Crucial Choices: O’Malley, Dressen, and Reese Rolled the Dice in Brooklyn

Charlie Dressen. (SABR-Rucker Archive)

 

As soon as the last pitch of a baseball season is thrown, owners of major-league franchises and executives in front offices focus on the year ahead. Offseason decisions, even from clubs that have experienced success, occasionally surprise outside observers when prominent players are traded, sold, or released—or when managers and their clubs part ways. But developments in Brooklyn in the autumn of 1953 differed drastically from usual postseason actions, and altered the fortunes of a trio of baseball’s prominent personalities.

The plot of this impending drama had its origins in 1951, when Charlie Dressen succeeded Burt Shotton as the skipper of the Dodgers and proceeded to manage a talented roster to a first-place tie with the New York Giants in the National League’s pennant race. At the moment Bobby Thomson’s celebrated home run in the third and final game of a tense playoff series landed in the left-field stands of the Polo Grounds, emotional devastation analogous to an earthquake was felt throughout the Dodgers organization and fan base. Rebounding from severe disappointment, the Brooklyn club and its feisty manager captured pennants in 1952 (by 4½ games over the second-place Giants) and in 1953 (when 105 victories created a differential of 13 games over the second-place Milwaukee Braves).

Dressen had been criticized occasionally during the early 1950s for possessing an overbearing personality and a high opinion of himself, and for his club’s failures to beat the crosstown Yankees in the seven-game World Series of 1952 and the six-game Fall Classic of 1953. As the 1953 regular season concluded, however, he was receiving more praise than disapproval from the public and press.1

Dressen was assumed to be on the verge of signing another contract to helm Brooklyn and continue the pursuit of a world championship. Few observers, though, comprehended the degree of Dressen’s resentment that he had guided the Dodgers to two pennants (and very nearly a third) while operating under the limitation of successive one-year contracts. His wife, Ruth, shared his disgust with the lack of guaranteed employment and encouraged him to adopt a more aggressive stance during his negotiations with club president Walter O’Malley prior to the 1954 campaign.

Other managers had longer term deals. Dressen was upset that Charlie Grimm of the second-place Braves and Eddie Stanky of the fourth-place St. Louis Cardinals were working under three-year pacts, while Leo Durocher of the fifth-place Giants had a two-year contract.2 Dressen wanted a three-year deal of his own.3 He reportedly also requested an increase in compensation from $32,500 to $50,000 per year and a tax-free expense account in the amount of $10,000, although the importance of those financial aspects ranked far behind the length of the agreement from the manager’s perspective.4 (O’Malley would later state publicly that Dressen was already earning more than any executive or player in the organization.)5

Prior to the conclusion of the 1953 World Series, Ruth Dressen typed a letter to O’Malley that her husband would present when the two men met face-to-face after the Series ended.6 That letter expressed Dressen’s expectations in no uncertain terms, as well as his assessment of the situation. Judging from O’Malley’s response, it seems unlikely his reaction would have been different had the letter come earlier, but the fact that the Dodgers lost the World Series to the Yankees between preparation of the letter and its delivery could not have helped Dressen’s case.7 If the Dodgers had won the 1953 Series, Dressen’s popularity would have soared and O’Malley might have felt pressured to bend from his strict adherence to single-year managerial contracts. But O’Malley held an informal but established policy, and Dressen and his wife clearly misgauged his determination to adhere to it.

A boss usually rules when there is a disagreement in a business matter, and in this situation O’Malley was definitely the boss. Many baseball historians speculate over O’Malley’s innermost thoughts regarding Dressen, with assumptions of a clash of personalities and egos or O’Malley’s envy of publicity garnered by Dressen. Others conclude that, because O’Malley left the door open for Dressen to continue as manager under a one-year contract, resentfulness and ulterior motives were irrelevant.8 In any case, O’Malley’s public comments stated his doctrine of one-year managerial contracts and included no criticism of Dressen or his performance.

