Nice Guys Finish Seventh

Leo Durocher is best remembered for saying, "Nice guys finish last." He never said it. What the Brooklyn Dodgers' manager did say, before a 1946 game with the New York Giants, was: "The nice guys are all over there. In seventh place." Durocher's words lacked pop. Sportswriters perked them up, and gave America one of its most familiar misquotations. Ralph Keyes points out in "Nice Guys Finish Seventh" that many of our best-known sayings, phrases, and quotations are. Inaccurate, misattributed, or both. During two decades of research, he discovered that: "Any man who hates dogs and children can't be all bad" was said about W.C. Fields, not by him; "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing" was the slogan of UCLA coach Red Sanders, not Vince Lombardi; "The opera ain't over 'til the fat lady sings" was adapted from an old saying: "Church ain't out 'til the fat lady sings"; and Winston Churchill did not originate the phrase "iron. Curtain," and never said, "blood, sweat and tears." Hundreds of such examples illustrate Keyes's Immutable Law of Misquotation: Misquotes drive out real quotes. "Certain things demand to be said," he writes, "said in a certain way, and by the right person.