The Nice Guy, the Bully and the Kiss
Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford
Pushkin Industries
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 13 September 2024
⏱️ 41 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Leo Durocher would stop at nothing to win. The baseball player-turned-manager was a skilled tactician and famously tough. But he also cheated, intimidated umpires and was violent; he was even known to beat up fans. Durocher was famous for coining the phrase "nice guys finish last" - but is that really true?
Tim Harford and David Bodanis examine lessons from the life of a ruthless, pugnacious baseball star. This is the first episode of a four-part series about how to succeed without being a jerk. It's based on David's book The Art of Fairness: The Power of Decency in a World Turned Mean.
For a full list of sources, see the show notes at timharford.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Pushkin. |
| 0:07.0 | Hey it's J. |
| 0:10.0 | We have a new limited series of my podcast Deep Cover out now all about George |
| 0:16.2 | Santos that's like you know Mr Ripley meets catch me if you can I mean the guy who'd winked everyone. How did George Santos convince |
| 0:26.1 | everyone that he was someone else and how deep do his lies go? Listen to |
| 0:31.8 | deep cover George Santos on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. |
| 0:39.0 | Hello listeners exciting news. |
| 0:44.0 | Today you can enjoy a double dose of malefactors and |
| 0:47.0 | meltdowns. |
| 0:48.0 | In honor of my new miniseries on The Art of Fairness, |
| 0:52.0 | I have not just one, two cautionary tales for you. |
| 0:56.0 | Straight after this episode, you'll be able to listen to another story on this feed, |
| 1:01.0 | all about an astonishing race to build a skyscraper in just 13 months. |
| 1:06.8 | And now on with our first episode. 1928. 1828 and Leo Derosia is a new player on the famed New York Yankees baseball team. |
| 1:20.0 | He's slight in build and not especially fast. And now, rounding first base and |
| 1:26.8 | heading as quickly as he can to second, he can see his opponent. |
| 1:30.8 | Glove ready is about to slam his foot down on the base. |
| 1:35.0 | If he does that before D'Rocha gets there, then Durocha is out. |
| 1:40.0 | Durocha can try diving head first at the base to get there before his opponent, but he knows he's not going to be fast enough. |
| 1:47.0 | So, he takes a different approach. |
| 1:50.0 | He has sharp spikes on the bottom of his shoes, ostensibly just for grip as he runs. |
| 1:57.0 | But they can also serve as a powerful weapon. |
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