Robert Abial "Red" Rolfe (October 17, 1908 – July 8, 1969) was an American

third baseman A third baseman, abbreviated 3B, is the player in baseball or softball whose responsibility is to defend the area nearest to third base — the third of four bases a baserunner must touch in succession to score a run. In the scoring system us ...

manager Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business. Management includes the activities ...

and front-office executive in

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

. A graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy, Rolfe also was an

Ivy League The Ivy League is an American collegiate athletic conference comprising eight private research universities in the Northeastern United States. The term ''Ivy League'' is typically used beyond the sports context to refer to the eight school ...

r: a graduate, then long-time athletic director of

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native ...

, and (1943–46) baseball and

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

coach at

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

. Rolfe was a native of

Penacook, New Hampshire Penacook, originally called "Fisherville", is a village within the city of Concord in Merrimack County, New Hampshire, United States. It lies along Concord's northern border with Boscawen. The name comes from the Pennacook tribe that lived in the ...

. He batted

left-handed In human biology, handedness is an individual's preferential use of one hand, known as the dominant hand, due to it being stronger, faster or more dextrous. The other hand, comparatively often the weaker, less dextrous or simply less subject ...

, threw

right-handed In human biology, handedness is an individual's preferential use of one hand, known as the dominant hand, due to it being stronger, faster or more dextrous. The other hand, comparatively often the weaker, less dextrous or simply less subjecti ...

, and was listed as tall and .

Playing career

While a student at Dartmouth, Rolfe spent the summer of 1930 playing for the Orleans town team in the Cape Cod Baseball League, where he was skippered by longtime major league player and manager

Patsy Donovan Patrick Joseph "Patsy" Donovan (March 16, 1865 – December 25, 1953) was an Irish born right fielder and manager in Major League Baseball who played for several teams from to , most notably the Pittsburgh Pirates. He batted .301 lifetime an ...

. During his major league playing career, Rolfe was the starting third baseman on the

New York Yankees The New York Yankees are an American professional baseball team based in the New York City borough of the Bronx. The Yankees compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. They are one of ...

of the late 1930s. The "Bronx Bombers" of

Lou Gehrig Henry Louis Gehrig (born Heinrich Ludwig Gehrig ; June 19, 1903June 2, 1941) was an American professional baseball first baseman who played 17 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the New York Yankees (1923–1939). Gehrig was renowned f ...

Joe DiMaggio Joseph Paul DiMaggio (November 25, 1914 – March 8, 1999), nicknamed "Joltin' Joe", "The Yankee Clipper" and "Joe D.", was an American baseball center fielder who played his entire 13-year career in Major League Baseball for the New York Yank ...

Bill Dickey William Malcolm Dickey (June 6, 1907 – November 12, 1993) was an American professional baseball catcher and manager. He played in Major League Baseball with the New York Yankees for 19 seasons. Dickey managed the Yankees as a player-manager in ...

Lefty Gomez Vernon Louis "Lefty" Gomez (November 26, 1908 – February 17, 1989) was an American professional baseball player. A left-handed pitcher, Gomez played in Major League Baseball (MLB) between 1930 and 1943 for the New York Yankees and the Washingt ...

and

Red Ruffing Charles Herbert "Red" Ruffing (May 3, 1905 – February 17, 1986) was an American professional baseball player. A pitcher, he played in Major League Baseball (MLB) from 1924 through 1947. He played for the Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees, ...

won

American League The American League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the American League (AL), is one of two leagues that make up Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada. It developed from the Western League, a minor league ...

pennants from 1936–39 and took all four

World Series The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, contested since 1903 between the champion teams of the American League (AL) and the National League (NL). The winner of the World ...

in which they appeared, winning 16 games and losing only three in Fall Classic play over that span. Rolfe played 10 major league seasons, all with New York,

batting Batting may refer to: * Batting (baseball), the act of attempting to hit a ball thrown by the pitcher with a baseball bat, in order to score runs * Batting (cricket), the act of defending one's wicket with the cricket bat while attempting to score ...

