Billy Southworth

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For his son, see Billy Southworth Jr. For the major-league player of 1964, see Bill Southworth.
Billy Southworth
Southworth in 1941
Right fielder / Manager
Born: (1893-03-09)March 9, 1893
Harvard, Nebraska, U.S.
Died: November 15, 1969(1969-11-15) (aged 76)
Columbus, Ohio, U.S.
Batted: Left
Threw: Right
MLB debut
August 4, 1913, for the Cleveland Indians
Last MLB appearance
July 9, 1929, for the St. Louis Cardinals
MLB statistics
Batting average.297
Home runs52
Runs batted in561
Managerial record1,044–704
Winning %.597
Teams
As player

As manager

Career highlights and awards
Member of the National
Baseball Hall of Fame
Induction2008
Vote81.3%
Election methodVeterans Committee

William Harold Southworth (March 9, 1893 – November 15, 1969) was an American outfielder and manager in Major League Baseball (MLB). As a player in 1913 and 1915 and from 1918 to 1929 for five big-league teams, Southworth took part in almost 1,200 games, fell just short of 1,300 hits and batted .297 lifetime. Southworth managed in 1929 and from 1940 through 1951. He oversaw three pennant-winning St. Louis Cardinals teams, winning two World Series, and another pennant with the Boston Braves, the last National League title in Boston baseball history. As manager of the Cardinals, his .642 winning percentage is the second-highest in franchise history and the highest since 1900.

Late in life, Southworth served as a scout for the Braves. He endured a great deal of tragedy in his baseball career, first experiencing the stillbirth of his twin babies and the deaths of his wife and his adult son. He died in 1969. He was inducted into the

Baseball Hall of Fame in 2008. Six years later, the Cardinals inducted him into the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame Museum. He also belongs to the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame. Southworth had a son, Billy Southworth Jr., and a cousin, Bill Southworth
, who both played professional baseball.

Early life and playing career

Southworth in 1915

Southworth was born in

Cleveland Indians in 1913, but only appeared in one game, entering as a replacement on defense.[4]

In 1914, Southworth married Lida Brooks. She was a minister's daughter and they had met while Southworth was playing for Portsmouth. The couple's son,

William Brooks Southworth, was born during Southworth's early playing career.[5] Billy Southworth Jr. later became a professional baseball player for several seasons.[6] The elder Southworth returned to the Cleveland Indians in 1915 and appeared in 60 games.[4] He played for the Birmingham Barons in 1917 and part of 1918,[7] when he made the Pittsburgh Pirates and played in 64 major league games.[4]

Southworth played more regularly in 1919, appearing in 121 games and leading the league with 14

New York Giants to the St. Louis Cardinals in the middle of the season.[8]
Southworth suffered a 1927 rib injury that limited his playing time. The Cardinals' leadership began to look for a role for Southworth beyond his playing career.

Early career as a manager

Southworth's managerial career began in 1928 with the

farm system. In May, Southworth and his wife experienced the stillbirths of twins. Southworth returned home after losing the twins, but he quickly came back to Rochester. Late in the season, Southworth received word that Billy Jr. had been accidentally shot by a neighbor in Columbus.[9] His son recovered, but the experience shook the manager. The team won the IL championship that season.[10]

Southworth was promoted to St. Louis as

player-manager for 1929, replacing Bill McKechnie, who won a National League pennant in 1928 and lost the World Series in four straight games to the New York Yankees. Southworth's Major League playing career reached the end of the road, as he appeared in only 19 games, five in the outfield, and batted only .188 with six hits. He finished with a .297 batting average in 1,192 MLB games played, 52 home runs, 91 triples, 173 doubles, 661 runs scored, and 561 RBI. He stole 138 bases in his career and had double-digit steal totals in eight seasons. As a big leaguer, Southworth had 1,296 hits in 4,359 at bats.[4]

His 1929 MLB managerial debut was not much more successful than his playing stint. Only one year removed from being a teammate of his charges, he attempted to impose discipline on the Cardinals, banning them from driving their own automobiles. The team did not respond to his hard line and won only 43 of their first 88 games. Southworth was sent back to Rochester on July 21, McKechnie was rehired, and the Cardinals finished in fourth place.

