Joe Cronin: a Life in Baseball
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University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln University of Nebraska Press -- Sample Books and Chapters University of Nebraska Press 2010 Joe Cronin: A Life in Baseball Mark Armour Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/unpresssamples Part of the Arts and Humanities Commons Armour, Mark, "Joe Cronin: A Life in Baseball" (2010). University of Nebraska Press -- Sample Books and Chapters. 21. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/unpresssamples/21 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the University of Nebraska Press at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in University of Nebraska Press -- Sample Books and Chapters by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. Joe Cronin Buy the Book RunningHead ii Buy the Book RunningHead Mark Armour University of Nebraska Press | Lincoln and London iii Buy the Book © 2010 by the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging- in-Publication Data Armour, Mark L. Joe Cronin : a life in baseball / Mark Armour. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-0-8032-2530-5 (cloth : alkaline paper) 1. Cronin, Joe, 1906– 2. Baseball players — United States — Biography. 3. Baseball player-managers — United States — Biography. 4. American League of Professional Baseball Clubs — Presidents — Biography. I. Title. gv865.c7a76 2010 796.357092 — d c 22 [b] 2009037270 Set in Janson by Kim Essman Designed by Nathan Putens Buy the Book To my father, Laurence, who was never too tired to play catch, and my mother, Elizabeth, who encouraged my writing as early as the fourth grade. You made this book possible, and I only hope I have learned half of what you taught me. Buy the Book Buy the Book Contents List of Illustrations ix Acknowledgments xi Prologue 1 1 San Francisco 6 2 Pittsburgh and Other Places 17 3 Washington 32 4 Player-Manager 49 5 Rich Kid 72 6 Comeback 91 7 Winding Down 116 8 War 136 9 Bench Manager 159 10 General Manager 179 11 Opportunity Lost 201 12 Youth Movement 218 13 Power and Glory 239 14 Mr. President 262 15 New Order 279 16 Unrest 301 17 At Rest 325 Notes 335 Index 365 Buy the Book Buy the Book Illustrations Following page 182 1 Starting infield for Sacred Heart 2 Joe Cronin, 1926 3 Clark Griffith and Joe Cronin 4 Joe Cronin fielding, 1930 5 Joe Cronin batting, 1932 6 Joe Cronin, 1932 7 Joe Cronin scampers into third base 8 Joe Cronin and Mildred Robertson Cronin 9 Joe Cronin and Tom Yawkey 10 Joe Cronin fielding for the Red Sox 11 Joe Cronin and Walter Johnson 12 Joe Cronin, mid-1930s 13 Joe Cronin at rest 14 Johnny Marcum, Jimmie Foxx, Joe Cronin, Wes Ferrell, and Lefty Grove 15 Tom Yawkey and his manager 16 The Red Sox 1938 infield 17 Joe Cronin as Red Sox manager 18 Joe Cronin at Fenway Park with Lou Gehrig Buy the Book Illustrations 19 Joe Cronin and Joe McCarthy 20 Joe Cronin, Jake Wade, and Denny Galehouse 21 Ted Williams and Joe Cronin 22 Joe Cronin teaches in Sarasota, 1941 23 Joe Cronin and Connie Mack 24 Joe Cronin, Johnny Pesky, and Dominic DiMaggio 25 Joe Cronin, Dave “Boo” Ferriss, and Mickey Harris 26 Joe Cronin with his wife, Mildred, and Elise Yawkey 27 Joe Cronin as general manager 28 Red Sox camp for youngsters, 1952 29 Joe Cronin and Mike Higgins 30 Joe Cronin and Ted Williams 31 Joe Cronin in an Old-Timers game, 1956 32 Joe Cronin, 1959 33 Joe Cronin throwing out the first ball before a World Series game, 1967 34 Joe Cronin presenting award to Reggie Smith, 1969 35 Joe Cronin and Ted Williams, 1970s x Buy the Book Acknowledgments The number of people who contributed to the research and writing of this book is staggering, but I will try to make a go of it here. Three friends read drafts of the entire book: Dan Levitt, my frequent collaborator, who also spent many hours talking through many of the stories I wanted to tell; Rob Neyer, who helped me smooth over some writing habits; and Bill Nowlin, who knows the Red Sox and style. The finished work is much better for their efforts. Carl Haas, a man I did not know when this project began, gave me a tour of Joe Cronin’s childhood San Francisco neighborhood one day in 2007, made several trips to the library, told me about the history of baseball in the city, and read the relevant material in this book. The news of his passing in May 2009 came as a jolt — I so wanted Carl to see what I had done with all of his help. He was a true gentleman. David Smith, the czar of Retrosheet, the most beneficial endeavor