"That's Baseball"

Affectionately called "Ding Ding" by his cronies because he was once a trolley-car conductor, Charles Leo ("Gabby") Hartnett has been the most popular player on the Chicago Cubs since the day he first appeared at training camp as a grinning, chattering rookie in 1922. One of the greatest catchers of all time, with a lifetime batting average of .300, 200-lb. Gabby Hartnett, still grinning, last week succeeded Charlie Grimm as manager of the team to which he has devoted his whole major-league career.

Long rumored to replace Grimm, Hartnett's appointment, when it finally came, caused a stir among baseball fans. The Cubs were in third place in the National League pennant race, had just won seven games in a row before losing to the resurgent Dodgers, and their $185,000 investment in Dizzy Dean's pitching arm had paid its first dividend (after a two-month moratorium) in the form of a four-hit victory over the Boston Bees.

But diligent students of baseball knew that Philip Knight ("P. K.") Wrigley, multimillionaire Cub owner whose family had sunk millions in the club, was not satisfied. Owner Wrigley wanted his team in first place. He wanted the Cubs as animated as the pixies that perform on his famed Broadway electric sign. To discover the reason for their failure to be so, he had hired a University of Illinois professor to psychoanalyze the team. After studying the professor's findings, P. K. Wrigley, Andover-bred, decided last week that a new spark plug was needed.

Changing managers in midseason is no novelty. In the Cubs front office, under the Wrigley regime, it has become a deep-seated habit. Once (in 1925), the Cubs played under three different managers in one season. In 1930, Joe McCarthy (now manager of the New York Yankees) was replaced by Rogers Hornsby in the midst of a pennant tug of war. In 1932 Manager Hornsby (a $250,000 investment) was suddenly supplanted by First Baseman Charlie Grimm. Because Manager Grimm went on to win the pennant in 1932, Owner Wrigley last week had an excellent precedent to follow. Catcher Hartnett was the necessary spark plug.

The 19th manager of the 62-year-old Cubs, 37-year-old Gabby Hartnett, in his 17 years, has played under six of them, has become a smart handler of pitchers, a shrewd observer of men. Even Dizzy Dean once admitted that Gabby Hartnett was the only baseballer that was "smarter than me." But astute Owner Wrigley, well aware of the fact that brilliant ball players seldom have been successful as managers, did not give fun-loving Catcher Hartnett a new contract with his new job until the Cubs had tucked away a few victories.

While Hero Hartnett was the centre of a boisterous ring-around-a-rosy celebration at Wrigley Field just before his managerial debut in a double-header with the Dodgers (which they split), onetime Hero Charlie Grimm was on his way back to his Missouri farm. Mindful of his two pennants (1932 and 1935) and the enviable record of never finishing lower than third in the six years he managed the Cubs, Charlie Grimm smiled ruefully. "That's baseball." said he.*

*Two days later, Farmer Grimm was hired by the Columbia Broadcasting System as sports commentator.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.