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One of the Most Lopsided Trades Ever: The Dodgers Steal Billy Herman From the Cubs…and Win the 1941 Pennant!
“I was able to tell Dodger GM Larry MacPhail we had a hell of a ball club there. But we could win the whole thing with one other player.” “And who was that?” MacPhail wanted to know. “Billy Herman,” I said in no uncertain terms…
The above exchange is from Leo Durocher’s great autobiography, “Nice Guys Finish Last.” Leo was the manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1941 and was letting GM Larry MacPhail know that, in his opinion, the Dodgers were just one player away from getting over the top…and the player who could bring the Dodgers a pennant was the Cubs’ great second baseman, Billy Herman. But could they get him?
The Dodgers eventually landed Billy Herman from the Cubs. In Leo’s words: “The deal for Billy Herman won the pennant for us.” And who, you might ask, did the Dodgers give up to get this future Hall-of-Fame second baseman, the player whose slidification of the Dodger infield put them into the Fall Classic? None other than two long-forgotten players, Charley Gilbert and Johnny Hudson, plus $65,000 – surely one of the most lopsided deals ever.
At the time of the trade, Billy Herman had been the premier second-baseman in the National League for nine years and had become universally accepted as the classic #2 hitter in baseball. According to Durocher, Herman was “an absolute master in hitting behind the runner.” In addition, Leo knew Herman to be a smart player and a defensive whiz who would be a great complement to PeeWee Reese. Herman was coming off a sub-standard offensive year in 1940. Plus Durocher had heard that Herman – who Leo described as a “convivial chap with a coterie of close friends and drinking companions on the Cubs” – was upset in Chicago and wanted out. And with good reason…
Everyone thought of Herman was definite managerial material. But when the Cubs fired Gabby Hartnett at the end of the 1940 season, new GM Jimmy Gallagher gave the manager’s job to outsider Jimmy Wilson. Billy thought he earned the job and felt slighted, and he was letting everyone know it. Adding all the pieces together, Leo calculated that MacPail might be able to spring Herman from the Cubs “on the cheap.” He figured Gallagher would be only too happy to get rid of the malcontent, Herman. Leo’s analysis proved to be accurate and the trade was made about two weeks into the 1941 season.
In a really funny baseball anecdote, Leo related how the trade for Herman came about:
“MacPhail had apparently been talking to Gallagher and Wilson about Herman, and as soon as the Cubs come to New York, they invited MacPhail up to their suite. Very quickly Larry had decided they were trying to get him drunk. You should have heard him the next day as he was describing how he had kept emptying his drinks into flowerpots, toilet bowls, and any other handy receptacle. ‘And every time they were pouring for me, I was pouring for them.’ How could anybody doubt it? For the best second-baseman in the league, he had given them a second-string outfielder and a utility infielder!”
And the rest, as they say, is history! No doubt the Dodger got the better end of this deal — truly one of the most lopsided in baseball history!
Over his 15-year major league career (in which he lost two years to military service), the often-overlooked Billy Herman hit .304, with 2345 hits, 1163 runs scored, 486 doubles, 82 triples, 839 RBIs, and a .367 OPS. The 10-time All-Star regularly hit .300 or higher, including .341 in 1935, and his 227 hits and 57 doubles led the league that year. Herman holds the National League records for most putouts in a season by a second baseman and led the league in putouts seven times. He played on four pennant winners (1932, ‘35, ‘38, ‘41), plus another as a coach for the World Series champion Dodgers in 1955. He later managed the Pirates and Red Sox with little success. Billy Herman was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1975.
-Gary Livacari
Photo Credits: All from Google Search
Information: Excerpts and quotes edited from “Nice Guys Finish Last,” by Leo Durocher; and the Billy Herman Wikipedia page.
Statistics; From Baseball-Reference,com, Billy Herman page
