The World Series winning managers of the Atlanta Braves, part 1

Some you know, and some you won’t, but the Atlanta Braves franchise has employed some memorable title-winning skippers.

This is part 1 of an (unfortunately) short series about the managers that have led a team now known as the Atlanta Braves to their four World Series titles.

Brian Snitker is the 45th different manager hired to run this club that has a legacy dating back all the way to 1871 when Hall of Famer Harry Wright filled out the lineup cards (did they use lineup cards back then?) for the first of 11 seasons.

I’ll save some of the lore about other managers for a later follow-up visit on this topic, but it took until 1903 for the National League to agree to a season-ending series with their champion taking on the champs of the fledgling American League.

Even then, it was difficult to get this ‘World Series’ going.  In 1904, the New York Giants refused to play the Boston Americans of the AL.  Happily for baseball fans, that club yielded in 1905 and the Fall Classic has been a constant since then … aside from a strike upending things in 1994.

Coming into the 1914 season, the upstart AL was actually starting to dominate the series, winning 6 of the first 10 matchups and heavily favored that year.

But these were the Miracle Braves.

George Stallings was their manager.  This wasn’t his first rodeo, by any means, but he wasn’t exactly a highly-decorated field general, either.

Stallings was an MLB player with a non-distinguished career of 7 games and 22 plate appearances scattered between 1890 and 1898.  As a utility sub, he had all of 2 major league hits — both with the Philadelphia Phillies as a 29-year-old player/manager.

He managed the Phillies in 1897 and 1898, finishing 10th and 6th in a 12-team league.

Stallings then bounced around, getting managerial jobs again in 1901 with 3rd-place Detroit and then in 1909-10 with the New York Highlanders… the team that became known as the Yankees starting in 1913.

His “pre-Yankees” finished 5th and 2nd in those years in an 8-team AL, going 88-63 in 1910, though still finishing 14½ games behind Connie Mack‘s powerful Athletics club.

Stallings did more managing in the minor leagues in some of those “betweener” years, but was called back to the majors after the 1912 season to take the reins of the Boston Braves.

Rescuing the Boston Braves

The  Braves had just completed a sad run… 4 years in a row finishing in last place and six more years no better than 6th… and the NL was down to just 8 teams since 1900.

Nothing was working… the team changed names from the Beaneaters (through 1906) to the Doves (through 1910… and they played like doves), and the Rustlers (in 1911).  In 1912, there was one more name change:  they became the “Braves”.

Yet from 1909 to 1912, the team was no better than 50.5 games out of first place.

Good luck, George.

1913 offered a glimmer of hope.  Under Stallings’ leadership, Boston won 17 more games than in 1912 (a 25 game improvement over 1911) and finished in 5th place.  Not great, but still better than any season since 1902.

But then 1914 started and things looked like it was the same old thing again.  By the time July 15th rolled around, Boston was in last place again… 33-43 and 11.5 games behind the front-running New York Giants (44-31).

A couple of things that Stalling still had going for him, though:

• Yes, they were last, but only 4½ games out of 4th place… so respectability wasn’t that far away.
• Stallings had a plan to overcome his team’s hitting woes.
• A mid-season roster deal helped out in a hurry.

In short, he went with his team’s strengths rather than simply rolling out the same players every day.

Baseball historian Bill James gives Stallings credit as the first manager to use platooning as an offensive weapon.

Outfielders Larry Gilbert and were the weapons he used in this way, with Gilbert getting most of the starts against Right-handers, and Possum Whitted getting to see southpaws more often.  Other outfielders saw similar action, and with this plan, Boston maintained a league-average hitting level.

Red Smith was on the Brooklyn Dodgers when the 1914 season began, but halfway through it, the Dodgers were through with Smith. Smith was seen as a troublemaker and Boston wanted to improve on Charlie Deal‘s .210 average, so they took him in.

Smith thrived, hitting .314 for the Braves that Summer and stayed with the club through the end of his career in 1919.

Stallings’ pitching was mostly carried by three starters:  Dick Rudolph, Bill James (a different one!), and Lefty Tyler.  They averaged roughly 310 innings with ERA’s below 2.70 (James threw to a 1.90!).

Rudolph and James both won 26 games… and all of that helped Stallings’ club go on a tear.

After July 15th, the Braves went 61-16 for the rest of the season… blowing by the entire National League.  The Giants barely tread water at 40-39 and nearly ended up trailing the Braves by the same margin as they led by on July 15.

A Statement Series

But still… the 99-53 Philadelphia A’s came into the World Series as the heavy favorites.  After all, Connie Mack had them back for the 4th time in 5 years, winning the 3 previous times.

Instead, the tables were turned as the Braves swept the A’s, recording the first complete sweep in any World Series to that point (1907 had a game end in a tie).

Stallings continued as Braves manager through the 1920 season, though was unable to have his club duplicate the 1914 success.

They finished 2nd and 3rd in 1915-16, respectively, but then fell to 6th and 7th place finishes thereafter.

Stallings’ record with the Braves was 579-597.  Overall as a big-league manager, his teams were 879-898.

Curiously enough given the later fortunes of this franchise, George Stallings was born in Augusta, Georgia.  He passed away at the age of 61 on May 13th, 1929 in the town of Haddock, GA… right in the center of the state.