the Yankees' starting second baseman, and second basemanTony Lazzeri and shortstopFrankie Crosetti playing asthird basemen.[15] However, Heffner struggled and managerJoe McCarthy decided that Rolfe's throwing arm made him a better third baseman, as Lazzeri moved back to second base and Crosetti returned to shortstop.[2] He batted .287 in 89 games, as a knee injury experienced when he collided withMax Bishop of theBoston Red Sox limited his playing time.[8] Rolfe became their starting third baseman in 1935.[4]
During his major league playing career, Rolfe was the starting third baseman on theNew York Yankees of the late 1930s. The "Bronx Bombers" ofLou Gehrig,Joe DiMaggio,Bill Dickey,Lefty Gomez andRed Ruffing wonAmerican Leaguepennants from1936–39 and took all fourWorld Series in which they appeared, winning 16 games and losing only three in Fall Classic play over that span. After finishing third in1940, the Yankees rebounded to win league titles in1941–42, and the World Series in the former year, before finally bowing in1942.
Rolfe played ten major league seasons, all with New York,batting .289 with 1,394hits, 69home runs and 497runs batted in (RBIs) in 1,175 games. His finest season came in 1939, when he led the American League with 213 hits, 139runs scored, and 46doubles while hitting .329 with 14home runs and 80 RBIs. In six World Series, Rolfe appeared in 28 games, all as the Yankees' starting third-sacker; he collected 33 hits and batted .284, with afielding percentage of .944 in 71chances. He was the Junior Circuit's starting third baseman in the1937 and1939 Major League Baseball All-Star Games — both American League victories — and went three-for-eight (.375) at the plate, with atriple. Rolfe started in the 1939 All-Star Game alongside teammatesJoe DiMaggio,Bill Dickey,Joe Gordon, andGeorge Selkirk.[16]
During the 1940-1941 offseason, Rolfe developedcolitis. He batted .300 in the1941 World Series, as Rolfe won his fifth World Series title.[8] In 1942, the colitis reduced Rolfe to a part-time player.[17] His weight dropped from 172 pounds (78 kg) to 138 pounds (63 kg).[8] He batted .219 in 69 games and retired at the end of the season.[2]
During Rolfe's final season with the Yankees, on September 10, 1942, Rolfe accepted the positions of head baseball and basketball coach forYale University, beginning after the season, on November 1.[18] With Rolfe as their coach, theYale Bulldogs baseball team had a 56–17 (.767) record and theYale Bulldogs men's basketball team had a 34–10 (.773) record.[19]
After his four-year coaching stint at Yale, Rolfe accepted a position as a coach on McCarthy's staff for the Yankees for the 1946 season.[20] In December 1946, theToronto Huskies of theBasketball Association of America (BAA) hired Rolfe to replaceEd Sadowski as their coach in the midst of the1946–47 BAA season.[21] Rolfe led the Huskies to a 17–27 (.386) record as their coach[22] as the Huskies finished the season tied for last place with a .367 winning percentage.[23] Due to poor attendance and an estimated loss of $40,000 to $50,000, the Huskies folded after the season.[24]
TheDetroit Tigers hired Rolfe in August 1947 as the director of their scouting department.[25] In November, the Tigers named Rolfe the director of theirfarm system.[26] Under Rolfe's direction, theSeattle Indians of thePacific Coast League joined the Tigers' farm system in December.[27]
After the 1948 season, the Tigers hired Rolfe as manager, succeededingSteve O'Neill.[28] Rolfe instituted rules that his players did not agree with, such as no shaving or beer in the clubhouse and no meals betweendoubleheaders.[29]
