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Singlehanded, Leo Ernest Durocher has probably set sport's code of fair play back a hundred years. His fits of anger rise and blow away like gusty March winds over Greenpoint. He uses these gusts to advantage. Durocher's credo is: "You've got to win in this game, and how you do it isn't too important."
An essential part of the act is to rile the umpire, and in doing so to rile the other team. This is not considered out-of-the-way in Brooklyn, where it was a custom to chant Three Blind Mice as the umpires walked on field.
From a long study of umpires, Lippy has divided all quarrels with them into three categories, and has an appropriate technique for each. When an umpire really calls one wrong, Leo strides out of his dugout menacingly, and patiently diagrams to him what happened. The fans see all the apparently angry pointing, and imagine admiringly what is being said. Confesses Leo: "Sometimes, the ump admits to me, 'I missed that one,' before I even start to tell him what a woodenhead son-of-a-bitch he is. But I keep on talking ... maybe I'm telling him I'll buy him a beer after the game."
Where the umpire's decision was close but right, The Lip is apt to make far more noise. "I'm just putting up a smoke screen," he admits. "Maybe the ump will call the next close one my way."
Sometimes one of his Dodgers gets too deep in debate with an umpire, and that calls for Technique No. 3. The trick is to take over the fight. He thrusts out his chin, wags a threatening finger under the ump's nose, and as a final insult kicks sand on the umpire's shoes. Says Durocher: "Sure, I get bounced but my player stays in."
Durocher knows umpires—and they know him. Beans Reardon deflates Leo by saying, "Stop putting on your act, little boy." The most awe-inspiring of umpires is large, red-faced George Magerkurth, who swells up with majestic rage when his dignity is pricked. Leo's arguments with him are Brooklyn legend. "The Mage," says Leo fondly, "is one of the best umpires in baseball." It is a slow season when The Lip gets less than five notices from National League headquarters. Sample: "For prolonged argument, delaying the game, use of violent, profane language, you are fined $100. . . ."
Man of Tastes. When he wants to be nice, which means when he is off the field, Durocher can be a kind of pugnacious Prince Charming—garrulous, tart-witted, persuasive. He talks to kids as though they were grownups. He talks to chorus girls and Powers models as though they were kids. They all like it.
At an estimated $60,000 a year, baseball's highest-salaried manager earns enough to keep up with his extravagant tastes. His Manhattan headquarters is a plushy terrace apartment on fashionable East 64th Street. Its built-in bar (for guests; Durocher seldom touches liquor) has stools made of catcher's mitts on baseball bats. Leo has a passion for racy autos, fancy ties and $175 suits made by Cinemactor George Raft's tailor.