On Aug. 24, 1951, owner Bill Veeck decided to let fans hold up "Yes" and "No" signs to make all the managerial decisions during a ºüÀêÊÓƵ Browns game. This is how the Post-Dispatch covered the game.
The only mistake the 1,100 Brownie "grandstand managers" made was choosing Ned Garver as their pitcher. After one action-filled inning that read like a chapter from a Sunday movie serial, the Browns' guest board of directors might just as well have pushed their hats back on their heads and relaxed like Zack Taylor last night, because Little Ned took over from there.
The big "Yes" and "No" signs were bobbing up and down plenty in that first inning. You could hear the wheels in 1,100 baseball minds spinning like crazy as the Browns spotted the Philadelphia Athletics a three-run head start, then came back to catch them in the same frame, and go on to an eventual 5 to 3 victory.
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"Steal?" read the black and white placard near the Browns' dugout.
Twice the majority of the managers flashed their red "No" signs. Once they voted "Yes" and the runner, Hank Arft, was out.Â
"Protest to Umpire?" That was a popular, question on several occasions, but by the time the votes were tabulated it was a little late to berate the offending official. Word was relayed to Coach Johnny Berardino via a walkie-talkie set-up from grandstand to dugout, but arguments have to be spontaneous or they'd look a little silly.
League President Will Harridge didn't permit Bill Veeck to go through with his original plan of having two guest coaches on the baselines. The fans, Charles E. Hughes and Clark Mitze, were signed up and put in uniform, but Harridge ruled the stunt out on the grounds the contracts had not been approved by his office.
So Coaches Hughes and Mitze were awarded king size trophies acclaiming them as "the best coaches ever banned from the coaching lines," and sat next to Zack Taylor in a front row box. Almost everything else went according to plan, however.
The rough way in which the A's treated Garver in the first made it look like the experiment might be something short of a howling success, but that was just to keep things from being dull.
Ferris Fain and Elmer Valo singled with one out, and Gus Zernial, who dotes on all Brownie pitching, hit his 28th home run of the -season to make it 3-0. Hank Majeski got on through Bill Jennings's error, and when Dave Philley singled the managers were asked if another Brownie pitcher should be readied. The answer was an overwhelming "No," and Garver, obviously touched by such a gesture, got Pete Suder to ground into a double play and was never in trouble again.
Veeck's managerial multitude hardly had to wait at all before it started pounding itself on its back again. Bobby Young, the nearest to a unanimous choice by the fans, started off an unimpressive night at bat by lining out, but Jim Delsing doubled, Sherm Lollar singled, and after Cliff Mapes struck out, Ken Wood drove in two runs with a single. Hank Arft, the managers choice for first base and one at which they seemed particularly pleased, drove in Wood with a hit. Arft was out stealing to end the inning, but the game was 3-3.
It was Lollar who broke the tie when he hit his eighth home run into the left field seats in the third inning. Lollar also doubled in the eighth and scored on Mapes's single for the final run. The victory was Garver's fifteenth.
Connie Mack was in the stands and openly showed his approval of Veeck's experiment. The manager of the Athletics for 50 years posed with one of the "Yes-No signs before the game. Mack has been a consistent backer of Veeck. One of the A's who concealed his identity from the crowd by wearing a jacket, doused Brown-Clown Max Patkin with a bucket of ice water as he cavorted on the baselines.Â
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