On October 14, O’Malley gathered writers, newsreel operators, and photographers in the Dodgers office on Montague Street for the surprising—even shocking—announcement of Dressen’s resignation. A few days later, after agreeing to manage the Oakland Oaks of the Pacific Coast League—a rare reduction in status for a manager of a World Series team—Dressen returned to O’Malley’s office for a conversation, during which the owner returned the letter containing Dressen’s demands. O’Malley said that he did so “to spare [Dressen] any embarrassment.” The contents of the letter were never made public.9 Dressen left without a major-league team to manage, but with enough of O’Malley’s respect that the owner would employ him again in 1958 as a Los Angeles Dodgers coach under Walter Alston.

The names of many potential successors were immediately tossed around in conversation among the Brooklyn faithful and in print. Prominent sports writer Tom Meany wrote with slight exaggeration that “every baseball man over forty (years of age) and unemployed was mentioned as a prospect.”10 The long list of supposed possibilities included Frankie Frisch, Rogers Hornsby, Joe DiMaggio, Tommy Henrich, Lefty O’Doul, Bill Terry—even the Giants’ Durocher and Dodgers vice president Fresco Thompson.

Among them all, however, the name of Harold “Pee Wee” Reese, the popular captain of the Dodgers and a natural leader, stood out.11 Less than two weeks after the managerial vacancy occurred, The Sporting News reported:

… a virtual avalanche of fan mail in support of [Reese] may bring about his early selection as manager of the Dodgers…although Walter O’Malley stated flatly after the Dressen incident that he would wait until December to make his choice….For many reasons, including the early start that the front office likes to have on season sales, Reese is likely to be named shortly. He is the only nominee who has a chance to bring more fans into the park….Also, there is little reason to doubt his ability as a manager since Reese has served as the captain, in fact as well as name, in handling players smoothly under the screamish Leo Durocher and a brusque Burt Shotton as well as Dressen.12

Although O’Malley initially seemed to be more attracted to Reese than any other candidate for the position, he also had high regard for the opinions of Buzzie Bavasi, a vice-president in Brooklyn’s baseball structure.16 Bavasi had worked alongside Alston as the two climbed their respective professional ladders in the minor leagues, and Bavasi’s advocacy for Alston was stronger than was publicly evident during the early stages of the hiring process.17 (Bavasi was supported in his maneuvering by fellow vice-president Thompson and others with minor-league connections.) O’Malley and Bavasi eventually reached an agreement that Bavasi would offer the job to Reese with a provision that if Reese declined the offer, Alston would be next in line.18

Probably because Bavasi was in Alston’s corner, the overture to Reese was so vague and lukewarm that Reese himself was apparently uncertain as to whether a job offer was actually tendered. Interviewed in 1955, he said that Bavasi had asked him whether he would accept an offer if it were made.19 He later told author Roger Kahn that Bavasi had come to him and said something similar to “‘You don’t want to manage this club, do you?’ … So you can’t say they didn’t offer me the job, but you can’t say they did offer it to me, either.”20 Reese said that he knew that he “didn’t want to manage after a proposal like that.”21 After detecting a lack of commitment from Dodgers executives and recognizing his own innate reluctance to manage, Reese telephoned Bavasi late on the evening of November 5 to withdraw from consideration.

As Alston became the front-runner in the managerial derby, he was very aware of the significant role that Bavasi had played in his ascension from the minor leagues to the majors and from relative obscurity to national fame. In his autobiography, Alston stated, “I felt sure it was on Buzzie’s recommendation to Mr. O’Malley that I was getting the job.”22

Walter Alston was able to list two outstanding assets on his personal ledger when he was being considered for promotion. The first was an impressive record while managing Dodgers Triple-A farm teams (the St. Paul Saints of the American Association and the Montreal Royals of the International League) from 1948 through 1953. His teams won three league championships and one Junior World Series Championship in those years, compiling a cumulative record (including playoff games) of 580–396.

