Миллер Хаггинс: Америкалық бейсболшы және жаттықтырушы

American baseball player and manager (1878–1929)

Miller James Huggins (March 27, 1878 – September 25, 1929) was an American professional baseball player and manager. Huggins played second base for the Cincinnati Reds (1904–1909) and St. Louis Cardinals (1910–1916). He managed the Cardinals (1913–1917) and New York Yankees (1918–1929), including the Murderers' Row teams of the 1920s that won six American League (AL) pennants and three World Series championships. Huggins was born in Cincinnati. He received a degree in law from the University of Cincinnati, where he was also captain on the baseball team. Rather than serve as a lawyer, Huggins chose to pursue a professional baseball career. He played semi professional and minor league baseball from 1898 through 1903, at which time he signed with the Reds. As a player, Huggins was adept at getting on base. He was also an excellent fielding second baseman, earning the nicknames "Rabbit", "Little Everywhere", and "Mighty Mite" for his defensive prowess and was later considered an intelligent manager who understood the fundamentals of the game. Despite fielding successful teams for the Yankees in the 1920s, he continued to make personnel changes in order to maintain his teams' superiority in the AL. He was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee in 1964.

Huggins was born on March 27, 1878, in Cincinnati, where his father, an Englishman, worked as a grocer. But Huggins played semi professional baseball in 1898 for the Cincinnati Shamrocks, a team organized by Julius Fleischmann, He was admitted to the bar, but never practiced law.

Huggins began his playing career in minor league baseball with the Mansfield Haymakers of the Class B Interstate League in 1899. He continued his minor league apprenticeship with the St. Paul Saints of the American Association from 1901 through 1903. In 1903, he pulled off the first delayed steal in recorded baseball history. In 1908, he played with the Reds in the Cuban American Major League Clubs Series. Hampered by a broken ankle and torn ligaments in his shoulder, he slumped to .209 in 1909. On July 13, 1911, he tied the NL record for successful fielding chances in a game with 16. Team owner Helene Hathaway Britton preferred Huggins' "gentlemanly" manner over Bresnahan's rougher personality. With the acquisition of speed in a trade with the Pittsburgh Pirates, including Dots Miller, Art Butler, Cozy Dolan and Chief Wilson, the Cardinals contended for the NL pennant in 1914. Finishing in third place, it was the Cardinals' best finish since 1876, Ruppert himself had been put off by Huggins' wool cap and practice of smoking pipes in public, which he felt was the mark of the working class. The hiring of Huggins drove a wedge between the two co owners that culminated in Huston selling his shares of the team to Ruppert in 1922.

quote box|align=right|width=25%|quote="I call him the squarest shooter I ever knew in baseball." |source= – Lou Gehrig on Huggins Upon taking over the Yankees, he stressed fundamental baseball, drilling the Yankees in the art of the bunt. a move that led to criticism in the press. In Huggins' first season with the Yankees, the team finished fourth in the AL. After that season, he obtained Ernie Shore, Dutch Leonard and Duffy Lewis from the Boston Red Sox, for Ray Caldwell, Frank Gilhooley, Slim Love, and Roxy Walters. Babe Ruth resisted Huggins' discipline; he did not respect Huggins due to his small stature, soft spoken nature, and inability to fight,

Coming into the 1921 season, Huggins was still experiencing criticism in the press. Hugh Fullerton wrote that "in the past Huggins has not shone as a leader of men". By that season, Huggins developed Aaron Ward, Wally Pipp, and Bob Shawkey. The Yankees won their first AL pennant in 1921,

Before the 1922 season, Huggins acquired Johnny Mitchell from the Vernon Tigers of the Pacific Coast League and traded fan favorite Roger Peckinpaugh along with Rip Collins, Bill Piercy, and Jack Quinn to the Red Sox for Everett Scott, Bullet Joe Bush, and Sad Sam Jones. The Yankees repeated as AL champions that season,

