Navin seemed genuinely surprised at the turn of events. He had always liked Harris, whom he affectionately referred to by his given name Stanley. “I had no intention of changing managers,” Navin admitted. “Stanley could have stayed. This year he had a young ball club and it made mistakes for which he could not be held responsible. In 40 years that I have been in baseball, I have never been associated with anyone, player, manager, or owner, whom I liked as well as Stanley. I tried to get him to change his mind, but he seems set on his decision.”1
“Mr. Navin did not ask for my resignation,” a stoic Harris told reporters. “He didn’t even hint that he planned to ask it. I just felt that Detroit is not my lucky town and that it would be for the best interests of all concerned if I quit.”2
To be sure, Detroit had not been any baseball manager’s idea of a lucky town for a long time. Hughie Jennings, with a young Ty Cobb roaming his outfield, had skippered the Tigers to three straight World Series beginning in 1907, losing every time. Those days, however, were ancient history. Since then, Detroit was a perennial middle-of-the-pack club. Jennings hung on until 1920, when Cobb himself replaced him as player-manager. After six years, “The Georgia Peach” gave way to George Moriarty, and finally to Harris, none of whom had been able to lead Detroit to the land flowing with milk and honey.
Worse yet, attendance at Navin Field had dwindled. The Tigers drew only 320,972 fans to their ballpark at the corner of Michigan and Trumbull, good for fifth in the eight-team American League in 1933. It was the second-lowest turnout since the park had opened its gates in 1912. Frustrated denizens of Detroit were beginning to wonder if their Tigers were ever going to win a World Series, something the team had yet to do in its 33-year history. Indeed, the city’s only major baseball championship had come back in 1887, when the National League’s old Detroit Wolverines won a 15-game post-season tournament (a precursor to the modern World Series) over the St. Louis Browns of the American Association. By the end of the following season, the franchise was unable to meet expenses and unceremoniously folded.
On the heels of the Tigers’ 75–79 finish in 1933, and desperate for a winner, Navin looked around and realized that he was not getting any younger. Born in 1871 in Adrian, Michigan, a village about 70 miles southwest of Detroit, he had aspired to the law and earned his degree from the Detroit College of Law (now Michigan State University Law School). As a young man striving to make his way in the world, he had been attracted to the political arena and ran unsuccessfully for justice of the peace. Having a head for arithmetic, he switched careers and found work in the Detroit office of one Samuel Angus, an insurance agent. Navin kept the books and sold policies, and generally ingratiated himself to Angus.
A bookish, introverted fellow lacking in charisma, Navin could well have spent the rest of his life crunching numbers in a dusty office, but his fortunes changed for the better in 1902. That was the year Angus led a syndicate to purchase the Detroit Tigers, bringing Navin along to be his business manager.
Just how much Navin initially knew about the game of baseball is debatable. He was no more or less likely to have played it growing up than any other typical American boy of his era. But Angus needed Navin’s flair for business. It turned out, however, that Angus had greater aspirations; within a year, he sold the team to William C. Yawkey in order to focus on a mayoral run. Yawkey, who had garnered his millions by virtue of being the son of a Michigan lumber baron, retained Navin.
Soon after taking over the reins of the organization, Yawkey died, and ownership fell to his son, William H. Yawkey. No particular fan of the national pastime, the younger Yawkey was more than happy to let Navin run the team as he saw fit. Navin proved to be a shrewd judge of baseball talent; piece by piece, he put together the squad that would soon dominate the American League.
Among his assemblages were “Wahoo” Sam Crawford, the slugger who still holds the likely unbreakable record of 309 career triples, and Wild Bill Donovan, who won 25 games in 1907. His most brilliant acquisition, however, was Cobb, for whom Navin paid a pittance of $700 to the Augusta Tourists of the South Atlantic League. Cobb became the greatest batsman of his day and the sporting world’s biggest star. By 1908, Navin had purchased a nearly 50 percent stake in the Tigers; ten years after that, he became the majority owner following the death of Yawkey from the Spanish Flu.
Those giddy days, and those talented Tigers clubs, were now a distant memory. Navin’s beloved baseball team had gone without a pennant for 24 years. With the departure of Harris, the search for a new field boss became his top priority.