Alston’s résumé was further strengthened by his management in the minor leagues of 17 men (including Roy Campanella, Don Newcombe, Joe Black, Carl Erskine, Clem Labine, Johnny Podres, Jim Gilliam, Don Hoak, Jim Hughes, Dick Williams, and Don Zimmer) who would appear on the Dodgers roster in the spring of 1954.23 There were only two possible drawbacks regarding his familiarity with players he would inherit in the big leagues. One, Campanella and Gilliam were the only everyday starters who had previously been under his wing. Two, established players such as Jackie Robinson, Gil Hodges, Duke Snider, Carl Furillo, Preacher Roe, and Billy Cox were aware of Alston’s nearly nonexistent major-league playing experience, and might challenge his authority.24

 

Walter Alston, Dodgers manager, with Jackie Robinson. (SABR-Rucker Archive)

 

One additional factor likely weighed in his favor as he was evaluated by a club owner and president with a sizable ego. Unlike Dressen, Alston would not overshadow Walter O’Malley.

On November 24, 1953—41 days after the awkward announcement of Dressen’s impending departure—O’Malley proclaimed that “a career man in the Brooklyn farm system” would be the new field boss while working with “his (Alston’s) tenth one-year contract with the Dodgers.”25 The reaction on the streets of the borough and in the press was less than enthusiastic. Legendary sportswriter John Lardner wrote with a mixture of wit and sarcasm, “If Alston doesn’t win the pennant and beat the Yankees in the World Series, there’s a clause in his contract which requires him to refund his entire salary and report immediately to the nearest Federal penitentiary.”26 Many in the team’s massive fan base were caught off-guard by the selection after hoping for a well-known candidate or one with a record of big-league success.27

After being greeted initially as if he were a mysterious character rather than the man who had guided many of the Dodgers’ most promising prospects to professional success, Alston ran headlong into harsh criticism and challenging clubhouse conditions. Duke Snider later concluded that “dissension at the management level might have cost us the pennant in 1954. … It was remarkable that we won 97 [sic, 92] games that year because it was a transition year for all of us, with the players getting to know Alston and vice versa. He wasn’t really able to take full control until the next season, when everyone was comfortable with each other.”28

Roger Kahn and widely read columnist Dick Young of the New York Daily News were not nearly as reserved in their evaluation of Alston’s plight. Kahn wrote, “The Dodgers hired a drab organization man … to manage in 1954. In his first year as Dodger manager Alston took the team out of the [pennant] race. He quarreled with Jackie Robinson. He bickered with the press. His racial attitude was suspect. He provided no leadership. Few experienced players warmed to him.”29 Young piled on by writing that Alston “was used to managing in the minors where you had a roster of 17 players. He didn’t know how to function with a 25-man squad. In head-to-head contests, Durocher, who used everybody, ate Alston alive.”30 A fact-check of Young’s statement reveals that Alston held his own against Durocher in close games, and that victories by the Giants in one-sided contests with final scores of 17–6, 10–2, 11–2, 13–4, and 7–1 enabled “Leo the Lip” to achieve his four-game advantage in the 22 head-to-head clashes, 13–9.

Alston also endured the usual second-guessing of fans as well as occasional verbal jabs from his predecessor.31 Late in the 1954 season, for example, Dressen told a reporter for Newsweek, “This year [the Dodgers] have the same club, with additional pitchers and outfielders. I don’t know why they dropped so far behind. Last year at this time we were 13 games in front.”32

Alston and the Dodgers rebounded after the disappointment of 1954 by dominating the 1955 National League race and capturing Brooklyn’s first World Series championship. Alston himself would subsequently comply with O’Malley’s wishes by signing 23 consecutive one-year contracts from 1954 through 1976, and there is no reason to believe that O’Malley, Bavasi, Thompson, or anyone else involved in the hiring process ever regretted installing him as the Dodgers’ field general.

As an exercise in speculation, an interesting and unanswerable question can be asked: If Dressen had received the three-year contract from O’Malley that he thought he deserved, would the Dodgers have performed better than they did under Alston?

