Today was a rather eventful day in BizOrg for me. It’s the sort of class in which you can reasonably expect to be called on once, maybe twice the entire quarter. Not counting having to rap in front of the class last week, I’ve now been called on three times. I had read and think I sounded pretty competent, but I'm getting called on a lot in that class, relatively speaking. I’m not complaining*, but it’s someone else’s turn to take a case or two.
More importantly, we covered a case on the 1919 New York (Baseball) Giants (and not the one I got called on for). One of the directors of the corporation was John McGraw, who our prof described as one of the president and primary shareholder’s “friends”. Which is sort of like referring to a case on the Green Bay Packers and saying “some Lombardi guy”.
OK, I know I’m a huge baseball dork. But John F’n McGraw! The Little Napoleon! He’s only one of the greatest managers who ever lived. The only guy to win more games was Casey Stengel, and that’s just because he continued to manage after he was legally dead. From 1903 to 1932, McGraw had two losing seasons. Two. He also won 10 pennants and 3 World Series.
John McGraw was so awesome that when he got in trouble with the owner, he tanked the season, drove down attendance and thereby the purchase price of the team, and got one of his rich buddies to buy the team for him to run. All so he wouldn’t have to serve that suspension for attacking an umpire (and you thought Lou Pinella was intense). And our case today was McGraw and his buddy muscling out Tammany Hall. Yes, THAT Tammany Hall.
And John McGraw was nobody’s friend. He is one of the all-time biggest jerks to ever play baseball, though you could make a pretty outstanding team of nothing but gigantic jerks (I’m leaving off pitchers, who are just known as weird, not jerks):
C Thurman Munson (really not many mean catchers, though Carlton Fisk was sort of a pill, but I really liked him)
1B Dick Allen
2B Rogers Hornsby
3B John McGraw
SS Alvin Dark (Wow, most famous shortstops were also famous nice guys. Thank God we have one unrepentant racist in the bunch)
RF Pete Rose
CF Ty Cobb
LF Ted Williams (War hero? Yes. But also a famous jerk on the level of Albert Belle)
*Editor’s note: this is law school speak for “I’m complaining”
1 comment:
To answer someone from the previous site, Eddie Murray was not known as a jerk. He just had a bad relationship with the media, and he was sort of shy and grumpy. That's not really jerky. Besides, he was a good mentor to younger players (like that Cal Ripken guy). When I'm talking jerks, I'm talking guys who were universally loathed by friend and foe.
And John McGraw is our player-manager.
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