The Yankees won their first World Series in 1923, preventing the Giants from repeating as champions for the third consecutive season. They were unable to retain their title the following season however, finishing second in the AL to the Washington Senators. However, the team continued to struggle; amid rumors that he might replace Huggins, Ruppert stated that "Miller Huggins will be manager as long as he cares to be". The Yankees fell to seventh place in the AL that season. Huggins suspended Ruth indefinitely on August 29, 1925, for "misconduct off the playing field", while also fining him $5,000 ($ in current dollar terms), and as it was an away game in St. Louis, Ruth was ordered to pay his own way back to New York. The actual reason was because he arrived late for batting practice after yet another night out the night before, though it was a culmination of his pranks and insistence of recruiting less able teammates to go clubbing with him, causing them to nurse hangovers. Ruth was reinstated on September 5. Ruth did not challenge Huggins' authority again. That season, Huggins won his fourth pennant with the Yankees in 1926, marking the first time that a team won a pennant after finishing seventh the year prior. However, the Yankees lost the 1926 World Series to the Cardinals in seven games. Winning the pennant once again in the 1927 season, Huggins matched Cap Anson's mark of five pennants in seven seasons. That year, the Yankees benefited from the development of George Pipgras and Wilcy Moore, winning the AL by 19 games. The Yankees swept the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 1927 World Series. This team became known as Murderers' Row, and is considered one of the greatest teams in baseball history. Huggins supplemented his team by acquiring Bill Dickey from the minor leagues. He acquired Stan Coveleski, who was attempting to return to his peak years, but released him in August when the former star continued to struggle. The Yankees reached the 1928 World Series, winning their sixth pennant in eight years,

Huggins continued to tinker with his roster during the offseason. He traded Dugan, Mike Gazella, Rosy Ryan and Pat Collins, He tried Lary at third base and Leo Durocher at shortstop, The Yankees' club physician, in consultation with other doctors, decided to administer blood transfusions. But despite their best efforts, Huggins died at the age of 51 on September 25, 1929, of pyaemia. The American League canceled its games for September 27, the day of his funeral, and his viewing at Yankee Stadium drew thousands of tearful fans. A moment of silence was held for Huggins before the start of Game 4 of the 1929 World Series (at Philadelphia's Shibe Park, after which the A's overcame an 8–0 Cubs advantage with 10 runs in the last of the seventh for a spectacular 10–8 come from behind victory and a 3–1 Series advantage). He was interred in Spring Grove Cemetery in his native Cincinnati.

Huggins was listed at 5 feet (2 m) and His small stature inspired the nicknames "Mighty Mite" and the "Mite Manager". He was also known as "Rabbit" and "Little Everywhere" for his ability to cover ground in the infield. He led the league in walks four times and regularly posted an on base percentage near .400. He scored 100 or more runs three times and regularly stole 30 or more bases for 324 lifetime steals. On the downside, in 1914 he set the single season caught stealing record in the National League, when he was thrown out 36 times (as opposed to 32 successful steals). Huggins finished his managerial career with a 1413–1134 record. His 1413 wins as a manager ranks 23rd all time (as of the start of the 2012 season). He learned his managerial strategy by observing Hanlon and Bresnahan. His managerial style at first emphasized speed, base stealing, hit and run plays and "slap" (i. e., contact) hitting, but the acquisition of superstar slugger Ruth dictated a change of emphasis towards power and not giving away outs. For the slugging Yankees of the 1920s, he recruited power hitters and consistent (as opposed to brilliant) pitchers. Bill James ranked Huggins as the 37th best second baseman of all time in 2001 in his The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract. The Yankees dedicated a monument to Huggins on May 30, 1932, placing it in front of the flagpole in center field at Yankee Stadium. Huggins was the first Yankees legend granted this honor. Later, posthumous monuments were added there for Lou Gehrig in 1941, and Babe Ruth in 1949. These always remained within the field of play, so long as Yankees Stadium maintained its original commodious outfield dimensions (that reached 461 feet in right center). Many years later, with the outfield shrunk to barely over 400 feet in a sweeping stadium remodel, the memorials were relocated to a "Monument Park" created behind the centerfield fence, and dedicated in 1976. Since that time, additional monuments have been placed for Mickey Mantle (1996), Joe DiMaggio (1999), and George Steinbrenner (2010), again all posthumous. The plaque on Huggins’ monument describes him as "A splendid character who made priceless contributions to baseball." The Yankees also named a field at Al Lang Stadium, their spring training home in Florida, after Huggins. Huggins was included on the ballot for the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1937, 1938, 1939, 1942, 1945, 1946, 1948, and 1950, failing to receive the number of votes required for election on those occasions. Named in the Honor Rolls of Baseball in 1946, the Veterans Committee elected Huggins to the Hall of Fame in February 1964,

Huggins was a private man who kept to himself. He lived in Cincinnati during the winters while playing for the Reds and Cardinals, Huggins did not marry, although he sold them in 1926 (three years before the stock market crash, fortunately for him) as they took too much of his time away from baseball. He enjoyed playing golf and billiards in his spare time. He was portrayed by Ernie Adams in The Pride of the Yankees, Fred Lightner in The Babe Ruth Story, Bruce Weitz in Babe Ruth, and Joe Ragno in The Babe.