.289 with 69

home runs In baseball, a home run (abbreviated HR) is scored when the ball is hit in such a way that the batter is able to circle the bases and reach home plate safely in one play without any errors being committed by the defensive team. A home run i ...

and 497 RBI in 1,175 games. His finest season came in 1939, when he led the American League with 213 hits, 139 runs scored, and 46 doubles while hitting .329 with 14

home run In baseball, a home run (abbreviated HR) is scored when the ball is hit in such a way that the batter is able to circle the bases and reach home plate safely in one play without any errors being committed by the defensive team. A home run i ...

s and 80

runs batted in A run batted in (RBI; plural RBIs ) is a statistic in baseball and softball that credits a batter for making a play that allows a run to be scored (except in certain situations such as when an error is made on the play). For example, if the ba ...

. He retired following the 1942 season. RedRolfeGoudeycard

College and MLB coach

After his four-year coaching stint at Yale, Rolfe coached the

Toronto Huskies The Toronto Huskies were a team in the Basketball Association of America (BAA), which was a forerunner of the National Basketball Association (NBA), during the 1946–47 season. They were based in Toronto. The team compiled a 22–38 win–loss r ...

of the Basketball Association of America in 1946–1947 and returned to the Yankees as a

coach Coach may refer to: Guidance/instruction * Coach (sport), a director of athletes' training and activities * Coaching, the practice of guiding an individual through a process ** Acting coach, a teacher who trains performers Transportation * Co ...

. After the season, Rolfe joined the

Detroit Tigers The Detroit Tigers are an American professional baseball team based in Detroit. The Tigers compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member of the American League (AL) Central division. One of the AL's eight charter franchises, the club was f ...

as director of their farm system. But he returned to the field after only one season, when he succeeded

Steve O'Neill Stephen Francis O'Neill (July 6, 1891 – January 26, 1962) was an American professional baseball player and manager. He played in Major League Baseball as a catcher, most notably with the Cleveland Indians. As a manager, he led the Detroit Tig ...

as Tiger manager after the campaign. Red Rolfe and Ray Meyer

Manager of Detroit Tigers

In , Rolfe's first season as manager, the Tigers improved by nine games and returned to the first division. Then, in , they nearly upset the Yankees, winning 95 games and finishing second, three games behind. A fluke botched double play was the team's undoing. Late in September at Cleveland, the Indians had the bases loaded in the tenth inning with one out and the score tied. Visibility was poor because smoke from Canadian forest fires was blowing across

Lake Erie Lake Erie ( "eerie") is the fourth largest lake by surface area of the five Great Lakes in North America and the eleventh-largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and therefore also h ...

. On an apparent 3-2-3 double-play grounder to first base, Detroit

catcher Catcher is a position in baseball and softball. When a batter takes their turn to hit, the catcher crouches behind home plate, in front of the ( home) umpire, and receives the ball from the pitcher. In addition to this primary duty, the ca ...

Aaron Robinson thought he simply needed to touch home plate for a force play to retire the Indians baserunner charging in from third. But in the smoky conditions Robinson had not seen that a putout had already been made at first base, necessitating that the catcher tag the ''runner'', not the ''plate'', to record an out. Robinson mistakenly tagged the plate, the run counted and Cleveland won the game. It was the turning point in the pennant race, for the postwar Tigers, and for Rolfe's managerial career. Beset by an aging starting rotation, the Tigers faltered in , slipping to 73 wins and finishing fifth, 25 games behind New York. Then Detroit completely unraveled in , winning only 23 of 72 games under Rolfe. On July 5, he was fired and replaced by one of his pitchers,

Fred Hutchinson Frederick Charles Hutchinson (August 12, 1919 – November 12, 1964) was an American professional baseball player, a major league pitcher for the Detroit Tigers, and the manager for three major league teams. Born and raised in Seattle, Wash ...

. The 1952 club won only 50 games, losing 104 – the first time ever that the Tigers lost 100 or more games.

Dartmouth athletic director

Rolfe then returned to Dartmouth as the athletic director of his alma mater from 1954 to 1967. The college's baseball diamond is named in his honor. Rolfe died in

Gilford, New Hampshire Gilford is a town in Belknap County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 7,699 at the 2020 census, up from 7,126 at the 2010 census.United States Census BureauAmerican FactFinder 2010 Census figures. Retrieved March 23, 2011. Situat ...

, in 1969 at age 60 of chronic kidney disease.Ex-Yankee Red Rolfe succumbs
/ref> He was buried in his birthplace of Penacook.

References

External links