Although Southworth immediately resumed his successful minor league managerial career, the firing and personal tragedy — the death of his wife Lida at age 42[11] — began a downward spiral. Beset by struggles with alcoholism, he quit a coaching job with the 1933 Giants during spring training and left baseball for two seasons. After a recovery, he rejoined the Cardinals' minor league system in 1935 and by 1939 he was again enjoying success as Rochester's manager. He remarried in 1935, wedding the former Mabel Stemen, with whom he had a daughter.[3]

Return to the Cardinals

Southworth as Cardinals manager

In June 1940, he received a second chance with the struggling Cardinals when owner Sam Breadon fired manager Ray Blades and promoted Southworth from Rochester. This time, the Cards flourished under him. With talented players such as Enos Slaughter, Marty Marion, Stan Musial, Walker Cooper, Mort Cooper, Whitey Kurowski and Johnny Beazley being harvested each spring from the club's farm system, the Cardinals entered a Golden Age in their history. Upon Southworth's appointment, they won 69 of 109 games and jumped from seventh to third place in 1940. The following season they won 97 games and finished second.

From 1942 to 1944, the Cardinals won 106, 105 and 105 games, three pennants and two World Series titles. Southworth was the first manager to lead a team to

Cards' third successive National League pennant, in 1944, produced another world championship, a six-game triumph over the American League (AL) St. Louis Browns. With it, Southworth had presided over one of the most dominant three-year stretches in National League
(NL) history.

However, another personal family tragedy struck when on February 15, 1945, his son,

Billy Jr., by then a United States Army Air Forces major, died when his Boeing B-29 Superfortress crashed into Flushing Bay, New York after taking off from Mitchel Field, New York, on a training flight to Florida
.

Still, Southworth began managing at the beginning of the 1945 season, which saw his Cardinals win 95 games but finish second, three games behind the Chicago Cubs.

Later managerial career

Pitchers Johnny Sain (left) and Warren Spahn, who each won over 15 games for the 1948 Braves under Southworth.

Southworth moved to the

Boston Braves in 1946, signing a then-lucrative managing contract for a reported $50,000 per season,[2] and immediately led the Braves into the first division. Talented pitchers Johnny Sain and Warren Spahn
had both returned from service in World War II that year.

In

bonus baby" pitcher Johnny Antonelli. Sain and Southworth rarely spoke after 1948.[15]

During the following season, 1949, Boston struggled on the field and was in chaos off the diamond. Southworth was rumored to be drinking heavily[16] and near nervous collapse.[17] Some players complained about his rules and regulations, and some, including starting shortstop Alvin Dark and second baseman Eddie Stanky, were critical of his drinking.[18] Meanwhile, others, like Sain, resented the amount of credit Southworth had received for the 1948 pennant. With Boston at 55–54 on August 16, Southworth turned the Braves over to coach Johnny Cooney for the remainder of 1949. A newspaper account at the time characterized the change as a leave of absence for health reasons. With Cooney, the Braves finished fourth.[19] A finish that high in the standings guaranteed the team shares of the World Series money, but the Braves players voted to only give Southworth a quarter share.[20]

After some of the rebellious players (including Dark and Stanky) had been traded, Southworth returned to his post in

Tommy Holmes
(he would finish out the season but was fired in the middle of what turned out to be the final season of the Braves in Boston).

Southworth's major league managerial

win–loss record was 1,044–704–22.[22] His .597 winning percentage is seventh all-time among managers to McCarthy's .615.[23]
Southworth has the least amount of games managed (1,770) for any manager to have won 1,000 games. Southworth was the first to win the World Series as a player and again as a manager.

Southworth remained with the Braves as a

Negro leagues
.