In1949, Rolfe's first season as manager, the Tigers improved by nine games and returned to the first division. Then, in1950, the Tigers maintained a close race with the Yankees, winning 95 games and finishing in second place, three games behind.[29] A fluke botcheddouble play proved the team's undoing. Late in September at Cleveland, theIndians had the bases loaded in the tenth inning with one out and the score tied. Visibility was poor because smoke from Canadian forest fires was blowing acrossLake Erie. On an apparent 3-2-3 double-play grounder to first base, DetroitcatcherAaron Robinson thought he simply needed to touch home plate for aforce play to retire the Indians' baserunner,Bob Lemon, charging in from third. But in the smoky conditions Robinson had not seen that a putout had already been made at first base, necessitating that the catcher tag therunner, not theplate, to record an out. Robinson mistakenly tagged the plate, Lemon's run counted and Cleveland won the game.The Sporting News named Rolfe theirManager of the Year,[30] while he finished in third place in balloting for theAssociated Press' Manager of the Year Award, behindEddie Sawyer of thePhiladelphia Phillies andCasey Stengel of the Yankees.[31]
Beset by an aging starting rotation, the Tigers slipped in1951, finishing in fifth place with a .474 mark, 25 games behind the first-place Yankees. During the season, Tigers ownerWalter Briggs replacedBilly Evans asgeneral manager withCharlie Gehringer, and after the season, he replacedRay Kennedy as the director of the farm system withMuddy Ruel. The Tigers retained Rolfe as their manager, however.[32]
The Tigers began the 1952 season by losing their first eight games. SportswriterGordon Cobbledick reported in April that the players' antipathy towards Rolfe was the cause of their struggles.[33] Though Gehringer and the players, led by pitcherFred Hutchinson, publicly refuted Cobbledick's story.[34][35]Hal Newhouser later acknowledged that Rolfe's strict policies had alienated the players, but also said that the trade ofGeorge Kell,Dizzy Trout,Johnny Lipon, andHoot Evers to theBoston Red Sox also hurt team morale.[29] With the Tigers in last place in May, Gehringer publicly affirmed that Rolfe would remain the manager of the Tigers.[36] The Tigers won only 23 of 72 games (.319) before the Tigers fired Rolfe on July 5 and replaced him as manager with Hutchinson.[37] The 1952 club won only 50 games, losing 104 – the first time ever that the Tigers lost 100 or more games.
Rolfe then returned to Dartmouth on July 1, 1954, as the new athletic director, succeedingWilliam H. McCarter.[4] In 1956, he hiredTony Lupien as Dartmouth's new baseball coach.[29] He also hiredBob Blackman to coach theDartmouth Big Green football team,Abner Oakes to coach theDartmouth Big Green men's ice hockey team, andDave Gavitt to coach theDartmouth Big Green men's basketball team. Dartmouth built theLeverone Field House while Rolfe was athletic director.[38] Dartmouth's football team won theLambert-Meadowlands Trophy in 1965.[29] Rolfe stepped down from the position in 1967 and followed bySeaver Peters.[39]
The Boston Baseball Writers Association gave Rolfe their Old-Timers Award in 1966.[40] In 1969, Dartmouth renamed their college baseball diamond, previously known as Memorial Field, naming itRed Rolfe Field in his honor.[29] In the 1970s, Dartmouth created the Red Rolfe Award, presented to a non-student for their contributions to Dartmouth's athletics department.[41]
Rolfe married Isabel (née Africa) on October 12, 1934. His older sister, Florence, introduced the two to each other in 1928.[2] After he retired from Dartmouth, the couple lived onGovernors Island onLake Winnipesaukee, which is part of the town ofGilford, New Hampshire.[42]
Rolfe had acolostomy in February 1967,[42] and was hospitalized for three weeks.[29] He died in Gilford, on July 8, 1969, at age 60 of chronic kidney disease.[43] He was buried in his birthplace of Penacook after a private ceremony.[44]
With the dissolution of theEastern Intercollegiate Baseball League in 1992, theIvy League reformed into two divisions for baseball in 1993: the Red Rolfe Division and theLou Gehrig Division.[45]
| Regular season | G | Games coached | W | Games won | L | Games lost | W–L % | Win–loss % |
| Playoffs | PG | Playoff games | PW | Playoff wins | PL | Playoff losses | PW–L % | Playoff win–loss % |
| Team | Year | G | W | L | W–L% | Finish | PG | PW | PL | PW–L% | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Toronto | 1946–47 | 44 | 17 | 27 | .386 | 6th in Eastern | — | — | — | — | Missed playoffs |
Source[46]
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link){{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
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