Off-Season Hero

What can you expect when a hockey team is managed by a baseball umpire? Such was the prevailing taunt among U. S. sport fans when the Chicago Black Hawks, managed by Baseball Umpire Bill Stewart, wound up the regular season four weeks ago with only 14 victories in 48 games. Ending in third place in their division of the National Hockey League. Bill Stewart's team just qualified for the Stanley Cup playoffs, but few insiders gave, them an outside chance to win it.

Last week, after the Black Hawks had swooped down on their three successive adversaries (third-place Montreal Canadiens, second-place New York Americans, top-ranking Toronto Maple Leafs, and snatched the Stanley Cup from under their blinking eyes, jeers changed to cheers. William Joseph Stewart was hailed as the "miracle man of hockey." the No. 1 sport figure of 1938.

What Manager Stewart had accomplished was reminiscent of the famed feat of Baseball Manager George Stallings, who in 1914 led the Boston Braves from last place in mid-July to a pennant and world championship in October. But Bill Stewart's achievement was in some ways even more remarkable, because: 1) he had led his team to a world championship in his first year as a hockey manager; 2) although a longtime hockey referee, he had never played the game except on Boston frog ponds, had never coached except at polite New England schools (including Radcliffe).

The cheers of the frenetic fans were an unfamiliar sound to the ears of squat, hardworking, 43-year-old Bill Stewart. Professionally accustomed to gibes and catcalls during a decade of umpiring, his nearest approach to popular acclaim was that, while coaching baseball at Boston University, he had made a catcher out of famed Mickey Cochrane. And Manager Stewart was a hero only for a day. After being kissed on his bald head last week by each of the whooping Black Hawks, who got $1,000 apiece for their victory, Hero Stewart went home. There he packed his blue-serge suits and entrained for Boston--back to his well-worn role of baseball's butt, back to the six-month season of boos.

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