1930-1939

[Baseball Guru]

1930


It had taken Connie Mack 15 years to rebuild his Philadelphia Athletics into winners and he was enjoying the fruits of his labor. And how.

Labor it had been. After a drastic reshaping of his club after its stunning four-game loss to the Boston Braves in the 1914 World Series, Mack suffered the ignominy of seven consecutive last-place finishes. His 1916 A's team finished 40 games out. Out of seventh place, that is. It wasn't until 1925, in fact, that the Athletics reappeared in the American League's first division. Rube Walberg had arrived in 1923, and Al Simmons came along in 1924 to bolster the Athletics. Mickey Cochrane, Lefty Grove and Jimmie Foxx (as a 17-year-old) joined the A's in '25. And Mule Haas and George Earnshaw made their Philadelphia debuts in 1928. While it took longer to get back to the top than Mack ever imagined, the Athletics made the most of their re-entry into baseball's elite (the team's poorest record from 1927 through 1932 was 91-63). Mack's team nearly upset the heavily favored New York Yankees in the 1928 pennant race, then breezed to the flag in 1929 and won comfortably in 1930.

The '30 World Series provided Mack with an opportunity to win his fifth fall classic and second in a row. But the opposition would be a St. Louis Cardinals team that batted .314 and featured an all .300-hitting lineup.

That the Cardinals could make contact was obvious. However, everyone was making contact in 1930, baseball's Year of the Hitter if ever such a designation applied. The Cards' lofty team average placed only third in the National League, which set a modern major-league record with its .303 membership-wide batting mark. Indeed, six NL clubs had above .300 averages, with the New York Giants setting a modern record with a .319 figure and the Philadelphia Phillies hitting .315. (The Phillies' pitching staff rendered the offense meaningless by compiling a 6.70 earned-run average, an all-time high in the majors. As might be expected, the Phils finished last.) Balls were flying around the American League, too, as evidenced by its .288 average. And in Simmons, Foxx, Cochrane and Bing Miller, the Athletics had more than their share of mashers.

In the Series opener, the Cardinals collected nine hits and the A's only five -- but all of Philadelphia's hits went for extra bases and each figured in the American Leaguers' scoring, which came on single runs in the second, fourth, sixth, seventh and eighth innings. Two of the A's hits were homers by Simmons and Cochrane, and they helped Grove beat veteran Burleigh Grimes, 5-2.

Unable to gather more than one hit in an inning in Game 1, Philadelphia made amends quickly in Game 2. After Cardinals pitcher Flint Rhem retired the first two A's in the first inning, Cochrane homered, Simmons singled and Foxx slugged a run-scoring double. The two runs would be all Earnshaw needed, but the A's added four more and won, 6-1.

With the scene shifting to St. Louis, the Cardinals found themselves trailing two games to none in the Series. But coming from arrears was nothing new to the Cards, who on the morning of August 1 were tied for fourth place and trailed National League-leading Brooklyn by 11 games.

And rebound the Cardinals did. Wild Bill Hallahan shut out the A's, 5-0, in Game 3, which had been a scoreless battle until the fourth when Cardinals center fielder Taylor Douthit stroked a home run off Walberg (who had retired all nine batters he had faced to that point). The next day, St. Louis' 37-year-old Jesse Haines, pitching in his third Series for the Redbirds, was a 3-1 winner in a duel with Grove.

Then, with the Series lead on the line in Game 5, Grimes and Earnshaw hooked up in a masterpiece. Through seven innings, each had allowed only two hits in a scoreless game. Grimes, acquired in June from the Boston Braves and also 37, ran into trouble in the eighth when he loaded the bases with one out, but the famed spitballer worked out of the jam by inducing Max Bishop and Jimmie Dykes to hit into forceouts. In mounting the threat, the Athletics had used a pinch-hitter for Earnshaw -- but Mack had just the man ready in the bullpen: Grove. Despite working eight innings the day before, the lefthander came through with a scoreless eighth and the game moved into the ninth.

