Branch Rickey Disagrees With Miller Huggins’ Method of Managing – Doak An Example

December 21, 1913           Age 22

By W. J. O’Connor.    St Louis Post Dispatch

What Miller Huggins Says

I BELIEVE Manager Rickey has a lot of good ideas, but I’m not strong for this theory stuff.

No ballplayer can learn how to steal by sliding into sand pits. How long do you think I would last if I was compelled to hit the dirt 15 or 20 times a day? I’m no longer a kid and it would cripple me.

I would not ask an old ballplayer to slide in a pit because the veterans have been in the pastime long enough to know how to do such things properly or else they wouldn’t be carried as regulars.

I released Larry Quinlan to Oakland for the reason that he runs flat-footed. I told him to get up on his toes, but he said he couldn’t. I don’t think he could be taught how to run.

Lee Magee is fast, but he never would learn to run bases in a sliding pit. I am a self-made ballplayer, and I had to learn to run bases the best way I could. I never slide in a pit.

Yes, this theory stuff is all right in a way. but I don’t think much of it.

Rickey Picks Flaws in Cardinal Boss’ Plan

I Will Have Sliding Pits, Hand Ball Courts and Batting Cages for the Browns Next Spring, and I Expect Huggins to Do Likewise Before He Is Through as Manager,” Says Browns’ Boss Branch Rickey.

M ANAGER BRANCH RICKEY of tie Browns and Manager Miller James Huggins of the Cardinals have lately been exploited on opposite sides of the subject: “How to Manage a Major League Club. ”

It was assumed that the Browns and Cardinals were major league clubs and their respective managers, therefore, were capable of indulging in the debate.

“When stories signed by Rickey and Huggins appeared in a morning paper Friday, Manager Huggins was out ot the city, while Manager Rickey denies that he wrote the story. He admits that part of it may have been inspired by him.

Huggins’ literary contribution ran in a parallel column to Rickey’s and from the tone of it one would surmise that Huggins had read Rickey’s expressions before he took pen in hand. Rickey has taken severe exceptions to some statement credited to Huggins and has answered through the Post-Dispatch, his verbatim reply being printed herewith:

In Rickey’s Own Words…

“It seems somewhat like ‘sounding brass’ and a ‘tinkling cymbal’ for managers of two eighth place major league teams to be engaged in an argument over the proper development of a ball club. Not because anybody in St. Louis or anywhere else cares a rap about my beliefs In this matter,’ but just for the sake of a little self-satisfaction, it can be said that the article in one of Friday’s papers does not correctly represent my position.

“The article was the first information to me that there was any argument between Mr. Huggins and myself; and in fact a considerable part of what Mr. Huggins says I heartily agree with. However, I shall have three batting cages, three handball courts, one sliding pit and a place for running dashes at the training camp in St. Petersburg, whether anyone else approves or not. If this is theory, it is blamed good practical theory. If any of the Browns’ bones rattle when they slide in the soft sand, if I could not tell any other, that would be an indication sufficient to me that their services should be given to some other profession, where their age would not count against them.

“To be specific. I have never entertained the idea of a bowling alley, have never said that players should slide a certain number of time or that players of Mr. Huggins’ ability or age should slide at all. Furthermore, I am just as much a believer in the value of the practice game as anyone, and expect to stage one daily.

“Purely as matter of argument. I think the contention that ballplayers could be and are being developed, can easily be easily supported, as against the contention that ballplayer coming to the major leagues must be assumed to already have mastered such matters as anticipating a pitch, getting a break, proper running, proper sliding, how to bunt, and a score of other specific qualifications of a finished ballplayer. Whether it holds good on all major teams or not, I am not in a position to say, but that It holds good on most of the teams I have seen there can be no doubt. In fact, I would submit it as a matter of common knowledge that every fan has seen the development of ballplayers in this or that definite manner.

There Are Other Ways.

“It is certainly true that the game itself is the very best way to prove these points, but not by any means the only way, or the fastest way. In the game you may wait until the close of the season before you will see a certain player placed in a certain situation. I do not believe in assuming that minor league ballplayers or even a good many majors are finished ballplayers, I think they can improve themselves. I know one or two members of the Browns who slide straight into the bags, and some who don’t slide straight, correctly. In five weeks’ practice at St. Petersburg, participating only in the games, it might be that this or that player would have to slide only two or three times, and then come back North and enter the season no better than when he went South. I have seen a good many men slide daily in sandpits, and I have never known one to be injured or bruised. Of course, I have never had experience with superannuated athletes.

“As to running, I have never said that I expect to develop the running ability of my men, but it is simply for the reason that I do not know of anyone to put in charge of this. It is also a matter of common knowledge that the development of a foot runner is comparatively easy to obtain by a competent Instructor, and is very noticeable to even a looker. To say that you do not want a recruit just because he has not all the speed he is capable of getting is to me only silly twaddle.

It’s Up to the Player.

“All that I believe in regard to this matter, and anything that I may have said, is not at all antagonistic to the principle that one of the most Important qualifications of a good ball player is to be able to use whatever knowledge he has. Of course Lee Magee must know something of the peculiarities of the opposing pitcher in order to get a proper break. It is a very important point, and if it were possible and feasible, I would like to have all the American League pitchers at our training camp just to give us practice on this. That’s foolish. But. just because we cannot have this, is it any reason why, if Lee Magee doesn’t know how to slide he should not be given extra chances to learn to slide, or if he doesn’t know how to run, he should not be taught how to run, or if he doesn’t know how to bat he should not be given a chance to practice batting.

“Why, I would like to ask, does Huggins ever have batting practice? That is theory, because it’s not in a game, for batting in practice is not the same as batting in a game. Why not rely solely upon the batting secured in the game, four trips to the plate dally make better batters than 20 such trips. With this I cannot agree. There is just the same reason for a man who can get more speed to get it, and for a man who can’t slide to learn to slide as there is for man who bats to practice batting. It doesn’t require the same continuous work to keep the efficiency, but it takes similar work to first attain it, namely, trying to do it. For my part I am not going to assume that any man of the Browns is a finished ballplayer.

Sliding Practice Helpful.

“Further, I would say the sliding pit is not calculated to teach men how to get a break from the bag. It Is calculated to teach men to slide Into the next one. Mr. Huggins sufficiently answers and disproves every promise he has taken when he had Doak report for morning practice while he demonstrated to him his fault in tipping off base-runners. This involves just the amount of theory in every particular that I would employ, and his demonstration raises my hopes that I may meet with some like measure of success in similar undertakings. Beyond the amount of theory he practiced on Doak, I have none.

“It is very easy to exaggerate the importance of means that any one may use for the development of a ballplayer. The main thing is a big amount of inherent ability.  After all, the man’s development is up to himself, and the power within a man to develop himself establishes with me a standard of his brain power. “Veni, vidi, vincit,” is just as much an achievement of a ballplayer as any one else who develops into his very best in other lines of work. “I confidently expect to know that Mr. Huggins will be employing sliding pits and, possibly, a batting cage, before he is through with the management of the St. Louis baseball club.

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