“They say a lot of things about Leo Durocher and many of the things they say are not nice.” So started a nice newspaper article about Durocher published in September of 1969 at the end of the baseball season. Interestingly, Durocher spent a good deal of time in Palm Springs.
The article continued, “Well, let me tell you a couple of things about Leo Durocher. Winning isn’t paramount with him, it’s the rung above that. Everybody wants to win, but I’ve never seen anybody who wants to more than he does. I repeat, anybody.”
“He wanted to win so much this year he could taste it. Leo Durocher wants to win every year but this year he wanted to more than ever before. This was his ball club. Hadn’t he brought it all the way up from dead last? Hadn’t he molded it with his own hands into exactly the way he wanted it?”
“Leo glowed with pride when his Chicago Cubs got off so well then ballooned their lead to 9 ½ games in August. When they faltered and the Mets started coming on, it didn’t only hurt Leo Durocher, it nearly killed him. Who could he tell that to? Nobody. Who would really understand the way he felt? Nobody.”
“So, he got testy with the press. More so than usual. He got so testy with the writer he wouldn’t even speak with them. But Leo Durocher isn’t dumb and nobody has to tell him part of any manager’s job is to deal with the news media. Besides, if the real truth were known, Leo Durocher wouldn’t like it at all if suddenly nobody ever asked him for his opinion anymore.”
Babe Ruth dubbed Durocher “Leo the Lip” for his penchant for pithy, often bawdy, pronouncements and getting crosswise with the press, who gleefully reported his antics both in the ballpark and out. He led an outsized life of gambling and womanizing. The league leadership was not amused. But it was his fiery, dirt-kicking, screaming tirades against umpires that cemented his reputation as aggressively talkative, with nothing nice to say.
A Desert Sun item noted, “Durocher brings his Chicago Cubs to Palm Springs tomorrow for a single game with the California Angels at Angels Stadium. Play-ball time is 1 p.m. It will be the seventh time this season that the two clubs have played and the fourth time in Palm Springs.”
“Vocal Cub manager Durocher who has thrown plenty of the old ‘bull’ in his time, has been given a generous amount in return: a two-year-old Brahma bull to be exact. The bull, named ‘Lippy Leo’ was presented to Durocher prior to the start of the game yesterday. Momentarily suffering a rare loss of speech at the gift from the Long Beach Rodeo, Durocher recovered partially when asked what was to be done with the baby Brahma. Durocher scrawled on a piece of paper the address of Los Angeles Dodger pitcher Don Drysdale’s ranch in the nearby San Fernando Valley. ‘Deliver him there’ said Durocher, as he took his bull in tow, using every inch of rope available.”
Durocher was unusually scrappy and had unusual success on the field and he was not interested in niceties. He played to win. His career spanned multiple clubs including the Yankees, Cincinnati Reds, and St. Louis Cardinals. He was known as a fine fielding shortstop with indefatigable hustle. Babe Ruth also called him “the All-American Out.” Over 24 years as a skipper for the Brooklyn Dodgers, New York Giants, Chicago Cubs, and Houston Astros, Durocher won 2,008 total games, three pennants, and a World Series. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Durocher’s combativeness and competitiveness were legendary, his career noteworthy, and his pronouncements memorable.
Writer Jeffrey Marlett notes that Durocher made the cover of Time Magazine on April 14, 1947. “Published the day before Jackie Robinson broke into the major league with the Brooklyn Dodgers, the Timearticle did not cast the Dodgers’ manager in a kind light. The words ‘I don’t want any nice guys on my ball club’ ran beneath Leo’s portrait. The background picture depicted Leo giving an umpire an earful of abuse, standard operation procedure for the manager nicknamed ‘The Lip.’”
“Just five days earlier Durocher had been suspended from baseball for a year. Commissioner Albert ‘Happy’ Chandler cited Durocher’s string of moral shortcomings: gambling debts, associations with known gamblers and nightlife figures, and a scandalous marriage with charges of adultery, bigamy, and contempt of court. Brooklyn owner and general manager Branch Rickey often said Leo possessed ‘the fertile ability to turn a bad situation into something infinitely worse.’”
But beyond the many wins and not-so-many losses, Durocher played a quiet but important role in one of baseball’s most defining moments. Before being suspended in 1947, he let it be known that he would not tolerate dissent from players who opposed Jackie Robinson joining the club. He greatly admired Robinson’s grit, calling him “a Durocher with talent.”
When Durocher discovered some players on the team had circulated a petition to ban Robinson from the field, he told them “Well, boys, you know what you can do with your petition? You can wipe your asses with it.” Durocher declared that Robinson would absolutely take the field, “I don’t care if the guy is yellow or black, or if he has stripes like a god-damn zebra. I’m the manager of this team and I say he plays.”
The 1951 New York Giants with Durocher back at the helm pulled off a stunning 13½-game comeback on the Dodgers with Bobby Thomson’s famous “Shot Heard ‘Round the World” homer to win the pennant. Three years later, Durocher and the Giants swept the heavily favored Cleveland Indians in the 1954 World Series. In 1966, during his tumultuous stint at the Astros, he was quoted as saying “I am the manager. I am capable of kicking you in the rump as well as patting you on the back.”
Durocher’s colorful language made him one of baseball’s most quoted figures, ranking with Yogi Berra. “Baseball is like church. Many attend, few understand.” “You don’t save a pitcher for tomorrow. Tomorrow it may rain.” “Show me a good loser and I’ll show you an idiot.” “God watches over drunks and third basemen.” “There are only five things you can do in baseball – run, throw, catch, hit and hit with power.”
But most famously, Durocher is credited with the line “Nice guys finish last.”
He explained, “I never did say that you can’t be a nice guy and win. I said that if I was playing third base and my mother rounded third with the winning run, I’d trip her up.”
He summed up his career, “Baseball has been 45 years of a wonderful life. But I have got a lot of things to do now. I’m going out to Palm Springs and I’m going to tee it up and play a lot of golf.”
And that is exactly what he did. With his pal Frank Sinatra. Durocher reflected, “You never play 18 holes when you play with Frank. He has a beautiful home on the 17th hole at Tamarisk and after you play nine holes or so with him, he says, ‘That’s enough. We’ll go over to my house. It’s cocktail time.’ With him, cocktail time can be anytime. Frank and I play tennis, too.”
The man who had spent decades managing chaos, feuding with commissioners, and ruthlessly ruling dugouts found quietude in the Coachella Valley. Baseball’s extra-loud, controversial and consequential figure retired to the desert. Nice guys and Durocher finished in Palm Springs.
Tracy Conrad is president of the Palm Springs Historical Society. The Thanks for the Memories column appears Sundays in The Desert Sun. Write to her at pshstracy@gmail.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Not-so-nice life and times of baseball’s Leo ‘the Lip’ Durocher
Reporting by Tracy Conrad, Special to The Desert Sun / Palm Springs Desert Sun
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