Cochrane opened the inning by drawing a walk off Grimes, but Simmons popped out. Foxx, who had hit 37 home runs and driven in 156 runs in the regular season, was up next. He measured a Grimes delivery and slammed the ball into the left-field stands. Athletics 2, Cardinals O. And that's the way the game ended as Grove nailed down the triumph.

While Earnshaw wasn't Philadelphia's pitcher of record in the dramatic Game 5, he clearly was throwing with consummate skill. So, with one day of rest, the 30-year-old righthander was Mack's choice to start Game 6. Gabby Street, the third man to manage the Cardinals to a pennant in five years, opted for Hallahan.

The A's pounced quickly. And before day's end, they had parlayed their first-game offensive "strategy" into a Series-deciding victory. Cochrane and Mill rapped run-scoring doubles in the first inning, and Simmons rifled home run in the third off Cardinals reliever Syl Johnson. Dykes solved Johnson for a two-run homer in the fourth and for intents and purposes it was over.

Remarkably, the A's again made each of their hits an extra-base blow, collecting five doubles in addition to the two homers. And Earnshaw didn't allow a run until there were two out in the ninth, and he wound up with a five-hit, 7-1 victory.

In the World Series capping the Year of the Hitter, the A's reigned as champions despite batting .197 in the classic (compared with St. Louis'.200). Mack's players got the big hits, with 18 of their 35 hits going for extra bases. And the A's received splendid pitching from Earnshaw, who was 2-0 with a 0.72 earned-run average in 25 innings, and Grove, who followed up a 28-5 regular season by winning two of three decisions with a 1.42 ERA in 19 innings.

Their mastery of the Cardinals made the Athletics the first team in history to win two World Series in a row twice. The A's previously had won consecutive Series titles in 1910 and 1911.

Look out, Mack was back

[Baseball Guru]

1931

Those Philadelphia Athletics were at it again in 1931. They captured their third straight American League pennant -- winning 107 games -- and pushed their three-year victory total to 313.

Al Simmons and Lefty Grove symbolized the cut-above nature of the Athletics. Simmons won his second consecutive AL batting title with a .390 average, nine points higher than his '30 average, and added 22 home runs and 128 runs batted in. Grove won 16 consecutive decisions beginning in early June and finished 31-4. In Philadelphia's pennant run from 1929 through '31, the lefthander was 79-15.

Simmons and Grove did business as usual in Game 1 of the 1931 World Series, which again matched Connie Mack's Athletics against Gabby Street's St. Louis Cardinals. Grove permitted two first-inning runs, then shut out the Cards the rest of the way. Simmons rocketed a two-run home run in the seventh, and Philadelphia was off and running with a 6-2 triumph in its quest to become the first club to win three straight Series titles. Grove wasn't his usual stingy self, to be sure. He allowed 12 hits, including three by Cardinals center fielder Pepper Martin.

Among everyday players, Martin was the lone change from Cardinals' cast of 1930. Martin, a "gamer" in every sense of word, had exhibited his all-out style of play in seven minor-league seasons and two brief stints with the Cards before cracking the St. Louis lineup in '31. A full-time major leaguer for the first time at 27, Martin responded by batting .300.

In Game 2 of the Series, Martin and Wild Bill Hallahan thwarted the Athletics. Martin doubled in the second inning, stole third and scored on a fly ball. Then, in the seventh, he singled, stole second, advanced to third on a groundout and scored on a squeeze bunt. That was the extent of the Cardinals' offense, but it was enough. Despite living up to his nickname and issuing seven walks, Hallahan was miserly in the hit department. In fact, the Athletics were hitless until the fifth inning and wound up with only three hits overall. The Cards won, 2-0.

Burleigh Grimes, a 17-game winner for St. Louis at 38, pitched brilliantly in the next contest. While Grimes' specialty, the spitball, had been outlawed in 1920, those using the wet pitch on the major-league level at the time of the rules change were given permission to throw it for the rest of their careers. Eleven years later, Grimes still was pitching. And he still was "loading up." And he still was winning, as the A's discovered in Game 3 of the 1931 Series. Grimes threw no-hit ball through seven innings, finished with a two-hitter and even came through with a two-run single in a 5-2 victory. Batterymate Jimmie Wilson had three hits, and Martin two.

