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Volume 17 August/September
2004 - Scoreboard Theme -
Email:
TheHighlander
Miller Huggins: The Mighty
Mite Manager
Email: Harvey
Frommer Website:
Harvey Frommer on Sports
and Culture
About the Author: Harvey
Frommer is the author of 34 sports books,
including the classics: "New York City
Baseball," "Shoeless Joe and Ragtime
Baseball," "Rickey and Robinson: The Men
Who Broke Baseball's Color Line", "The New
York Yankee Encyclopedia," "A Yankee
Century: A Celebration of the First
Hundred Years of Baseball's Greatest
Team", and Red Sox Vs. Yankees: The Great
Rivalry (with Frederic J. Frommer).
On May 30,
1932 the first
monument ever at Yankee Stadium was
dedicated to "the odd little man," in
Waite Hoyt's phrase, "the greatest manager
who ever lived" who moved the New York
Yankees franchise from mediocrity to
greatness.
At first Yankee owner Jake
Ruppert did not want Miller Huggins to
manage the Yankees and Miller Huggins did
not want to manage the Yankees for he
viewed the American League as a step down
from his days as St. Louis Cardinal pilot
in the National League.
When the two first met,
Ruppert looked at what he called "the
worker's clothes, the cap perched oddly on
Huggins head, the smallness of the man."
Truth be told, Miller
Huggins was an unlikely Yankee. The
Cincinnati native was 5'4", 140 pounds, a
sufferer from real and imagined medical
problems, aloof, superstitious. He had a
law degree but never practiced law.
Dwarfed by Babe Ruth and
other Yankees in reputation and size,
Huggins said: "New York is a hell of a
town. Everywhere I go in St. Louis or
Cincinnati, it's always 'Hiya Hug.' But
here in New York I can walk the length of
42nd Street and not a soul knows me." In
1918, his first year as manager, the
Yankees finished fourth. There were third
place finishes the next two seasons. Then
in 1921, the Yankees won 98 games and
their first American League pennant, but
lost to the Giants in the World
Series.
There was another pennant
in 1922. But again no world championship.
There was another pennant in 1923 and this
time, finally, a World Series victory over
the Giants.
A seventh place finish in
1925 had Huggins presiding over the
re-shaping of the team for the 1926
season. The Yankees won l6 straight games
in May, wound up with 91 victories and
Huggins had another pennant winner. There
was another in 1927 and a world
championship as Huggins presided over
Murderer's Row.
"Huggins was almost like a
school master in the dugout," hurler Waite
Hoyt noted. "There was no goofing off. You
watched the game and you kept track not
only of the score and the number of outs,
but of the count on the batter. At any
moment Hug might ask you what the
situation was. "
In 1928, Miller Huggins
piloted the Yankees to their third
straight pennant, its sixth in eight
seasons. A four game sweep over St. Louis
gave the Yanks a string of eight straight
World Series game victories.
The two sweeps in the
World Series, the half dozen pennants in
just eight years - had never taken place
before. The "Mite Manager" was the mighty
manager. He was also self-effacing
claiming "Great players make great
managers."
The superstitious Huggins
would change his seat on the bench to
change the luck of the Yankees. Day in and
day out throughout the 1929 season he
moved about, squirming to change the
Yankee luck. Nothing worked.
The powerful Philadelphia
Athletics kept widening their lead. With
each setback, the health of Huggins
declined. By the middle of August the
Yankees were 25 games over the .500 mark,
but the Athletics were 45 games over. He
was diagnosed as having severe blood
poisoning caused by a carbuncle. He
refused medical treatment, finally
receiving it when it was too late.
On September 25, 1929,
Miller James Huggins passed away at age
50.
Baseball Hall of Fame
admission came for him in 1964.
(Article Copyrighted by
Harvey Frommer)
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