{"id":119615,"date":"2018-10-26T10:04:23","date_gmt":"2018-10-26T14:04:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=119615"},"modified":"2021-04-01T14:33:56","modified_gmt":"2021-04-01T18:33:56","slug":"red-sox-vs-dodgers-in-1916-when-lewistons-rough-carrigan-led-boston","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2018\/10\/26\/red-sox-vs-dodgers-in-1916-when-lewistons-rough-carrigan-led-boston\/","title":{"rendered":"Red Sox vs. Dodgers in 1916, when Lewiston’s ‘Rough’ Carrigan led Boston"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Red Sox and Dodgers are in the World Series, just as they were 102 years ago, when Lewiston native Bill Carrigan managed the Sox.<\/p>\n

Back in 1916, the Dodgers were Brooklyn-based \u2014 they moved to Los Angeles in 1957\u00a0\u2014 and were known as the Robins, after their manager, Wilbert Robinson.<\/p>\n

The two coaches could not have been more different.<\/p>\n

Compared with the Dodgers’ rotund and avuncular manager, who was nicknamed “Uncle Robbie,” Boston’s Carrigan, who would later coach the Bates team in the 1930s, was a combative player-manager who led the Sox to World Series titles in 1915 and again in 1916.<\/p>\n

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At the 1916 World Series, Lewiston-born Red Sox manager Bill “Rough” Carrigan (right) shakes hands with Brooklyn skipper Wilbert “Uncle Robbie” Robinson. (Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, LC-DIG-ggbain-22968)<\/p><\/div>\n

A catcher who earned the nickname “Rough,” Carrigan was famous for blocking a runner’s path to the plate, which often led to spectacular collisions \u2014 and fights.<\/p>\n

According to The Irish in Baseball<\/em><\/a> (Carrigan was born to Irish immigrant parents), the ballplayer was “intelligent and well-spoken” off the field, “but one of baseball’s best fighters on it.”<\/p>\n

\u201cYou might as well try to move a stone wall,” Chicago White Sox manager Nixey Callahan once said<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Said Carrigan, “The first great requisite for success in baseball is nerve.”<\/p>\n

Brooklyn’s Robinson, on the other hand, was “like Falstaff,” The New York Times<\/em> wrote<\/a>, “not only witty himself but the cause of wit in others. His conversation was a continuous flow of homely philosophy, baseball lore, and good humor.”<\/p>\n

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As a catcher, Bill Carrigan was nicknamed “Rough” for his combative style of play. (Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, photograph by Harris & Ewing, LC-DIG-hec-06335)<\/p><\/div>\n

Babe Ruth, then with the Sox and mostly a pitcher (he won 23 games in 1916), called Carrigan his best-ever coach. In fact, it was Carrigan who urged the Sox to purchase Ruth’s minor league contract in 1914.<\/p>\n

In 1916 as now, the Boston fans and media brimmed with confidence.<\/p>\n

After the Sox won the 1916 series opener en route to the title, a story in the Lewiston Daily Sun<\/em> adopted a pitying tone toward the Dodgers, noting that Brooklyn lacked \u201cthe smooth, machine-like effectiveness and cooperation that makes the Red Sox so formidable in defensive work and the lightning-like attacks and tactics which prove so productive of winning scores.”<\/p>\n

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Babe Ruth (left) called Bill Carrigan (next to Ruth) his best-ever coach. It was Carrigan who urged the Sox to purchase Ruth’s minor league contract in 1914. (Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, LC-DIG-ggbain-20081)<\/p><\/div>\n

Carrigan retired after the 1916 season but returned to coach the Sox from 1927 to 1929, with little success.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese players didn\u2019t talk baseball,” he said. “They talked golf and stocks and where they were going after the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Returning to Lewiston, where he became a successful banker and businessman, he coached the Bates baseball team in 1933 and 1934, compiling an 8-13 record. He died in 1969 at age 85.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nicknamed “Rough” for his style of play, Carrigan once said that “the first great requisite for success in baseball is nerve.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":119630,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[24,31,224],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-119615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-athletics","category-lewiston-auburn","category-society-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119615"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119615\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":119631,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119615\/revisions\/119631"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}