Leo Durocher: Baseball’s Prodigal Son

Leo Durocher (1905-1991) was baseball’s all-time leading cocky, flamboyant, and galvanizing character, casting a shadow across several eras, from the time of Babe Ruth to the Space Age Astrodome, from Prohibition through the Vietnam War. For more than forty years, he was at the forefront of the game, with a Zelig-like ability to be present as a player or manager for some of the greatest teams and defining baseball moments of the twentieth century. A rugged, combative shortstop and a three-time All-Star, he became a legendary manager, winning three pennants and a World Series in 1954.

Durocher performed on three main stages: New York, Chicago, and Hollywood. He entered from the wings, strode to where the lights were brightest, and then took a poke at anyone who tried to upstage him. On occasion he would share the limelight, but only with Hollywood friends such as actor Danny Kaye, tough guy and sometime roommate George Raft, Frank Sinatra, and Durocher’s third wife, movie star Laraine Day.

Dickson explores Durocher’s life and times through primary source materials, interviews with those who knew him, and original newspaper files. A superb addition to baseball literature, Leo Durocher offers fascinating and fresh insights into the racial integration of baseball, Durocher’s unprecedented suspension from the game, the two clubhouse revolts staged against him in Brooklyn and Chicago, and his vibrant life off the field.

Paul Dickson was born in 1939 in Yonkers, New York where, as a young baseball fan, he spent many hours reading about the antics and achievements of Leo Durocher in Brooklyn and New York City.

Dickson has written more than 65 non-fiction books and numerous newspaper and magazine articles. Most of these books concentrate on writing about the American language, baseball, and 20th Century American history. His first biography Bill Veeck: Baseball’s Greatest Maverick, published in 2012, was awarded the Jerome Holtzman Award from the Chicago Baseball Museum, the Reader’s Choice Award for the best baseball book of 2012 from the Special Libraries Association, and the Casey Award from Spitball magazine.

Dickson has also been awarded the Tony Salin Award from the Baseball Reliquary in 2011 for his role in preserving baseball history. The New York Public Library named his Dickson Baseball Dictionary one of the best reference books of 2009. In 2010, the Wall Street Journal called the third edition of the Dickson Baseball Dictionary one of the six best baseball books ever published. In 2013 he was awarded The Henry Chadwick Award by the Society for American Baseball Research which honors ＂ ... baseball’s great researchers for their invaluable contributions to making baseball the game that links America’s present with its past.＂

He lives in Garrett Park, Maryland with his wife, Nancy.