Paul Richards: The Wizard of Waxahachie

Paul Richards isn't in baseball's Hall of Fame, but his career had a scope and impact that has taken others there. One of the most intelligent and accomplished baseball men of all time, more competent than many Hall of Famers, Richards is largely forgotten today, generally unknown to the casual fan.

This lack of lasting renown is partly due to a lack of major national exposure. For the great bulk of his career, Richards wasn't working in New York or Los Angeles, and he was part of few championship teams. But it's more than that. Paul Richards was always more respected than popular. A lack of personal charisma with players, colleagues, and bosses is a major reason Richards never became quite the manager or executive he might have; and it might, in fact, be one reason a name-making stint with an elite team never came his way.

But Paul Richards's impressive achievements were many in a professional career that spanned half a century as a player, manager, and general manager. Though he never made the Hall of Fame himself, his connection with many Hall of Famers is extraordinary: catching for Carl Hubbell, playing for Connie Mack, managing Brooks Robinson, signing and developing Joe Morgan, and negotiating contracts with Hank Aaron. Without his influence, it's likely that knuckleballers Hoyt Wilhelm and Phil Niekro never would have enjoyed the midcareer blossoming that propelled both to Cooperstown.

Waxahachie to New York

Waxahachie, Texas, is thirty miles due south of Dallas and forty-two miles southeast of Fort Worth. The town is the seat of Ellis County—broad, flat cattle-ranching and cotton-growing country, cold in the winter and blistering hot in the summer. In this quintessential rural Texas landscape, Paul Rapier Richards was born on November 21, 1908.

Raised on a cotton farm, Richards grew up tall (six feet two inches) and slim and became an outstanding baseball player, a long-ball-hitting infielder with a strong throwing arm. In 1926 at the age of seventeen, he signed his first professional contract, with the Brooklyn Dodgers organization. He played 4 games with the Pittsfield (Massachusetts) Hillies of the Class A Eastern League before being reassigned to a more appropriate level for a rookie teenager: the Class D Eastern Shore League, with the Crisfield, Maryland, Crabbers on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay. Richards did well with the Crabbers, playing second base and hitting .301 with 8 home runs in 58 games, though he also led the league in errors.

That October the St. Louis Browns drafted him. Richards played for four years in the Browns' chain, rising as high as Class B. His long, tall frame leveraged an outstanding bat (he led two Minor Leagues in home runs, producing as many as 36 in one season), but at second base, shortstop, or third base, he was exceedingly error prone. As he entered his twenties, Richards filled out, approaching his eventual weight of 185 pounds, and in 1930 the Browns decided to convert him to catcher.

It quickly became evident that Richards would develop into an outstanding receiver. The position suited his athletic strengths and his gritty toughness, extraordinary alertness, and intelligence. The Dodgers thought so, at any rate, because they purchased him back from the Browns following the 1930 season. Assigned to Class A Hartford in 1931, Richards hit .301 with 15 home runs, and was a star defender behind the plate. In 1932 he made the jump to the Majors, opening the season as a backup catcher for Brooklyn. But he played very sparingly, getting action in only 3 games (and going 0 for 8 at the plate) before being sold in June to the New York Giants.

The Giants farmed Richards out to the Minneapolis Millers of the American Association, Class AA, which was the highest Minor League classification at the time. Richards lit up that league, hitting .361 with 16 homers in 269 at-bats over the balance of the '32 season. He went to the Majors again in 1933 as the Giants' backup behind their outstanding regular Gus Mancuso...