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Brooklyn Blossom. It meant the end of the minors for Eddie and Dickie, but not the end of Stanky's spring-legged struggle for recognition. He was sold to the Chicago Cubs in 1943 and was beaned in his first game. It was the third time Stanky had stopped a fast ball with his head. The first time was the worst: he got a fractured skull, and the hearing in his left ear was so impaired that he was rejected for military service. Even in that war year with the Cubs, he hit only a lackluster .245. The next season, warming the bench, he made a tight-lipped demand of Cub Manager Charlie Grimm: "If you can't play me, trade me." Grimm traded him to Brooklyn for Pitcher Bob Chipman in a deal that attracted very little attention. It was a deal that made Eddie Stanky.
Under the smart handling of Old Mahatma Branch Rickey, who had spotted Stanky when he was a minor leaguer, and under the constant needling of Manager Leo Durocher (a player of small talents himself), Stanky blossomed in Brooklyn. He set his bases-on-balls record in 1945. He sparked Brooklyn to its first pennant in six years in 1947.** The Brooklyn fans made Eddie an idol (along with Dixie Walker), tabbed him with such affectionate nicknames as "The Brat," "Gromyko" (because he walked so much), "Stinky," and "Muggsy."
But by the spring of 1948, Stanky was a fallen idol in Rickey's eyes. Rickey had broken baseball's color line with the importation of hard-hitting Jackie Robinson, and, as it happened, Robinson was a better second baseman than Eddie Stanky. The Boston Braves jumped ($100,-ooo worth) at the chance to get Stanky, hoping that his "intangibles" would perk up a team perennially in the shadow of the glamorous Red Sox. Before leaving Brooklyn, Eddie broke with his good friend Durocher, who had taken Rickey's side against Stanky in a salary dispute. Durocher," Stanky cried, "knifed me in the back."
Strictly Bush! In Boston, after a particularly bitter exchange with Durocher during one tight game, Stanky loosed his famed insult: "Durocher, you've been a busher all your life, and you'll always be a busher." When asked to comment on Durocher's book, The Dodgers and Me, Stanky was ready with a brief, stinging literary criticism: "Just like the author. Strictly bush!"
Teaming with Rookie Shortstop Alvin Dark in Boston, Stanky was well on his way to his best major-league season (batting average: .320) when he broke his leg sliding into third and spiking Dodger Catcher Bruce Edwards. By the end of the season, with Stanky intact again, Boston won its first pennant in 34 years. Meanwhile, in the switch that baffled baseball, Durocher left Brooklyn to manage the Giants. In his first important trade to build "my kind of team," Durocher got Stanky and Dark from Boston. Old feuds were forgotten. Baseball's two "holler guys" were together again.