SLIPPERY ROCK - It was a peculiarity to Alan Levy.

The Slippery Rock University American history professor and author of books on such sports topics as Rube Waddell and the integration of professional football, set out to pen a book about legendary manager Joe McCarthy.

What he found was a strange dearth of information on McCarthy, most notably the fact that no one had written a biography on the skipper.

"The whole life of the man has a lot of obscurity in it," Levy said. "You have to unearth it."

There are 20 books about Casey Stengel, Levy said, but when it came to the subject of McCarthy, what was written about him was contained only in other works.

"With Stengel, there are thousands of quips and humorous stories," Levy said. "A typical interview with McCarthy consisted of, 'Do you think you will win the pennant this year?' (And McCarthy would reply) 'Yes.'"

McCarthy was very guarded in every aspect of his professional life. When it came to dealing with reporters, the manager viewed them as an invading force and kept them at arms-length.

That discouraged many journalists of the time from writing a biography about McCarthy, Levy said.

"One reporter described him as a glass wall," Levy said. "You think you can get close to him, but then you hit the wall. (The journalists) of the day didn't like him."

Red Smith, a contemporary sports writer for the New York Times, described McCarthy's success as "phlegmatic unobtrusiveness."

"How do you get through the glass wall?" Levy asked. "It was a treasure hunt. You weren't going to find 'the gold.' You were going to find a piece here and a piece there."

Levy did the bulk of his research during a sabbatical in 2002. His original draft of the book, titled "Joe McCarthy: Architect of the Yankee Dynasty," was more than 600 pages, but publisher McFarland & Company - the same house that published his other sports books - told him to pare it down to fewer than 500 pages.

The book finally hit stores this April.

"It was very tough," Levy said. "It's hard to cut what you have already written. I just tried to go after excess words."

The job was made more difficult because there are no other books about McCarthy and the manager had a profound effect on baseball that had gone, for the most part, untold.

Levy writes about how McCarthy began his managerial career in the minor leagues with Louisville, where he also was a marginal player. He built an impressive resume, and, in 1926, the desperate Chicago Cubs gave him his first major league job.

Just three years later, the Cubs won the pennant.

"He built the Cubs into a perennial champion," Levy said.

McCarthy, though, made his biggest mark with the New York Yankees, where he became the first manager to win four World Series championships in a row from 1936 to 1939. He won seven pennants and six World Series titles with New York.

He also had an on-going feud with Babe Ruth, Levy writes in his book.

Ruth desperately wanted to manage, but the organization hired McCarthy instead. The star resented that.

Yet McCarthy stayed out of the fray in the media, allowing Ruth to do as he pleased - as long as he showed up and played.

McCarthy was adept as a tactician, had an eye for talent and also had an amazing ability to see the whole field and recall opponents' weaknesses on cue.

Levy said McCarthy's greatest achievement was keeping his teams at or near the top for 29 seasons.

"He never had a bad season," Levy said. "The parallel I draw is with Jack Nicklaus. Nicklaus won 18 majors, but also finished second 19 times. McCarthy kept his teams in contention every year."

McCarthy also was the first manager to use a specialized relief pitcher on a regular basis and also brought the beginning of the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry when he managed in Boston from 1948 to 1950.

"The Red Sox were nothing since they got rid of Ruth," Levy said. "He made the Red Sox contenders and that really began the bitter rivalry between the two teams."

Levy also delves into McCarthy's childhood and his later years, when he opened up a little more to the media.

McCarthy was offered $350,000 to write his memoirs, but he turned it down because he didn't want to say something negative about his former players.

Levy said that summed up McCarthy. Now there is a book to chronicle his life - an arduous task that Levy has finally completed.

"There was a lot of sweat involved," Levy said.

Levy is now in the process of researching a book about boxer Floyd Patterson.