Latest / Retro Sports Radio: Classic Games from History / 1955 - Baseball Clip • Leo Durocher on Managing the 1954 NY Giants

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1955 - Baseball Clip • Leo Durocher on Managing the 1954 NY Giants · Retro Sports Radio: Classic Games from History

• 0:00
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• 0:07
  If I may, I'd like to reminisce a little bit about the 1954 Giant Ball Club, which everyone has asked me,
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  Leo, what has been your greatest thrill in the game today? And they all point, and they can with great pride, I do,
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  to the home run that Bobby Thompson hit in 51 in the playoff game that won the National League pennant for us.
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  That wasn't my greatest thrill, gentlemen. That was a shock. I didn't breathe for five minutes, I'm sure.
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  That was a shock. It happened so sudden, I didn't know what happened, really.
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  I think the greatest thrill I've ever had in the game was the 1954 season.
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  And if I may, I'd like to reminisce a little bit about it and tell you something about the players
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  and something about myself. Now, you've read hundreds of times in the newspapers,
• 0:58
  I read it until I got sick of looking at it, that DeRosha is a genius.
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  He's the greatest manager in the game today. Oh, DeRosha's this. They've had it all over, all over the country,
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  how great DeRosha is. Let me tell you something, gentlemen. 16 managers, put them all together.
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  You can't separate them by a millionth of an inch. They all know the game just as well as the other fellow does.
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  One may play it a little different. One may hit and run when the other fellow would play by the book and bunt.
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  You may operate your club a little differently, but they all know the game.
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  And I've always said this, and I always will say it. If you don't have the players, gentlemen, you may just as well go home.
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  The players make the manager. Now, let me prove that point to you.
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  Robin Roberts, the finest pitcher we have in the game today. Throw aspirin tablets, gentlemen.
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  When he gets in trouble, just reaches down and pulls up his pants. And I want to tell you something.
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  He can fire. That ball just comes up there and it looks like it's going straight and it just gets up there and it just jumps.
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  He can fire and thread the eye of a needle. Oh, man, how he can pitch.
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  He's just the greatest pitcher you ever looked at. And I've sent Rhodes up to hit against Roberts.
• 2:12
  And Roberts just wind up right, oh man, just wind up in a tough spot and fire that ball and Rhodes at swing and just miss it that far.
• 2:20
  One, two, three, and he's out. And come back on the bench and he'll just put the bat down and I'm waiting for him to explode.
• 2:28
  I know it's impossible for this fellow to sit down without saying something.
• 2:33
  So he just mumbled to himself, I must be losing my sight. Must be going blind. Let that busher get you out.
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  This is just the greatest pitcher in the game now he's talking about.
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  Finally, he can't stand it any longer. He gets up right in front of the dugout and he hollers real loud.
• 2:48
  He's done it. I've heard him do it a dozen times. Go warm up you busher. How do you ever get anybody out?
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  Roberts, you know, just looks at him and he's nuts. He looks like a thug, wears his hat on the side.
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  But believe me, gentlemen, you need one of them just like Rhodes on your ball club. You need a buffoon.
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  You need a fellow like that to take the tension off.
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  Now I'd like to say just a couple of words about Willie Mays, the center fielder.
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  Everybody said, gee, was, you know, DeRosha made Willie Mays. DeRosha did this.
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  Gentlemen, I have yet to tell Willie Mays one thing from the day he joined me and the day I left.
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  I have yet to tell him or show him one thing about baseball.
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  The man upstairs, the good Lord gave Willie Mays all the things that are necessary to become,
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  in my opinion, he's got a chance to become one of the finest players we've ever seen.
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  There's only five things you can do, gentlemen, to be great.
• 3:50
  And that's hit and hit with power, run, field and throw. That's all you can do in baseball.
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  DiMaggio does all five of them. He did it like Walter off a duck's back and he was great.
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  Mr. Mays can do all five. Instinctively, he has something about him.
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  He does the right thing at the right time.
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  And in the first game of the World Series, when he made that catch,
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  when the ball was hit by words, I said immediately when the ball was hit,
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  if it stays in the park, you'll catch it.
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  I just saw Willie turn and when he turned and took the second look at it
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  and then just took right out. Now how he does it, I'll never know, gentlemen.
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  Why don't he run when the ball is coming down here? Why isn't Mays over here or over here?
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  He is never in the wrong place.
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  It's the hardest thing to do, to turn your back, completely turn your back on the ball
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  and take out and run for maybe 30 yards.
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  And then all of a sudden, like a ballet dancer, just bend back and catch the ball
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  coming down over your head.
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  Most players have to look, get a peek at it over their shoulder.
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  Mays doesn't. He runs back and like a ballet dancer, stops, catches the ball.
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  And when he made this catch in the first ball game,
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  there must have been a hundred or more newspaper men from all over the world in the clubhouse
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  and they said, Leo, wasn't that a great catch?
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  And I looked at him and I said, routine.
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  And they give me the big dog eye, you know, and I said, I'm on, I'm serious about it.
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  I've seen them make 20 catches better than that.
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  I said, he's right over there. Why don't you go ask him? Don't ask me.
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  So they troops over and they said, Willie, how do you compare that catch with others you made?
• 5:31
  He just looked at him and said, I don't compare them. I catch them.