Joe McCarthy: Push-Button Manager?
Image credits: CND Bleacher Report
There is an old adage in baseball: you can’t win without the horses.
In the 1930s and early ‘40s, the Yankees had a stable full in New York and their top farm club, Newark of the International League.
And during those eight years, they won seven pennants and six World Series.
The other AL club owners screamed, “Break Up the Yankees.” Some writers labelled Joe McCarthy a “push-button” manager: push a button and out came another star from General Manager George Weiss’s farm system.
But just having the horses doesn’t guarantee a winner. You can’t win the Kentucky Derby without a jockey.
So how did Joe McCarthy become the winningest manager in baseball history?
McCarthy was no overnight wonder. Slowed by an early broken kneecap, he was a stocky infielder whose .270-.280 hitting was good enough to keep him employed in the minor leagues for 15 years but not good enough to rise above AA. So he began to study the game, the men who played it and managers’ strategies. He was 25 when he got a shot at managing in Wilkes-Barre and finished a close second.
His next chance to manage came in 1919 at Louisville in the American Association. When the manager resigned in mid-season, McCarthy replaced him. He managed Louisville for six years, winning two pennants.
Joe McCarthy and Connie Mack, 1920s. Image credits: Ebay
After a disastrous, last-place finish in 1925, the Chicago Cubs were looking for a new manager, Connie Mack, who had eyes and ears seemingly everywhere in the baseball world, recommended McCarthy to Cubs president William Veeck. Mack’s endorsement was good enough for Veeck and Cubs owner William Wrigley Jr.
McCarthy had grown up in Germantown, a section of Philadelphia. He was a teenager when the newborn American League’s Philadelphia Athletics arrived in 1901, and became a Connie Mack worshipper. “I used to wait outside the ballpark just to look at him when he walked out,” he once recalled. Years later there was only one baseball photo on display in his retirement home in Buffalo: a portrait of Mr. Mack.
That winter McCarthy’s friends in Germantown gave him a banquet. Connie Mack was the guest speaker. He predicted a long big league career for McCarthy. When McCarthy got up to speak, he said he was happy to see Mr. Mack and hoped to have the pleasure of meeting him in the World Series soon.
“Everybody laughed,” McCarthy recalled. “They thought that was funny.” Four years later it happened, and it would cost McCarthy his job.
Managing the Cubs
In Chicago McCarthy took charge immediately. He didn’t like the veteran star pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander’s attitude and traded him away. He studied his players. He studied the opposition. He studied other managers and the handling of pitchers, of which he became a master. The Cubs steadily improved and reached the top in 1929.
Cubs captain Woody English said, “I liked Joe McCarthy. He was the kind of manager where everybody was equal with him. But you better hustle. The guys who didn’t give 100 percent, he’d boot in the rear end. If you gave your all, he’d pat you on the back.”
One time a rookie made three errors in one inning that cost the game. He expected to be on the next train back to the minors. Instead McCarthy patted him on the back and said, “I once did the same thing. Let’s go out and win the next one.”
Woody English liked playing for Joe McCarthy - but it was hard work. Image credits: Coopers Town Expert
The loss of the 1929 World Series to Mack’s Athletics was a disappointment for Wrigley, but what really rankled him was how they lost it: Game 1 to a washed-up old pitcher, Howard Ehmke, who struck out a Series record 13 at Wrigley Field; Game 4, when they blew an 8-0 lead as the A’s scored 10 runs in the 7th inning; and Game 5, when they led, 2-0, until the A’s scored 3 in the 9th to finish them off.
Despite a strong second-place finish in 1930, Wrigley declined to renew McCarthy’s contract and replaced him with the owner’s favorite player, Rogers Hornsby – not Wrigley’s finest move.
The Yankees
The Yankees and Red Sox wasted no time pursuing McCarthy, who accepted a two-year deal with New York. Possibly the only person who was disappointed was Babe Ruth, who openly yearned to manage the Yankees and believed he deserved the job.
The first thing McCarthy did with the Yankees was deal with Ruth or, rather, not deal with him. Well aware of Ruth’s behavior off the field as well as his standing with his teammates and the fans – in addition to his dashed hopes of managing the Yankees, McCarthy wisely did nothing. He let the Bambino be the Bambino. There was no friction.
Otherwise he was all business, all the time. He banned card playing in the clubhouse. To him, the players’ business was baseball and the clubhouse was the office. When they were there, they were on the job. The players learned that if they were talking golf or fishing or hunting, they’d switch to baseball when the boss came in.
He set high standards on and off the field: no clubhouse horseplay, no practical jokes. On the road they dressed and conducted themselves like successful businessmen of the time: suit and tie, no bed checks, no hotel hijinks. His players didn’t all like him, but they respected him, and appreciated those steady World Series checks.
McCarthy was above all a teacher. He considered his primary job was to get the best out of his players. If a man went up to pinch hit and took a called third strike, he’d tell him, “Pinch hit means hit; you go up there to hit. It’s okay if you strike out swinging the bat, but swing the bat.”
When Joe McCarthy was appointed manager of the Yankees, Babe Ruth was perhaps the only person who was disappointed. Image credits: Personality Cafe
If a player struck out and came back to the bench grumbling at himself, McCarthy would call him over and say, “You got mad too late. The time to get mad is when you go up to bat. Coming back is too late.”
Later, Joe DiMaggio said, “Never a day went by that you didn’t learn something from him.”
McCarthy never kowtowed to the press. He didn’t trust them, often with good reason. He wouldn’t even discuss his projected starting pitchers. He never publicly criticized a player, and they appreciated it. When he chewed out a player it was done privately, and nobody read about it unless the player talked.