The excellent pitching in this Series continued when Philadelphia's George Earnshaw, a 20-game winner for the third consecutive season, spun a two-hitter in the fourth game. The Cardinals' hits were a fifth-inning single and an eighth-inning double -- both Martin. Jimmie Foxx hit a bases-empty homer for the A's, who were 3-0 winners.

For Game 5, Mack turned to a 32-year-old righthander with vast experience, Waite Hoyt, who had been obtained on waivers from the Detroit Tigers in June. Hoyt had pitched in six Series for the New York Yankees and compiled a 6-3 record for the Yanks in the fall classic. Street nominated Hallahan. The victory went to Hallahan, but once again the headlines went to Martin. Pepper hit a run-scoring fly ball in the first inning, a two-run homer in the sixth and a run-scoring single in the eighth. He also beat out a bunt for a base hit in the fourth. Martin's four-RBI performance backed Hallahan's solid pitching and the Cardinals prevailed, 5-1.

After five games, St. Louis had three victories. And Martin had a .667 batting average (12 hits in 18 at-bats, five runs scored, four doubles, one home run, five RBls and four stolen bases. The Wild Horse of the Osage was feeling his oats.

That Martin could continue -- or even approximate -- his pace was, of course, doubtful. And he did not. No matter. The Cardinals survived, even after St. Louis rookie pitcher Paul Derringer absorbed his second Series defeat in Game 6, a contest in which the A's broke loose for two four-run innings and rolled to an 8-1 victory. Grove tossed a five-hitter in the Series-squaring game.

In the decisive seventh game, St. Louis' Andy High and George Watkins --terribly unproductive in the Series to that point (3-for-22) -- came alive. They scored all four of the Cardinals' runs and collected all five of their hits. After a wild pitch and an error helped St. Louis to two first-inning runs, third baseman High singled in the third and right fielder Watkins followed with a home run that staked Grimes to a 4-0 lead. Grimes pitched shutout ball through the eighth inning, but he faltered in the ninth and needed last-out relief help from Hallahan. That final out in the Cardinals' 4-2 triumph came on a fly ball to Martin, who earlier had made things happen for the Cards and now, fittingly, put an end to the proceedings. St. Louis was the World Series titleist for the second time.

Martin, hitless in Games 6 and 7, nevertheless wound up with a .500 average. And he stole his fifth base of the Series in the first inning of the finale.

Come to think of it, Pepper Martin stole the show in the 1931 World Series. Period.

[Baseball Guru]

1932

The fans at Wrigley Field were hurling verbal abuse at Babe Ruth when the New York Yankees' slugger approached the plate in the fifth inning of Game 3 of the 1932 World Series.

Invectives wasn't all that was tossed Ruth's way. A lemon, among other things, sailed near the Babe.

George Herman Ruth, a national hero for his long-ball exploits, was a villain to the Chicago populace. Not only did he represent the power and the glory of the mighty Yankees, Ruth also had spoken unkindly toward the Cubs' organization. He wasn't alone in the latter regard.

Remembering the contributions of shortstop Mark Koenig to the Yanks' great teams of 1926, '27 and '28, members of the '32 New York club lambasted the Cubs for giving Koenig, a critical late-season acquisition by the Chicago club, only a half-share of their Series pot. Koenig had batted .353 in 33 games after being obtained from the Pacific Coast League.

Besides the Koenig angle, there was the Joe McCarthy factor. McCarthy had been bounced as Cubs manager after the 1930 season -- the Cubs finished second -- after guiding Chicago to the National League pennant the year before. Now, McCarthy was back at Wrigley Field as manager of the hated Yankees. Emotions were running high.

The Yankees had won the first two games of the Series in New York, and this game was tied 4-4 with one out in the fifth as Ruth positioned himself in the batter's box and awaited the first delivery from Cubs pitcher Charlie Root. The Bambino, who had smashed a three-run homer off Root in the first inning, took a called strike. Then Root missed with two pitches. Another called strike followed, and Ruth acknowledged it -- just as he had strike one -- with a raised hand.