Navin’s pursuit was not going to be easy. He needed a man with a tough, no-nonsense approach, able to instill a winning attitude into his Tigers. In recent years, Detroit had gained a reputation as a soft team with an easy-come, easy-go attitude. Soon after Harris’s departure, a Detroit Free Press headline blared:
WE WANT TIGERS—NOT TAME KITTENS
Maybe it was a product of Harris’s managerial style. Brought on five years earlier primarily to rid the club of the numerous cliques that were eating away at it like a cancer, he had accomplished that goal, but conversely was accused of letting the pendulum swing the other way. He had placed too much emphasis on team harmony, his detractors argued. If he had to choose between a player of marginal talent but sunny disposition, versus one of greater skills who had a tendency toward irritability, he would pick the former. When recruiting players, he valued character over natural ability. On the field and in the clubhouse, reprimands were rare. Harris never nagged. Accountability was lacking. If he criticized a player in the fifth inning, he did it in such a mild, nonthreatening way that it was invariably forgotten by the sixth. Whoever the Tigers’ new manager might be, that laid-back atmosphere could not be allowed to continue.
But Navin had an additional problem on his hands: The sparse crowds at Navin Field. The Depression had hit Detroit hard. People simply did not have the disposable income for a trip to the ballpark anymore. All throughout the major leagues, teams were playing in front of legions of empty seats, as attendance plummeted 40 percent from 1930 to 1933. (The numbers would not reach pre–Depression levels until after World War II, when soldiers numbering in the millions returned from overseas.) Not helping matters was the ten percent Federal Amusement Tax added to the price of a ticket beginning in 1932. That year, only the Chicago Cubs and New York Yankees, pennant winners both, turned a profit. In 1933, only the New York Giants and Philadelphia Phillies were in the black. The Tigers averaged a scant 4,115 fans per game at Navin Field, a venue that seated 30,000. “Economically, it was a very tough decade for baseball,” notes Andrew Zimbalist, a sports economist at Smith College.3
In short, Navin had to put more people in the seats if he wanted his baseball team to remain solvent. He required a manager, but also a gate attraction. He had a man in mind that he felt could fill both roles.
His name was George Herman “Babe” Ruth.
Frank Navin’s pursuit of the Sultan of Swat is a tale retold by nearly every Ruth biographer and countless Tigers historians. It remains a classic case of missed opportunity, of what might have been. While the details differ depending on the source, the gist is the same.
Ruth, 38 years old and nearing the end as a player, had long expressed a desire to manage a major league team, the Yankees especially. Team owner Jacob Ruppert, however, would have none of it. In his eyes, the Babe was still a carouser, a clown who could not be taken seriously as a leader of men. Ruppert once told him, “You can’t manage yourself, Ruth. How do you expect to manage others?” In truth, Ruppert would just as soon dump his aging star. The Sultan of Swat was coming off a season in which he had hit “only” .301 with 34 home runs and 104 RBI. Solid numbers, by any measure, unless you were the Babe.
To Navin, however, Ruth was an enticing option, not merely as a player, but as a player-manager. Ruth could still hit the ball a mile, just not as often. Navin figured the Babe could bash a few homers and give fans a reason to come down to th
e corner of Michigan and Trumbull. Who knows, he just might prove to be a capable manager. It was a calculated risk. If Navin was harboring the idea, however, he kept it mum (he wasn’t known as Old Poker Face for nothing). As one writer put it, “Frank J. Navin, who accepted Harris’ resignation with regret, is saying nothing, except that Ruth and a lot of other good men have been suggested to him.”4
During the 1933 World Series between the Washington Senators and the New York Yankees, Navin contacted Ruppert about the possibility of acquiring Ruth. The two men agreed to a deal in principle, and it looked for a while as if Navin had his man. All he had to do was get Ruth to come to Detroit to work out the financial arrangements.
That was easier said than done. Navin phoned Ruth, who seemed excited by the news. He maintained, however, that he had plans to travel to San Francisco to board a Hawaiian-bound ship. Once on the islands, he would play a few pre-arranged exhibition games (and a round or two of golf on the side). Could Navin wait until he got back? Navin suggested that Ruth take a later boat. Not possible, Ruth countered, ending the call.
That did not get the negotiations off on the right foot, since Navin was not a man who liked to wait for anybody. When Ed Barrow, the Yankees’ general manager, heard about the conversation, he phoned Ruth to tell him he was making a mistake, and that he should see Navin right away or risk losing his big chance.
