Daily Conlon: 55 through 63

Here are Daily Conlon cards numbered 55 through 63. I'm still waiting for a Dodger to show up in a Dodger uniform. Oh well, I guess Heinie Manush (located on the bottom row, far right) will do.

Heinie Manush didn't play for the Dodger for very long, only during the tail end of his career, where he spent his last season as a regular player. He batted .333 for Brooklyn in 1937 while knocking in 73 runs and scoring 57 times. Not to shabby for an old guy. Since he didn't spend much time with us I'll pass along a story from the 1933 World Series when he was a member of the Washington Senators. He was thrown out of Game 3 for an incident that, I dare say, would never happen today. This excerpt is from the SABR biography project that tells the story.

It was a thrill to be in the World Series, but Manush was terribly disappointed in his performance. During the Series, he took it out on the umpires. In Game 3, the Senators had the tying run on second with two out in the sixth inning, when Manush hit a ball past a diving Bill Terry that Howie Critz somehow grabbed and flipped to Hubbell to nip Manush -- that is, according to umpire Charlie Moran. It was an extremely close play, and an enraged Senators outfielder and his infuriated manager hotly debated the call! The home plate umpire finally broke up the fierce confrontation by ordering Cronin and Manush to take their positions in the field. While Cronin reluctantly sauntered out to shortstop, Manush gave Moran one more verbal blast on his way out to right field and was tossed from the game. It took all of Cronin’s strength to restrain his right fielder from attacking Moran. After being dragged off the field, Manush had to be physically restrained from throwing things at the first-base umpire. Washington fans showed their displeasure at the call by heaving hundreds of soda bottles in the umpire’s direction. Manush recalled the play years later. “It actually was more than an argument,” he said. “Moran had every right to chase me when I tell you what I did. I was too smart to lay a hand on Moran when I was arguing the call. But when he bellied up to me and asked me what I wanted to make of it, there was a temptation that was too great. Moran, like the other umps in those days, was wearing a black bow tie, the kind that comes with an elastic band. What I did was grab the tie and let it snap back into Moran’s neck. That’s when he gave it to me.”