Managerial career

Team From To Regular season record Post–season record
W L Win % W L Win %
St. Louis Cardinals 1929 1929 43 45 .489 —
1940 1945 577 301 .657 9 7 .563
Boston Braves
 1946 1949 313 256 .550 2 4 .333
1950 1951 111 102 .521 —
Total 1044 704 .597 11 11 .500
Reference:[22]

Later life

For the last couple of decades of his life, Southworth lived outside of

Green Lawn Cemetery.[11]

Southworth's cousin, Bill Southworth, appeared in the major leagues in 1964.

Legacy

Dark recalled that Southworth was a "mild" person who wanted everyone to like him. He preferred to let his players play according to their respective styles, rather than micro-managing their every moves. However, he would give some advice - when going over lineups before a game, he would tell his pitchers to pitch every hitter "High, tight, and low and away."[25] On batting practice, he wanted every hitter to approach it like he was in an actual game, and he would award bench players who performed well with additional playing time.[26]

Southworth was elected to the

Baseball Hall of Fame in 2008. He had been eligible for election as a player in the 1940s, but he received few votes. After Southworth had been left off of the ballot as a manager in 2003, author Raymond Mileur had begun a campaign of letter writing, phone calls to the Hall of Fame, radio show comments and advocacy through his website known as "The Birdhouse". Southworth was elected after receiving 13 votes from the 16-member Veterans Committee.[27]

On the occasion of Southworth's election to the Hall of Fame, one of his former players on the 1948 Braves, Clint Conatser, paid tribute to his old manager. "He just had a gut feeling about the right thing to do in a situation", Conatser recalled. "The moves he would make would work for him — all the time, not occasionally. Leo Durocher was the same way. It's like some guys can pick horses out of nowhere. Southworth was a genius like that on the diamond."[28]

In January 2014, the Cardinals announced that Southworth was among 22 former players and personnel to be inducted into the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame Museum for the inaugural class of 2014.[29] He is also a member of the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame.[7]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Skipper, p. 9.
  2. ^
    ISBN 0-87795-984-6
    .
  3. ^
    ISBN 1566397030
    .
  4. ^ a b c d e "Billy Southworth Statistics and History". Baseball-Reference.com. Retrieved March 8, 2014.
  5. ^ Skipper, p. 10.
  6. ^ "Billy Southworth". Baseball-Reference.com. Retrieved March 8, 2014.
  7. ^ a b "William Harold "Billy" Southworth". Alabama Sports Hall of Fame. Retrieved March 9, 2014.
  8. ISBN 1612342817
    .
  9. ^ Skipper, p. 11.
  10. ^ a b c d Daly, Jon. "Billy Southworth". Society for American Baseball Research. Retrieved March 8, 2014.
  11. ^ a b c The Columbus Dispatch, July 27, 2008
  12. ^ Skipper, p. 146.
  13. ^ Rossi, p. 54.
  14. ^ Rossi, p. 65.
  15. ^ Skipper, p. 165.
  16. ^ Marshall, William, Baseball's Pivotal Era, page 281
  17. ^ December 26, 1949, Time
  18. ^ Durocher, Leo, with Linn, Ed, Nice Guys Finish Last. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1975, page 239
  19. Schenectady Gazette
    . August 17, 1949. Retrieved March 8, 2014.
  20. ^ Dark and Underwood, p. 46
  21. ^ "Boston Braves at Cincinnati Reds Box Score, August 29, 1950".
  22. ^ a b "Billy Southworth". Baseball Reference. Retrieved October 3, 2015.
  23. Baseball Hall of Fame
    . Retrieved March 8, 2014.
  24. ^ Skipper, pp. 178-179.
  25. ^ Dark and Underwood, p. 44
  26. ^ Dark and Underwood, p. 45
  27. ^ Skipper, pp. 181-183.
  28. ^ Boston Braves Historical Association Newsletter, Spring Training 2008 edition; Bloomberg, Mort, "Billy Southworth #30", Billy Southworth.com
  29. ^ Cardinals Press Release (January 18, 2014). "Cardinals establish Hall of Fame & detail induction process". www.stlouis.cardinals.mlb.com. Archived from the original on January 26, 2014. Retrieved January 29, 2014.

References

External links
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