If the notion that Alston took a year to adjust to a major-league environment is valid, then perhaps Dressen’s experience and familiar managerial style would have enabled Brooklyn to erase the five-game gap between them and the Giants in 1954. Then, in the second and third years of his three-year contract (1955 and 1956), he might have matched Alston’s achievement of winning pennants in those years. As such, Dressen might have led the Dodgers to multiple World Series victories. Had he done so, he would have been in a very strong strategic position after the 1956 campaign to demand another contract. Having demonstrated a willingness in 1953 to move to the West Coast, he might have continued to manage the Dodgers during and after their transition to Los Angeles in 1958.

The 1958 season in the Los Angeles Coliseum was a difficult one for the transplanted club, finishing in seventh place, 21 games behind Milwaukee. However, if Dressen had survived the 1958 disappointment, he would have managed a revived club that captured the world championship in 1959, a 1961 team that finished in second place only four games behind Cincinnati, a 1962 outfit that lost to the San Francisco Giants in a three-game National League playoff, and even the Koufax-Drysdale unit of 1963 that swept the Yankees in the Fall Classic.

If this optimistic version of Dressen’s career had occurred, he would not have set foot in the dugout of the dreadful Washington Nationals/Senators from 1955 through the midseason of 1957. He would not have returned to the Dodgers as a coach in 1958 and 1959 for an annual salary of approximately $12,000—far less than the annual $30,000 he had earned as manager.33 (The coaching job on Alston’s staff came his way for a variety of reasons, chief among them strong support from Bavasi and lingering respect for his abilities from O’Malley.34) Finally, he would not have led the unexceptional Milwaukee Braves teams of 1960 and 1961 nor the middle-of-the-pack Detroit Tigers, 1963–66, tarnishing the winning average of .642 that he had registered in three years in Dodger blue. Had he remained with the Dodgers, this man who is often identified with unexceptional teams could have been conceivably inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

As for Reese, we are left to wonder what O’Malley might have done if “The Little Colonel” had responded positively to Bavasi’s tenuous proposition. Barring a trade with another team, his backup Don Zimmer or another prospect would have inherited the shortstop position, an unattractive substitution for a club with very high expectations.35 Consequently, O’Malley and many others would have presumably objected to any suggestion that the still-productive Reese put his glove and bat aside in order to manage.36

Without question, his dismissal of the “manager-only” role from consideration enhanced Reese’s chances for his eventual election to the Hall of Fame. Had he taken the position, his playing career would have been reduced by five years and he would have played in 595 fewer games.37 (Reese placed ninth in the polling for the National League’s MVP Award in 1954, ninth in 1955, and eighth in 1956.38)

What if Reese had attempted to become a player-manager? The responsibilities of management would have added anxiety for a man prone to stress in a playing capacity but, if he limited his playing time to reduce stress, his absence from the field would have adversely affected the performance of his team. The challenge of transitioning into a player-manager role during the 1954 season would have subjected him to the same criticisms Walter Alston received for his failure to adapt. If the second-place finish of 1954 had been similar under Reese’s direction, it would have created acute disappointment for—and second-guessing of—the club’s longtime captain.

Reese might also have been forced to contend with “Yogi Berra Syndrome” in the Dodgers clubhouse in 1954. Berra had been a well-respected Yankee when he became manager in 1964, but his leadership was nevertheless challenged and belittled by players on the team. Reese would likely have been standing on more solid organizational ground; many of Berra’s problems resulted from a lack of support from general manager Ralph Houk.39 Reese’s authority, by contrast, would have probably been reinforced by the Dodgers front office.

If Reese and O’Malley had agreed to Reese becoming a playing manager and if Reese had remained in the managerial job for several more seasons, he might have achieved the same degree of success previously described for Dressen. With his familiar manner and steady hands on the club’s steering wheel, the 1954 National League pennant might have flown over Ebbets Field instead of the Polo Grounds. Realistically, however, it is very unlikely that Reese would have been able to outperform Alston as skipper, and it is difficult to believe that Reese’s tenure would have lasted more than a few years.

