Leo Durocher - Creates Controversy

Durocher's tenure with the Dodgers was marked by a seemingly never-ending series of feuds. During the 1938 season (his first with the Dodgers), for example, Durocher got into a clubhouse fight with Babe Ruth, who was serving for a season as a Dodger coach. The incident appears to have involved Durocher insulting the intelligence of Ruth, who was hoping to become the Dodgers' manager. (The job instead went to Durocher a few months later.) In July 1943, Durocher made a remark critical of a Dodger player, Bobo Newsom, to a reporter that almost caused a revolt by disgruntled Dodger players and led to Newsom being traded to the St. Louis Browns. Durocher was constantly feuding with Dodger management, notably the team's flamboyant and tempestuous general manager, Larry MacPhail, who "fired" and "rehired" Durocher, it was said, hundreds of times because of disagreements between the two. In 1943, Durocher was quoted in the Daily Worker as saying that there were "about a million" blacks who could play in the major leagues if it were not for baseball's unwritten policy barring black players. The remark got Durocher into hot water with baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who issued a statement denying (falsely) that any such policy existed.