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| John McGraw |
President Donald Trump stirred up a hornet’s nest with another one of his tweets, this time second guessing Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts Saturday night. Trump took Roberts to task for lifting starting pitcher Rich Hill in Game 4 of the World Series.
But long before there was Donald Trump, there was John McGraw, Hall of Fame manager of the New York Giants. Nicknamed “Little Napoleon,” McGraw managed the Giants from 1902 to 1932, winning three World Series and 10 National League pennants.
McGraw, however, was not averse to criticizing managers of other clubs. And so it was, in the Oct. 9, 1927 edition of the New York Times, on the day after the vaunted 1927 New York Yankees completed a four-game sweep of the Pittsburgh Pirates in the World Series, McGraw was out there criticizing Bucs manager Donie Bush. Down 3-0 entering the seventh inning of the fourth game, the Pirates placed runners at first and second with nobody out. That’s when Bush ordered future Hall of Farmer Lloyd Warner to bunt, illiciting McGraw to criticize the strategy.
“John McGraw was much upset when Lloyd Waner was ordered to bunt with men on first and second and nobody out in the Pirates seventh,” noted the Times. “The Pirates got only two runs out of it and McGraw thought they might have made more if Waner had been allowed to hit.”
So 91 years before Trump, there was McGraw, quoted in the New York Times. Presumably “Little Napoleon’s” Twitter account was not working that day.
