Leo Durocher was posthumously elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1994.
| FactSnippet No. 2,188,806 |
49 Facts About Leo Durocher
2.
Leo Durocher was born in West Springfield, Massachusetts, on July 27,1905, the youngest of four sons born to French Canadian parents.
| FactSnippet No. 2,188,807 |
3.
Leo Durocher's mother was a hotel maid and his father was a railroad engineer.
| FactSnippet No. 2,188,808 |
4.
Leo Durocher's parents were immigrants from Quebec and both they and Durocher's older brothers spoke only French; Durocher began attending elementary school without knowing how to speak English.
| FactSnippet No. 2,188,809 |
5.
Leo Durocher became a good athlete while in high school, and was offered a scholarship to Holy Cross, but was suspended from school after he hit a teacher, and never returned.
| FactSnippet No. 2,188,810 |
6.
Leo Durocher became a prominent semi-professional athlete, with several Springfield-area employers competing to have him play on their company teams.
| FactSnippet No. 2,188,811 |
9.
Leo Durocher was a favorite of Yankee manager Miller Huggins, who considered Leo Durocher a potential managerial candidate due to his competitiveness, passion, ego, and facility for remembering situations.
| FactSnippet No. 2,188,814 |
10.
Leo Durocher's outspokenness did not endear him to Yankee ownership and his habit of passing bad checks to finance his expensive tastes in clothes and nightlife annoyed Yankee general manager Ed Barrow.
| FactSnippet No. 2,188,815 |
11.
Leo Durocher helped the team win their second consecutive World Series title in 1928, then demanded a raise.
| FactSnippet No. 2,188,816 |
12.
Leo Durocher was later sold to the Cincinnati Reds on February 5,1930.
| FactSnippet No. 2,188,817 |
13.
Leo Durocher spent the remainder of his professional career in the National League.
| FactSnippet No. 2,188,818 |
14.
That team, whose famous nickname "Gashouse Gang" was supposedly inspired by Leo Durocher, were a far more appropriate match for him; in St Louis, Leo Durocher's characteristics as a fiery player and vicious bench jockey were given full rein.
| FactSnippet No. 2,188,819 |
15.
Leo Durocher remained with the Cardinals through the 1937 season, captaining the team and winning the 1934 World Series before being traded to the Brooklyn Dodgers.
| FactSnippet No. 2,188,820 |
16.
Primarily a shortstop, Leo Durocher played through 1945, though his last year as a regular was 1939; after that year he never played more than 62 games in a season.
| FactSnippet No. 2,188,821 |
18.
Also in 1938, Leo Durocher made history of a sort by making the final out in Johnny Vander Meer's second consecutive no-hitter.
| FactSnippet No. 2,188,823 |
19.
Leo Durocher purchased shortstop Pee Wee Reese from the Boston Red Sox.
| FactSnippet No. 2,188,824 |
20.
The most enduring image of Leo Durocher is of him standing toe-to-toe with an umpire, vehemently arguing his case until his inevitable ejection from the game.
| FactSnippet No. 2,188,825 |
21.
Leo Durocher's philosophy was best expressed in the phrase for which he is best, albeit inaccurately, remembered: "Nice guys finish last".
| FactSnippet No. 2,188,826 |
22.
Leo Durocher was notorious for ordering his pitchers to hit batters.
| FactSnippet No. 2,188,827 |
23.
Leo Durocher often fired Durocher in the midst of a night of drinking.
| FactSnippet No. 2,188,828 |
25.
Chandler, who had been named to the post in 1945, warned Leo Durocher to stay away from some of his old friends who were gamblers, bookmakers, or had mob connections, and who had a free rein at Ebbets Field.
| FactSnippet No. 2,188,830 |
26.
Leo Durocher was particularly close with actor George Raft, with whom he shared a Los Angeles house, and he admitted to a nodding acquaintance with Bugsy Siegel.
| FactSnippet No. 2,188,831 |
27.
