Chew on this idea
Philip Wrigley with Ernie Banks in 1962
The Chicago Cubs announce 63 years ago today that they are reinventing the wheel by naming, well, no one to manage their team in 1961.
The idea is greenlighted by owner Philip Wrigley, the chewing gum magnate, and Chicago general manager John Holland, whose team is coming off a 1960 season in which the Cubs stumble to a 6-11 start under manager Charlie Grimm and stumble even more with Lou Boudreau, finishing the season 60-94 and 35 games behind eventual World Series winner Pittsburgh.
Wrigley’s solution for closing that gap is replacing Boudreau, a future Hall of Famer, with a so-called “College of Coaches” with Vedie Himsl, Harry Craft, El Tappe and Lou Klein taking turns running the team in 1961.
None of them manages a winning record with Himsl going 10-21, Craft 7-9, Tappe 42-54 and Klein 5-6. All adding up to another seventh-place finish with a 64-90 record, and 29 games behind National League pennant winner Cincinnati.
The idea of rotating managers actually comes from Tappe, who wants to employ the system in the Cubs’ minor leagues to provide more one-on-one coaching, a concept similar to today’s roving instructors who travel around the minors working with one team’s handful of affiliates.
El Tappe
“I never intended it to be used on the big league level,” Tappe says in 1996. “Mr. Wrigley got all carried away.”
Undeterred by 1961’s finish Wrigley and Holland rekindle the idea for 1962.
This time, Tappe (4-16), Klein (12-18) and Charlie Metro (43-69) combine for a 59-103 to finish in ninth place – 42½ games before the pennant-winning San Francisco Giants and an even more embarrassing six games behind the expansion Houston Colt .45s.
The Cubs avoid last place thanks to the National League’s other expansion team, the historically bad, 40-120 New York Mets.
“The psychological aspects of the Chicago-style management were admirable,” former Cubs pitcher Jim Brosnan says in 1962.
“Any player who did not like his manager at the start of the year could wait patiently, aware that a change, maybe for the better, was just around the next losing streak.”
Keep in mind that all of this managerial shuffling on the North Side of Chicago comes from a team wasting the talents of four future Hall of Famers in its lineup in 1961 with Ernie Banks, Ron Santo, Billy Williams and Richie Ashburn.
The ’62 team also has four future Hall of Famers with the aforementioned Banks, Santo and Williams and Lou Brock replacing Ashburn.
The Cubs return to normalcy in 1963 with one manager, Bob Kennedy, who leads the Cubs to an 82-80 record.
The 82-80 record represents the Cubs’ first winning season since going 82-71 in 1946 with Grimm, then 48 years old, as their manager.
Of course, the Cubs being the Cubs go back to their losing ways in 1964, falling to 76-86 in Kennedy’s second season and finishing 17 games behind the World Series-winning St. Louis Cardinals.
Somehow, Kennedy gets another season from the impetuous Wrigley and Holland, but starts the summer of ’65 with a 24-32 record before the Cubs dust off Klein for another turn running the team.
The Cubs – still with Banks, Santo and Williams in the lineup – founder with a 48-58 record with Klein to finish in eighth place at 72-90 and 25 games behind the Series-winning Dodgers.
Out goes Klein.
In comes Leo Durocher, another future Hall of Famer who last manages in the majors more than a decade earlier in 1955.
Durocher’s first season with the Cubs – 1966 – is a disaster at 59-103 with a last-place finish.
He then leads the Cubs to five straight winning records, marking their best run of success since the franchise posts 14 straight winning seasons from 1926-39.
And with those handful of winning seasons, Durocher quickly makes a memory – albeit a bad one – of Wrigley’s “College of Coaches.”
Leo Durocher