Walter Who?

What are the skills that a successful baseball manager must have? I suspect that there are many possible answers to that question, perhaps as many as those answering the question. No doubt each of us posting on LADT have different preferences or expectations. Some are happy with Dave Roberts, some not so pleased, some neutral. Perhaps each of us has a manager in mind that we think is or has been a good manager. Perhaps we assign a rating by a win-loss record or by post-season success.

I expect there are job descriptions for managers but they would include the duties the manager must perform. They cannot include the intangibles that make a manager a good manager but those personal characteristics that we admire are often uncovered by general managers in their quest to find a manager.

Perhaps those characteristics are uncovered in an interview or were witnessed when the prospective manager was a player.

The manager must work with the roster with which he is provided and working miracles is a rarity. Winning percentage does become significant when a manager has inherited a team that on paper ranks well down on the power rankings.

So, who is your guy? Tommy Lasorda with his emotional style of managing, “bleeding Dodger Blue”, “the big Dodger in the sky”, his rant after Dave Kingman hit three home runs against the Dodgers on May 14, 1978, starting Dave Goltz and his 4.38 ERA in the winner take all game with Houston  in 1980 with rookie Fernando sitting on the bench. Don’t get me wrong, I am a huge Tommy Lasorda fan and I loved his emotion in and for the game. That emotion and his human side as a motivator was significant in the 1988 WS.

I liked Bill Russell. I thought of him as a lifetime Dodger, like Tommy, but with a cool and collected side. In late June 1996, Tommy suffered a mild heart attack and Russell became acting manager on June 25. The Dodger front office decided to make Russell’s appointment permanent on making him only the third man to manage the Dodgers in 43 years. I envisioned him on another long managerial run. He finished the 1996 season, compiling a record of 49–37 and bringing the Dodgers home in second place, earning the NL wild-card spot in the playoffs before being swept in three games by the Atlanta Braves in the Division Series. In 1997 he directed the Dodgers to an 88-74 mark and another runner-up finish in the NL West. When the 1998 club stumbled out of the blocks to a 36–38 start he was fired on June 21  as a precursor to News Corporation taking over the team. We all remember that. Bill Russell had a 30-year association with the Dodgers. His final managing record was 173–149 for a .537 winning percentage. A small sample but better than Joe Torre, Davey Johnson, Grady Little, the venerable Wilbur Robinson, Tommy Lasorda (.526). And yes, we do have to determine if winning percentage is the measure of a manager because of the countless variables involved in even one baseball season.

For me, Jim Tracy had one of my favorite Dodger moments. In 2004 after the Cardinals’ clinching victory in Game 4, the Dodgers and Cardinals came onto the field and shook hands as they do following the wining game in a playoff series in hockey. Tracy led his team onto the field, perhaps at the invitation of Tony LaRussa, but he did it. It is beyond me why a team that has lost in baseball in a final game slinks off the field and down into the locker room. Good for Jim Tracy.

“It was a class act,” said Cardinals pitching coach Dave Duncan. “Tracy led the way.”

Said an appreciative La Russa: “I know it had to be much more difficult for them to come out of the dugout and meet us halfway. It was impressive.”

I must admit I have run a bit off course. Back to, “Walter Who?” He, of course, is HOF manager Walter Alston.

Alston was born on December 1, 1911, in Venice, Ohio, a few miles northwest of Cincinnati. He was raised on a farm in his formative years and that is perhaps why he might have been mistaken for a farmer on the baseball field and in public meeting the press. He was hard-working, well prepared and did all he could to stay out of the limelight.

“He might be taken for a farmer who came to manage the town team on a Saturday,” wrote Furman Bisher of the Atlanta Journal.

He did play ball as a youngster, playing catch with his father or entertaining himself by bouncing the ball off a barn door. I can recall using a three-colored ball in my youth bouncing it off a piece of plywood my Dad had set up for me and making a game out of it as I fielded the ball. The Dodgers always seemed to win. Alston picked up his not so familiar nickname at that time. “Smokey” was his handle because he claims he had a very good fastball.

He attended high school in a small town in Ohio. He is perhaps the most notable person to have come out of Darrtown. In high school be played baseball and basketball being the captain of both teams. He got a taste of winning when Darrtown High School won the Butler County Championship.

Approaching and then entering the Great Depression years, Alston worked at various jobs to finance his education and to support his wife Lela Alexander whom he married in 1930. He completed his degree in education at  Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, continuing to play baseball in the Clark-Butler County League. For a while, it seemed he was destined to have a teaching career when he accepted a position as a high school Science, Biology, and Industrial Arts teacher, and basketball coach, in the New Madison school district.

