An advertisement that appeared late in the 1919 season featuring Cincinnati Reds Manager Pat Moran:
“‘When my players get sore, I don’t rub them the wrong way; I use Sloan’s Liniment–it penetrates.’
“Moran knows how to keep his men fit for the pennant scramble–keeps Sloan’s handy for emergency. ‘Glass arm,’ ‘Charley horse,’ stiffness, soreness, bruises, rheumatic aches, are quickly and comfortably relieved. Penetrates without rubbing, keeping the boys ready for the winning game.”
The 1919 World Series was the fourth for Moran. He played in two with the Chicago Cubs (1906 and ’07) and managed two, (the other was with the Philadelphia Phillies in 1915).
Moran replaced Charles “Red” Dooin as Phillies manager after the team finished in sixth place in 1914. Under Moran, the team won 10 of their first 11 games and won the National League with a 90-62 record.
In September, Frank Menke of The International New Service said:
“Moran deserves ranking among the greatest managers the game has ever known. It is the wonderful leadership of the red-faced, gray-haired Irishman that has put the misfit Phillies where they are today.”
Moran
Menke said Moran was saddled with a team consisting primarily of “castoffs,’ and “one wonderful pitcher (Grover Cleveland Alexander).”
Moran followed up the 1915 pennant with two second-place finishes, with teams Grantland Rice of The New York Tribune said the manager had little to work with beyond pitcher Alexander:
“(T)hose astounding Phillies, piloted by a leader who has never received anywhere near his due recognition for extraordinary ability to lead a ball club. need it be said that we refer to Pat Moran? It needn’t.”
As was his habit, Rice memorialized Moran’s abilities with a poem:
Pat Moran’s no Miracle Man
Nor anything like that;
Nobody ever stands and cheers
The while he tips his hat.
Pat doesn’t draw the headline space
Nor yet the picture frames;
Pat Moran’s no Miracle Man–
Buthe’shellatwinninggames”
During his nine-year managerial career in Philadelphia and Cincinnati, Moran compiled a 748-586 record, which included a total of four second-place finishes to go with his two pennants.
During spring training of what would have been his sixth season with the Reds, Moran, who had a history of excessive drinking, became ill in Orlando, Florida.
His former Cubs teammate Johnny Evers came to his bedside. According to The Associated Press, he said:
“‘Hello John, take me out of here.’ He then lost consciousness.”
He died later that day. The official cause was Bright’s Disease.
Baseball History Daily 
Leave a comment