Leo Durocher

Leo Durocher was born in West Springfield, Massachusetts, on July 27, 1905, the youngest of four sons born to French Canadian parents.[1] His mother was a hotel maid and his father was a railroad engineer who died of a heart attack soon after Durocher's birth.[1] His parents were immigrants from Quebec and both they and Durocher's older brothers spoke only French; Durocher began attending elementary school without knowing how to speak English.[1]

The Durochers lived only two blocks from Rabbit Maranville, who taught Durocher the game of baseball and gave him a glove.[1] Durocher became a good athlete while in high school, and was offered a scholarship to Holy Cross, but was suspended from school after he hit a teacher, and never returned.[1] Durocher became a prominent semi-professional athlete, with several Springfield-area employers competing to have him play on their company teams.[2]

After being scouted by the New York Yankees, Durocher broke into professional baseball with the Hartford Senators of the Eastern League in 1925. He was called up to the Yankees and played in two games. Durocher spent two more seasons in the minors, playing for the Atlanta Crackers of the Southern Association in 1926 and St. Paul Saints of the American Association in 1927.[3]

Durocher rejoined the Yankees in 1928. A regular player, he was nicknamed "The All-American Out" by Babe Ruth.[4] Durocher was a favorite of Yankee manager Miller Huggins, who considered Durocher a potential managerial candidate due to his competitiveness, passion, ego, and facility for remembering situations. Durocher's outspokenness did not endear him to Yankee ownership, however, and his habit of passing bad checks to finance his expensive tastes in clothes and nightlife annoyed Yankee general manager Ed Barrow.

Durocher's 1933 Goudey baseball card

Durocher helped the team win their second consecutive World Series title in 1928, then demanded a raise. He was later sold to the Cincinnati Reds on February 5, 1930. Durocher spent the remainder of his professional career in the National League.

After playing three seasons with the Reds, Durocher was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals in mid-1933. Upon joining the Cardinals he was assigned uniform number 2,[5] which he wore for the rest of his career, as player, coach and manager. That team, whose famous nickname "Gashouse Gang" was supposedly inspired by Durocher, were a far more appropriate match for him; in St. Louis, Durocher's characteristics as a fiery player and vicious bench jockey were given full rein. Durocher remained with the Cardinals through the 1937 season, captaining the team and winning the 1934 World Series (their third title in nine years) before being traded to the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Primarily a shortstop, Durocher played through 1945, though his last year as a regular was 1939; after that year he never played more than 62 games in a season. He was known as a solid fielder but a poor hitter. In 5,350 career at bats, he batted .247, hit 24 home runs and had 567 runs batted in.

Durocher was named to the NL's All-Star team three times, once with St. Louis and twice with the Dodgers. In the 1938 game in Cincinnati, Durocher hit the only Little League Home Run in All-Star Game history.[6]

Also in 1938, Durocher made history of a sort by making the final out in Johnny Vander Meer's second consecutive no-hitter.[7]

The saying "nice guys finish last" is a condensation by journalists of a quotation by Durocher[11]—he did not originally say this, himself, though it has often been attributed to him, and he did appropriate it as his own. The original quotation was "The nice guys are all over there, in seventh place" (July 6, 1946)[12][13] about the 1946 New York Giants—seventh place was next to last place in the National League. This was shortly afterwards rendered as "'Nice Guys' Wind Up in Last Place, Scoffs Lippy",[14] thence its present form.[13] Durocher is also credited with popularizing the metaphorical use of the phrase "capture lightning in a bottle" in a baseball context—it had previously been used to literally refer to Benjamin Franklin's kite experiment.

In his autobiography, Nice Guys Finish Last (1975), Durocher quoted himself incorrectly, 29 years afterward, as his sayings were contradicted by the contemporary records (see references above), although they show his philosophy, as epitomized in this maxim:

The Giants, led by Mel Ott, began to come out of their dugout to take their warm-up. Without missing a beat, I said, "Take a look at that Number Four there. A nicer guy never drew breath than that man there." I called off his players' names as they came marching up the steps behind him, "Walker Cooper, Mize, Marshall, Kerr, Gordon, Thomson. Take a look at them. All nice guys. They'll finish last. Nice guys. Finish last." I said, "They lose a ball game, they go home, they have a nice dinner, they put their heads down on the pillow and go to sleep. Poor Mel Ott, he can't sleep at night. He wants to win, he's got a job to do for the owner of the ball club. But that doesn't concern the players, they're all getting good money." I said, "you surround yourself with this type of player, they're real nice guys, sure—'Howarya, Howarya' and you're going to finish down in the cellar with them. Because they think they're giving you one hundred percent on the ball field and they're not. Give me some scratching, diving, hungry ballplayers who come to kill you. Now, Stanky's the nicest gentleman who ever drew breath, but when the bell rings you're his mortal enemy. That's the kind of a guy I want playing for me." That was the context. To explain why Eddie Stanky was so valuable to me by comparing him to a group of far more talented players who were—in fact—in last place. Frankie Graham did write it up that way. In that respect, Graham was the most remarkable reporter I ever met. He would sit there and never take a note, and then you'd pick up the paper and find yourself quoted word for word. But the other writers who picked it up ran two sentences together to make it sound as if I were saying that you couldn't be a decent person and succeed.