The emotional toll that playing baseball is known to have exacted from the man who wore uniform #1 must lead to a presumption that Reese’s existence in a piloting role would not have been a happy one. Conclusive evidence of his distaste for a manager’s life can be cited from his one and only year as a coach (in 1959 with the Dodgers). As Roger Kahn wrote in The Boys of Summer, “He quit after a single season. He was rejecting the eternal pressure, the abrasive life, the suffocating responsibility and…the eventual firing that is part of a manager’s condition of employment.”40

Given Reese’s exceptional talent as a player, his leadership abilities when surrounded by peers, and his obvious preference for a life devoid of management responsibilities, it is evident that he made a wise decision when he declined Bavasi’s half-hearted overtures. Less than two years later, it would also be obvious that O’Malley and his team of executives had made a wise choice in Alston.

Charlie Dressen made a choice, and Pee Wee Reese made a decision. Walter Alston, in contrast, acted passively and let fate propel him into a limelight far from the comparative obscurity of his prior minor-league destinations of Portsmouth, Springfield, Trenton, Nashua, Pueblo, St. Paul, and Montreal. He was, at the age of 42, a man whose destiny resided in the hands of men he knew—and men who knew him.

If Dressen had remained the Dodgers skipper for several more years, or if Reese had inherited the team from Dressen, a managerial future for Alston in Brooklyn would have been effectively blocked. Whether he might have been selected to lead the team years later is questionable; it is more likely that a promising opportunity—if it materialized at all—would have come from elsewhere.

If Alston had landed a job with a major-league team other than the Dodgers, his employer would have almost certainly been a club with losing tendencies. Alston’s record in his 23-year career in Brooklyn and Los Angeles clearly indicates that he could adapt to rosters filled with power hitters or rely on speed and defense to obtain success. Could he have won consistently with players less talented than those in the Dodgers organization? The impressive rebound of the 1959 World Series champions from the doldrums of a terrible 1958 season could support a contention that Alston would have been capable of reversing the fortunes of a team lacking superstars.

The Pittsburgh Pirates could have been the team to serve as a crucible for the testing of Alston’s abilities as a major-league manager. The Bucs were in the midst of a long streak of losing seasons in the early 1950s, and they might have benefitted from Alston’s leadership. However, just as the decision that landed him in Brooklyn did not involve his direct participation, circumstances beyond Alston’s control derailed his prospects for a move to the Steel City.

Alston’s career had become linked in the early 1940s to that of Branch Rickey when the latter was the general manager of the Cardinals. Alston received his initial managerial assignment in 1940 with the Portsmouth Red Birds of the Class C Middle Atlantic League and then managed the Springfield (Ohio) Cardinals in the same circuit in 1941 and 1942. When Rickey left the Cardinals in 1942 to accept a similar role in Brooklyn, Alston followed “The Mahatma” into the Dodgers’ tent.41 Rickey realized in 1950 that his desirable contract as general manager would not be renewed, so he moved again to attack the very challenging competitive situation in Pittsburgh. By that time, Alston had been promoted to lead the Montreal Royals, putting him finally only a single step—but one huge step—away from the big time.

Rickey’s overt signs of respect for Alston indicate that—with O’Malley’s approval of a conversation between the two—the latter could have become a major-league manager (of the Pirates) one year prior to his promotion by the Dodgers. The delay of one season, however, definitely worked to Alston’s long-term advantage. Unless he had worked miracles in the Forbes Field dugout, his chances for eventual election to the Hall of Fame (as well as future consideration for a leadership role in Brooklyn) would have been diminished.

If different conditions within the upper echelon of Brooklyn’s organization had enticed Rickey to remain with the Dodgers, there are two valid reasons to believe that Alston’s path into the manager’s office in Ebbets Field after the departure of Dressen would have been relatively smooth, with Rickey serving as an influential advocate:

• After the 1952 season, Rickey requested permission from O’Malley to talk with Alston about the Pirates managerial position that had become vacant upon Billy Meyer’s resignation. (O’Malley refused to consent to such a discussion.)42
• When O’Malley announced the selection of Alston as the new Dodgers manager in 1953, Rickey told Chester L. Smith of the Pittsburgh Press, “They couldn’t have done better. Walter is top drawer any way you look at him.”43