Leo Durocher, who encouraged and participated in card schools within the clubhouse, was something of a pool shark himself and a friend to many pool hustlers.
| FactSnippet No. 2,188,832 |
28.
Leo Durocher wants to win, he's got a job to do for the owner of the ball club.
| FactSnippet No. 2,188,833 |
29.
Leo Durocher would sit there and never take a note, and then you'd pick up the paper and find yourself quoted word for word.
| FactSnippet No. 2,188,834 |
30.
Leo Durocher is credited with popularizing the metaphorical use of the phrase "capture lightning in a bottle" in a baseball context—it had previously been used to literally refer to Benjamin Franklin's kite experiment.
| FactSnippet No. 2,188,835 |
31.
Leo Durocher enjoyed perhaps his greatest success with the Giants, and possibly a measure of sweet revenge against the Dodgers, as the Giants won the 1951 NL pennant in a playoff against Brooklyn, ultimately triumphing on Bobby Thomson's historic game-winning "Shot 'Heard 'Round The World" home run.
| FactSnippet No. 2,188,836 |
32.
Later with the Giants in 1954, Leo Durocher won his only World Series championship as a manager by sweeping the heavily favored Cleveland Indians, who posted the highest American League winning percentage of all time during the regular season.
| FactSnippet No. 2,188,837 |
33.
Leo Durocher thought that Durocher's strength was letting veterans play according to their strengths, then supporting them.
| FactSnippet No. 2,188,838 |
34.
Leo Durocher was a color commentator on the Major League Baseball on NBC and host of The NBC Comedy Hour and Jackpot Bowling.
| FactSnippet No. 2,188,839 |
35.
Leo Durocher later served as a coach for the Dodgers, by then relocated to Los Angeles, from 1961 to 1964.
| FactSnippet No. 2,188,840 |
36.
Leo Durocher returned to the managerial ranks in 1966 with the Chicago Cubs.
| FactSnippet No. 2,188,841 |
37.
However, at his first press conference, Leo Durocher formally announced an end to the experiment by saying:.
| FactSnippet No. 2,188,842 |
38.
Part of Leo Durocher's problem was that, while the Cubs were playing well in 1969, he began starting their best pitchers on two or three days' rest.
| FactSnippet No. 2,188,843 |
39.
Leo Durocher nearly came to blows with Cubs star Ron Santo during an infamous clubhouse near-riot.
| FactSnippet No. 2,188,844 |
40.
Leo Durocher managed the Houston Astros for the final 31 games of the 1972 season, replacing Harry Walker while being tapped by general manager Spec Richardson in the belief that he could lead the Astros to a pennant.
| FactSnippet No. 2,188,845 |
41.
Leo Durocher stated upon his retirement, “Baseball has been 45 years of a wonderful life.
| FactSnippet No. 2,188,846 |
43.
Leo Durocher posted a winning record with each of the four teams he led, and was the first manager to win 500 games with three different clubs.
| FactSnippet No. 2,188,848 |
44.
Leo Durocher died in 1991 in Palm Springs, California, at the age of 86, and is buried in Forest Lawn, Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles.
| FactSnippet No. 2,188,849 |
45.
Leo Durocher was posthumously inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1994.
| FactSnippet No. 2,188,850 |
46.
Leo Durocher was married to St Louis socialite Grace Dozier from 1934 to 1943.
| FactSnippet No. 2,188,851 |
47.
In 1943, Leo Durocher was deemed ineligible for service in World War II due to a punctured eardrum.
| FactSnippet No. 2,188,852 |
48.
Leo Durocher adopted two children with Day, daughter Melinda Michele.
| FactSnippet No. 2,188,853 |
49.
Leo Durocher had real comedic talent, and portrayed himself on episodes of The Munsters, The Joey Bishop Show, Mister Ed, The Beverly Hillbillies, Screen Directors Playhouse, and other shows.
| FactSnippet No. 2,188,854 |