Whose Kind of Team?

"***Once upon a time in the annals of New York National League baseball, Leo Durocher, then managing the Giants, pushed owner Horace Stoneham to purge his roster of its beloved mainstays for what Leo saw as a very practical reason: "It ain't my kind of team." If Leo had to wait around for balls to fly out of the Polo Grounds, there wasn't much managing for him to do. Soon after his midseason hiring in 1948, the transformation was on."

"Gone would be Stoneham's hallowed Window Breakers, the slow-footed sluggers who had set home run records in the process of finishing far from a pennant in 1947. Here came the scrappy middle infielders who could turn two in the field while showing themselves on the basepaths to be "scratching, diving, hungry ballplayers who come to kill you," and a general Giant ethos reflecting the "nice guys finish last" sentiment for which Durocher became most famous."

"Durocher may have been as obsessed by style when he left the ballpark - wearing "suits with the pockets sewn tight so he wouldn't be tempted to put something in them to ruin the line," per his 1990s biographer Gerald Eskenazi - but he didn't much care whether he was identified as a sweetheart while he was working as a player, coach, manager, or broadcaster, or simply being the all-around baseball man America came to know."

A stomach bug and the mention of Alonso and Diaz's introductory press conferences open the piece with a personal anecdote. In 1948 Leo Durocher, upon taking over the New York Giants, persuaded owner Horace Stoneham to overhaul a roster of beloved, slow-footed sluggers. Durocher replaced them with scrappy middle infielders who could turn two and run aggressively, embodying a "nice guys finish last" competitive ethos. He valued winning and hunger over genteel losing, expressed blunt opinions often couched in euphemism, and maintained a meticulous personal style even while embracing an uncompromising approach to baseball leadership.

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