Lester: Dave Malarcher, the Rhodes Scholar of managers
From SABR member Larry Lester at The National Pastime Museum on April 21, 2014:
Dave Malarcher was one of eleven children born to Martha and Henry Louis Malarcher on Charbone’s sugar and rice plantation near the Whitehall community in Ascension Parish, Louisiana. Whitehall is about 50 miles southeast of Baton Rouge and 70 miles northwest of New Orleans, just down the road on Highway 22 south of Tiger Bluff Landing and Catfish Landing. While dad was a laborer, his mother was a midwife and she taught community children, including her own, how to read, write, and think.
Malarcher started his ball career in 1914 with the New Orleans Black Eagles while in college. He attended New Orleans University (now Dillard) before graduating in 1918. He expressed in the true spirit of a philosopher, “Ever since I left the university in early spring of 1918, I’ve never ceased to read and build on my education by studying constantly in many subjects. My knowledge of history from school and such reading has made my life immune to the fears and frustrations and uncertainties which are derived from a lack of information of man’s troublesome and sordid past.”
Malarcher stated, “The education and mind and spirit discipline which I had acquired at New Orleans University enabled me to observe and absorb the baseball training techniques and strategy of the three greatest managers in baseball history — Charley Stevens [of the N.O. Eagles], C. I. Taylor of the Indianapolis ABC’s, and the incomparable baseball genius, Andrew ‘Rube’ Foster of the Chicago American Giants.”
Read the full article here: http://www.thenationalpastimemuseum.com/article/rhodes-scholar-managers-gentleman-dave
Originally published: April 23, 2014. Last Updated: April 23, 2014.