Bucky Harris
Stanley Raymond "Bucky" Harris was an American professional baseball second baseman, manager and executive. While Harris played in Major League Baseball for the Washington Senators and Detroit Tigers, it was his long managerial career that led to his enshrinement in the Baseball Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee in 1975.
Hired by the Senators to act as player-manager at the age of 27, Harris would lead the team to the 1924 World Series title, becoming the youngest manager to win a championship and the first rookie manager to do so. Harris managed 29 seasons, fourth most in MLB history. In his tenure as manager for five teams, Harris won over 2,150 games, three league pennants and two World Series championships ; the gap between Harris's World Series appearances and championships are the longest in major league history.
Early life
Stanley Raymond "Bucky" Harris was born on November 8, 1896, in Port Jervis, New York, and raised after the age of six in Pittston, Pennsylvania. He was of Swiss and Welsh descent. His father, Thomas, had emigrated from Wales, while his mother, Catherine, hailed from Hughestown, near Pittston. His elder brother, Merle, was a minor league second baseman. Bucky Harris left school at age 13 to work at a local colliery, the Butler Mine, as an office boy and, later, a weigh master. In his spare time, Harris played basketball for the Pittston YMCA team as well as sandlot baseball.Professional career
Minor leagues
Harris was listed as tall and ; he threw and batted right-handed. In 1916, when Harris was 19, Pittston native Hughie Jennings, then the manager of the Detroit Tigers, signed him to his first contract and farmed him to the Class B Muskegon Reds of the Central League, where he struggled as a batsman and was released. Harris then caught on with the Scranton Miners, Norfolk Tars and Reading Pretzels through 1917, before reaching the highest level of minor league baseball with the 1918–1919 Buffalo Bisons of the International League. Harris improved his batting skills during the latter season with the Bisons, making 126 hits and raising his average to.282.Washington Senators (1919–1928; player–manager after 1924)
Harris then was recommended to the Washington Senators by baseball promoter Joe Engel, who led the Chattanooga Lookouts at Engel Stadium. In August 1919, at the age of 22, he came up to Washington but was unimpressive at first, batting a meager.214 and getting into only eight games that first season. Despite this poor showing, owner-manager Clark Griffith made him Washington's regular second baseman in 1920, and before long Harris was batting.300 and making a mark for himself as a tough competitor, standing up to even ferocious superstar Ty Cobb, who threatened Harris when he tagged Cobb in their first encounter.Harris spent most of his playing career as a second baseman with the Senators. In 1924, he was named player-manager; at the age of 27 he was the youngest manager in the Majors. He proceeded to lead the Senators to their only World Series title in Washington in his rookie season, and was nicknamed "The Boy Wonder." He won a second consecutive American League pennant in 1925, but the Senators lost the 1925 World Series in Pittsburgh in the late innings of Game 7 after leading 3–1 in the Series. Baseball historian William C. Kashatus wrote of his dominant play in the 1924 World Series: "Not only did he set records for chances accepted, double plays and put-outs in the exciting seven-game affair, but he batted.333 and hit two home runs" — including an important roundtripper in Game 7 which opened the scoring and gave Washington a 1–0 lead in the 4th inning. These feats are even more impressive considering that the light-hitting Harris only hit nine home runs during his entire career.
After Harris‘ back-to-back pennants in 1924–1925, he was able to keep the Senators in the first division for the next three seasons, but their win totals declined, from 96 to 81, then 85.
Detroit Tigers (1929–1933)
When, in, they won only 75 games, Griffith traded Harris to Detroit and changed managers, with Hall of Fame pitcher Walter Johnson named as his successor. The Tigers had won only 68 games, and Harris' edition offered only a slight improvement, winning 70. Harris’ initial departure from the Senators in 1928 came in a trade to the Tigers as player-manager. Although he retired as a player after the 1931 season, his playing career effectively ended with his trade to Detroit. Harris only made 11 cameo appearances in the Tiger lineup: seven in 1929 and four in 1931. In all, he appeared in 1,263 games over all or portions of 13 seasons, and collected 1,297 hits, with 224 doubles, 64 triples, nine home runs, 472 bases on balls, and 167 stolen bases. Harris batted.274 lifetime with 508 career runs batted in.In five full seasons as the Tigers' manager, he produced only one winning year,, when Detroit went 76–75 and finished fifth and games behind the Yankees. In the waning days of, Harris stepped down. His eventual successor, Mickey Cochrane, a future Hall-of-Fame catcher who was acquired from the Philadelphia Athletics, would lead the Tigers as a player-manager to back-to-back pennants in 1934–1935.
