Alan Greenwood

There is one up-side, albeit tiny, to Major League Baseball’s pandemic hiatus:

No managers have been fired. Well, at least not since the fallout from the great sign-stealing caper, which took down Houston’s A. J. Hinch and the Red Sox’ Alex Cora.

It also ended Carlos Beltran’s career as manager of the New York Mets. His tenure lasted about 15 minutes, give or take a blink or two.

This came to mind while perusing old Telegraph sports pages and stumbling upon a June 1, 1960 headline:

“Yawkey blasts writers, says Jurges to stay.”

That would be Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey, insisting that Billy Jurges was, and would be, his manager.

“How many of you guys think you’re qualified to manage a ballclub,” Yawkey growled at a swarm of ink-stained locusts.

Zeroing in on one writer, Yawkey sputtered, “Do you?”

“No, I don’t think I’m qualified,” the writer responded.

“You’re damned right your not,” Yawkey retorted.

Yawkey then made a veiled threat to move the team out of Boston if the writers refused to play nice.

A written statement, in the name of Yawkey and general manager Bucky Harris, defended Jurges, capping their case with words no manager wants see strung together:

“This is a final statement and and expression of confidence in our manager.”

If Jurges had any foresight, he’d have immediately started packing.

On June 8, Jurges “left the team” due to an undisclosed health issue.

It seems all but certain that the health issue was Yawkey growing sick and tired of owning a loser. The Red Sox were 15-27 and heading nowhere at breakneck speed.

On June 10, Yawkey brought in his old pal Pinky Higgins for a second tour of duty managing the Red Sox – about 11 months after firing Higgins and replacing him with Jurges.

There is good reason as to why the Red Sox were awful in the years leading into their 1967 renaissance.

So while we miss baseball as much as the next seamhead, there are those who may count this as a blessing.

Hopefully the unemployment situation will ease off before any marginal managers receive their votes of confidence.

Contact Alan Greenwood at 594-1248 or agreenwood@nashuatelegraph.com.

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