Walter Alston - Biography

Biography

Alston was born in Venice, Ohio but grew up in Darrtown. He attended Milford High School (Ohio) and was a graduate of Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, where he lettered three years in both basketball and baseball and is a member of the University's Hall of Fame.

Alston was a first baseman with the St. Louis Cardinals in the 1936 season. He played in his only major league game on September 27, as a substitute for future Hall of Famer Johnny Mize, who had earlier been ejected from the game. Alston struck out in his only major league at bat on three pitches – although the second strike was a long fly ball with home run distance that curved foul at the last second. After returning to the minor leagues for several years as a player and then as a manager – including a stint as the player-manager for the first U.S.-based integrated baseball team after 1898, the Nashua Dodgers of the class-B New England League – he was named manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers for the 1954 season.

A reporter once asked Alston about his playing record; he said, "Well, I came up to bat for the Cards back in '36, and Lon Warneke struck me out. That's it." He also played first base—two fielding chances, one error.

Alston won seven National League pennants in his 23 years tenure as Dodgers manager. In 1955 he led Brooklyn to the pennant and its only World Series championship; the team repeated as National League champions in 1956. After the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles, Alston led the team to pennants in 1959, 1963, 1965, 1966 and 1974, and three more world championships (1959, 1963, 1965). He was the first Dodger manager to win a World Series.

Named Manager of the Year six times, Alston also guided a victorious NL All-Star squad a record seven times. He retired after the 1976 season with 2,063 wins (2,040 in the regular season and 23 in the postseason).

As a manager, Alston was noted for his studious approach to the game (he had taught school in the off-season while in the minors) and for signing 23 one-year contracts with the Dodgers at a time when multi-year contracts were becoming the norm in the sport.