Dictionary- Scatter Arm
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Welcome to the Baseball History Podcast: Featuring This Week in Baseball History, baseball dictionary and a tour of baseball cities. I’m your game announcer Bob Wright.
This is game 46 of the 2008 baseball season
In the first inning let’s take a look at This Week in Baseball History for the 2 week of November.
November 8
1977 Bucky Harris dies on his 81st birthday in Bethesda, Maryland. The ‘Boy Wonder’ was a player-manager for the Senators in the 1920′s.
Stanley Raymond Harris, nicknamed “Bucky” was born November 8, 1896 in Port Jervis, New York.
Bucky Harris spent seven different decades in the majors as a player, manager, executive, and scout.
He both played for and managed the Senators beginning in 1924, directing the team to a World Series Championship in his rookie season and the American League pennant the following year.
Harris was 27 years old in his first season at the helm; the youngest regular Major League manager. Washington’s rugged “Boy Manager” led by example and earned the respect of such veterans as Walter Johnson, Sam Rice, and Roger Peckinpaugh.
Harris learned baseball in the mining region of northeastern Pennsylvania. After leaving school at 13, he worked in a local coal mine. Hughie Jennings, another future Hall of Famer from Harris’s home town of Pittston, arranged for the scrappy youngster’s first job in pro ball, in 1915. Harris reached the majors in 1919.
An exceptional fielder, he topped American League second basemen in putouts four times and in double plays a record five straight times from 1921 through 1925.
An adequate hitter with base stealing ability, Harris had a knack for being hit by pitches.
An outstanding basketball player, he played professionally with local Pennsylvania teams during the off-season, until concerned Washington officials ordered him to cease.
In the 1924 World Series against the Giants, Harris batted .333 and hit two home runs. He also set records for chances accepted, double plays, and putouts in the exciting seven-game affair. His base hit in the eighth inning of the deciding contest tied the score, and the Senators rallied in the twelfth to clinch Washington’s one and only World Championship. It was in that contest that Harris the manager won acclaim. His strategy of replacing righthanded starter Curly Ogden with lefthander George Mogridge after only two batters, forced the Giants’ hard-hitting Bill Terry out of the lineup.
Under Harris, the Senators repeated as American League champs in 1925, but lost a hard-fought seven-game Series to the Pirates.
After suffering his first losing season in 1928, he was traded to, and named manager of, the Tigers. Except for a few appearances at second base, Harris was a bench manager from then on. He spent five unsuccessful seasons directing the Tigers, one with the Red Sox, and then eight more with the Senators, never finishing higher than fourth.
Despite the many losing campaigns, Harris was regarded as a knowledgeable manager and was extremely popular with his players. His patient, gentlemanly manner inspired such loyalty that when the Phillies fired Harris in mid-1943, his players threatened to strike.
Between Major League jobs, Harris managed in the International and Pacific Coast leagues.
In 1947, he led the Yankees to a World Series victory, and was named Manager of the Year. He was dropped abruptly a year later after a 94-60 third-place finish. Though he managed for another seven years, Harris never again landed in the first division.
Harris also served as assistant General Manager of the Red Sox and scouted for the White Sox.
Named a special assignment scout with the expansion Washington Senators in 1963, he finished where he had begun his Major League career a half century earlier.
He won 2,159 games in 29 years as a manager.
Harris, the youngest man to lead a major league team to a World Series victory, was elected, as a manager, to the Hall of Fame in 1975 by the Veterans Committee.
Bucky Harris died November 8, 1977 in Bethesda, Maryland, on his 81st birthday.
In this inning we’ll open up the Baseball Dictionary
Under the letter: S
Scatter Arm
1. A pitcher or fielder given to wild pitches and throwing errors. It was first used in the Chicago Herald on May 25, 1892
2. The throwing arm of a player given to wild pitches or throws. For example, Buck Weaver had a “scatter arm” when he was a rookie.
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Well, that’s it for today’s game of Baseball History Podcast. I’ll see you later at the ballpark.
