The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939, 1929-09-19
TAKES FOUR
YEARS TO
COP flag
By Davis J. Walsh


NEW YORK, Sept. 49,
Sim only a minor Lacquer,
said he four years ago, with
an engaging grin. The fellow,
Of course was lying shame
fully. True humility is never
the hallmark of the small man
and the friends of Joe Nc
Carthy knew him to be big
too big for the minor league
whence he came and, there
fore, far too big to admit it.
The whole world knows it to-
day,
He attained his full stature in
the eyes of the world yesterday
when he won his first major league
triumph, If ever there. was one. A
winner in the American Association
with the Louisville club, he never
has known a real loser during his
four seasons in the National League.
A success in life himself, he makes
other men succeed.
He even made a lot of chronic
failures forget their ineptitudt
the first time he handled a
major league game and, for
time in 1926, the inspired Cubs
were the riot Of the race.
They finished a good fourth that
year They had finished a bad last
the year before. That's Mccarthy
all over. He didn't ask time to re-
build another mans failure; he got
himself a club of his own and made
1t a success overnight.
It was about this time that an
interviewer overlook him and he
sidestepped gracefully, with me
famous, "I'm.only -a-minor- leaguer"
statement. Everybody suspected MN
I of wronging himself then. They
know it now. The Cubs probably
would be losing yet if they hadn't
signed Mccarthy four years ago.
He built up the pitching staff. He
brought Wilson with him from the
association, which was ten-strike.
He picked up Stephenson, which was
another. And each year the Cubs
made a. bigger play for the title. An
early league leader in 1926, they led
the pace we'll into August in 1921,
and last year they were almost into
September before they relinquished
the lead. Each time the collapse,
once accomplished, became very real.
They fell, as a matter of fact. all
the way into fourth place each time,
and Mccarthy realized that, while
he really had something, he didn't
have enough.
ShortytOp had been first
class sieve on the ball club
Mccarthy made it leal1proof by
bringing in Woody English, an
other of his American AssOcia.
ton discoveries. Second base
had been none too strong, so he
insisted upon getting Hornsby.
He got him.
Perhaps Hornsby's purchase was
the deciding factor in bringing Chi
caEo its first National League pen.
nant since 1918 and it's sixth of the
present century. This gentleman has
had a great year. So, for that mat.
ter, have Wilson, Stephenson, Cuyler,
Bush and others.
doubt whether all of them would
have gone so well for more than one
manager out of a hundred. McCar-
thy quite possibly would have won
the pennant this year If Hornsby
had stayed in Boston. He strikes me
as one of those men who are due to
win at the first break, and McCar-
thy was starting his fourth year in
the league this spring.
In other words, if these Chicago
prima donnas played lot of base
ball, they did it for man named
Joe Mccarthy. Prtma donnas,. they
are. and he had to be a master
chemist to fuse these volatile e1e-
Iaents into placid, cohesive whole
Hornsby was too much for Sam
Breadon and Charley Stoneham Ia
successive years.
Grimm was trade1 out of Pitts.
burgh because he had outworn his
welcome. Cuyler couldn't even get
into the Pittsburgh lineup. so dis
turbing to the general peace was
he presumed to be. AS for Hack
Wilson, he is one of those elemental
souls who believes in hitting them
first and explaining later.
All Of them, in brief, are
seH.expressiOnists at heart and
it was no, "minor Lacquer" who
took them i'm hand and made
them play his way. 1t was
big man, as big as any we have
in the game.
1t matters not that they lost
to the Giants yesterday and that il
was Pittsburgh's defeat that made
the Chicago victory official. 1t mat
tiers not that the Pirates beat thenl
On the seasons series, IL to O.
and that it was injuries to Grimes
and Traynor that sent the Cubs
careening out in front on or about
June 90, never to be headed again.
1t only matters that the best
ball club won, as the best usually
does, and that it was the best ball
club because one of the great man,
ayers OF the generation made it the
best
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