Boston Red Sox (1934)
Harris signed as manager of the Red Sox for. Boston was then a habitual tail-ender in the American League, and had registered 15 consecutive losing seasons since its world championship. The 1933 Red Sox had won only 63 games and finished seventh in the eight-team AL under Marty McManus, but their wealthy new owner, Tom Yawkey, had begun a major rebuilding of both the ball club and Fenway Park. Yawkey jettisoned McManus and personally selected Harris as his new manager, and his 1934 Red Sox, despite an injury-riddled season by newly purchased ace left-handed pitcher Lefty Grove, broke the losing-season streak, finishing at.500. But Harris's stay in the Boston dugout lasted only one season. He and Eddie Collins, the Red Sox' general manager, had feuded since their playing days and Yawkey may have hired Harris without consulting Collins. When Joe Cronin, the hard-hitting, 28-year-old playing manager of the Senators, became available on the trade market, Yawkey and Collins moved quickly, sending shortstop Lyn Lary and $225,000 to Washington on October 26, 1934, for Cronin, and then naming him manager for. Harris then took Cronin's old job, returning to Clark Griffith and the Senators.Second stint with Washington Senators (1935–1942)
Harris' second term in Washington lasted for eight seasons, his longest tenure as a skipper. However, he never approached the highs of 1924 or 1925. Only one of his teams, the 1936 Senators, had a winning record and first-division finish. Harris kept the club out of the American League basement, but three consecutive seventh-place finishes from 1940 to 1942 led to his departure.Philadelphia Phillies (1943)
His only season in the National League was spent as skipper of the 1943 Phillies.Perhaps the worst team in baseball in, the Phillies had just been sold to lumberman William D. Cox. Under Harris, the 1943 edition improved to play.424 baseball by July 27, with just three fewer victories than they had in all of 1942. However, Harris chafed at Cox' constant interference. When Harris protested, Cox abruptly fired him after only 92 games.
Harris then played a role in Cox' banishment from professional baseball for betting on games. On the day after his firing, Harris dropped a bombshell at his hotel room — he had evidence that Cox was betting on baseball. Harris's friends, outraged at his firing, informed Commissioner of Baseball Kenesaw Mountain Landis that Cox was violating baseball's anti-gambling mandate. Landis then summoned Harris to his office to testify in person about Cox' behavior. The owner was suspended indefinitely three months later and banned from baseball outright soon afterward. The Phillies were sold to R. R. M. Carpenter in November 1943.
New York Yankees (1947–1948)
Harris then spent three seasons out of the big leagues, serving as general manager and field manager of the Buffalo Bisons, his old team in the International League. In August 1946, the Yankees' co-owner and GM, Larry MacPhail, appointed Harris to a front-office position.The tumultuous season saw MacPhail employ three managers — Joe McCarthy, Bill Dickey and Johnny Neun — and finish third, 17 games in arrears of the pennant-winning Red Sox. At the close of the season, MacPhail named Harris the Bombers' 1947 manager, and he led them to his third American League pennant — the Yankees' 15th league title.
Behind Most Valuable Player Joe DiMaggio and newly acquired starting pitcher Allie Reynolds, the 1947 Yanks won 97 games and prevailed over the Tigers by a 12-game margin. Then they won Harris's second World Series championship, defeating the Jackie Robinson-led Brooklyn Dodgers in a thrilling, seven-game Fall Classic.
MacPhail sold his stake in the Yankees and left baseball immediately after the 1947 Series and Harris returned for a second season as manager. His 1948 Yankees won 94 games to finish a close third in a hectic pennant race, two games behind the Cleveland Indians and Red Sox, who ended the regular season in a tie for first place. But the result dissatisfied the Yankees' post-MacPhail ownership team, Dan Topping and Del Webb, and their new general manager, George Weiss, and they replaced Harris with Casey Stengel. Stengel would lead New York to ten American League pennants and seven World Series titles in the next 12 seasons.