During spring training 1947, Durocher became involved in a very unpleasant feud with Larry MacPhail, who had become a new co-owner of the Yankees. The Yankee boss had hired away two coaches from Durocher's 1946 staff (Chuck Dressen and Red Corriden) during the off-season, causing friction. Then, matters got worse.

In person, Durocher and MacPhail exchanged a series of accusations and counter-accusations, with each suggesting the other invited gamblers into their clubhouses. In the press, a ghostwritten article appeared under Durocher's name in the Brooklyn Eagle, seeking to stir the rivalry between their respective clubs and accusing baseball of a double standard for Chandler's warning him against his associations but not MacPhail or other baseball executives.

Durocher in the dressing room of Delorimier Stadium in Montreal in July 1946.

Chandler was pressured by MacPhail, a close friend who was pivotal in having him appointed commissioner, but the commissioner also discovered Durocher and Raft might have run a rigged crap game that took an active ballplayer for a large sum of money. (The player's identity was never confirmed officially, but a former Detroit Tiger pitcher, Elden Auker, wrote in his 2002 memoir that it was a then-current Tiger pitcher, Dizzy Trout.) Chandler suspended Durocher for the 1947 season for "association with known gamblers".[15]

Before being suspended, however, Durocher played a noteworthy role in erasing baseball's color line. In the spring of 1947, he let it be known that he would not tolerate the dissent of those players on the team who opposed Jackie Robinson's joining the club, saying:

I do not care if the guy is yellow or black, or if he has stripes like a fuckin' zebra. I'm the manager of this team, and I say he plays. What's more, I say he can make us all rich. And if any of you cannot use the money, I will see that you are all traded.

He greatly admired Robinson for his hustle and aggression, calling him "a Durocher with talent."

While Durocher sat out his suspension, the Dodgers went on to win the NL pennant under an interim skipper, scout Burt Shotton. They then went on to lose the 1947 World Series to MacPhail's Yankees in seven games.

Durocher with the Giants in 1948.

Durocher returned for the 1948 season, but his outspoken personality and poor results on the field again caused friction with Rickey, and on July 16 Durocher, Rickey and New York Giants owner Horace Stoneham negotiated a deal whereby Durocher was let out of his Brooklyn contract to take over the Dodgers' cross-town rivals. He enjoyed perhaps his greatest success with the Giants, and possibly a measure of sweet revenge against the Dodgers, as the Giants won the 1951 NL pennant in a playoff against Brooklyn, ultimately triumphing on Bobby Thomson's historic game-winning "Shot 'Heard 'Round The World" home run.

Later with the Giants in 1954, Durocher won his only World Series championship as a manager by sweeping the heavily favored Cleveland Indians, who posted the highest American League winning percentage of all time (111–43) during the regular season.

After leaving the Giants following the 1955 season, Durocher worked at NBC, where he was a color commentator on the Major League Baseball on NBC and host of The NBC Comedy Hour and Jackpot Bowling. He later served as a coach for the Dodgers, by then relocated to Los Angeles, from 1961 to 1964.

During this period, Durocher, who had made his screen debut in the 1943 Red Skelton comedy Whistling in Brooklyn, played himself in many television shows. In an April 10, 1963 airing of The Beverly Hillbillies, Durocher plays golf with Jed Clampett (Buddy Ebsen) and Jethro Bodine (Max Baer, Jr.) and tries to sign Jethro to a baseball contract after discovering Jethro has a strong pitching arm. In an episode of The Munsters titled "Herman the Rookie," on April 8, 1965, Durocher believes Herman (Fred Gwynne) is the next Mickey Mantle when he sees the towering Munster hit long home runs. Football great Elroy Hirsch also appears with Durocher. Three years earlier, he also appeared as himself in an episode of Mr. Ed, when the talking horse gave batting tips to the Los Angeles Dodgers, helping them win the pennant. Durocher also appeared on television in the early 1950s on the CBS game show What's My Line? twice as a mystery guest (January 28, 1951 and May 31, 1953), the latter when his wife Day was a guest panelist.

