Atlanta Braves Franchise Top Managers–#6 George Stallings
The Atlanta Braves’ worst-to-first season in 1991 echoes in fans’ minds today, but the 1914 Boston Braves did one better.
The history of the Atlanta Braves franchise is one of short-feasts and long-famines. The Bostons opened the 20th Century heading the wrong way: Kid Nichols bolted to the players league, the economy was weak, driving revenue down, and the roster aged quickly, sending the team to the bottom of the National League.
As I noted a few weeks ago, the team finished no higher than sixth place between 1903 through 1912. James Gaffney bought the club in 1911 and made Johnny Kling skipper, but Kling wasn’t able to prevent a fourth consecutive last-place finish, 52 games out of first. Gaffney fired Kling and hired George Stallings.
Stallings Early Career
George Tweedy Stallings’ Major League career consisted of four games without a hit in 1890, two games and one hit in 1897, and an appearance without coming to the plate in 1898; in all known games, he had 330 hits in 1508 PA.
He made good use of his time sitting on the bench and learned it well enough to manage his first of three clubs in 189. Stallings won his only minor league championship in 1895, taking the Nashville Seraphs to the Southern League title.
After a year with Detroit in 1896 in the American Association, the Phillies gave him his first Major League job as manager; they finished 10th of 12, started 1898 badly, and fired him.
Stallings returned to Detroit as minority owner and manager in 1899 and remained skipper through 1901, leading the Tigers to a 74-61 record and third-place finish in the American League’s inaugural season.
However, even a successful manager who’s also a minority owner of the team gets fired if he steps on the majority owner’s toes, particularly when the majority owner is American League president Ban Johnson.
The Comeback
Stallings returned to the minors for six years before deciding that having the League president fire you didn’t look good on his resumé, and retired to his Georgia plantation near Haddock, Georgia.
He resurrected a team that finished in seventh place with a 51- 103 – 1 record in 1908, leading them to a 74-77-2 fifth-place finish in 1909, and had a similar record near the end of 2010. However, Highlander first baseman Hal Chase, with the aid of Ban Johnson, convinced the owner to fire him and put Chase in charge.
A year after Chase lost his job, Gaffney hired him. Stallings later talked about his first impression of the Braves at the end of the 1912 season.
(I) have never seen any club in the big leagues look quite so bad. The players were slow, ambitionless, careless and incapable . . . (and showed a) lack of spirit . . .
Stallings the Manager
Stallings and Atlanta Braves manager Bobby Cox were alike. Bobby was a hard taskmaster, who lost his temper occasionally, never gave up on a game, and emphasized pitching by hiring Leo Mazzone as pitching coach.
Stallings wasn’t a touchy-feely lets-talk-about-it, manager. Newspaper reports quoted in The Miracle Braves of 1914, Boston’s Original Worst-to-First World Series Champions, suggested swore like a sailor and had a “legendary temper.” According to his SABR biography, Stallings was two different men
“a pitiless and abusive critic while the game is on. When the game is over, he is mingling with his players, among whom he is immensely popular, laughing and jollying them in preparation for the morrow.” (Harvey T. Woodruff in the Chicago Tribune, September 6, 1914)
Both managers were superstitious. We saw Bobby change where he stood in the dugout if luck was running against the Braves. Stallings did that as well, but his SABR biography indicated that he took it to extremes.
. . .Once, or so the story goes, he happened to be leaning over to pick up a pebble when the Braves started a rally; after it was over, he was so stiff he had to be helped off the field.
Unlike most managers, Stallings wore a suit and tie in the dugout. He got so nervous that he literally wore out the seat of his trousers sliding up and down the bench during games.
Atlanta Braves vs. Boston Braves worst-to-first
Comparing the worst-to-first runs must begin with the rosters, As GM Cox built a farm system that led to him taking over on the field. Stallings didn’t have that luxury; he was responsible for general manager duties as well as managing the team on the field.
Atlanta Braves players were well-paid professionals who came to spring training in shape and with an understanding of how the game is played.
Stallings’ squad consisted of poorly paid players who had to work at other jobs during the off-season to eat. Spring Training included more fitness work in one spring than Cox watched over in five with Atlanta.
Over the winter of 1912, Stalling began to “purchase, dicker and swap” players, a process he described as a fascinating puzzle. Just as Cox needed Leo Mazzone, Stallings needed Fred Mitchell.
I picked up Mitchell, the veteran catcher, who had been with me with the Yankees and in Buffalo, because . . . Mitchell is the greatest man in his line, to my way of thinking, at developing young pitchers. . . (Miracle Braves, page 338)
Years later, Stallings described his initial impression of the 1913 squad.
When I first faced the members of the Boston team in Macon, Ga. in the Spring of 1913, I had before me a misfit outfit, but some material with which to build and which could be developed, I felt sure. (Miracle Braves, page 340)
Hello, I’m the new boss.
Stallings introduced himself to his players that spring, by telling them what lay ahead.
