WIST Quotations https://wist.info Wish I'd Said That! Wed, 21 Oct 2026 01:14:29 +0000 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.1.3 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.1.3 https://wist.info/wp/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/little-w-little-box-60x60.jpg Durocher, Leo – WIST Quotations https://wist.info 32 32 43606282 Durocher, Leo -- (Paraphrase) https://wist.info/durocher-leo/52251/ https://wist.info/durocher-leo/52251/#respond Tue, 22 Mar 2022 15:31:39 +0000 Dave https://wist.info/?p=52251 Nice guys finish last.


Leo Durocher (1905–1991) American professional baseball player, manager, coach ["Leo the Lip"]
(Paraphrase)

The full quote was reported by in the column by Frank Graham, "Leo Doesn't Like Nice Guys," New York Journal-American (6 Jul 1946). When, as Brooklyn Dodgers manager, asked by a reporter if he were a nice guy:

Nice guys! Look over there. Do you know a nicer guy than Mel Ott? Or any of the other Giants? Why they’re the nicest guys in the world! And where are they? In seventh place! The nice guys over there are in seventh place. Well let them come and get me. The nice guys are all over there. In seventh place.

As the anecdote was retold (even when Graham's column was reprinted in Baseball Digest in the fall of that year), the references to "seventh place" began morphing into "last place" and "in the second division," eventually settling on the shorter version cited above. While Durocher originally denied he'd said the shorter version, he eventually lay claim to it, and used it as the title of his 1975 autobiography.

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