The Waterbury Democrat., 1941-03-15
M'CARTHY HAS MADE SEVERAL
 EXPERIMENTS
ROlfe, Chapman Change Positions Due to Yankee
 Manager
(BY JOE WILLTAMS)

St. Petersburg, Fla, March l5- They're beginning to refer to MT, Mccarthy, the Yankee manager, as change -'em- lover" Joe. This is be- cause of his penchant for taking a player of established skill at one position and moving him to an- other.
 His latest improvement in this respect, as everybody must know by now, is changing Joe Gordon over from a second baSeman into a first baseman. You may be in- terested in hearing the details of other similar experiments he has made.
 There was Red Rolfe for one. When the Dartmouth red head came into the Yankee organization he was a shortstop, and everybody said he was great shortstop. For two years at Newark he had been the outstanding shortstop in the minors. The first year Rolfe was with the Yankees, Mccarthy began experimenting with him at third base. Finally, in June he put him on third and told him to stay there. From then on he was to be third baseman and nothing else.
 What made you shift him?" we asked Mccarthy today.
 "He wasn't as mobile as a short- stop ought to be and besides he couldn't go to his right very we'll"
 Mccarthy used percentage table in reaching his decision. He fig ured the third baseman won't ham, dle more than four or five chances at the most, whereas the shortstop may be called upon to handle from two to three times as many. This helped convince him that Rolfe belonged at third.
 T had a little difficulty in per- suading Rolfe to go to third" re- veals Mccarthy. T gave him a long sales talk on how overrated the haards of playinzg the ,so-called hot corner were and I assured him they didn't hit the ball any harder down to third than to any other position on the diamond. I wound up by saying Q fellow ought to be able to play third base in a rock ing chair. And what do you think happened? Rolfe played his first game at third against the Boston Red Sox and the first ball hit to him took bad bounce and cut his eye open. He came back to the bench, looked at me and groaned, What was that you said about a rocking chair'p"
 To the OutfieId
 Ben Chapman came to the Yan- kees as an infielder. He had played second, third and short. Mccarthy began experimenting with him as an outfielder. Chapman was tenn. peramental, not altogether enthu- siastic about changing positions, so Mccarthy by way of feeding the young mans vanity, encouraged him as a base runner. The first year he moved to the outfield, he stole 6l bases to lead both leagues.
 What made you decide Chapman was an outfielder?" we asked.
 He didn't get the ball away quickly enough Tor an infielder and lost too many double plays. He had a full arm action instead of a snap throw. This was an asset in the outfield but a handicap in the infield. There wasn't any question put that he belonged in the out field"
 Mccarthy tried for years. to get Myril Hoag to come in from the outfield to play third base. He still seems to be rather sad that the young man refused to try the ex- pertinent. "Hoag would have been as fine third baseman as base ball ever say insists McCarthy. Il never saw fellow who was more ideally equipped in every way to play the position"
 Hoag,s refusal to heed McCarthy,s suggestion was influenced by ad- vice from his father who had been an outfielder himself. He cautioned his son never to permit anybody to pull him from the outfield. "Outfielders last longer" he said.
 The decision to put Gordon on first did not come as a sudden in- spiration. Mccarthy was toying with the idea as late as last Au- gust. Long before he headed south he had made up his mind. That's why Babe Dahlgren was removed rom the roster SO speedily. Me- Carthy didn't want him in the training camp to confuse things and slow up the experiment.. He wanted to be sure that once Cor don started playing the bag he would know in his own mind that the job was his.