John McGraw made his debut as a major league manager on April 18, 1899 at the age of twenty-six. His Baltimore Orioles defeated the New York Giants (McGraw’s future team) 5-3 that day. McGraw’s managerial career would span 33 years, during which time he won ten pennants and three World Championships. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1937.
True story…I used to live very close to where McGraw was born in Upstate New York (as an aside, I believe his birthplace is the closest to Cooperstown of any Hall of Famer); there is a statue of him there which sits right at an evil hairpin curve in the highway, a road traversed by many an eighteen-wheeler in the snow belt, and it it’s never been so much as scratched. Don’t tell me Muggsy doesn’t have juice.
I find that I feel simultaneously awed and unsurprised by that story. The man was certainly a force to be reckoned with — a force that clearly continues to live on to this day!