By now, Cubs players and fans alike were taunting the big guy; they had fresh ammunition, too, since the Babe had missed on a shoestring catch in the previous inning. The noise level was increasing dramatically.

Ruth then seemingly gestured toward center field -- as if to indicate that's where he planned to deposit Root's next pitch. Or was he merely pointing at Root? Or addressing the Cubs' bench with an exaggerated sweeping motion? Or showing one and all that he still had one strike left?

Whatever the message, Ruth delivered on Root's next offering. He swung viciously, and the ball arced toward center field and went over the wall near the base of the flagpole. The blast put the Yankees ahead 5-4.

"What do you think of the nerve of that big monkey calling his shot and getting away with it?" teammate Lou Gehrig asked the next day. While the Yankees' first baseman, the on-deck hitter at the time, obviously thought the Babe had called his shot, Root, for one, wasn't buying it.

"If he had (pointed to an anticipated home-run landing spot), I would have knocked him down with the next pitch," Root said.

Ruth was content to go along with the called-shot scenario, although he never really expounded upon the matter.

Gehrig matched Ruth's two-homer day by following with a drive into the right field bleachers. Lou's earlier home run had come in the third inning. The back-to-back shots in the fifth stood up as the margin of victory as the Yankees, after trading runs with the Cubs in the ninth, won 7-5.

Trying to close out the Cubs in Game 4, the Yankees fell behind 4-1 in the first inning as Chicago's Frank Demaree smacked a three-run homer. New York stormed back, however, as Tony Lazzeri unloaded a pair of two-run homers and Earle Combs hit a bases-empty shot. A game that was a 5-5 tie after six innings wound up a 13-6 Yankees win.

The Yanks had made it three sweeps in their last three World Series appearances.

A team that despite its contender status had undergone a stunning switch in managers in early August -- from Rogers Hornsby, who couldn't get along with the front office, to first baseman Charley Grimm -- the Cubs never gave any real indication they could compete with the Yankees. Oh, Chicago did jump to a 2-0 first-inning lead in the Series opener. And the National Leaguers maintained that edge until the fourth, when Gehrig capped a three-run outburst with a two-run homer. New York scored five more times in the sixth and Red Ruffing, in his first Series appearance, weathered his way to a 12-6 victory.

Lefty Gomez, a 24-game winner in his second full season in the majors, pitched shutout ball in the last six innings of Game 2, and New York rolled to a 5-2 victory. Catcher Bill Dickey and outfielder Ben Chapman, also Series newcomers, each knocked in two runs for the Yankees, and Gehrig contributed three hits and one RBI.

While Ruth's name forever will be synonymous with the '32 World Series, it was Gehrig who dazzled. Gehrig assaulted Cubs pitching for nine hits in 17 at-bats (.529 average), slugged three homers, scored nine runs and collected eight RBIs. Dickey batted .438 for the Yankees, Combs hit .375 and Joe Sewell and Ruth each finished at .333. For Ruth, the "called shot" was his last homer in World Series play.

New York, a club that finished 13 games ahead of runner-up Philadelphia in the '32 American League pennant race, simply manhandled Grimm's club, totaling 37 runs and 45 hits in the four games. Of the eight Cubs pitchers employed in the Series, five had ERAs of 9.00 or higher against the Yankees.

Outfielder Riggs Stephenson led the Cubs with a .444 average. Billy Jurges, who wound up supplanting Koenig at shortstop after Game 1, was next at .364.

When this chippiest of all World Series ended, McCarthy had his revenge against the Cubs, the club that had dismissed him. Ruth had his "called shot" story ready for retelling on baseball book shelves, be it in the fiction or non-fiction section. And Koenig had his half-share.

[Baseball Guru]

1933

Good pitching stops good hitting. That baseball adage doesn't always hold up, but it certainly did in the 1933 World Series when youthful Manager Joe Cronin and his hard-hitting band of Washington Senators took on the pitching-rich New York Giants.

The 26-year-old Cronin, in a bold move reminiscent of the Senators' selection of 27-year-old Bucky Harris as manager nine years earlier, succeeded Walter Johnson as Washington's manager in '33 and led the club by example in his rookie season. Shortstop Cronin batted .309 and exceeded the 100-runs-batted-in figure for the fourth consecutive year.

