The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1930-04-23
/ ALKING
IT OVER
By JOE WILLIAMS

NEW YORK, April 23.-The
IN Yanks look a little strange
and unfamiliar. Miller Higgins
isn't around any more. OF course
one always had to look closely TO
notice Higgins at any time because
he wasn't much Of a hand for get
ting out in public and preening
himself. He liked solitude, the
background and privacy. But on
opening days he had to perform a
little for the cameramen. Appar-
entity there is a law that no cam
eraman can leave the ball park
on opening day until he has taken
a picture Of the two rival managers
shaking hands before the game.
This invariably appears IN the
newspapers the next morning under
the inspired caption Friendly
enemies"
The eameramen would take this picture
once wear. Higgins would come out OF
he dugout and walk across the field. a
slightly stopped small'sh figure with feet
50 disproportionateIy large as to provoke
lie would stand there and pose until the
cameramen we're through with him and
then he would 90 back to the dugout and
YOU wouldn't see much more Of him All
season.
A ND in the meantime the mar
IA velous baseball machine which
he had built around Babe Ruth
would be winning pennants and
world championships with a mo-
notonv that was soon to bring a
protest from the rest Of the league
and with it the radical proposal
that the Yankee team be broken
I'D and its stars distributed among
the other clubs in such way as
to equalize the element Of compe-
tition.
Higgins came to the metropolis In 1918
as manager of team that had never
caught on emotional'y With the New York
public. He remained manager until
his death sept. p Of last year. He lived
TO see the Yanks rise to complete suprem-
aey. both as a machine and a popular
favorlte not only in New York, but
around the cifcuW as We'll
TTARASSED and heckled at the
II start, subjected to merciless
criticism by the newspapers, con-
victed as a failure without trial,
scorned by his own misunderstand-
ing players, this retiring, obscure,
forlorn looking man who seemed
eternally weary and grave, went on
to become one Of the greatest man
ayers Of all time. Nowhere in the
history of baseball is there to be
found a more moving picture Of
courage, perseverance and unswerv-
ing faith in principles.
II
As is so often the case a full apprecia-
tion of Higgins the man and Higgins the
team leader did not come until he was
headed over the hill. Even the newspaper
zen, who Travelled with the Tanks and
with whom Higgins was more intimate
then ever he was with his players. did not
come to know him until two or three years
before his death. He was rot an easy
man to know. He had few intimacies and
few moments of recreation. Baseball was
his life. / don't suppose there was ever
time when he did not have the game on
his mind. To him it was a fascinating
Scicnce.
4
BASEBALL, as I say, was Higgins
ID life. 1t also was his death. Ill,
underweight, infrm, he persisted in
carrying on late last summer when
his great team which had won three
pennants in a row began TO crack
On the last western trip the team
begged down in the middle and fell
.lopeleSsly apart, and when it did
the frail mechanism that was the
Higgins body and mind went with it.
Had he lived he would have been
81 this month.
Soon all the visible reminder of this I'M
usual baseball character will be a modest
bronze tablet in the lobby of the stadium
with the simple inscription. Here Iabored
Miller Huggins.' It might fittingIy we
added, Here. he died. too"
ROckno TnonrOv