cover image The Lip: A Biography of Leo Durocher

The Lip: A Biography of Leo Durocher

Gerald Eskenazi. William Morrow & Company, $23 (336pp) ISBN 978-0-688-11895-2

Leo the Lip, perhaps best remembered for his quip ``Nice guys finish last,'' began his baseball career in 1925 as a player for the Hartford, Conn., team in the Eastern League, and left the sport in 1973, when he resigned as manager of the Houston Astros. During those years he played for the Yankees of the Ruth-Gehrig era, the Cincinnati Reds, the Cardinals of Gas House Gang fame and the Brooklyn Dodgers; he managed the Dodgers, Giants and Cubs, leading his teams to three pennants. From a rough background in West Springfield, Mass., as a teenager Durocher was a pool hustler and a gambler (gambling remained an addiction) and developed an abrasive, confrontational personality. As an infielder, he may have been the best of his time, unexcelled with the glove, but he was only a mediocre hitter. As a manager, some players thought him great, while he alienated others. In a book that is primarily a thinly disguised pitch for the election of Durocher, who died in 1991 at age 86, to the Hall of Fame, New York Times sports reporter Eskenazi does not write about Durocher's well-known disagreeable proclivities, such as his jealousy or downright hatred of great hitters from Babe Ruth to Ernie Banks. Photos not seen by PW. (Mar.)