Ruth did not listen. Indeed, he only made things worse. While in California, he rang up Navin at his home, apparently forgetting the time difference, as it was two o’clock in the morning in Detroit. While Navin wiped the sleep out of his eyes, Ruth, in a crackly long-distance voice, demanded a percentage of the gate receipts, on top of his high salary. Navin, who had a reputation as a skinflint, immediately saw visions of money flying out the window. He hung up the phone, ending his flirtation with the Sultan of Swat.
The idea of Babe Ruth playing (and managing) for the Detroit Tigers seems the stuff of fantasy, and yet it is not entirely implausible. Navin did need a new manager, he did need a drawing card, and Ruth was available. At the time, however, Ruth never made any mention of an offer from Navin. Upon his arrival in Honolulu, a brief paragraph appeared in the New York Times stating flatly, “Ruth was unwilling to discuss the game in which he is the home run ‘king,’ except to say he had not as yet received an offer of a managership from any major league club.”5
To his dying day in 1948, Ruth insisted that nobody in Major League Baseball ever gave him the opportunity to manage a team. While Ruth admitted that Navin had indeed approached him, he could be vague as to what exactly they had discussed. Years later, Harry Grayson, the longtime sportswriter and editor, wrote, “Despite reports to the contrary, Ruth says he was never made any kind of an offer to manage a major league club. The late Frank J. Navin telephoned him in San Francisco as he was about to sail for Honolulu in the fall of 1933, said something about wanting to see the old home run king.”6 What exactly was that “something?” Surely, Navin did not want to get together with Ruth simply to have tea and crumpets. Big plans must have been in the works.
As for Barrow, he always believed Ruth blew it. According to one writer, “Barrow says that the Babe was offered the management of the Detroit Tigers and only his slowness in visiting the Motor City to sign his contract” caused the deal to fall through.7
So, if not Babe Ruth, who was going to be the new manager of the Detroit Tigers?
Among the potential names bantered about in the press and public were Del Baker, the Tigers’ interim manager for the final two games in 1933, along with Bill Killefer, former St. Louis Browns skipper. Also believed to be in the running were Steve O’Neill, the catcher on the world champion Cleveland Indians of 1920 and currently the manager of the Toledo Mud Hens of the American Association, and Oscar Vitt, the former Tigers third baseman who had some experience managing in the Pacific Coast League. Marty McManus, recently removed as manager of the Boston Red Sox, and Billy Evans, the longtime umpire and erstwhile general manager of the Indians, rounded out the possibilities.
Perhaps the most intriguing candidates were former Tigers star Harry Heilmann, who had retired following the 1932 campaign with a lifetime batting average of .342, and Charlie Gehringer, Detroit’s brilliant second baseman, who was still in his prime. Heilmann, however, quickly put an end to any discussion of becoming the Tigers’ new manager when he entered the race for Detroit city treasurer on October 10.
As for Gehringer, a story circulated that Navin had offered him the managerial post only to change his mind soon after. When Gehringer appeared in Navin’s office in late October to sign his new contract for 1934, both men shot the rumor down.
The man whom the Detroit Tigers eventually hired, however, was none of the aforementioned. Indeed, it was a selection seemingly out of left field. Navin did not get Ruth, but the fellow he landed instead was destined to change the course of baseball history in the Motor City. The great irony is that were it not for the Depression, it may never have happened.
Having passed on Ruth, Navin turned his direction to Mickey Cochrane, the Philadelphia Athletics’ catching star. The Athletics were owned by Connie Mack, who was struggling just like every other team in the poor economy, and perhaps more so. His team had drawn only 297,138 fans to Shibe Park in 1933, an average of 3,910. Attendance had fallen every season since the stock market crash of 1929, when the team drew 839,176. That year the Athletics won their first of three consecutive American League pennants, including World Series championships in 1929 and 1930. It was a star-studded squad featuring future Hall of Famers Jimmie Foxx, Al Simmons, Lefty Grove, and Cochrane. Nevertheless, by the end of the 1933 season, Mack could no longer stay afloat financially. Just as he had done with his first Athletics dynasty nearly two decades earlier, he planned a fire sale of his players in order to pay the bills.
Tigers owner Frank Navin, known as “Old Poker Face,” had a reputation as one of the game’s great horse traders (courtesy National Baseball Hall of Fame, Cooperstown, New York).