“First . . . I am a strict disciplinarian. . .We are all here for work and not for play. We are here to begin training for a season of hard work (when) no ball game is . . . considered lost . . .until the last man is out . . .”
He began each day with two hours of “classroom” work to go over plays and warned players to take his classroom seriously. Two veterans didn’t, and he fired them on the spot.
Thirteen players remained from the 1912 squad to start the season; 20 games into the season, six were gone. Stallings sent catcher Hank Gowdy to Buffalo for seasoning, leaving three everyday players from the 1912 squad; Bill Rariden, second basemen Bill Sweeney, and shortstop Rabbit Maranville.
We watched the Atlanta Braves go through a long, painful rebuilding process. Stallings rebuilt the Boston Braves in two seasons. Among his early additions was pitching coach Fred Mitchell. Stallings gave him some new arms to polish, and he did his job well.
Rebuilding Pitching
Stallings retained pitchers Lefty Tyler, Otis Hess, Walt Dickson, and Herb Perdue to start 1913 and added two young, talented, but raw arms, Bill James and Dick Rudolph.
James didn’t qualify for the ERA title in 1913, but his 2.79 ERA and 118 ERA plus matched Hall of Famer Pete Alexander’s numbers. In 1914 James went 22-7, threw 332.1 innings pitching to a 1.90 ERA that was good for second in the league, posted a 7.8 rWAR, and finished third in voting for the Chalmers MVP Award.
I listed Rudolph at number seven in my 2019 post of the top-16 franchise-making trades because he was a stud. His first four seasons with the Braves were worth 17.4 rWAR, and despite injury and illness, his 11 seasons with the Braves were worth 21.4 rWAR
Retooling the Lineup
Stallings understood that his pitchers needed better defense and began filling that need by acquiring outfielder Joe Connolly off waivers. Connolly’s career ended after four years, but in his first three seasons, Connolly provided 8.0 rWAR.
In 1914 he added future hall of Famer Johnny Evers. Evers was 32 when he joined the Braves, but became the driving force behind the miracle finish. Evers and Maranville became the best double-play combination in the League, and it showed in MVP voting: Evers won the Chalmers Award in 1914, and Maranville finished second.
Atlanta Braves’ trades mirrored Boston Braves’ trades
During recent postseason runs, we’ve seen Atlanta Braves’ GM Alex Anthopoulos make in-season deals to try to put the team over the top. In 2021, he brought in a trio of outfielders that proved rather successful.
In 1914, Stallings traded for outfielders Ted Cather and Possum Whitted and brought power to third base by acquiring Red Smith from Brooklyn.
The story of their acquisitions is included in my top 16 acquisitions post linked here and above. Stallings needed all of those outfielders because he managed his team like no one had done before. Stallings was the first manager to platoon his outfielders based on the opposing team and pitchers.
Connolly killed right-handed pitching but struggled against lefties, while Whitted hit lefties well but struggled against same-sided hurlers. Cather had even splits and could play either corner.
His system worked so well that other teams copied it, but no manager used platoons more often or successfully than Stallings.
Epilogue
Stallings was a hard man to work for, but his players respected him and played hard for him. A note from his Sabre Biography sums that up.
The captain of those 1914 Braves, Johnny Evers, wrote that Stallings “will crab and rave on the bench with any of them,” yet he also wrote that “Mr. Stallings knows more base ball than any man with whom I have ever come in contact during my connection with the game.”
The Stallings’ philosophy on managing in his own words:
I have always contended that the secret of building a ball club is in making a team out of what you have in hand and then trading and purchasing and drafting to strengthen the flaws when the opportunities bob up. Many managers believe that as soon as they take charge of a club they must go out and buy ball players who have good records right and left. I don’t believe that a baseball machine which will eventually be successful can be purchased in these days. It must be carefully constructed, piece by piece. (Miracle Braves, page 338)
Stallings did the job exactly as he saw it.
The 1914 season was the pinnacle of Stallings’ career and the best the Braves would finish until 1947. He led the team to second place in 1915, and third in 1916, then age, injury, and lack of revenue started the downward spiral.
Stalling resigned after the 1920 season and managed in the minors until 1927. He was slated to manage the Montreal Royals in 1928 but spent the year in hospital suffering from heart disease.
When a doctor asked him if he knew why his heart was so bad, he supposedly replied, “Bases on balls, you s** of a b****, bases on balls.” (Baseball’s Most Notorious Personalities: A Gallery of Rogues. Jonathan Weeks)
Stallings died of heart failure on May 13, 1929, he was 61 years old.
That’s a Wrap
Newspapers referred to Stallings as the miracle man because he skippered the Braves to the 1914 World Series, but everything written about him points to a man who knew the game, had an eye for talent, and understood a manager’s job.
Next. After six comes seven.. dark
Many things changed in the last 108+ years. The game is more complex, but it’s heart remains the same, and Stalling’s philosophy of team building is still true. He’d understand what’s going on even if he would fit in today’s dugouts.