Dressen’s unsuccessful gamble against a club owner possessing virtually unlimited leverage initiated a scenario that required Dressen, Reese, and Alston to make pivotal and critical decisions that affected their careers, futures, and legacies. Dressen, of course, voluntarily rejected an option to remain with the Dodgers by refusing another one-year contract, whereas Reese found it necessary to react within a few weeks to the unforeseen circumstance of Dressen’s departure. Alston’s fate regarding a life-changing opportunity was determined by front-office personnel who respected his past performance. O’Malley, Bavasi, and Thompson were simultaneously required to make critical judgments that would significantly affect the future of one of sports’ most prominent franchises. Many years later, after each man’s career had come to an end, some of the consequences of those individual choices were apparent:

• By insisting on a contract of more than one year, Dressen lost an opportunity to compile a competitive record that would have been equaled by few other managers.
• Reese acted prudently from a personal and professional perspective by avoiding the stress of managing and by extending his exceptional playing career without unnecessary distractions.
• Although he had very limited control over the result of the hiring process, Alston’s record of success in the minor leagues proved to be an accurate indicator of his potential in a major-league dugout. His 23 years of consistent success and four World Series titles stand as testaments to his high level of accomplishment.
• O’Malley and his subordinates in the Dodgers front office made a rational and very scrutinized decision that required resolution of a variety of individual motives.

The story of the Dodgers’ two months of turmoil that began in mid-October 1953 and concluded on November 24 featured every component that would be present in a classic stage production or movie: a setting in the nation’s largest city, noteworthy actions and controversial statements by people associated with a culturally significant organization, and a cast of well-known personalities. That combination kept the eyes of the baseball world focused on the fascinating and unique happenings in the Dodgers office at 215 Montague Street until the drama’s final act. Even today, long after the closing of the curtain, the saga in Brooklyn retains an enduring place in baseball history. 

FRANCIS KINLAW has contributed articles and poetry to SABR publications since joining SABR in 1983. He is old enough to have listened to Nat Albright’s recreations of Brooklyn Dodgers games on radio and grew familiar with Ebbets Field through the magic of black-and-white television. He resides in Greensboro, North Carolina.

 

Notes

1. “Charlie and Ol’Case in a Series Preview,” Life Magazine (September 14, 1953): 158.

2. “Managers Are Expendable,” Time (October 26, 1953): 92–93.

3. Varying accounts of the negotiations between Dressen and O’Malley have appeared in articles and books since October 1953, but available evidence clearly indicates that Dressen’s only request during the talks was for a three-year contract. Most significantly, Dressen himself confirmed in an article (entitled “My Side of the Story”) on page 13 of the February 1954 edition of Sport magazine that only a term of three years was discussed. Most printed sources agree with that version of the discussions, but a few have referred to a contract extension of two years rather than three. Confusion on this point may have developed from statements—some from the lips of Dressen—that he “would have settled for two years.” However, Dressen told sportswriter Roscoe McGowan that while he would have settled for two years, “the two-year angle never came up in his private conference with O’Malley on the afternoon preceding the announcement of his resignation.” (“Roscoe McGowan Dressen Cut Down Trying to Stretch Single into Three,” The Sporting News, October 21, 1953, 9.) He also told McGowan that after O’Malley held firm to a one-year policy, “there was no chance for me to back down from my request for a three-year contract to accept a contract for two years.” (Charlie Dressen as told to Milton Richman, “My Side of the Story,” Sport, February, 1954, 14.)

4. “Managers Are Expendable,” Time. Also Charlie Dressen as told to Milton Richman, “My Side of the Story,” Sport (February 1954): 96; Michael D’Antonio, Forever Blue: The True Story of Walter O’Malley, Baseball’s Most Controversial Owner, and the Dodgers of Brooklyn and Los Angeles (New York: Riverhead Books, 2009), 170; Roscoe McGowan, “Dodgers Rehiring of Dressen Starts Rumors Spinning,” The Sporting News (November 6, 1957): 6.

5. McGowan, “Dressen Cut Down.”

6. McGowan, “Dressen Cut Down.”

7. “Managers Are Expendable,” Time. Also, Editors of Sport Magazine, “No Next Year for Dressen,” Sport (January 1954): 90.