His one untouchable was Cochrane, an excellent defensive receiver and strong batsman who captured the American League Most Valuable Player award in 1928. In his nine seasons in Philly, he compiled a batting average of .321, with extra-base power, including 23 home runs in 1932. He had four straight years of +5.0 Wins Above Replacement (WAR), including 6.3 in 1933.8 Cochrane’s value, however, could not be measured in statistics alone. An inspiring leader, he was the sparkplug of those great Athletics clubs, a man driven to excel, who demanded nothing less from his teammates. At 30 years old, he was still in his prime.
A native of Bridgewater, Massachusetts, he was born Gordon Stanley Cochrane on April 6, 1903. Although of Scottish heritage, he was assumed to be Irish when signed to his first pro contract by scout Tom Turner. Consequently, he was always referred to as Mickey, at least in public. His parent just called him Gordon, but to the rest of his family he was Mike.
Ironically, baseball was not Cochrane’s first passion, football was. While at Boston University from 1921–1924, he starred on the gridiron as well as the basketball court, winning a total of ten sports letters (four of them in football). According to one story, “He was a halfback. He did the punting, drop-kicking, most of the ball-carrying, and was the best thrower of forward passes the eleven had.”9
He played baseball, too, but mostly as a shortstop and outfielder. It was only later, while with Dover in the Class D Eastern Shore League, that he first donned the tools of ignorance. The team needed a catcher, and Cochrane, because of his overall athleticism and quickness, was deemed the best candidate. He maintained that it was not entirely his choice. “I didn’t want to be a catcher, it was thrust upon me, as they say in the classics. In other words, I was shoved into it,” he told baseball writer John Kieran in 1931.10
Cochrane dropped out of BU to focus on professional baseball. In two minor league seasons with Dover and Portland, he hit a combined .328 before making the Athletics out of spring training in 1925. Barely 22 ye
ars old, he became an instant star, hitting .331. He benefitted greatly when former Tiger Ty Cobb joined the Athletics for his final two seasons in 1927 and 1928. Perhaps the most intense competitor ever to wear spiked shoes, Cobb taught Cochrane how to play the game to the last out, to fight for every advantage and never give an inch. The likeable Cochrane was a bright, articulate man and a student of the game, and Mack viewed him as future managerial material. Before the conclusion of the 1933 season, Mack insisted that he would “never sell or trade Cochrane, no matter what tempting offers of cash and players” were made for him.11 Cochrane was a student of human nature, a quality beneficial for any who would be a manager. “I guess I just took naturally to psychology at school,” he once remarked, “because I like to study folks.”12
Navin pitched Mack the idea of the Athletics sending Cochrane to Detroit to be player-manager. Mack initially asked for $125,000 and catcher Ray Hayworth.13 A solid receiver with a strong, accurate arm, Hayworth broke into the big leagues with the Tigers back in 1926. In 134 games in 1933, he hit only .245 with one home run and 45 RBI. It was not the kind of offense expected from the catching position. Navin made a counter-offer of $100,000 and catcher John Pasek, an expendable player whose big-league career consisted of 28 games for the Tigers in 1933, when he hit .246. While Mack did not initially accept the counter-offer, he did not reject it outright, either.
Navin personally lacked the cash anyhow. Even though he was the owner of a baseball team, he was not a particularly rich man. Most of his fortune had been lost following the stock market crash in 1929. At this stage, Walter O. Briggs enters the narrative. The founder of the Briggs Manufacturing Company (a producer of auto bodies), he was also a co-owner of the Tigers. Briggs had held a stake in the team since 1919, with his percentage gradually increasing until by 1933 he was nearly a full partner with Navin. While the latter was the public face of Tigers ownership, with Briggs preferring to stay behind the scenes, it was Briggs who had the deeper pockets. When he asked Navin how much Mack wanted for Cochrane, Navin told him $100,000. Briggs declared that Cochrane was worth every penny. Navin agreed, but insisted he himself could not afford such a price. With Major League Baseball’s winter meetings scheduled for Chicago in December, Briggs decided to loan Navin $100,000 in order to get their man. Additional phone conversations took place between Navin and Mack, during the course of which a verbal agreement was made to trade Cochrane to Detroit. They did not want it leaked to the press, however. Not yet, anyway.
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