However, even back then there were scouts for MLB teams and Alston was targeted by the St. Louis Cardinals. He apparently drew some attention in college pitching and playing the corner infield positions. He had a short minor league career with the Greenwood Chiefs and the Huntington Red Birds of the Mid-Atlantic League. After hitting .326 with 35 home runs he got a September call up and on September 27, 1936, he began his MLB career.  Replacing Johnny Mize who was ejected from the game, Alston made an error in two chances and struck out on three pitches. His MLB career also ended on September 27, 1936.

He played nearly a decade in the minors hoping for another chance at MLB which never came as a player. St. Louis moved him in the direction of managing and he served for some time as a player-manager. In 1944, after 13 games, the Cardinals released Alston and the Dodgers quickly swooped in to nab him. Before arriving in Brooklyn in 1954, he managed the Trenton Packers, Pueblo Dodgers, Nashua Dodgers, St. Paul Saints and the Montreal Royals. His resume at that time included league titles with Pueblo, Nashua, and three with the AAA Montreal Royals, including one Junior World Series Championship.

You guessed it. When the announcement came that would be replacing Dodger manager Chuck Dressen, New York Times sportswriters queried, “Who’s he?”, as spring training began in 1954. Dressen was released when he demanded a multi-year contract. Walter Alston would go on to sign 23 one-year contracts.

When signed to manage the Dodgers he had so little respect a sportswriter called it as he saw it: ”The Dodgers do not need a manager, and that is why they got Alston.”

It did not take very long for him to earn that respect. His tenure as team manager and his record speak for themselves.

He brought the first and only World Series Championship to Brooklyn in 1955 and picked up rings in 1959, 1963 and 1965. His four Fall Classic wins are topped by only Casey Stengel (seven), Joe McCarthy (seven) and Connie Mack (five).

His final record: 2,040-1,613, good for a .558 winning percentage (12th all-time among managers with at least 1,000 wins), seven NL pennants and those four World Series titles. His 2,040 wins rank ninth on the all-time list and he is one of only 10 managers with at least 2,000 wins.

Beyond the statistics, what kind of manager was Walter Alston? Was he just the beneficiary of good teams (players) or were the teams (players) the beneficiaries of good managing on and off the field? I submit one of his greatest gifts was that he could adjust to the many changes going in the world of baseball during his tenure.

My first real recollection of Walter Alston was not in 1954, his first year, but in 1955. I was a young teenager but understood some things when my parents didn’t know anything. I can recall that final game in the World Series in 1955 as if it was yesterday. I have two recollections. First,in the top of the sixth inning after a Pee Wee Reese single, both Duke Snider and Roy Campanella laid down bunts. Duke’s forced an error and Campy’s moved Pee Wee and Duke up to second and third. Pee Wee scored an insurance run on a Gil Hodges sacrifice fly. Nowadays that would be heresy to have two sluggers bunt consecutively, if at all. In the bottom of the sixth Alston moved Jim Gilliam from left field to second base and inserted Sandy Amoros in left field. Hands up – how many remember the catch the left-handed Amoros made on Yogi Berra and turned it into a double play? All that luck, or good management?

My second recollection of Walter Alston is that he liked to bunt. Perhaps that is why I still like it in place of a strikeout or double play. In 1955 the Dodgers had 75 sacrifice bunts, in  1959 -100, in 1963 – 85, in 1964 -103. He was a devotee of bunts, the hit-and-run, intentional passes, stolen bases, platooning, and pinch hitters. His platooning often came as replacements as the game progressed especially for defensive purposes.

A third recollection is that he didn’t wait until the ninth inning to save a game. If it was in jeopardy earlier in the game he brought in Clem Labine at any point in an attempt to rescue the game, which Labine often did. He was fortunate to have Clem but also wise enough to know how to use him.

Alston was a quiet man, but firm in his expectations. He had to establish himself as the manager with no MLB experience. One story has it that the 6-foot-2-inch, 200-pound manager also offered to take on a few Dodgers in his early days with the club when he had disciplinary problems, but he never had a taker. He won the respect of his players, even though his major- league experience consisted of one time at-bat.

Alston faced many changes over the years.  He had strong teams and teams that were rather weak. His World Series victory in 1959 might have been his best managing. He managed in Brooklyn and Los Angeles. He went from a power dominant team to a pitching, defense, speed team. A downturn in Dodger fortunes was always followed by an upswing, even derailing the Big Red Machine in 1974.  When he retired in 1976, he left a team that Tommy took to the World Series twice in his first two years with the reins.

Walter “Smokey” Alston retired in 1976 a few games before the season ended. His number was retired on June 5, 1977. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame on March 10, 1983, voted in by the Veteran’s Committee.      

