Black Friday

In Manhattan newspaper offices, telephones began jangling crazily. Angry voices wanted to know if the terrible rumor was true. It was. One choked-up caller exploded: "Geez, it's Poil Hobba for the Giants." Said another: "O.K., send a photographer down to Brooklyn Bridge in 20 minutes. I'm jumping off."

Mel Ott, manager of the New York Giants, had thrown in the sponge. Leo Durocher, who was hated worse by Giant fans than any living man, had resigned as manager of the arch-rival Brooklyn Dodgers--to take over Ott's job. Soft-spoken old Burt Shotton had soft-shoed back from exile to take over the Dodgers.

On both sides of New York's East River (a buffer between Manhattan and Brooklyn), the news of baseball's Black Friday bounced down on the unbelieving. In all baseball history, there had never been such a roar from the bleachers. It drowned out the news that Ben Chapman, manager of the Philadelphia Phillies, had been fired the same day. Loyal Giant rooters vowed never to set foot in the Polo Grounds again. In Brooklyn, there were stand-up-&-fight arguments in Flatbush bars. Breezy Leo Durocher, once referred to as a "moral bankrupt" by a baseball club owner (out of print, he has been called worse names), was not the kind of person who invited neutrality.

Melancholy Mel. The fireworks were set off on the Fourth of July, but the explosion wasn't heard for twelve days. The Fourth was the day when Mel Ott, once-great ballplayer and prince among his fellows, recognized the obvious: he wasn't tough enough to be a manager. He couldn't handle his men--especially pitchers. The fans who cheered him loudest when he was socking home runs (in his day he had hit 511, an alltime National League, record) were down on him. His players were loafing on him, and second-guessing his decisions after games.

When Horace Stoneham, the Giants' president, asked Ott what the club needed, Mel replied: "Maybe a new manager." Stoneham agreed. At last week's All-Star game in St. Louis,* Mel Ott and his boss secretly called it quits and set out to hire Durocher. But could Leo Durocher be hired?

Lucky Leo. Only a few insiders knew how extremely available Leo was. His trouble dated from the Fourth of July too. That was the day the Dodger road secretary took Leo aside at Ebbets Field and said: "I hate to tell you this, Leo, but the boss [Branch Rickey] wants you to resign." What had he done this time, Leo wanted to know. "Oh, nothing at all," said the boss's emissary, retreating.

Rickey simply wanted to get rid of Durocher; it was a way for Rickey to take some of the heat off himself. The fans were staying away from Ebbets Field; Rickey had cut down the number of cheaper seats, and sold down the river such Flatbush heroes as Dixie Walker and Eddie Stanky. And the Dodgers were wallowing in next to last place. Rickey couldn't help remembering the calm, sure way Burt Shotton had run the team (and won a pennant) when Durocher was kicked out of baseball last season (TIME, April 21, 1947). But Leo wasn't going to oblige. Said he to the messenger: "Hell no, I won't resign. He's going to have to fire me ... man to man." Then the Dodgers won seven of their next nine games, climbed to fifth place--and Rickey couldn't fire Durocher and look good doing it.

That was how things stood when Stoneham and Rickey met last week and Stoneham popped the question: Would Rickey let him have Durocher? The boss of the Dodgers consented graciously.

The Belligerent Air. After the first shock wore off, Giant fans began to act like Communists the day after a switch in the party line. They grudgingly admitted that Leo would give the Giants a belligerent air. He might even breathe some fire into a club which hadn't known a man-sized blaze since the late great John J. McGraw left 16 years ago. Leo was the McGraw type--aggressive, hot-tempered, hell on umpires and a great tactician.

In Pittsburgh's Schenley Hotel, where the Giants themselves first heard about their new boss, the players sat around like men in a trance until 4 p.m., when Leo breezed into town. He was bulging with confidence. He had been studying the Giants from the Dodger dugout. He pointed to Johnny Mize, his new first baseman, and said: "Mize, you know you're no Hal Chase around the bag, but you're a good player and a great hitter. I want you to show a little life . . ." Then he singled out Catcher Walker Cooper: "When you see a pitcher throw what I call a 'lazy pitch,' fire the ball back at him and wake him up." The Giants seemed to get the general idea.

The Dodgers and Giants were neck & neck in fourth place when Durocher and Shotton took over their new jobs last week. Whether either of them could now win a pennant would be one test of the big change. A more immediate test, and more crucial to the club owners, was whether the Giant and Dodger fans who had been staying away from their ball parks most of the season would now throng back.

* Which the Durocher-managed National Leaguers lost, 5-2.

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