Sport: Managers’ Season

Before a battery of cameras in the office of Owner Horace Stoneham of the New York Giants one day last fortnight, Manager William Harold Terry tore up his fat contract which still had a year to run, signed a new one for five years upping his salary to a reported $40,000 a year, highest current in the major leagues. One day last week Manager Charles Dressen of the Cincinnati Reds quietly walked into the office of Owner Powel Crosley Jr., quietly walked out again without any contract at all. It was no coincidence that the Giants had just slipped into first place in the National League and the Reds had just slumped into last place. With both major leagues entering the home stretch of their pennant races and fans already looking forward to the World Series a fortnight off, owners, players, and above all, managers, were looking backward with mingled satisfaction and rue as their six-month season drew to a close.

National League. After a season of chasing Charley Grimm’s Chicago Cubs, who had managed to keep in first place from mid-June until the first of September, the Giants were last week trying to maintain a 27-game lead over the Cubs, with 17 games to play. Frank Frisch’s St. Louis Cardinals, generally rated to finish first in pre-season prognostications, had managed to stay in the first division, not so much by the pitching of famed Dizzy Dean as by the performance of the season’s outstanding batter, Outfielder Joe Medwick. whose average of .375 last week was leading the league. Easygoing Harold (“Pie”) Traynor’s Pittsburgh Pirates, after a runaway lead during the month of May, seemed likely to finish fourth.

Surprise team of the National League was Bill McKechnie’s Boston Bees, who had decisively beaten both the Giants and the Cubs the past month and were still knocking at the door of the first division last week, despite the team’s dependence on material recruited from the minor leagues. For their showing Boston credited Manager McKechnie’s shrewd choice of two “old rookies,” Pitchers Jim Turner and Lou Fette, who proceeded to win 18 and 17 games respectively this season, simply providing a fresh demonstration of the axiom that 30 is the best age for a pitcher. Competing with Charley Dressen’s Reds for the tail end position were Jim Wilson’s Philadelphia Phillies, with Burleigh Grimes’s Brooklyn Dodgers just escaping the ignominy of the cellar.

American League. As expected, the American League showed far wider gaps at both ends than its older brother. Pitchers Lefty Gomez & Charles Ruffing and Batters Lou Gehrig & Joe Di Maggio had pushed Joe McCarthy’s New York Yankees 10½ games ahead and were thus almost certain to win their ninth pennant. At the other extreme, the Philadelphia Athletics and the St. Louis Browns had been bumping dolefully along at the bottom, and by losing more than two-thirds of their games had notably improved the percentages of all other teams. Since old Cornelius McGillicuddy not only manages the Athletics but also owns them, he faced nothing more serious than declining gate receipts. But the Browns’ temperamental Rogers Hornsby, regarded as the finest of all major-league managers when his St. Louis Cardinals won the 1926 World Series, was ousted last July, apparently because of his penchant for betting on horse races. His successor, good-natured First Baseman Jim Bottomley, has refrained from betting but has so far failed to do much at the ball park.

Most inactive major-league manager has been Detroit’s Catcher Mickey Cochrane, who was hospitalized after being struck by a pitched ball in midseason. Last week, with the Tigers apparently resigned to second place, Manager Cochrane was recuperating in Europe, scheduled to resume his duties next year as non-playing manager. Jimmy Dykes’s Chicago White Sox and Joe Cronin’s Boston Red Sox were in a close race with the Cleveland Indians for third place. Most disappointed manager was Cleveland’s Steve O’Neill, whose star attraction, 18-year-old Pitcher Bob Feller, had failed to put his team in a contending position despite the fact that Pitcher Feller’s father had on at least one occasion threatened to box his ears. Likely to finish exactly where experts anticipated were cheerful Bucky Harris’ sixth-place Washington Senators.