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The fans were a couple of years learning just what Birdie had in mind. In 1954 and 1955 the Redlegs wobbled in fifth place. But all the while, the players were learning their new manager's devotion to the intricate art of winning ball games.
"Baseball," Birdie told his men, "is exactly what Branch Rickey said it was: 'A race between a man and a ball.' Baseball is a game of inches. A guy catches the ball on the tip of his glove, a batter tops a ball and beats a throw to first. Or a fellow gets up in the ninth and comes through with a liner between third and short—he's a hero. Two inches the other way and he's a bum because he hit into a double play. The only thing you can do is get a little faster man to play each position, keep adding the men who can make the inches work."
The Redlegs spent two seasons learning to make the inches work for them, then last year inched their way to within two games of the pennant (and the Dodgers). Cincinnati fans recognized the new spirit early in the season, and it was catching. Operating with gay abandon, the fans stuffed ballot boxes so enthusiastically that when the All-Star game was held in July, five of the National League starters wore Redleg uniforms.
"I Play Talent." Manager-of-the-Year Tebbetts' own popularity impressed him not at all. "If my players like me," he reflects, "it's an accident of personality. I happen to like my players and I treat them like men. I don't know anything about patting one guy on the back and bawling another out. I don't have any doghouses, and I don't deal in personalities. It doesn't make any difference to me if a guy has a good or a bad personality. I play talent. If a guy is not producing and
I can't use him, it's not that he's in the doghouse, but that he isn't contributing to the overall picture.
"If a manager doesn't have confidence in his ballplayers, even when they're going badly, they're not going to have confidence in themselves. And when a ballplayer's confidence is gone, you haven't got a ballplayer—I don't give a damn how great he is. That's why I try never to lose confidence in the best or the least of my players. The rest of it, a ballplayer has to do for himself. He takes the bat up to the plate. He fields the ball. He throws the ball. If you want to be a good manager, get good ballplayers."