Leo Durocher Biography - Hardscrabble Childhood, Early Career, Captain Of Gashouse Gang, Becomes Player-manager, Creates Controversy - SELECTED WRITINGS BY DUROCHER:
baseball guys finish teams
1905-1991
American baseball player
Leo ("The Lip") Durocher will be forever identified with the phrase "nice guys finish last," which was the title of his autobiography and is in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations. Durocher is also famous for having said he would trip his own mother if she were rounding third base and he could prevent her from scoring a run. New York Times sportswriter Arthur Daley once called Durocher "the most hated man in baseball." He was known for his combative nature on the field and was constantly getting into arguments and fistfights with umpires, opposing players, and fans. Durocher was an outstanding shortstop with the St. Louis Cardinals and Brooklyn Dodgers (among other teams) and the manager of four National League teams. He ranks seventh among baseball managers in career wins, with 2,009.
SELECTED WRITINGS BY DUROCHER:
(With Ed Linn) Nice Guys Finish Last, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1975.
Additional Topics
Leo Ernest Durocher was born on July 25, 1905 in West Springfield, Massachusetts, the son of George Durocher, a railroad worker. Durocher stopped attending school regularly when he was around age twelve and spent a lot of time as a youth hanging out in local pool halls, becoming a consummate pool player and local pool hall hustler. Durocher claimed in his autobiography, Nice Guys Finish Last, that…
Durocher began his professional baseball career as a shortstop with the Hartford Senators in the Eastern League. His defensive play attracted the attention of the New York Yankees, who purchased Durocher's contract in 1925. Durocher spent two years playing for minor league teams in Atlanta and St. Paul and was promoted to the Yankees roster in 1928. Durocher was a favorite of Yankee manager…
In 1933, the Reds traded Durocher to the St. Louis Cardinals, who were in need of a shortstop to team up with second baseman Frankie Frisch after an offseason injury to the team's regular shortstop, Charley Gelbert. Durocher solidified the Cardinals' infield. He was captain of the 1934 Cardinals team immortalized as the "Gashouse Gang," which was known for its rough and…
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 1947 season was a watershed one for both Durocher and the Dodgers. It was the year that Jackie Robinson, the first black player in the modern major leagues, was called up to the Brooklyn club. As former Dodger broadcaster Red Barber has noted in his book 1947: When All Hell Broke Loose in Baseball, the Dodgers' general manager, Branch Rickey, knew that he could count on Durocher'…
Durocher was reinstated as manager by the Dodgers (who won the pennant in 1947 under a replacement manager, Burt Shotton) in 1948 after serving his suspension, but in midseason he obtained his release from Brooklyn and became manager of the Dodgers' archrivals, the New York Giants, in a move that stunned New York baseball fans, who could not conceive of Durocher managing the Giants, with wh…
Disagreements with the team's owner, Horace Stoneham, led Durocher to resign as Giants manager at the end of the 1955 season. He spent several years as a color announcer for NBC's Game of the Week and also appeared in episodes of television series such as Mister Ed and The Beverly Hillbillies. (In the 1940s, he had often appeared on radio with the likes of Jack Benny and Milton Berle…
Durocher was hired by Chicago Cubs owner Phil Wrigley in 1966 to manage the Cubs, who had been a second division team for over twenty years. After finishing tenth in Durocher's first season as manager, the Cubs finished third for two straight seasons in 1967 and 1968. In 1969, Durocher married his fourth wife, Lynn Walker Goldblatt, a Chicago media personality from whom he was divorced in 1…
Barber, Red. 1947: When All Hell Broke Loose in Baseball. New York: Chelsea House, 1991. Bouton, Jim with Neil Offen. I Managed Good, But Boy Did They Play Bad. Chicago: Playboy Press, 1973. Chandler, Albert B. with Vance H. Trimble. Heroes, Plain Folks, and Skunks: The Life and Times of Happy Chandler. Chicago: Bonus Books, 1989. Claerbaut, David. Durocher's Cubs: The Greatest Team That Di…
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