Player #113: Michael J. "Mike" McNally. Infielder with the Washington Senators in 1925. 257 hits and 40 stolen bases in 10 MLB seasons. 1916 and 1923 World Series champion. He debuted with the Boston Red Sox in 1915-1920 and played with the New York Yankees in 1921-1924. In 1920 with Boston, he saw his most opportunity posting a .326 OBP with 42 runs scored in 363 plate appearances.
McNally's SABR biography picks up his time with the Yankees: Ever the utility player, McNally spent the next three seasons (1922-24) coming off the bench, appearing in more than 50 games only once. The Yankees and Giants met in two more World Series during those years. McNally played in one game without an at-bat during the Yankees’ loss in 1922. He sat out the victory the next October with an ankle injury. Washington then won the championship in 1924.
The Yankees traded McNally back to the Red Sox the following offseason, thus breaking up the Ruth-McNally duo that had long entertained teammates and scribes. McNally would be variously remembered in New York as Ruth’s roommate, babysitter, guardian, and friend. The Babe himself later recalled that McNally had for years carried around a fading box score to prove that the infielder had once pinch hit for him back in Boston. When he showed it once too often in New York, Ruth told him, “Mike, if you show that box score to anyone again, I’ll make you eat it.”
The Babe “will not have Mike McNally to lead him astray” anymore, kidded New York sportswriter Will Wedge. “The Babe, an innocent minded simple country boy from Baltimore, was easily influenced by McNally’s wiles as a city slicker from Scranton.” The light-hitting utility man’s name would always be associated with the slugger’s, if not vice versa. Yarns about them circulated for years, involving everything from hot dogs to curfews, pranks to showgirls. Sportswriter Jimmy Cannon shared a tame one with readers in 1957:
“Mike McNally once told Babe Ruth that Miller Huggins, who then managed the Yankees, was sending him to New Haven to scout a pitcher. ‘Bring your bat,’ advised Ruth. ‘If you can hit him, don’t bring him back.’”
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