Alabama Florida League – Manny Russo

 
Manny Russo
One of the most interesting stories in the history of the Alabama-Florida League
is that of Manuel « Manny » Russo. Russo played in the AFL for 10 years and managed
the Andalusia Arrows in 1949. Not only was Russo a versatile player, he was
a war hero who didn’t let a serious injury stop him from returning to the game
he loved.

Manny Russo was a man who loved playing baseball in Alabama-Florida League.
He spent his entire career in the AFL, with the exception of two partial
seasons in the Georgia-Florida League. Russo could play just about anywhere: He
caught, played third, short, second and the outfield during his 9 seasons in
the AFL. He was a great hitter, compiling a lifetime batting average of .296. Manny
had grown up in Birmingham and was one of nine boys in the Russo family, enough
kids to field their own team. Very likely, the Russo brothers spent much
of their free time playing ball and Manny grew to be good enough to make a go of
it as a professional ballplayer. Manny’s career started in 1936, the first year
of the Alabama-Florida League, when he signed to play with the Enterprise Barons.
He managed to play in 66 games, batting a respectable .285. Russo also managed
to play a few games with Thomasville in the Georgia-Florida League, where
he batted .235. It’s unclear whether Russo spent the early part of the season
or the late part of the season in the GFL. As the 1937 season began, Russo found
himself without a team when Enterprise folded before the first game. Evergreen,
Alabama applied for the franchise option vacated by Enterprise, and Russo joined
the Greenies for the season. He managed to get into 109 games, but his hitting
was rather mediocre. Manny batted .249, with 3 homers and 38 RBIs.

In 1938, Russo got a good break and signed with the powerful Dothan Browns, lead
by AFL legend Ernie « Doc » Wingard. Russo played the outfield, and second base for
the league leaders, but for the second straight year his average declined. His
.232 average in 70 games was disappointing; nevertheless, he re-signed with
the Browns for the 1939 season. Manager Wingard decided to make Russo a starting
outfielder and Manny responded with his strongest start yet. Evidently, the Troy
Trojans took notice of Russo and engineered a trade for him in the early midseason.
Russo finished the year playing in 121 games, batting a strong .290, and
hitting twice as many homers (12) than he had accumulated in his first three
seasons.Russo also had twice as many walks (75) than strikeouts (35).
In 1940, Manny signed with the Andalusia Rams and he found himself a home in the
friendly south Alabama town. Russo was a solid player for the Rams, playing in
123 games, batting .281 and knocking 37 doubles. Russo was becoming an important
and respected player in the league and he was ready to blossom in 1941.
It’s
not known whether Manny was injured for part of the 1941 season, or his draft
number had come up, but he played in only 55 games for Andalusia. Regardless,
Russo’s bat was on fire. He finished the season with a batting average of .332.

Suddenly, things changed. Manny Russo, like many young men at the time, turned
in his bat for a gun and shipped off to the war in the Pacific. At some point
during the war, Russo was on patrol when he encountered a Japanese soldier in
a foxhole. The Japanese soldier, armed with a machete, attacked Russo and chopped
off two fingers and a portion of Manny’s left hand. Russo, in the fight of
his life, took on the soldier and even with the terrible hand injury, Russo is
said to have killed the Japanese soldier. The hand injury was severe, but evidently
Russo had no intention of letting it stop him from returning to the game
he loved. After the war, Manny came home to Alabama and managed to convince the
Geneva Red Birds to give him a tryout. Manny learned to catch with his damaged
glove hand, making the stiff old-style mitt do it’s job. His grip on the bat was
somewhat compromised, but he found that even with his injury he could get around
on a pitch better than just about anybody in the league. Because of his determination,
Russo became one of the premier hitters in the AFL. He played in 94
games for Geneva, batting an impressive .349, while doing a repectable job at
third base. In 1947, Russo returned to the Andalusia Arrows and had a career year.
In 119 games, Manny batted .343 with 19 home runs and 87 RBI’s. Russo batted
cleanup and teammate « Bubba » Donner batted fifth. Both players were selected
to the All star team that year, but Russo’s accomplishment was extraordinary.
He earned his position on the team by playing hard everyday. There was no special
treatment for Russo, no easing up on him because of his injury. In fact, he
seemed to take quite a bit more abuse than other players. Chick Earle, a teammate
of Russo’s, said that Greenville pitcher Pershing Flowers would hit Manny everytime
the he pitched against him. Russo was hit by a pitch 21 times in 1947,
more than double the number of HBP’s he had in any other season.
The AFL
in the 1940’s was a fairly loose league where fights, taunts, and even an occasional
assault from a fan were not unusual. Players had to be pretty thick-skinned
to endure the hostile fans of a rival city, and some rivalries were pretty heated. 
The language at the ballparks was often course, and Russo was an easy
target for opposing fans because of his dark complexion.  Russo was Italian
and his olive color was often the attacking point of the opposition. Hostile
fans would taunt him, calling him a « nigger », which was particulary insulting
to a white player in the segregated south. During a game in Troy, Russo was
taunted by a fan to the point where he could take no more. He jumped into the stands
in hot pursuit of the fan, who lost his courage and made a beeline for the
turnstyles. Russo reportedly chased the fan completely out of the stadium. Manny
also got into a few squabbles with opposing catchers. Because of his injury,
he’d occasionally lose control of the bat. A swing and a miss might result in
the bat coming all the way around and hitting the catcher. Many of the roughest
characters in the AFL worked behind the plate, but Manny wasn’t the type to back
down, after all, any guy who could kill a machete-weilding attacker with his
bare hands certainly could hold his own with another ballplayer.
Russo
didn’t play professional baseball in 1948, but he returned the the Alabama State
League for one final go-around in 1949, this time as player-manager of the Andalusia
Arrows. The Arrows were not a strong team and after spending the first
half of the season in the cellar, the Andalusia ownership replaced Manny with Bob
Engle. Engle had some success and brought the team up a few notches in the standings by
season’s end. Manny had played in 38 games during his final year, batting .299.
The end of the line had come, and Manny decided to stay in Andalusia, where he
had many friends both on and off the field. Manny remained there the rest of his
life, running a small business in town and keeping in touch with his local baseball
friends. While many of the details of Manny’s life are lost to the ages,
his story is one that deserves attention. Like most Class D players, he would
probably have been surprised to know that 39 years after the league disbanded,
baseball fans are actually interested in the league he played in. Manny Russo
accomplished quite a bit in his minor league career, but he accomplished even more
by not letting a severe injury keep him from the game he loved.
Manny Russo in 1947
My Grandfather, Bernie Donner, played on the 1947 All-Star team.  He played
in Andalusia. He has an interesting story about a player named Manny Russo. Russo
played with half of a left hand.  He got it chopped off in World War II
by a Japanese soldier with a machete.  Russo claims to have killed the man
with is bare hands. Because of Russo’s injury, he had occasional trouble with
losing his bat on the backswing.  This lead to an altercation during one
game, when Russo took a full swing, losing grip of the bat which came around and
hit the opposing catcher in the back of his neck below the helmet, knocking him
out.

   –  John Donner