He died on October 1, 1984, at age 72, from heart complications. He was and still is, remembered by those who had worked with him over the years.

‘Walt had one of the greatest accomplishments in baseball in managing the same team for 23 years,’ said Tom Lasorda, Alston’s successor as Dodger manager. ‘I compare this with getting 3,000 hits or 300 wins. All three are difficult to accomplish and I don’t think you’ll ever see anyone manage the same team for that length of time again.’

‘I always imagined him to be the type who could ride shotgun on a stage through Indian territory,’ said Vin Scully, the club’s longtime announcer. ‘He was all man and two yards tall. He was very quiet, very controlled. He never made excuses. He gave the players the credit and he took the blame. He was so solid, so American.’

How did he last 23 years at the helm with the same team? Another Walter, O’Malley that is, had the answer.

”He is non-irritating,” said Mr. O’Malley when asked about his manager’s longevity in the job. ”Do you realize how important it is to have a manager who doesn’t irritate you?”   

He did find managing challenging and after each season went home to the same location in Darrtown, Ohio. He spoke briefly about the biggest challenge.

“The toughest thing about managing is knowing your personnel and what it can give you under all conditions. Perhaps the truest axiom in baseball is that the toughest thing to do is repeat. “

“I’d rather win two or three, lose one, win two or three more. I’m a great believer in things evening out. If you win a whole bunch in a row, somewhere along the line you’re going to lose some, too.”

In conclusion, a quote from widely acclaimed sportswriter Jim Murray who wrote a column about Walter Emmons Alston that appeared in the Hamilton (Ohio) Journal-News following the manager’s retirement. “I don’t know whether you’re Republican or Democrat or Catholic or Protestant and I’ve known you for 18 years.” He continued, “You were as Middle-Western as a pitchfork. Black players who have a sure instinct for the closet bigot recognized immediately you didn’t know what prejudice was…There was no ‘side’ to Walter Alston. What you saw was what you got.”    

DC’S 10th Inning

Tuesday’s  Scores:

DSL Dodgers Bautista 2 – DSL Astros 4

DSL Dodgers Shoemaker 3 – DSL Indians/Brewers 2

AZL Dodgers were not scheduled

Ogden Raptors  – Game suspended in 4th inning due to lightning.

Great Lakes Loons 3 – South Bend Cubs 4

Ranch Cucamonga Quakes 4 – Lake Elsinore Storm (SD) 2

Tulsa Drillers 4 – Armarillo Sod Poodles (SD) 3

OKC Dodgers 8 – Nashville Sounds (Tex) 13

DSL League:

Seventeen-year-old right-hander Heisell Baro (Bautista) continued to shine in a losing cause with 4 innings on one run with 3 hits and 4 strikeouts.

Duany Gomez, an 18-year-old right-hander, had a similar game with the Shoemaker Dodgers with 4 scoreless innings on 2 hits and 5 strikeouts.

Great Lakes Loons:

The Loons fell 4-3 to the Cubs. Ryan Pepiot had yet another 2.2 clean innings to start the game with 3 strikeouts. Justin Hagenman finished up with 3 innings giving up one earned run. Zach Willeman did not fare as well in his 3.1 innings giving up 3 runs and taking the loss.

Brandon Lewis made his Loons debut and went 1-3 with a walk. Justin Yurchak had 2 hits and is hitting .415 in his last 10 games.

Rancho Cucamonga Quakes:

Lefty John Rooney went a season high 7 innings giving up 2 runs on 6 hits with one walk and 4 strikeouts. He lowered his ERA to 2.45 and has gone at least 5 innings in each of his last 10 starts. He picked off 2 more runners at first base.

Third baseman Miguel Vargas drove in all 4 runs on 3 hits in the 4-2 win. Actually, he played first base and is hitting .324 in 17 games in August.

Tulsa Drillers:

The 4-3 win, combined with an Arkansas loss to Corpus Christi, allowed the Drillers to move back into sole possession of first place in the Texas League’s North Division standings, one game in front of the Travelers. There are just 13 games remaining in the regular season.

Josiah Gray started and pitched 4.1 innings on 3 hits, one run, and 6 strikeouts. He left with 2 runners on who were stranded by Logan Salow.

Jeter Downs joined the Drillers Tuesday afternoon, replacing Angelo Mora who was released by the Dodgers. The shortstop finished with two hits in his first-ever Double-A game while scoring one run and driving home another. Omar Estevez had two doubles in a game for the third time this season and the second time in the past three games.

OKC Dodgers:

Not much good to report from the mound in a 13-8 shoot out.

At the plate, Zach McKinstry had 2 doubles while Edwin Rios had a double and a solo home run. Gavin Lux continued to be noticed with a 2-run home run and 3 RBI.