Cronin had plenty of help offensively. Outfielder Heinie Manush hit .336 and knocked in 95 runs, first baseman Joe Kuhel finished at .322 and drove in 107 runs and second baseman Buddy Myer contributed a .302 mark. And outfielders Goose Goslin and Fred Schulte, obtained after the 1932 season from the St. Louis Browns, were .297 and .295 hitters. The pitching wasn't exactly shabby, either, with Alvin Crowder winning 24 games and Earl Whitehill 22. And Lefty Stewart, also acquired in the Browns trade, went 15-6.

Having outdistanced the New York Yankees by seven games in the American League pennant race, Washington appeared too strong for the Giants. Having won the National League flag in their first full season under Bill Terry, who had succeeded John McGraw as manager in June 1932, the Giants had only one .300 hitter, first baseman Terry, and one 100-RBI man, outfielder Mel Ott. But in Carl Hubbell, Hal Schumacher, Freddie Fitzsimmons, Roy Parmelee and Dolf Luque, New York was loaded with strong arms.

Hubbell and Schumacher, who had combined for 17 shutouts, started the first two games of the Series for the Giants and were opposed by Stewart and Crowder, respectively. And while neither Giants pitcher was able to hold the Senators scoreless, each pitched extremely well. Hubbell did not permit an earned run while allowing only five hits and striking out 10 in a 4-2 victory. Ott was the hitting star of the Series opener, stroking a two-run homer and a run-scoring single. Schumacher yielded only one run in Game 2, that coming on a Goslin homer, and wound up a 6-1 winner as the Giants erupted for six runs in the sixth inning. The key hit in the outburst was a bases-loaded pinch single by Lefty O'Doul, whose trip to the plate marked his only career at-bat in World Series competition.

Good pitching was indeed stopping good hitting. And what marvelous pitching the Giants possessed. Hubbell had led the National League in victories with 23, shutouts with 10 and earned-run average with a 1.66. Schumacher, Hubbell and Parmelee had ranked 1-2-3 in the league in fewest hits allowed per nine innings. Schumacher had won 19 games, and his 2.16 ERA ranked third in the NL. Fitzsimmons had won 16. And reliever Luque, at 43, had won eight of 10 decisions and boasted a 2.70 ERA.

The standout pitching in this World Series continued in Game 3, only this time the stellar performance came from a member of Cronin's staff. Whitehill, another prize off-season acquisition of the Senators (the lefthander had spent nearly a decade with the Detroit Tigers), doled out five hits and won, 4-0. Myer had three hits and two RBIs for Washington.

Cronin and company faced a major obstacle as they tried to square the Series in Game 4. That obstacle was named Hubbell. The 30-year-old screwball pitcher again did not allow an earned run, but found himself in a 1-1 tie after nine innings. Terry had accounted for the Giants' run with a fourth-inning home run off Monte Weaver, while Washington countered with a seventh-inning run on Hubbell's error, a sacrifice and Luke Sewell's single. Neither club could score in the 10th, but New York edged ahead in the 11th on Travis Jackson's bunt single, a sacrifice and Blondy Ryan's single. In the bottom of the inning, Hubbell escaped a one-out, bases-loaded situation by getting pinch-hitter Cliff Bolton to ground into a double play. The Giants' 2-1 win moved the New Yorkers within one victory of their first Series championship since 1922.

Schumacher was Terry's pitching choice for Game 5, and Prince Hal presented himself with a 2-0 lead by singling home Jackson and Gus Mancuso in the second inning. And by the last of the sixth, it was 3-0. Schumacher retired the first two batters, but Manush and Cronin lashed singles and Schulte brought the Washington crowd alive with a game-tying home run to left. Before the inning was over, Prince Hal was in exile. The game was a battle of relievers -- the Giants' Luque against the Senators' Jack Russell.

The 3-3 stalemate continued until the top of the 10th when, with two out, Ott drilled a Russell pitch into the center-field bleachers. Luque then went about the business of nailing down the Series title for the Giants. After getting two quick outs, the Cuban allowed a single to Cronin and a walk to Schulte. But the man who had first appeared in the majors in 1914 struck out Kuhel on three pitches to end the game-and the 30th World Series.

