(3 of 8)
By then the Red Stockings were known as the Reds.*For all their fast start in the fast-growing business of big-league baseball, they spent a long time on their way to the top. It took them 50 years to win their first World Series—and then, a year later, they learned that the Chicago White Sox, whom they had beaten, had thrown the series for gamblers. So the Redlegs' 1919 championship went into the record books as the "Black Sox" scandal. No one won; baseball was the loser.
After that, the Reds picked up their old habit of giving their managers a fast shuffle. Only one, Deacon Bill McKechnie in 1940, won them another World Series. When his teams started losing, too, the parade of pilots resumed—Johnny Neun, Bucky Walters, Luke Sewell, Earle Brucker, Colonel Buster Mills and Rogers Hornsby. Then the Redlegs found George Robert Tebbetts.
Talent, Not Tactics. Cincinnati fans knew Birdie as a hustling, 14-year veteran of major-league catching. They had heard of him as a scrappy American League catcher (Detroit, Boston, Cleveland) who hated to come out second best in anything—a ball game, an argument with an umpire, a. conversation with a friend. They called him "Most Voluble Player in the Majors," but he had had only one short summer of seasoning as a minor-league manager. It was hard to believe that he knew enough tactics to manage a major-league club.
Tactics turned out to be the last thing General Manager Gabe Paul was worrying about when he hired Birdie. "You assume that, all the way down to Class D, managers know when to bunt or when to hit-and-run," says Paul. "The important thing is common sense, the ability to handle men." Paul had been thinking of Birdie in terms of those attributes ever since he read some of Birdie's scouting reports on American Association players. Says Paul: "Anyone who could prepare reports like that had to be a capable and clear-thinking fellow."
Some sample Tebbetts observations: ¶On a promising pitcher: "Major-league stuff and a great arm. Screwy in the head. Eliminate head, and I recommend. Get good surgeon."
¶On an outfielder: "A low-ball hitter and an off-field hitter. No power; should not be played to pull. He is a good center fielder with a strong arm. A base runner. Every time he bends his left knee toward his right he is stealing." ¶On a pitcher: "Has major-league fast ball but is disturbing type on mound; looks like a mental case." ¶ On another pitcher: "Not recommended on present style. Has major-league equipment but is a Thomas Edison"—a baseball term for any player who is continually experimenting.
Hero or Bum. Impressed as he was by the scouting reports, Paul put even more weight on Birdie's reaction to the offer of a job. Birdie was not bowled over. He wanted to manage, said he, but strictly in his own way. Says Paul, "Here was a fellow who was going to run a ball club and rise and fall on his own abilities. He was going to do what he wanted even if it meant losing the type of job he always wanted."