Word: rickeys
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This talent prompted Branch Rickey to make a classic evaluation of Stanky, then Brooklyn's second baseman: "He can't field. He can't hit. And he can't outrun his grandmother. But I wouldn't trade him for any second baseman in the league." When the New York baseball writers voted a special award to Eddie Stanky, they were stumped when the time came to define just what the trophy was for. Stanky, with a grin, helped them out. "Thank you," he said, "for appreciating my intangibles...
Under the smart handling of Old Mahatma Branch Rickey, who had spotted Stanky when he was a minor leaguer, and under the constant needling of Manager Leo Durocher (a player of small talents himself), Stanky blossomed in Brooklyn. He set his bases-on-balls record in 1945. He sparked Brooklyn to its first pennant in six years in 1947.** The Brooklyn fans made Eddie an idol (along with Dixie Walker), tabbed him with such affectionate nicknames as "The Brat," "Gromyko" (because he walked so much), "Stinky," and "Muggsy...
...spring of 1948, Stanky was a fallen idol in Rickey's eyes. Rickey had broken baseball's color line with the importation of hard-hitting Jackie Robinson, and, as it happened, Robinson was a better second baseman than Eddie Stanky. The Boston Braves jumped ($100,-ooo worth) at the chance to get Stanky, hoping that his "intangibles" would perk up a team perennially in the shadow of the glamorous Red Sox. Before leaving Brooklyn, Eddie broke with his good friend Durocher, who had taken Rickey's side against Stanky in a salary dispute. Durocher," Stanky cried, "knifed...
...Branch Rickey, a man who knows mon about baseball than Veeck does, once occupied Veeck's present office. He left a sign on the wall: "Get the ballplayers and the rest will take care of itself." Though the motto worked well for Rickey, Veeck does not agree with it. Says he: "You've always got to be thinking about fans who wish they had gone to the circus. Baseball fans are like anyone else. If you buy breakfast food and it tastes like sawdust, you don't buy any more. That's what's been...
Part of the Pittsburgh Pirates' spring training, wrote a United Press reporter from San Bernardino, Calif., was a lecture from Manager Branch Rickey, referring to his bachelor players as "matrimonial cowards," and urging them "to marry and take this step to heaven." Rickey promptly roared that he had been misquoted: "I know many boys who got married and went plumb straight to hell. I don't believe a man ought to get married unless he cannot help it. I mean to say ... a man who gets married without being wild about the girl is just a plain fool...