New York batted .267 in the Series, slightly above its season figure of .263. Washington hit .214 after leading the majors in 1933 with a .287 team mark.

What had unfolded in the '33 Series was no mystery. Clearly, good pitching had stopped good hitting.

[Baseball Guru]

1934

The 1934 St. Louis Cardinals, featuring a cast of characters as colorful as any assembled on one big-league club, could talk a good game. And, with the likes of Dizzy Dean, Leo Durocher, Joe Medwick and Pepper Martin, they did so unabashedly.

More than talk, though, these Cardinals could play a good game.

The New York Giants, National League leaders most of the year and seven games ahead of Manager Frankie Frisch's roisterous group of Cardinals on the morning of September 5, found out only too well how effectively the fun-loving Cards could kick, scratch, claw and, most important, hustle their way to victory. By season's end 3 1/2 weeks later, the Cardinals were NL pennant winners by two games.

The American League champion Detroit Tigers then led St. Louis, three games to two, in the World Series and felt relatively comfortable as they headed home for the conclusion of the fall classic, but Manager Mickey Cochrane's club also was bowled over by the hell-bent-for-leather Redbirds. You just couldn't feel too comfortable around this gang. This Gas House Gang.

Sure, Detroit had the home-field advantage for the final two games of the 1934 Series. And, needing only one victory to clinch their first Series championship, the Tigers were sending Schoolboy Rowe to the mound for Game 6. A second-year major leaguer, Rowe had won 16 consecutive games in a June-to-August stretch and pitched masterfully in Game 2 against the Cardinals. St. Louis was banking on a rookie pitcher to keep it alive. But this was no typical first-year man. This was Paul Dean, who in the heat of the pennant race had thrown a no-hitter against Brooklyn.

Paul Dean prevailed over Rowe with his arm and bat. He held the Tigers to seven hits and, with the score 3-3 in the seventh inning, delivered a game-winning single. Now, after the Cards' 4-3 victory, it was up to brother Dizzy Dean, who had given credence to his "it-ain't-bragging-if-you-can-do-it" claim by winning 30 games for the National League champions. Diz was matched against Eldon Auker in the Series finale.

As matchups go, this one was found wanting.

The Cardinals struck for seven runs in the third inning, an outburst touched off by Diz's double. The big blow in the Cardinals' rally, which was waged against four Detroit pitchers, was Frisch's three-run double. In the sixth, Medwick knocked in a run with a triple -- he slid hard into Tigers third baseman Marv Owen -- and scored on first baseman Rip Collins' fourth hit of the game. It was now 9-0.

The mood among Detroit fans, festive at the start of Game 7, was changing with every new entry to the Cardinals' half of the scoreboard. In fact, when Medwick turned to his left-field station during the middle of the sixth inning, Tiger boosters couldn't contain themselves. Nor their containers. Bottles started flying in Medwick's direction. Plus fruit, vegetables and other debris. A 9-0 deficit and a hard slide had added up to trouble, which Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis quelled by ordering Medwick from the game. The commissioner apparently thought the Cards hardly needed Joe's services at this point. Landis was right. Out came Medwick and in went Chick Fullis. And on St. Louis went to a Series-clinching 11-0 victory, with Diz permitting only six hits and the Cardinals collecting 17 overall.

Medwick, 22, been a pain to the Tigers and their fans right from the start. In the Series opener, he collected four hits -- including a home run -- as the Cardinals, behind Dizzy Dean's steady pitching, rolled to an 8-3 triumph. To say the Tigers had early-Series jitters may be understating the point; with one out in the St. Louis third, Detroit already had been charged with five errors.

Rowe put on an amazing pitching demonstration in the 12-inning second game, limiting the Cardinals to one hit over the final nine innings of a game Detroit won, 3-2. To pull out the victory, Cochrane's Tigers needed a game-tying pinch single in the ninth by Gee Walker and two 12th-inning walks and a single by Goose Goslin, who had played for Washington in the previous year's Series.