since the Brooklyn Bridge, provided me with Joe Cronin’s dailies — the day-by-day statistical record of his career. Dixie Tourangeau made several trips to the Boston Public Library digging for a particular story I needed. Two other men with whom I discussed parts of my research unfor- tunately passed away before they could see the results of our con- versations. Dick Thompson, an expert on the Red Sox of the 1930s, suggested that I write this book more than ten years ago, a notion that startled me at the time. Jules Tygiel, one of our most revered historians, specialized in the subject of baseball integration — a subject I dreaded tackling. An exchange of emails with Jules helped convince me that I was on the right track. I sincerely hope I have written a book that Dick and Jules would have appreciated. I acknowledge the continual efforts of Gabriel Schechter at the Baseball Hall of Fame Library, who sent me files a number of times Buy the Book Acknowledgments and gave me some unexpected items when I visited Cooperstown in 2008. For photographs I thank Michael Ivins and Megan Labella of the Boston Red Sox; Mary Brace; Steve Steinberg; John Horne of the Baseball Hall of Fame; and Aaron Schmidt of the Boston Public Library. The following friends or fellow researchers helped me answer one or more questions over the course of the few years I was working on this project: David Vincent, Bob Dorin, Rich Morris, Jan Finkel, Mark Brown, Dave Eskenazi, Warren Corbett, Dick Beverage, Glenn Stout, Louis Kokernak, Walter Kephart, Cappy Gagnon, Charlie Bevis, Jeff Bower, Larry Tye, Ron Anderson, Rod Nelson, Geri Strecker, Wayne McElreavy, Andy McCue, Craig Calcaterra, Larry Gerlach, Steve Gietschier, Rick Huhn, Don Zminda, Lew Lowenfish, Larry Lester, Bobby Plapinger, and Jim Walsh. I was fortunate to hear the recollections and insights of Joe Cronin’s four children, Thomas Cronin, Corky Cronin, Maureen Cronin, and Kevin Cronin, as well as three of his grandchildren, Trevor Hayward, Chris Hayward, and Joe Hayward. I especially want to thank Maureen, who welcomed my father and me into her home in early 2007 and who enthusiastically fielded several follow-up phone calls. I corresponded with a number of people who played for, dealt with, or otherwise knew Joe Cronin, none of whom was as helpful and gra- cious with their time as John Harrington, who endured two lengthy and fruitful phone interviews. Also generous to me were Bobby Doerr, Mel Parnell, Dom DiMaggio, Johnny Pesky, Don Gutteridge, Boo Ferriss, Matt Batts, Ellis “Cot” Deal, Sam Mele, John Underwood, Gus Zernial, Dick Bresciani, Buzzy Bavasi, Bowie Kuhn, Lou Gorman, Al Salerno, Bill Valentine, Roland Hemond, Jerome Holtzman, John Rice, and Marvin Miller. Rob Taylor and the folks at the University of Nebraska Press have been helpful and encouraging throughout the process. Finally, I thank my family — Jane, Maya and Drew — who allowed me to indulge myself in this book for a few years. They complete me. xii Buy the Book Joe Cronin Buy the Book Buy the Book Prologue Tuesday, May 29, 1984, was a damp and miserable night at Fenway Park. The Boston Red Sox were playing host to the Minnesota Twins, and it was Jimmy Fund night, an annual affair from which the Red Sox donated all net proceeds to the team’s long-time charity. Making the event historical, the Red Sox planned a pregame celebration to retire the uniform numbers of Ted Williams (9) and Joe Cronin (4), the first players they had ever so honored. Only 15,472 tickets were sold, however, and fewer than ten thousand fans braved the conditions to head to the park for a game that might not be played. In the Boston Globe the next day, Peter Gammons referred to the dismal crowd as “the bittersweet part of the occasion” and reflective of “the state of the franchise’s current interest.”1 Though the season was just eight weeks old, the club was already seventeen games out of first place. The Red Sox decision to retire the two numbers, announced the previous November, had been met with some confusion. No one had worn Williams’s number since his dramatic home run twenty- four years earlier in the final at bat of his storied career, and most fans believed that his number had already been retired. In fact, the club had never held a ceremony, made a public pronouncement, or recognized the number anywhere in the park. They had just never let anyone else wear it. As for Cronin’s 4, it had been worn regularly in the thirty-seven years since Cronin took it off in 1947, most recently by Carney Lansford in 1982.