8. Bill James, The Bill James Guide to Baseball Managers from 1870 to Today (New York: Scribner Publishers, 1997), 188.

9. D’Antonio, Forever Blue.

10. Tom Meany and others, The Artful Dodgers (New York: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers, 1954), 21.

11. D’Antonio, Forever Blue.

12. Joe King, “Deluge of Reese Mail Floods O’Malley,” The Sporting News (October 28, 1953): 7.

13. Pee Wee Reese with Tim Cohane, “14 Years a Bum,” Look Magazine (March 9, 1954): 60, 63. Also Roscoe McGowan, “Phone Call Spurred Reese’s ‘No’ as Pilot,” The Sporting News, November 18, 1953, 7.

14. Tom Meany and others, The Artful Dodgers, 120–21.

15. Roger Kahn, The Boys of Summer (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, Inc., 1972), 313.

16. Andy McCue, Mover & Shaker: Walter O’Malley, the Dodgers, & Baseball’s Westward Expansion (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2014), 111.

17. McCue, Mover & Shaker, 111.

18. Bill Madden, 1954: The Year Willie Mays and the First Generation of Black Superstars Changed Major League Baseball Forever (Boston: Da Capo Press, 2014), 63. Also D’Antonio, Forever Blue. Also Peter Golenbock, Bums: An Oral History of the Brooklyn Dodgers (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1984), 369.

19. Frank Graham, “The Little Colonel Is a Born Leader,” Sport, July 1955, 42, 44.

20. Roger Kahn, The Era, 1947–1957: When the Yankees, the Giants, and the Dodgers Ruled the World (New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1993), 317.

21. Kahn, The Era, 1947–1957.

22. Walter Alston and Si Burick, Alston and the Dodgers: The Autobiography of One of Baseball’s Greatest Managers (New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1966), 16–17.

23. Leonard Koppett, The Man in the Dugout: Baseball’s Top Managers and How They Got That Way (New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1993), 227–228.

24. Glenn Stout and Richard A. Johnson, The Dodgers: 120 Years of Dodgers Baseball (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004), 196. Also Leonard Koppett, The Man in the Dugout: Baseball’s Top Managers and How They Got That Way (New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1993), 227–28.

25. Madden, 1954.

26. Bill James, The Bill James Guide to Baseball Managers from 1870 to Today (New York: Scribner Publishers, 1997), 224.

27. Madden, 1954.

28. Duke Snider with Bill Gilbert, The Duke of Flatbush (New York: Zebra Books, 1988), 143–44.

29. Kahn, The Era, 317–18.

30. Kahn, The Era, 317–18.

31. “The Gentleman,” Time, May 23, 1955, 74–75.

32. “Dressen on Dodgers: ‘A D—n Good Team,’” Newsweek (September 20, 1954): 90.

33. Dick Young, “The Shadow: Chuck Behind Walt Alston,” The Sporting News (November 13, 1957): 10.

34. Roscoe McGowan, “Dodgers Rehiring of Dressen Starts Rumors Spinning,” The Sporting News (November 6, 1957): 6.

35. Roscoe McGowan, “New Ripple from Chuck’s Rock … Don Zimmer at SS?” The Sporting News (November 4, 1953): 9.

36. Peter Golenbock, Bums: An Oral History of the Brooklyn Dodgers (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1984), 369.

37. Retrosheet, https://www.retrosheet.org. Date accessed: July 11, 2024.

38. Bill Deane, Award Voting (Kansas City, MO: Society for American Baseball Research, 1988), 37-39.

39. Peter Golenbock, Dynasty: The New York Yankees 1949–1964 (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1975), 276–77.

40. Kahn, The Boys of Summer, 313.

41. Stewart Wolpin, Bums No More! The Championship Season of the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995), 22.

42. McCue, Mover & Shaker, 111. Also Les Biederman, “Haney Still in Lead for Buc Post, But Line Gets Longer,” The Sporting News, October 15, 1952, 25.

43. Harold Sheldon, “Alston’s Added Rooters,” Baseball Digest (March 1954): 44.