Miller James Huggins (March 27, 1878 – September 25, 1929) was an American professional baseball player and manager. Huggins played second base for the Cincinnati Reds (1904–1909) and St. Louis Cardinals (1910–1916). He managed the Cardinals (1913–1917) and New York Yankees (1918–1929), including the Murderers' Row teams of the 1920s that won six American League (AL) pennants and three World Series championships.
Huggins was born in Cincinnati. He received a degree in law from the University of Cincinnati, where he was also captain on the baseball team. Rather than serve as a lawyer, Huggins chose to pursue a professional baseball career. He played semi-professional and minor league baseball from 1898 through 1903, at which time he signed with the Reds.
As a player, Huggins was adept at getting on base. He was also an excellent fielding second baseman, earning the nicknames "Rabbit", "Little Everywhere", and "Mighty Mite" for his defensive prowess and was later considered an intelligent manager who understood the fundamentals of the game. Despite fielding successful teams for the Yankees in the 1920s, he continued to make personnel changes in order to maintain his teams' superiority in the AL. He was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee in 1964.
Early life
Miller James Huggins was born on March 27, 1878, in Cincinnati, Ohio, where his father, an Englishman, worked as a grocer. But Huggins played semi-professional baseball in 1898 for the Cincinnati Shamrocks, a team organized by Julius Fleischmann, He was admitted to the bar, but never practiced law.
Professional career
Minor leagues
Huggins began his playing career in minor league baseball with the Mansfield Haymakers of the Class B Interstate League in 1899. He continued his minor league apprenticeship with the St. Paul Saints of the Western League and American Association from 1901 through 1903. In 1903, he pulled off the first delayed steal in recorded baseball history. In 1908, he played with the Reds in the Cuban-American Major League Clubs Series. Hampered by a broken ankle and torn ligaments in his shoulder, he slumped to .209 in 1909.
200px|thumb|left|Huggins with the [[St. Louis Cardinals in 1912]]
On July 13, 1911, he tied the NL record for successful fielding chances in a game with 16. Team owner Helene Hathaway Britton preferred Huggins' "gentlemanly" manner over Bresnahan's rougher personality.
With the acquisition of speed in a trade with the Pittsburgh Pirates, including Dots Miller, Art Butler, Cozy Dolan and Chief Wilson, the Cardinals contended for the NL pennant in 1914. Finishing in third place, it was the Cardinals' best finish since 1876, Ruppert himself had been put off by Huggins' wool cap and practice of smoking pipes in public, which he felt was the mark of the working class. The hiring of Huggins drove a wedge between the two co-owners that culminated in Huston selling his shares of the team to Ruppert in 1922.