They May Have Been A Headache But They Never Were A Bore

A reporter asked me for a reaction, and I was only too happy to oblige. "Leo's crack was inexcusable," I told him, "and it cannot be ignored. Unless he proves to me he didn't say it he's through, as far as I'm concerned. I don't care if he was just responding to somebody else's crack. He should have defended Walter right down the line. That's what Alston would have done had their positions been reversed. Also I'm not so sure Durocher would have won the pennant. And if he knew a way to win it, why didn't he tell Alston ?" I was plenty mad.

Then I ran into Leo in the hallway of the Friars Club in Los Angeles , and I told him to his face what I thought. I said he was very unfair to Walter, that Walter had been one of Leo's loudest backers when we hired him, that the ball club had done him a big favor and that he owed somebody a public apology. I got madder and madder as I spoke, and all poor Leo could do was keep repeating that I was giving him a bum rap, that he had never said what they said he said. A friend of mine came by at the height of the discussion, and later on he said to me, "What the hell was that all about? I've never seen Leo look so white!" I told Leo I ought to fire him right then and there, right in the hallway of the Friars Club. I told him Walter was twice the manager that he was, and twice the man, and I said, "I'd fire you right now, Leo, but you're working for Walter Alston , not me, and it's Walter Alston that'll either save your neck or fire you!"

Well, even at this late date I'm not prepared to tell anybody exactly what Leo did or didn't say that night. But, to give Durocher the benefit of the doubt, several reliable people came to me after I popped off and said that Leo had been misquoted, that somebody had said to Leo: "We never should have lost the pennant. I wish you were managing in that last game. We'd have won it." And Leo is supposed to have said, "I would have liked my chances going into the ninth with a two-run lead."

When I found this out I called Leo up and told him that I thought he was out of line, but not as out of line as I had been led to believe earlier. I didn't apologize—I still think Leo should have said that Walter had done a great job, and I still think that Leo wouldn't have had the Dodgers in the playoff in the first place—but I did tell Leo that the whole matter was forgotten as far as I was concerned and now it was just a routine question of whether Walter wanted him back as a coach. Leo said that would be fine with him.

I called Alston in and told him everything I knew, and he said, "He's a good coach. I want him back."

Two years later Leo came to the end of the line with us, and there were no hard feelings. Leo knew I liked to shuffle the coaching staffs every few years to bring more and more of our people into the major league pension plan, and 1964 was one of those times. Leo took it fine, and I know why. He was pretty sure he was going to get the St. Louis managing job when Johnny Keane quit. I don't know why he didn't. It's no rap on Red Schoendienst , but St. Louis could have made worse mistakes than hiring Leo Durocher . He was a Dodger coach for four years, and nobody in our organization has ever said he didn't do a first-class job. I was lucky to be able to bring him back to the Dodgers for that long, and I know Walter O'Malle was glad to have him, too. I don't know who is advising Walter on his family budget now that Leo is gone.