Free Bill James Guide to Baseball Managers, The by Bill James Page A

Platoon?
McGraw adopted platooning after it was popularized by George Stallings in 1914, as did almost all of the managers. He was never ahead of the curve on platooning, and was not aggressive in its use, but he did normally platoon at one or two outfield positions for the rest of his career, 1915–1932.
    Did He Try to Solve His Problems with Proven Players or with Youngsters Who Still May Have Had Something to Learn?
John McGraw lived to teach young men how to play baseball. I mean, he loved the horses, he loved the stage, he loved his cigars, and he loved his whiskey, but teaching young men to play baseball was what he did .
    Consider this, from Frankie Frisch: The Fordham Flash , by J. Roy Stockton:
    McGraw gave me a lot of personal attention … He saw to it that I was given a chance to hit during batting practice. He used to play the infield himself and he personally took charge of polishing up my fielding. He would hit grounders for hours. He’d hit them straight at you and he’d hit them to either side … McGraw even hit to the infield in the pre-game warm-up. If you didn’t make a play the way McGraw wanted it, he’d hit you another, five more, ten more, until the play was made the way he wanted it.
    Over the course of his career, he took on many, many young men with no minor league experience or very little minor league experience, and worked with them until they became outstanding players. His list includes Mel Ott, Fred Snodgrass, Fred Merkle, Freddie Lindstrom, Larry Doyle, Ross Youngs, George Kelly, and Travis Jackson.
    He was incredibly tenacious in teaching young players. He thought nothing of taking on a young player, and working with him every day for three years, gradually breaking him into the lineup. Of course, many times these kids didn’t pan out. Over the years he had countless young players like Eddie Sicking, Joe Rodriguez, Tillie Schaefer, Andy Cohen, Gene Paulette, and Grover Hartley whom he would work with for a year or two, and then decide that they weren’t going to make it.
    If he couldn’t develop his own player, he wasn’t opposed to trading for or purchasing an established player from somebody else; he also did that many times. But most of his stars were homegrown. His first option was always to spot a hole developing two or three years down the road, and start getting some twenty-year-old kid ready to move in there.
    Rube Foster’s Ox
    Rube Foster was the greatest manager in the history of the Negro Leagues, not to mention a leading pitcher, the owner of the American Giants, and the de facto commissioner of Negro baseball. Foster usually had a pipe in his mouth, even when he was in the dugout, and like most pipe smokers, he wasn’t going to take the thing out of his mouth to talk to you unless he actually had something to say. When he had a young player who didn’t give quite the appropriate effort, Rube would take him aside and tell him this story.
    A farmer had a donkey and an ox, which he worked as a team. It was hard work, and one day the ox decided just to stay in his stall all day and eat. When the donkey got back to the barn that night, the ox asked him, “What did the boss say about me?”
    “Didn’t say nothing,” said the donkey.
    The ox slept well that night, and when the farmer came out the next morning, the ox again balked at leaving the barn. When the donkey came back that night, he asked again, “What did the boss say?”
    “Didn’t say nothing,” the donkey answered, “but he visited the butcher.”
    The next morning the ox was out of his stall early, waiting by the yoke when the farmer appeared.
    “You might as well go back to your stall,” the farmer told him. “I’ve already sold you to the butcher.”
    How Many Players Did He Make Regulars Who Had Not Been Regulars Before, and Who Were They?
Too many to name. In addition to those named above, one could add Bill Terry, Buck Herzog, Art Fletcher, Art Devlin, Chief Meyers, Josh Devore, Jeff Tesreau,