Jan 12, 1961-College
Submitted by BTGrimes on Tue, 01/12/2010 - 6:00am |
| Ahead of his Time or Out to Lunch? CHICAGO, ILLINOIS - Chewing gum magnate Philip K. Wrigley announced TODAY in BASEBALL (1961) that what his struggling Chicago Cubs franchise needed was an IBM machine and a revolving door. According to Wrigley, "Everyone has always said baseball is a game of percentages, but I have yet to find anyone in baseball who can figure the percentages." The Cubs finished the 1960 season with 60-94 record, the eighth year in a row they were under .500. Wrigley wanted to put an IBM machine in the dugout so whoever was running the team could access statistical information about opposing, as well and Cub players. This information would in turn help dictate game strategy. Mind you, this is decades before the personal computer. The revolving door would be made up of coaches. Wrigley wanted to do away the manager which he considered a "dictator," and instead rotate eight coaches through the major and minor leagues. Each would take turns running the major league club. Length of stay would depend on how well the "coach" was doing. Also on January 12, 1961, Wrigley named former manager Charlie Grimm and Verlon "Rube" Walker as the sixth and seventh members of the coaching brain trust, what came to be known as the College of Coaches. The Ivy League approach didn't work. The Cubs finished the 1961 season 64-90, just four games better than the year before. The situation got worse in 1962 when the Cubs lost 103 games on a 154 game schedule, the worst season the Cubs ever had. And that was the end of the College of Coaches. Contributing sources:
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