Latest / Retro Sports Radio: Classic Games from History / 2006 • Baseball Clip • Ernie Harwell talks about Managers - Radio Broadcast

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2006 • Baseball Clip • Ernie Harwell talks about Managers - Radio Broadcast · Retro Sports Radio: Classic Games from History

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  This is Retro Sports Radio. Visit RetroSeasons.com for more sports history.
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  Ernie, we've talked about the influence that Paul Richards had on you and the other managers
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  of the teams that you've worked for. Let's go back and talk for just a second and maybe
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  you can give us a little insight to some of these guys that you had an especially close
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  relationship with. How about Bert Schotton?
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  Bert Schotton was a fellow from Bartow, Florida. He was a fisherman. He loved to fish. He'd
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  played ball in the National League, played with the Cardinals and some other clubs. And
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  he was very close to Branch Rickey. When Leo DeRoscia was suspended by the commissioner,
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  Rickey called his old pal down there in Bartow to come on up and manage the values. And he
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  came up in 47 and stayed through 48. Leo came back and eventually went over to the Giants.
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  But Bert Schotton was a very laid back guy, one of the few managers that did not wear
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  a uniform. He'd wear a pair of slacks and he'd wear a Dodger jacket. And he lived at
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  the same hotel I did the Bosset Hotel when I broke in with the Dodgers in 1948. And I
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  used to ride out to the ballpark with him after I got started with the Dodgers, usually
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  with Bert and with the relief pitcher Hugh Casey. And he was a very wonderful gentleman.
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  He didn't get excited one way or the other. You'd get on the train after the game. It
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  might be a very tough loss or it might be a brilliant victory and you really couldn't
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  tell the difference by the manner or demeanor of Bert Schotton.
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  You also had the opportunity in Detroit of working with two managers who had made their
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  name possibly with other teams. A guy who still owns the Major League record for being
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  fired the most times by the same owner, the brat, Billy Martin.
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  Yeah, Billy Martin was quite a guy. Billy came into the Tigers. He'd bounced around
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  a little bit. He'd been a great player and he'd managed it in Minnesota. When he came
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  to the Tigers, he was very popular at first, but as my mom used to say, he wore out his
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  welcome. Billy had a proclivity for after he got started and establishing himself in
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  a job, he began to carp at the other people in the organization, especially his bosses.
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  And it never seemed to work because you don't criticize your bosses too heavily.
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  Sparky Anderson, who had managed the Big Red Machine in Cincinnati to World Championships.
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  Sparky was a big guy, no question about that. He had managed Cincinnati to the World Championship.
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  He was a choice of Jim Campbell. When Les Moss was fired, Sparky came in. Actually,
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  Les had a record around 500, but it was a chance to get Sparky, who'd been out of work.
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  And Jim felt like if he didn't strike then that somebody else would come in and get Sparky.
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  And Sparky had sort of a five-year plan and actually it worked because after five years,
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  the Tigers had a championship team. Sparky and I walked a lot. When we got to be good
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  friends, we'd get up every morning and we'd walk for about an hour. We talked a lot about
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  baseball, a lot about life. And I think I learned a lot from Sparky. He was pretty smart.
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  He was an old used car salesman who knew how to close a deal, you know, and he could read
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  the minds of his players and get the most out of them.
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  Charles Dillon Stingle.
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  K.C., named after the town he came from. He was a failed dentist. He wanted to be a dentist
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  and he couldn't make it. And he came to the National League. He played for Brooklyn and
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  he played for the Giants. And he was a pretty good ball player, but he was always a clown.
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  At Brooklyn, he doffed his cap one time and a bird flew out. He hit a home run in the
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  polo grounds playing for the Giants against the Yankees and lost a shoe running home his
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  inside the park home run. Then he became a manager, first at Boston with the Braves.
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  And he was a terrible manager because he had a terrible team. Somebody said the best thing
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  that ever happened to the Braves was when Casey got hit by a cab and broke his leg and
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  couldn't manage anymore. But then he went to the Yankees and he became a genius. And
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  later on, he was a great manager with a match. But he was the kind of a guy, you know, you'd
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  ask him what time it was and he'd tell you how to build a watch.
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  Mr. Sangal, I'm not sure that I made my question clear.
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  Yes, sir. Well, that's all right. I'm not sure I'm going to answer yours perfectly,
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  either.
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  I was asking you, sir, why it is that baseball wants this bill passed.
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  I would say I wouldn't know, but I would say the reason why they'd want it passed is to
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  keep baseball going as the highest baseball sport that has gone into baseball. And from
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  the baseball angle, I'm not going to speak of any other sport. I'm not in here to argue
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  about other sports. I'm in the baseball business. It's been run cleaner than any baseball business
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  that was ever put out in the hundred years at the present time.
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  Leo DeRosier.
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  He was very volatile. He would be up one time and down the other and he'd had feuds with
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  the writers and he and his wife had feuds and he had feuds with everybody. Leo had
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  come off the streets of Connecticut in the boyhood where he hung around the pool halls
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  and he became a pretty good ball player, sort of a no-hit, great fielding shortstop, and
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  then later made himself a manager. But I think the great thing about Leo is he instilled
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  a certain amount of confidence in his players that no other manager that I've ever been
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  with could do. Somehow they would really go to battle for Leo because they figured that
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  he'd figure out a way as much as he could to win the game for them. Some of the players
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  didn't like Leo. Some of them liked him a lot. But whether they liked him or didn't
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  like him, they did play hard for him.