Marse Joe and Me

Marse Joe McCarthy managed the New York Yankees from 1931 to 1946, steering them to eight American League pennants and to seven world championships. He also won a pennant for the Chicago Cubs in 1929, becoming the first manager to win pennants for teams in both leagues, a distinction that would hold for nearly sixty years. There are those who argue that McCarthy was baseball's greatest manager and for fifty years, he made Western New York his home. I became friends with Marse Joe as a boy when I delivered The Buffalo Evening News to the McCarthy home at 52 Gates Circle in Buffalo during those grim early days of the Great Depression. This is my story.