Visionary views

Several innovators get credit for the evolution of managing

Like most aspects of our national pastime, the role of the baseball manager has evolved considerably over the nearly 150 years the game has been a professional enterprise.

And it's not surprising that Boston - the only city to have a major league team continuously since 1871 - has borne witness to much of this evolution. In fact, more than half of the men in the Hall of Fame primarily for their managerial accomplishments have New England ties, including 2008 inductees Dick Williams and Billy Southworth.

At the dawn of the professional era, the term "manager" applied to the man who handled the business affairs of a team. The decisions we now associate with the manager were made by the captain, a veteran player.

Such decisions were not as complicated in the 1870s. Pitching changes were minimal because most teams carried only two hurlers, and the second, or "change pitcher," generally was used only when the ace was injured or fatigued. Since pitchers threw underhanded, exhaustion was not common even though scores frequently reached double digits for each team. The fact that rosters rarely exceeded 12 players, including a "change catcher" to relieve the barehanded regular backstop, limited the lineup permutations as well.

The captain of Boston's first big league team was Harry Wright, the earliest "manager" in baseball's Hall of Fame. Wright pioneered the transition from playing captain to bench manager during his time with the Boston Red Stockings (1871-81).

When Wright arrived from Cincinnati, where he had piloted the original Red Stockings to 69 straight victories in 1869-70, he was the 35-year-old center fielder of a team he had handpicked for Boston. The position we know as "general manager" was still decades in the future, so Wright handled roster decisions as well as on-field strategy, and even was involved with the business operations of the stockholder-run Boston Baseball Club.

In 1871, an injury to star shortstop George Wright, Harry's brother, thwarted Boston's pennant bid, but GM Wright bolstered his roster in the offseason and led the team to four straight National Association titles, then won twice (1877-78) in the fledgling National League before moving on to Providence and Philadelphia. Harry Wright played at least semiregularly through 1874, then shed his uniform and managed from the bench.

Throughout the 19th century, most teams were directed by playing captains or, later, men who had just completed their playing careers. The most successful manager without a background as a major league player was Boston's next great leader, Frank Selee, who grew up in Melrose and played only one recorded minor league game (for Haverhill). Selee left much of the on-field strategy to his captains but assembled quality teams and molded them into winners. He won five pennants in 12 years at the helm of Boston's National League team and built the nucleus of the Chicago Cubs dynasty of 1906-10 before tuberculosis forced him to retire.

The success of Selee and Connecticut native Ned Hanlon in Baltimore in the 1890s and Chelsea-born Jim Mutrie of the New York Giants a decade earlier proved the bench manager's viability, but player-managers remained commonplace until after World War II. In fact, the Red Sox' first five pennants came under the leadership of third baseman Jimmy Collins (1903-04), first baseman Jake Stahl (1912), and catcher Bill Carrigan (1915-16).

After 1900, the role of major league manager became increasingly a post-playing career path for many, including Hall of Famers Connie Mack, Fred Clarke, John McGraw, Wilbert Robinson (who was raised in Hudson), and Hughie Jennings. These strong-willed individuals followed lengthy stints as players with even longer stretches at the helm of one team, developing the power and influence to take the game in new directions.

McGraw (New York Giants, 1902-32), in particular, was a trendsetter. He set the bar for umpire baiting long before Leo Durocher, Earl Weaver, or Billy Martin. In 1909, he hired the game's first full-time coach, New Hampshire native Arlie Latham, a star third baseman with the St. Louis Browns in the 1880s who called Lynn home for many years. That same year McGraw made Doc Crandall the first relief specialist, though it was not until the 1960s that bullpen staffs began to be the factor they are today. Jennings experimented with platooning as early as 1907.

McGraw, Robinson (Brooklyn 1914-31), and Jennings (Detroit 1907-20) were protégés of Hanlon, whose Baltimore Orioles matched Selee's five pennants in the 1890s. The Old Orioles are still revered for their scrappy play, a counterpoint to the cerebral approach and gentlemanly demeanor of Selee's Boston team. The styles were equally effective in the Gay Nineties, but Hanlon's players had greater success as 20th-century field generals than Selee pupils Collins, Hugh Duffy, and Fred Tenney.

While McGraw, Robinson, Jennings, and Clarke (Pittsburgh 1900-15) wore uniforms as they grew gray and paunchy, lanky East Brookfield native Mack sported street clothes until he finally stepped down after 50 years as manager of the Philadelphia Athletics. Mack won nine pennants, assembling dynastic teams in both the Dead Ball and "Long Ball" eras.

Since Mack and Brooklyn's Burt Shotten exited the stage in 1950, regular uniforms have been standard fare for managers despite Terry Francona's recent fashion statements. The uniformed baseball manager - unique in pro sports - derives, of course, from player managers of days gone by, but surely owes much to the various onfield roles of the manager - coaching the bases (Jennings is remembered for his "Eee-yah!" exhortations as third base coach), hitting fungoes in pregame drills, and changing pitchers.

After the Red Sox won six pennants in 18 years, Boston went 28 seasons without a pennant until Hall of Famer Joe Cronin brought the Sox home first in 1946 and Southworth led the Braves to the National League crown two years later. Nineteen more seasons elapsed before Williams's Red Sox realized the Impossible Dream in 1967. During these dry spells, New England fans should have learned an important lesson: Even the best manager cannot produce a winner by himself.

Hall of Fame managers Frank Chance (1923 Red Sox), Bill McKechnie (1930-37 Braves), Bucky Harris (1934 Red Sox) and Casey Stengel (1938-43 Braves) worked 16 seasons in Boston without producing a single contender. Carrigan, who had won consecutive pennants before retiring to run a bank in Maine, endured three last-place finishes when he returned (1927-29). Cronin won only the lone pennant (plus four runner-up finishes) in 13 seasons. Even Joe McCarthy, who won nine pennants with the Yankees and Cubs, was twice a runner-up (1948-49) as Sox boss.

Francona already has cemented his place in the Boston pantheon with two World Series titles, but time and on-field talent will determine whether he belongs in the company of Wright, Selee, McGraw, Mack, and the other Hall of Famers.