Paul Rapier Richards (November 21, 1908 – May 4, 1986) was an American professional baseball player, manager, scout and executive in Major League Baseball. During his playing career, he was a catcher and right-handed batter with the Brooklyn Dodgers (1932), New York Giants (1933–1935), Philadelphia Athletics (1935) and Detroit Tigers (1943–1946).
Baseball playing career
thumb|left|Richards as an active catcher
Born in Waxahachie, Texas, Richards began his professional baseball career in the minor leagues as an infielder in 1926 at the age of 17. In a baseball oddity, Richards pitched with both hands in a minor-league game on July 23, 1928, for the Muskogee Chiefs of the Class C Western Association against the Topeka Jayhawks. Called to the pitcher's mound from his shortstop position, he pitched both right-handed and left-handed in a brief appearance, including facing a switch hitter, which briefly resulted in both pitcher and batter switching hands and batter's boxes, respectively, until Richards broke the stalemate by alternating hands with each pitch, regardless of where the batter positioned himself. Later in his minor league career, he became a catcher. In 78 games with Minneapolis, he posted a .361 batting average and, he was subsequently purchased by John McGraw's New York Giants in September 1932.
With the Giants, Richards served as a reserve catcher working behind Gus Mancuso for the 1933 season.
Richards was already showing a keen baseball mind as Atlanta's catcher in 1936 when he helped turn around pitcher Dutch Leonard's career. After three seasons in the major leagues with the Brooklyn Dodgers, Leonard had been sent back to the minor leagues where he played with Richards in Atlanta. Richards encouraged him to throw a knuckleball and, within two years, Leonard was back in the major leagues with the Washington Senators, where he became a 20-game winner in 1939. Richards played for the Crackers from 1936 to 1942. Richards also served as an unofficial pitching coach for manager Steve O'Neill.
In 1945, Richards's batting average improved to career-high .256 and he once again led the league's catchers in fielding percentage and in range factor, as the Tigers won the American League championship, then, defeated the Chicago Cubs in the 1945 World Series. In the deciding Game 7 of the series, he hit 2 doubles and had 4 runs batted in. Richards was one of the annual The Sporting News All-Stars for 1945.
After hitting only .201 in 1946, he returned to the minor leagues, playing three more seasons as a player-manager with the Buffalo Bisons. He led Buffalo to the International League pennant in 1949 before, retiring as a player at the age of 40.
Managing and executive career
thumb|right|200px|Paul Richards while manager of the Orioles
Richards became a successful manager with the Chicago White Sox in 1951. In a baseball era when many teams relied on home runs for much of their offensive production, Richards went against the perceived common wisdom by relying on pitching, good defense, speed and stolen bases to manufacture runs with a strategy now known as small ball. Richards was hired by the Baltimore Orioles, where he served as both field manager and general manager through 1958, becoming the first man since John McGraw to hold both positions simultaneously. As general manager, he was involved in a 17-player trade with the New York Yankees that remains the biggest trade in baseball history. and United Press International named him the American League Manager of the Year.
Richards led American League managers in ejections for 11 consecutive seasons from 1951 to 1961, setting an all-time managerial record. In September 1961, Richards resigned as manager of the Orioles to become general manager of the new Houston Colt .45s National League club. Richards stocked the Houston club (soon renamed the Astros) with young players – including Joe Morgan, Jimmy Wynn, Mike Cuellar, Don Wilson and Rusty Staub – but he was fired after the 1965 season when the on-field results did not match owner Roy Hofheinz's expectations.
The following year, Richards was hired as director of player personnel by the Atlanta Braves – returning to the city where he excelled as a minor league catcher and player-manager for the Southern Association's Atlanta Crackers from 1938 to 1942. By the end of the season, Richards was given the title of general manager of the Braves. Richards's six years at the helm of the Atlanta organization were in some ways his most successful in baseball. He inherited a strong core of players including Henry Aaron, Joe Torre, Felipe Alou, and Rico Carty. He is known for designing the oversized catcher's mitt first used by Triandos to catch Hall of Fame knuckleball pitcher Hoyt Wilhelm. Despite his skills as a motivator, mentor and strategist of the game, Richards never was able to lead a team to a pennant. Sixteen of his players became major league managers. In 1996, Richards was inducted into the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame. Paul Richards Park in Waxahachie has been named a Texas Historical Landmark.
Waxahachie swap
Beginning in 1951, Richards reintroduced and was erroneously credited with inventing a tactic which had not been used in the major leagues since 1909. Four or five times in his career, Richards shifted a pitcher to the outfield and inserted a new pitcher in order to gain a platoon advantage before putting the original pitcher back on the mound. Rob Neyer, writing for ESPN.com in 2009, endorsed a reader's suggestion and introduced a name for the gambit, "the Waxahachie Swap."
Managerial record
{| class="wikitable" style="font-size: 95%; text-align:center;"
|-
! rowspan="2"|Team !! rowspan="2"|Year !! colspan="5"|Regular season !! colspan="4"|Postseason
|-
!Games!!Won!!Lost!!Win %!!Finish!! Won !! Lost !! Win % !! Result
|-
|-
!CWS||
||154||81||73|||| 4th in AL || – || – || – || –
|-
!CWS||
||154||81||73|||| 3rd in AL || – || – || – || –
|-
!CWS||
||154||89||65|||| 3rd in AL || – || – || – || –
|-
!CWS||
||145||91||54|||| resigned || – || – || – || –
|-
!colspan="11"|
|-
!BAL||
||154||57||97|||| 7th in AL || – || – || – || –
|-
!BAL||
||154||69||85|||| 6th in AL || – || – || – || –
|-
!BAL||
||152||76||76|||| 5th in AL || – || – || – || –
|-
!BAL||
||153||74||79|||| 6th in AL || – || – || – || –
|-
!BAL||
||154||74||80|||| 6th in AL || – || – || – || –
|-
!BAL||
||154||89||65|||| 2nd in AL || – || – || – || –
|-
!BAL||
||135||78||57|||| resigned || – || – || – || –
|-
! colspan="2"|BAL total || 1056 || 517 || 539 || || || 0 || 0 || – ||
|-
!CWS||
||161||64||97|||| 6th in AL || – || – || – || –
|-
! colspan="2"|CWS total || 768 || 406 || 362 || || || 0 || 0 || – ||
|-
! colspan="2"|Total