He did have one prejudice – against pipe smokers. That was okay for contemplative men like professors. But the sight of a man puffing contentedly on a pipe translated to one thing for McCarthy: complacency, not a desirable trait for a winning ballplayer.
Perhaps the sweetest of his eight Yankees World Series was his first in 1932, when they swept the Cubs with the bats of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.
After three second-place finishes, the 1936 arrival of Joe DiMaggio launched McCarthy and the Yankees to unprecedented heights: seven pennants and six world championships in eight years. Under McCarthy, DiMaggio, a man of few words and few friends, became a powerful clubhouse leader.
The Red Sox
During World War II the Yankees had two mediocre – for them – seasons. In May 1946 McCarthy, citing health problems, resigned. Strained relations with new general manager Larry MacPhail may have been a factor.
The Boston Red Sox won the 1946 pennant but lost the seven-game World Series to the Cardinals. The next year, after finishing a disappointing 14 games behind the pennant-winning Yankees, they persuaded Joe McCarthy to return to the game.
Ted Williams, Charlie Wagner and Bob Feller. Image credits: Media Cleveland
Boston sportswriters predicted McCarthy would never get along with mega-star Ted Williams, but, just as he had with Babe Ruth, McCarthy and Williams got along fine. Many years later they were reminiscing. “We fooled them all, didn’t we?” McCarthy said. “We sure did,” replied Williams.
McCarthy was still the teacher, the handler of men. Red Sox scout Charlie Wagner recalled an example.
Charlie Wagner
One day I was sitting in his office with him and he said, “Billy Goodman’s in a little slump right now. I think I’ll bring him in and talk to him.”
He asked the clubhouse man, Johnny Orlando, to get Billy, who was putting on his socks. We could see him through the window into the clubhouse. Joe said, “Let’s see what reaction he has.”
We could see Billy saying, “Me? Me?” It wasn’t fear. He just didn’t want to go into McCarthy’s office. He’s thinking he might get squealed out a little bit. He comes in and McCarthy says, “You know, Billy, the other day when you made a play at second base? I thought it was a terrific play. You remember it?”
“Yeah. I remember it.”
“It was a terrific play I just wanted to say what a great reaction you had. That play saved the ball game for us. I haven’t been able to talk to you about it. I didn’t want to forget it. That’s all I wanted to say.”
After Billy left, McCarthy says, “Now let’s watch his reaction.”
Billy goes back to his locker. You could see the smile on his face, the elation. McCarthy had just given him a bump. That’s what McCarthy was good at.
McCarthy came within a whisker of winning two more pennants with the Red Sox. In 1948 they finished in a tie for first with the Cleveland Indians. A one-game pennant playoff was scheduled for Fenway Park. McCarthy’s pre-game premonition may have cost him.
Mel Parnell
Boston’s ace southpaw Mel Parnell expected to pitch the tie-breaker. Although most left-hand pitchers fared poorly against right-handed lineups aiming for the short Green Monster in left field, Parnell thrived there. In 13 starts he’d been 8-3 and given up just 3 home runs.
I was in bed at 9 the night before, all set to pitch the biggest game of the year. McCarthy always put a new ball under your cap in your locker if you were starting that day. When I got to the clubhouse the ball was under my cap.
I’m sitting there and after a while I start getting dressed and he comes out of his office and comes up behind me, puts his hand on my shoulder and says, “Kid, I’ve changed my mind. I’m going with the right-hander. The elements are against a lefthander today.” He had seen the wind blowing out to left field and figured it wasn’t a lefthander’s day. Then he said to the clubhouse boy, Don Fitzpatrick, “Run outside and get Galehouse.”
I was disappointed not being able to pitch that game, but it was his decision. Galehouse had pitched well against Cleveland on the last road trip. He comes in and McCarthy tells him he’s pitching and it’s a complete shock to Galehouse. I got dressed and went out on the field and all the guys are asking me, “What are you doing out here?”
“I’m not pitching.”
“You gotta be kidding.”
“I’m not kidding. Galehouse is the pitcher today.”
Cleveland manager Lou Boudreau thought McCarthy was playing tricks on him, trying to get a left-hand-hitting lineup in there against Galehouse while I was warming up under the stands. He sent outfielder Allie Clark to look under the stands to see if I was there throwing.
Southpaw pitcher Mel Parnell was disappointed to not be chosen by Joe Mccarthy as starting pitcher against Cleveland in 1948. Image credits: Find a Grave
Boudreau hit two home runs and Cleveland won, 8-4.
On July 4, 1949, Boston was in fifth place, 12 games behind the league-leading Yankees. By Labor Day they had climbed to second only 1 1/2 games back. They took a one-game lead into the season-ending two-game series in New York, and lost them both, 5-4 and 5-3.
The Red Sox were in 5th place when McCarthy, citing ill health, resigned in July 1950 and retired to his “Yankee Farm” near Buffalo. He was probably also sick of the dyspeptic Boston sportswriters, who blasted anybody who didn’t treat them like royalty, claiming that Joe McCarthy was never really that much of a manager anyhow.
The men who played for him thought otherwise. And the record books say otherwise. In 24 years he won 2,113 games. He never finished out of the first division, and was 1st or 2nd 14 years in a row. His .614 regular season winning percentage and .698 World Series winning percentages are still tops in the record books.
In retirement he puttered in the garden, answered requests for signed photos, visited with old baseball friends. He died in 1978 at the age of 90.
