Most historians agree that professional baseball player and manager Leo Durocher never uttered the infamous words, “Nice guys finish last.” The closest documentation supporting the quote is a statement Durocher made on July 7, 1946, during his tenure as the New York Giants’ coach. Pointing to the opposing team, he said, "The nice guys are all over there, in seventh place, not in this dugout." It was the accompanying headline of the article that boiled down his thoughts to the oft-repeated phrase.
After years of denying the phantom quote, Durocher eventually embraced it, using it as the title of his 1975 autobiography. However, as he mellowed with age, Durocher attempted to rewrite his place in history by claiming that he was not implying that nice guys could not win. Rather, he argued that being “nice” and “winning” simply have no correlation.
Most historians do not subscribe to Mr. Durocher’s revisionist history. The hot-tempered, foul-mouthed, heavy-drinking ballplayer earned the nickname “The Lip” because of his caustic tongue. He is not politely pointing out a soup stain on the umpire’s tie in the above photo. Leo “The Lip” was anything but “nice.”
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