Durocher returned to the managerial ranks in 1966 with the Chicago Cubs. In several previous seasons, the Cubs had tried an experiment called the "College of Coaches", in which they were led by a "head coach" rather than a manager. However, at his first press conference, Durocher formally announced an end to the experiment by saying:

If no announcement has been made about what my title is, I'm making it here and now. I'm the manager. I'm not a head coach. I'm the manager.[16]

At the same press conference, Durocher declared, "I am not the manager of an eighth place team." He was right; the Cubs finished tenth in his first season, becoming the first team to finish behind the previously hapless New York Mets. In 1967, however, the Cubs started strongly and had only their second winning season since 1946. The team steadily improved, but in 1969, Durocher suffered one of his most remembered failures. The Cubs started the season on a tear, and led the newly created National League East for 105 days. By mid-August they had a seemingly insurmountable ​9 ¹⁄₂ game cushion, and they appeared to be a shoo-in for their first postseason appearance in 25 years. However, they floundered down the stretch, and finished eight games behind the "Miracle Mets".

In a mid-July series against the Mets, the Cubs were beaten in the first two games at Shea Stadium,[17] but finally managed to salvage the third game, after which Durocher was asked if those were the real Cubs.

'"No", Durocher answered, "those are the real Mets."

While with the Cubs, Durocher encountered a difficult dilemma in regard to aging superstar Ernie Banks. While Banks' bad knees made him a liability, his legendary status made benching him impossible. Durocher also nearly came to blows with Cubs star Ron Santo during an infamous clubhouse near-riot. The problems were symbolic of Durocher's difficulty in managing the new breed of wealthier, more outspoken players who had come up during his long career. With a mediocre record of 46–44, Durocher was fired midway through the 1972 season, later stating that his greatest regret in baseball was not being able to win a pennant for longtime Cubs owner Philip K. Wrigley.

Durocher managed the Houston Astros for the final 31 games of the 1972 season (posting a 16–15 record in that span) and the entire 1973 season (posting an 82–80 record) before retiring.

He made a brief comeback in 1976 in the Japanese Pacific League with the Taiheiyo Club Lions, but he retired due to illness (hepatitis) before the beginning of the season.[18]

Durocher finished his managerial career with a 2,008–1,709 record for a .540 winning percentage. He posted a winning record with each of the four teams he led, and was the first manager to win 500 games with three different clubs.

Durocher, with Ed Linn, wrote a memoir titled Nice Guys Finish Last, a book that was recently re-published by the University of Chicago Press.

Leo Durocher died in 1991 in Palm Springs, California, at the age of 86, and is buried in Forest Lawn, Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles. He was posthumously inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1994.

Durocher was married four times. He was married to Ruby Hartley from 1930 to 1934. He was married to St. Louis socialite Grace Dozier from 1934 to 1943. In 1947 he married actress Laraine Day, and they divorced in 1960. His fourth wife was Lynne Walker Goldblatt, to whom he was married from 1969 to 1980.[19][20]

In 1943, Durocher was deemed ineligible for service in World War II due to a punctured eardrum.[21]

With Ruby Hartley, Durocher had a daughter named Barbara (born 1931).[22]

He adopted two children with Day, daughter Melinda Michele (1944–2012)[23] and son Chris (born 1945).[24][25] Willie Mays used to babysit Chris on Giants' roadtrips—the two would room together and go see movies as well.[26]

Durocher had real comedic talent, and portrayed himself on episodes of The Munsters, The Joey Bishop Show, Mister Ed, The Beverly Hillbillies, Screen Directors Playhouse, and other shows.[27]

In the 2013 film 42 about Jackie Robinson, Durocher is played by Christopher Meloni.[28]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Leo Durocher.

• List of Major League Baseball player–managers
• List of Major League Baseball managers by wins
• The Victory Season: The End of World War II and the Birth of Baseball's Golden Age

• Nice Guys Finish Last, by Leo Durocher with Ed Linn. Durocher's forthright autobiography was recently re-published by the University of Chicago Press (ISBN 9780226173887).
• Bums: An Oral History of the Brooklyn Dodgers, by Peter Golenbock
• Prager, Joshua. (2006). The Echoing Green: The Untold Story of Bobby Thomson, Ralph Branca and the Shot Heard Round the World. New York: Random House.
• Dickson, Paul: Leo Durocher: Baseball's Prodigal Son (2017) Bloomsbury USA

Look up nice guys finish last in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Leo Durocher at the Baseball Hall of Fame

• Career statistics and player information from Baseball-Reference, or Fangraphs, or Baseball-Reference (Minors)

• Leo Durocher managerial career statistics at Baseball-Reference.com
• NY Times obituary – July 27 'On This Day'
• A 16-page excerpt from Durocher's autobiography, Nice Guys Finish Last
• Leo Durocher at Find a Grave