DATE: 1950s ORIGINAL or REPRINT: Type 3 - Second or later-generation photo, printed from a duplicate negative or wire photo process, within about 2 years of when it was shot TEAM: Brooklyn Dodgers SUBJECTS: Chuck Dressen, Rick Ferrell, Jake Pitler, Clyde Sukeforth, Cookie Lavagetto, Birdie Tebbetts, John McHale APPROXIMATE SIZE: 10"x8-1/8" NUMBER OF PHOTOS: 4 COMMENTS / CONDITION: This is one of a large accumulation of vintage sports photographs, slides and negatives that we will be listing over the coming months. Wear on these, if any, is mostly confined to minor corner and edge wear, but see scans for further details including condition. We do not deal in stock images or modern reprints, and all scans shown are of the actual vintage photograph, slide or negative being sold. If you have any questions about a particular piece, please ask before the auction ends. BIO: Charles Walter Dressen was born in 1898 in Decatur, IL and died in 1966 in Detroit, MI. He played major league baseball from 1925 to 1933 as infielder for the Cincinnati Reds and the New York Giants. Dressen played as a quarterback for George Halas in the American Professional Football Association, prior to its name-change to the NFL, and then played a couple more seasons in the NFL. Dressen managed the 1934-37 Cincinnati Reds, 1951-53 Brooklyn Dodgers, 1955-57 Washington Senators, 1960-61 Milwaukee Braves and the 1963-66 Detroit Tigers. He was a Brooklyn Dodgers coach from 1939 to 1946 and a member of the New York Yankees staff in 1947 and 1948. Richard Benjamin Ferrell was born in 1905 in Durham, NC and died in 1995 in Bloomfield Hills, MI. He went to college at Guilford College. He played major league baseball from 1929 to 1947 as catcher for the St. Louis Browns, Boston Red Sox, Washington Senators and the St. Louis Browns, was selected 7 times as an All-Star, and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1984. He retired having caught 1,806 games, an American League record that stood until Carlton Fisk surpassed it in 1988. After retiring, Ferrell served as a Senators coach, followed by over 30 years in the Detroit Tigers organization as a coach, scout, general manager, and, at over 80 years of age, executive consultant. Jacob Albert Pitler was born in New York, NY and died in 1968 in Binghamton, NY. He played major league baseball from 1917 to 1918 as 2nd baseman for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Pitler usually served as Brooklyn's first-base coach and worked under Leo Durocher, Burt Shotton, Chuck Dressen and Walter Alston. Pitler appears in Roger Kahn's memoir The Boys of Summer as a somewhat obsequious aide to Dressen. But with his minor league managing background, he was also hailed as a fatherly figure to Dodger rookies. He was cited for that role in poet Marianne Moore's paean to the 1955 champions, Hometown Piece for Messrs. Alston and Reese. After retiring as a coach, Pitler continued his association with the Dodgers (by now based in Los Angeles) as a scout. He died in Binghamton, New York, in 1968 at the age of 73. In 1991 he was inducted into the Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Clyde Leroy Sukeforth (Sukey) was born in Washington, ME and died in 2000 in Waldoboro, ME. He went to college at Georgetown University. He played major league baseball from 1926 to 1945 as catcher for the Cincinnati Reds and the Brooklyn Dodgers. He was best known for scouting and signing the Major Leagues' first black player in the modern era, Jackie Robinson. Sukeforth managed in the Brooklyn farm system with the Elmira Pioneers of the Class A Eastern League and the Montreal Royals of the AA International League before his promotion to the Brooklyn coaching staff in 1943. Sukeforth was the only other person in the room when Brooklyn Dodgers president Branch Rickey told Robinson of his plans to sign him to a contract to play in Montreal in 1946. Sukeforth was officially listed as a coach on Brooklyn's Major League staff at the time, but also performed scouting duties for the club. In addition to serving on Leo Durocher's coaching staff and his scouting assignments for Dodgers president Rickey, he worked behind the scenes in 1946 to help create the new Nashua Dodgers of the Class B New England League. Sukeforth helped the Nashua team forge ties with the New Hampshire community, easing the racial integration of the league when Roy Campanella and Don Newcombe were assigned to that club. Sukeforth managed the Dodgers for two games in 1947, replacing Leo Durocher, who was suspended by the league for the season for "conduct detrimental to baseball." In the process, he managed Jackie Robinson's first Major League game. But Sukeforth and a fellow coach, Ray Blades, each turned down the opportunity to serve as acting manager for the rest of the season; ultimately, Brooklyn scout Burt Shotton assumed that role, and led them to the 1947 National League pennant. In 1951, when Dodger manager Chuck Dressen needed a reliever to face the New York Giants' Bobby Thomson in the ninth inning of the decisive third game of the National League pennant playoff, Sukeforth, coaching in the Dodger bullpen, passed over Carl Erskine and sent in Ralph Branca, who gave up Thomson's "shot heard 'round the world". Fired after the season, Sukeforth moved to the Pittsburgh Pirates, where Rickey was executive vice president and general manager, in 1952. There, as a coach and occasional scout, he played a role in the drafting of Roberto Clemente from the Brooklyn organization in the 1954 Rule V draft. Once again passing up a Major League managing assignment after turning down the chance to succeed Pirate skipper Bobby Bragan on August 3, 1957, Sukeforth retired as a coach at the end of the 1957 season. But he remained in the Pirates organization as a scout and occasional minor league manager through 1962. He then worked as a scout for the Milwaukee/Atlanta Braves. John Joseph McHale was born in Detroit, MI and died in 2008 in Stuart, FL. He went to college at the University of Notre Dame. He played major league baseball from 1943 to 1948 as 1st baseman for the Detroit Tigers, and appeared in the 1945 World Series. He eventually became director of minor league operations for the Tigers and was named general manager in 1957 at the young age of 35. But he soon was recruited by the defending NL champion Braves, where he succeeded John Quinn as general manager in January 1959. Unfortunately, McHale presided over the slow decline of the Braves on the field — and their rapid decline at the turnstiles. By 1964, the Braves were rumored (correctly) to be moving to Atlanta. In 1965, during their lame-duck season in Milwaukee, McHale was the figure-head for a supremely unpopular ownership. In 1966, the Atlanta Braves' first year, the club started slowly. McHale was replaced as general manager in mid-season by Paul Richards, a legend in Atlanta since his days as playing manager of the Southern Association Atlanta Crackers from 1938-42. McHale then became the chief aide to Baseball Commissioner William Eckert. In 1968, the year before the NL expanded to 12 teams, McHale was named president of the fledgling Montreal Expos by their owner, Seagrams heir Charles Bronfman. A few weeks after his appointment, Eckert was fired as commissioner and McHale emerged as a leading contender to succeed his former boss. He had strong support in the American League, but NL owners — who wanted McHale's experienced hand turned toward the fledgling Expo franchise — intervened and McHale's candidacy was halted. Putting the commissioner election behind him, McHale focused on building the first MLB franchise located in Canada. While McHale concentrated on upper management responsibilities during his first decade with the Expos, he eventually assumed their general manager portfolio as well, and it was during his watch (as GM from 1978-84) that the Expos achieved their only playoff appearance, in 1981. McHale resigned as general manager in favor of Murray Cook at the close of the 1984 season, then stepped down from the club presidency in 1986; he was succeeded in the latter post by Claude Brochu. McHale was also the last non-Hall of Fame member of the Hall's Veterans Committee, having been grandfathered in when the structure of the committee was updated in 2001. SKU: L15113
Item: L15113
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