20 Facts About Bucky Harris

1.

Stanley Raymond "Bucky" Harris was an American professional baseball second baseman, manager and executive.

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2.

Swiss and Welsh descent, Bucky Harris was born in Port Jervis, New York, and raised after the age of six in Pittston, Pennsylvania.

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3.

Bucky Harris's elder brother, Merle, was a minor league second baseman.

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4.

Bucky Harris left school at age 13 to work at a local colliery, the Butler Mine, as an office boy and, later, a weigh master.

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5.

In 1916, when Bucky Harris was 19, Pittston native Hughie Jennings, then the manager of the Detroit Tigers, signed him to his first contract and farmed him to the Class B Muskegon Reds of the Central League, where he struggled as a batsman and was released.

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6.

Bucky Harris improved his batting skills during the latter season with the Bisons, making 126 hits and raising his average to.

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7.

Bucky Harris then was recommended to the Washington Senators by baseball promoter Joe Engel, who led the Chattanooga Lookouts at Engel Stadium.

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8.

Bucky Harris spent most of his playing career as a second baseman with the Senators.

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9.

Bucky Harris only made 11 cameo appearances in the Tiger lineup: seven in 1929 and four in 1931.

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10.

Bucky Harris then took Cronin's old job, returning to Clark Griffith and the Senators.

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11.

Bucky Harris then played a role in Cox' banishment from professional baseball for betting on games.

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12.

Bucky Harris then spent three seasons out of the big leagues, serving as general manager and field manager of the Buffalo Bisons, his old team in the International League.

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13.

Bucky Harris returned to the minor leagues in 1949, as manager of the San Diego Padres of the Pacific Coast League, before launching his third stint as skipper of the Senators, coming off a 104-loss 1949 season.

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14.

Nevertheless, the Tigers chose Bucky Harris to replace Fred Hutchinson as their manager for 1955, and in the first season of his second term in Detroit, Bucky Harris again produced a turnaround.

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15.

Bucky Harris was assistant general manager to Joe Cronin for two seasons, and then, when Cronin was named president of the American League, succeeded him as GM in January 1959,24 years after Cronin had displaced Harris as Boston's field manager.

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16.

Bucky Harris served for two losing seasons as general manager of the Red Sox before his firing in late September 1960.

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17.

Bucky Harris made a flurry of minor trades in an attempt to shake up his faltering team.

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18.

Bucky Harris ran afoul of Yawkey when he fired Yawkey associate Pinky Higgins as manager and replaced him with Billy Jurges, a Senators' coach, on July 3,1959, without consulting the owner.

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19.

Bucky Harris ended his long MLB career as a scout for the White Sox and special assistant for the new expansion Washington Senators franchise that played in DC from 1961 to 1971 before moving on to Arlington, Texas.

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20.

Bucky Harris was buried at St Peter's Lutheran Church in Hughestown.

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