The Bemidji daily pioneer., 1915-10-07
John PATRICK MORAN
| DESERVES ! CREDIT
Should Have Laudatory Title Given
Him for Building Up the
} Phillies.
BY George R. Holmes,

and thence into a worlds champion
ship, George Cohan dubbed him 'The
Miracle Man." The name stuck.
Stallings was a Miracle Man.
Patrick Deserves Title.
Now it's up to somebody to invent
name for John Patrick Moran. For
If ever baseball manager deserves
some sort of a laudatory title, that
manager is red-headed Patrick.
Some say Grover Cleveland Alexander
won pennant for Philadelphia and
Patrick. He did, and he didn't.
Alexander wasn't the terrible, shoot
ing constellation he now is until
Moran was pitched somewhat pre-
cipitately into his managerial berth.
He was a rattlin' good pitcher, but
not an immortal last year. This year
he is both. The, records show that
Alex has won 80 games: Thirty
games do15lnot win a pennant in any
body's league
Had Crew of Misfts.
Stalllngs had crew of baseball
nobodies, among which were three
good pitchers and a, second .baseman.
Moran had a. pitcher, a. catcher and
first baseman who could slug the
ball. The rest didn't amount to
much. They were-like Stallings'
heirlooms - misfts, shunted from
club to club. There were three men,
all stars, whom Moran could see
spelling what little ball club he had.
They were .Magee, a Philly slugging
fixture; Hans Lobert, credited with
being the best third baseman in the
league, and Charley Doom, whom he
had deposed as manager. Magee was
sent to Boston, Lobert to New York
and Doom to Cincinnati in deals
which were the laughing stock of the
league for whi1e;;- Moran got beau
tifully stung, they figured. For Ma
gee, he got George Whitted and Oscar
Dugey, Boston irregulars; for Doom
he got Bert Neihoff and for Lobert,
came Demaree, a collapsed sensation,
and Milton Stock, whom McGraw had
tried for three years to make a first
baseman of, and failed.
Hole at Short. -
First base was filled. Second was
huge aperture through which Mo-
ran in his dreams could see game
after game slipping away. Niehoff
was a comparative youngster, having
seen but one year in the Big Time.
Moran plugged second with Niehoff.
j, At short there was a hole, left
there since the desertion of the ini-
mitable Mickey .Doolan. From the
Pacific coast, Moran reached out and
grabbed a youngster-Bancroft To-
day there isn't shortstop in any
league that has anything on this
bird. -..
The hole at third was regular
canyon. Moran took Bobby Byrne,
cog of Fred Clarke's old 1909 cham
pions, and alternating him with
young Milton Stock, got by.
Here, with one exception in the
building up of an infield which has
stood up under the strain of setting
pennant pace against such famous
inner defenses as Schmidt -Evers- Mar
awhile and Smith, and Doyle
Fletcher and Lobert, and it was built
at moments notice. &a...=
- Moran Was Lucky. 49,
Moran was lucky? Yah, so were
Jess Willard, Percy Haughton, the
Leland Stanford crew, Billy John
ston, Bob Gardner and others who
came through in the face of monu-
mental odds.
In the outfield, Pat had Dode Pas
kert, a veteran of rather doubtful
stability, and Cactus Cravath, an.
other veteran, noted solely for his
long drives when he connected,
which wasn't by any means regul-
arly. There was also Beals Becker,
a sort of baseball nomad, who had
seen service under many managers.
Moran alternated Becker with Whit
ted until he had his outer works run
ming smoothly. There was the hole
left by slugging Sherry securely
stupped.
Who is Pat Moran?
Is Red-headed Irishman.
Pats just big, red-heaqed. red
faced Irishman who doesn't know
when he's licked, and doesn't know
any more than just to do the best he
can with what he's got. He never
was q star ball player, as stars go.
John Patrick confesses 80 years.
He first yelled for more feed In
Ftchburg, Mass, and broke into the
game in 1897 as part Of the Lyons
club in the New York Jungle circuit.
The club went f1ooey at the end of
the next season, and Pat tied up his
other shirt IN his other handker-
chief and treked up to Cortland, New
York, close to the Canadian border.
sssssss ssss ssss