Eddie Dyer

Sport: Baseball

Induction Year: 1966

Eddie Dyer of Morgan City, La., won only 15 games in six years as a pitcher with the St. Louis Cardinals in the 1920s. But he came back to make baseball history a generation later by winning the World Series in his first year as a manager.

Dyer isn’t the only major league manger to win it all in his first year, but the list isn’t a long one. In 45 years since he accomplished the feat, the only additions have been Ralph Houck of the Yankees in 1961 and Tom Kelly of the Twins in 1987.

Unlike most rookie managers, Dyer was expect to win when he succeeded Billy Southworth as the Cardinals’ manager. After leading the team to three National League pennants in four years, Southworth resigned to take the same position with the Boston Braves—leaving behind a plethora of talent that would be strengthened by the return of servicemen such as Stan Musial and Enos Slaughter following World War II.

In a preseason Associated Press poll, the Cardinals came within four votes of being unanimous favorites for the league title. But three key players—pitchers Max Lanier and Fred Martin, and infielder Lou Klein—jumped to the Mexican League in May.

Lanier, with a 6-0 record in his first six starts, was considered the league’s best lefthander, if not its best pitcher. Martin was the Cardinals’ best righthander.

The Cardinals trailed Leo Durocher’s Brooklyn Dodgers by 7 ½ games on July 2, but managed to slice the deficit to 4 ½ games going into a four-game series in St. Louis that started on July 14.

Musial’s 12th inning home run in the nightcap highlighted a double header sweep on July 14, and the Cardinals rallied in the ninth inning of the final game to win it when pinch-hitter Erv Dusak, after failing in two attempts to lay down a sacrifice bunt, hit a three-run homer instead.

Another four-game series at Sportsman’s Park in late August resulted in a split, leaving the teams tied for first place in a two-team pennant race.

With the Cardinals’ pitching ace, Howie Pollet, suffering an arm injury in a mid-September game with the Cubs when he made a relief appearance without loosening up properly, the two teams were still tied at the end of the regular-season play—forcing the first playoff in major league baseball history.

When the Dodgers won the coin toss, Durocher chose to open the series in St. Louis—giving his team the home field advantage if a third game in the best-of-three series was necessary.

All 25,000 tickets at Sportsman’s Park were quickly sold out, and scalpers sold box seats for as much as $20. the pitchers wee Pollet and Ralph Branca, who had thrown a three-hit shutout at the Cardinals in Ebbets Field on Sept. 14.

Branca had no more success in the playoff opener than he had in a more famous playoff with the Giants five years later—when Bobby Thomson hit the “shot heard round the world” off Branca. In 1946, he didn’t get past the third inning as the Cardinals scored a 4-2 victory.

The second game, played before a crowd of 31,437 at Ebbets Field, wasn’t that close. After Brooklyn jumped off to a 1-0 lead, St. Louis scored eight unanswered runs in an 8-4 blowout. The Dodgers scored three runs in the ninth inning and had the tying run at the plate with one out, but relief pitcher Harry “The Cat” Brecheen struck out Eddie Stanky and Howie Schultz to wrap up the pennant.

The Cardinals had to play catch-up with the Boston Red Sox in the World Series. The Red Sox won the opener, 3-2, and the two teams proceeded to swap victories until the final game at Sportsman’s Park. With the score tied at 3-3 in the bottom of the eighth inning, Slaughter led off with a single and raced home on Harry Walker’s liner over shortstop for the winning run.

To say the least, it was an impressive debut for Dyer as a manager. The following year, he even received one vote for the Cooperstown Hall of Fame.

Dyer managed the Cardinals four more years, but the team didn’t make it back to the World Series. His Redbirds were runners-up to the Dodgers in 1947 and 1949, and second behind the Boston Braves in 1948.

In 1949, the Cardinals led the Dodgers by a game with four games to play. But St. Louis proceeded to lose three in a row.

The Cardinals still had a chance for another playoff after a 13-5 victory over the Chicago Cubs in their final game, because the Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies were going into extra innings. But this time, history didn’t repeat itself. Brooklyn scored two runs in the top of the tenth inning and held on for a 9-7 victory.

St. Louis slumped to fifth place the following year, ending Dyer’s managing career.

Dyer was an outstanding athlete at Morgan City High, finishing third in the 880 yard run in the State Rally at LSU. He lettered in three sports (football, baseball, track) at Rice Institute, winning the Southwest Conference championship in the broad jump and earning a berth on the All-SWC football team in 1920. He was the Owl’s football captain in 1921.

The “little Cajun lefthander” made his major league debut with the Cardinals the following summer.