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Marse Joe and Me:

Recalling Baseball’s Greatest Manager

By Robert O’Brian

Reviewed by

Gary Livacari

Many thanks to author Robert O’Brian for sending me a copy of his interesting book, Marse Joe and Me, Recalling Baseball’s Greatest Manager. In it, Robert details the improbable story of how his then-thirteen-year-old father – a paperboy in Buffalo, New York, in the 1930s during the grim days of the Great Depression – was befriended by Joe McCarthy and his wife, Babe. It was a friendship that lasted for the rest of their lives until McCarthy passed away on January 13, 1978, at the age of 90.

The McCarthys had no children of their own; and so, incredible as it may seem, they developed a fondness for young Bobby O’Brian as he delivered The Buffalo Evening News to their home at 52 Gates Circle in Buffalo. Over time, they basically “adopted” the young lad, and he became a surrogate son. Through his father’s recollections recounted in the book, author Robert O’Brian paints a compelling picture of the man many consider the greatest manager in baseball history, a sentiment shared by both the author and his father.

After graduating from Niagara University in 1906, Joe McCarthy began a 20-year career playing and managing in the minors, including a stint with the Buffalo Bisons in 1914. Although he never played in the big leagues, he was given a chance to manage the Cubs in 1926 by owner William Wrigley. Within four years, McCarthy – along with an infusion of talent that included Rogers Hornsby and Hack Wilson – transformed the cellar-dwelling Cubs into the 1929 National League pennant winners, making their first World Series appearance since 1918.  Even though Wrigley fired him in 1931, Joe remained fiercely loyal for the rest of his life to the man who gave him his first break.

Of course, better, record-setting days lie just ahead, as Joe was soon given the Yankee reins by owner Jacob Ruppert. His historic, sixteen-year tenure in New York (1931-1946) included eight American League pennants and seven World Series championships, which propelled him onto the list of all-time great managers, arguably the best ever.

Most impressive was his four consecutive World Series championships from 1936 to 1939. He became the first manager in baseball history to win pennants in both leagues. His years in New York were followed by three disappointing seasons at the Boston Red Sox helm. Over his 24-year managerial career, Joe compiled a 2125-1330 record, with a .615 winning percentage, the highest in major league history. Remarkably, his teams never once finished out of the first division.

Although Joe McCarthy had the reputation as a serious, stern, no-nonsense taskmaster, he had a “warm and ebullient, if not quite jovial side,” according to O’Brian:

“The old man waxed nostalgic about the days of vaudeville and, my father told me, never missed a segment of The Pig and Whistle, the Irish pub music and dance show featured on Canadian television in the 60s and 70s. Joe was close enough to George M. Cohan to serve as a pallbearer at the Broadway song-and-dance genius’s funeral at St. Patrick’s Cathedral.”

Although his tense relationship with Babe Ruth is well documented (Babe thought he should have gotten the Yankee manager job in 1931), Robert O’Brian recounts one amusing story between the two baseball icons. One afternoon in the Yankee locker room, Babe showed McCarthy a scorecard from 1914 memorializing the day that the Babe, as a rookie pitcher for the minor league Baltimore Orioles, struck Joe out four times! They both had a good laugh as Joe claimed he was batting fourth that day, adding, ”You never batted cleanup in your life!” reminding the Babe that he always batted third, as his uniform number indicated. 

In an email exchange with the author, O’Brian shared with me a few interesting personal tidbits about the relationship he and his father (who passed away in 2017) had with the great Hall of Famer:

• When I asked him what his friends thought about his family’s friendship with Joe McCarthy, Robert informed me that he encountered the most interest while at the University of Albany because “there were more Yankee fans there than in Buffalo.”
• His father received some benefits from the friendship, as Joe gave him passes to some Yankee games, some World Series pins, a Yankee uniform, autographs, press passes, and he even got a World Series ring from Joe.
• Robert told me that Joe’s favorite meal was spaghetti and meatballs, that he had glaucoma, causing his eyes to tear occasionally, and that he was a bit deaf when he met him, and he’d “look at my father when the kids spoke and say, ‘What’d he say?’”
• Recalling his loyalty to the Wrigley family, he remembers Joe saying, “Don’t chew any gum but Wrigley’s. “
• Robert described his father as “engaging, charismatic, and charming” with a likeable personality and disposition. He thinks these qualities are what attracted the McCarthys to him. 
• During the Depression, Mrs. (Babe) McCarthy would “knock on her window and hold up a chicken leg or breast and motion for [my father] to step inside for a hot meal…”
• Joe offered to give his 1959 Fleetwood Cadillac to Robert’s father, his surrogate son,  but he refused it, saying, “It was just too big.”
• Joe and Babe McCarthy were, in his father’s estimation, “serious Catholics, very devout.”
• Robert also remembers that the McCarthys’ dog was named Colonel.

  

The author recalls the first time he met Joe McCarthy in 1966. The seven-year-old boy was sitting on McCarthy’s lap at his grandfather’s funeral at a funeral home on Hertel Avenue. He also recalls the high regard in which many of McCarthy’s greatest players held him:

• “Never a day went by that you didn’t learn something from Joe McCarthy” –Joe DiMaggio
• “To me, McCarthy was the greatest manager ever.” –Phil Rizzuto
• “[I was fortunate] to have spent nine years with that outstanding leader, that smart student of psychology, the greatest manager in the game today, Joe McCarthy..” -Lou Gehrig, from his Luckiest Man speech
• “I loved Joe McCarthy.” –Ted Williams (echoing the sentiments of Gehrig, Bill Dickey, and a thousand others, according to the author).

In this moving passage, O’Brian captures the intangible essence of Joe McCarthy’s greatness and the high esteem in which his players held him:

“This was not the slobbering, sentimental, ultimately superficial love…This was, rather, the love and devotion of the general-statesman; a magnanimity fused with a kind of Celtic stoicism that once made men out of boys; and winners, champions, out of those temporarily at a loss. The word ‘inspire’ means to ‘breathe into’ and Marse Joe McCarthy was nothing if not inspired and inspiring, breathing life into faltering, stagnant teams. He was not a father in the biological sense, but Gehrig, DiMaggio, Ted Williams, as well as my own father, were just four of his sons…McCarthy knew that it is by striving unselfishly for the greater good, by being a team player, that one realizes one’s individual greatness…”

Was Joe McCarthy the greatest manager ever? It’s hard to refute that claim and a case can certainly be made. The acolytes thrown his way by many of the game’s immortals are an unmistakable testament to that assessment. While McCarthy is often accused by his detractors of being a “push-button manager,” he always had a ready response: “Maybe, but I knew which button to push,” ever content to let his record speak for itself.

Readers of Marse Joe and Me will discover a warmer, more rounded and nuanced portrayal of Joe McCarthy than we find by just reading the cold statistics found on the pages of the Baseball Encyclopedia. This was a complex man who reached the pinnacle of his profession, and yet remained grounded throughout his life: his fame and unprecedented success never seemed to swell his ego. It’s really not surprising that he saw nothing unusual about befriending for life a thirteen-year-old paperboy. He was also a man who remained a loyal and devoted husband to his ailing wife, even as she descended into terminal dementia – quite a testament to his character.

Marse Joe and Me is a book I can highly recommend, and one that baseball history fans of all stripes will find enjoyable. Robert O’Brian had provided the baseball world with a great service by developing for us the character of this Hall of Famer through the reflections of his father. No matter how you may view Joe McCarthy and his historic career – was he a great manager or did he just benefit from having great teams? –  he was a unique baseball personality from a bygone era, and it’s safe to say we may never see his likes again.

Gary Livacari

Robert O’Brian lives in Westchester County, New York, Ossining, Lower Hudson Valley. He has a law degree from the University of Buffalo and a Master’s degree from Columbia School of Journalism. He is an editor and writer

Photo Credits: All found on Google search

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