He managed the Cardinals (1913–1917) and New York Yankees (1918–1929), including the Murderers' Row teams of the 1920s that won six American League (AL) pennants and three World Series championships.

He was also an excellent fielding second baseman, earning the nicknames "Rabbit", "Little Everywhere", and "Mighty Mite" for his defensive prowess and was later considered an intelligent manager who understood the fundamentals of the game.

[6] After starting his career as an exclusively right-handed hitter, he began to bat from the left side in 1902 in response to his offensive struggles in the 1901 season while also moving to second base during his time at St.

[4] Huggins handled 19 fielding chances, 11 putouts and nine assists, without committing an error in a game with the Saints in 1902; the previous Major League Baseball (MLB) record being 18, set by Fred Dunlap in 1882.

[4] Before the 1910 season, the Reds traded Huggins, along with Frank Corridon and Rebel Oakes, to the St. Louis Cardinals in return for Fred Beebe and Alan Storke.

[12][13][14] Team owner Helene Hathaway Britton preferred Huggins' "gentlemanly" manner over Bresnahan's rougher personality.

[15] With the acquisition of speed in a trade with the Pittsburgh Pirates, including Dots Miller, Art Butler, Cozy Dolan and Chief Wilson, the Cardinals contended for the NL pennant in 1914.

Huston, who had been in Europe at the time that Ruppert had made the appointment, disliked Huggins and wanted to hire Wilbert Robinson, his drinking buddy.

[17] Ruppert himself had been put off by Huggins' wool cap and practice of smoking pipes in public, which he felt was the mark of the working class.

J. G. Taylor Spink of The Sporting News eventually convinced Huggins to accept the offer,[17] and he signed a two-year contract.

[23] Huggins also made his first player transaction, acquiring Del Pratt and Eddie Plank from the St. Louis Browns trading Nick Cullop, Joe Gedeon, Fritz Maisel, Les Nunamaker, Urban Shocker and $15,000 ($304,000 in current dollar terms),[24] a move that led to criticism in the press.

[24] The following year he traded Pratt, Muddy Ruel, Hank Thormahlen and Sammy Vick to the Red Sox for Waite Hoyt, Harry Harper, Mike McNally and Wally Schang.

[30] The Yankees won their first AL pennant in 1921,[25] reaching the World Series for the first time in franchise history, silencing his critics in the press.

[31] Before the 1922 season, Huggins acquired Johnny Mitchell from the Vernon Tigers of the Pacific Coast League and traded fan favorite Roger Peckinpaugh along with Rip Collins, Bill Piercy, and Jack Quinn to the Red Sox for Everett Scott, Bullet Joe Bush, and Sad Sam Jones.

[24] By this time, Ruppert hired Ed Barrow as the team's business manager, and he aided Huggins in player transactions.

In St. Louis, the spitballer Shocker had come into his own as a starter, racking up four straight 20-win seasons (1920–23) and leading the American League with 27 wins in 1921 and strikeouts the following year, when he won 24 games.

[36] Huggins made wholesale changes to the Yankees' lineup, as he replaced Ward at second base with Howard Shanks, catchers Steve O'Neill and Wally Schang with Benny Bengough, and, most notably, Pipp with Lou Gehrig at first base, beginning Gehrig's record consecutive games played streak.

[46] That year, the Yankees benefited from the development of George Pipgras and Wilcy Moore,[25] and set an American League record with 110 regular season victories,[47] winning the AL by 19 games.

He traded Dugan, Mike Gazella, Rosy Ryan and Pat Collins,[22] and acquired Lyn Lary from the Pacific Coast League.

[54] He tried Lary at third base and Leo Durocher at shortstop,[55] while he attempted to acquire George Uhle and Ed Morris, but was unsuccessful in both cases.

[56] The American League canceled its games for September 27, the day of his funeral,[59][60] and his viewing at Yankee Stadium drew thousands of tearful fans.

Eventually, "Bob the Gob" Shawkey agreed to serve as the Yankees manager for the 1930 season, leading the team to a third-place finish.

On the downside, in 1914 he set the single season caught-stealing record in the National League, when he was thrown out 36 times (as opposed to 32 successful steals).

His managerial style at first emphasized speed, base-stealing, hit- and-run plays and "slap" (i.e., contact) hitting, but the acquisition of superstar slugger Ruth dictated a change of emphasis towards power and not giving away outs.

[28] In 1915, umpire and sportswriter Billy Evans, writing about the scarcity of competent second basemen in baseball, listed Huggins, Collins, Pratt, Johnny Evers, and Nap Lajoie as the best in the game.

These always remained within the field of play, so long as Yankees Stadium maintained its original commodious outfield dimensions (that reached 461 feet in right center).

Many years later, with the outfield shrunk to barely over 400 feet in a sweeping stadium remodel, the memorials were relocated to a "Monument Park" created behind the centerfield fence, and dedicated in 1976.

[53][69] Huggins was included on the ballot for the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1937, 1938, 1939, 1942, 1945, 1946, 1948, and 1950,[b] failing to receive the number of votes required for election on those occasions.

Named in the Honor Rolls of Baseball in 1946, the Veterans Committee elected Huggins to the Hall of Fame in February 1964,[27] and he was posthumously inducted that summer.

[5] Huggins invested in real estate holdings in Florida,[72] although he sold them in 1926 (three years before the stock market crash, fortunately for him) as they took too much of his time away from baseball.