Sport: Fuel for the Hot Stove

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The one-sided World Series was no sooner over than the hot-stove league got off to a flying start. In the front offices of baseball, the moneymen began shifting managers so fast that a man hardly had time to read the small type in his contract; a fan could spend all winter wondering what had happened to his team. Among the changes:

¶ In Boston, the disappointing Red Sox fired Lou Boudreau, onetime boy wonder with the Cleveland Indians, and called up Michael Franklin ("Pinky") Higgins. A capable third baseman on the champion Red Sox of 1946, Pinky has been managing in the minors ever since. ¶ In Washington, the stumbling Senators turned loose Bucky Harris, a 30-year veteran of the managerial wars, hired Charley Dressen, who wrote himself out of a job last fall by asking for a three-year contract with the Brooklyn Dodgers, and spent a year in exile with the Oakland Oaks of the Pacific Coast League. ¶ In Detroit, the Tigers got rid of Fred Hutchinson, promptly sent for Bucky Harris, who had managed the team from 1930 to 1933. ¶ In Baltimore, the unsinging Orioles fired Jimmy Dykes, hired Paul Richards away from the Chicago White Sox, who in turn promoted ex-Cardinal Marty Marion from coach to manager. ¶ In Philadelphia, the feeble Phillies, still trying to turn a squabbling squad into a ball team, fired mild-mannered Terry Moore and dug deep into the minor leagues to find hard-working Edward Mayo Smith, who had been running the Birmingham Barons for the Yankees.