Martin, the center fielder-turned-third baseman and star of the Cardinals' Series triumph over the Philadelphia Athletics in 1931, was up to his old tricks in Game 3. He doubled, tripled and scored two runs in support of Paul Dean, who shut out Detroit for 8 2/3 innings and wound up a 4-1 winner.

Detroit then seized the Series lead with 10-4 and 3-1 victories, with Billy Rogell and Hank Greenberg combining for seven RBIs and Auker going the distance in Game 4 and Tommy Bridges pitching a seven-hitter in Game 5.

Then came the Deans. Again.

After winning 49 games in the regular season, Dizzy and Paul combined for all four St. Louis victories in the 1934 Series. Diz even overcame being struck in the head with a thrown ball while serving as a pinch-runner in Game 4. A day later, he yielded only two earned runs in eight innings while losing to Bridges. Then, in Game 7, he fired a shutout and collected two hits of his own.

Medwick batted .379 against Detroit pitching and drove in five runs, while Collins hit .367 and Martin finished at .355. Center fielder Ernie Orsatti proved a pesky Cardinal with a .318 mark, and right fielder Jack Rothrock -- while batting only .233 -- led St. Louis with six RBIs.

Second baseman Charlie Gehringer paced Detroit with a .379 average and Greenberg hit .321 with a Series-leading seven RBIs. Cochrane, named the Tigers' manager after being acquired in December 1933 from the Athletics, struggled in the Series with a .214 average and one RBI after helping the upstart Detroit club win the pennant with his field leadership and .320 average.

That the Cardinals' all-out style of play would result in the ever-descriptive nickname of Gas House Gang -- a label that really wasn't bandied about until the 1935 season -- was hardly surprising. That 0l' Diz and company had the talent to back up their bombast proved, in the end, even less surprising.

[Baseball Guru]

1935

These franchises were not steeped in the tradition of World Series success.

The Detroit Tigers had never won a Series, losing baseball's showcase event in 1907, 1908, 1909 and 1934. The Chicago Cubs had lost in their last four Series appearances, falling in 1910, 1918, 1929 and 1932.

The fortunes of one of these teams would change in 1935, a year in which the fall classic matched Charley Grimm's Cubs -- winners of 21 consecutive games in September -- against a Detroit team that had won the American League pennant for the second straight year.

By the time the late stages of Game 6 of the 1935 World Series rolled around, there was little clue as to which club would shake off its postseason funk and which would endure more agony. The Cubs were trailing in the Series, three games to two, but this contest was knotted at 3-3 in the top of the ninth and Chicago's Stan Hack was perched on third base with no one out. Hack had just tripled off Detroit curveballer Tommy Bridges, driving the ball over the head of center fielder Gee Walker.

Bridges, whose 21 victories paced the Detroit pitching staff '35, was in an unenviable -- but not hopeless -- situation. While the potential Series-tying run was 90 feet down the third-base line, Bridges wasn't going against the heart of the Cubs' order. Instead, eighth-place hitter Billy Jurges, pitcher Larry French and leadoff man Augie Galan were due up.

Bridges was up to the challenge. First, he struck out Jurges. Then, he induced French to ground back to the mound, with Hack holding third. And finally he got Galan to fly out. Whatever the threesome the Cubs had sent to the plate, it was a textbook piece of clutch pitching.

Now the Tigers could win it -- not only the game, but their first World Series -- with a run in the last of the ninth. After French struck out Flea Clifton, Mickey Cochrane slapped a single off second baseman Billy Herman's glove and the Tigers' manager/catcher advanced to second on Gehringer's groundout. Goose Goslin, who had performed so admirably for the Washington Senators in World Series competition, who had delivered the 12th-inning hit that won Game 2 of the '34 Series for Detroit, was up next. Goslin, in what would be his 129th and last at-bat in World Series play, banged a single to right field and Cochrane scored from second with the decisive run.

Detroit -- the team and the city -- went bonkers.

The Tigers had won the hard way -- without slugging first baseman Hank Greenberg, who missed the last four games of the Series after breaking his wrist in Game 2. Greenberg was coming off a remarkable season, one in which he slammed 36 home runs, drove in 170 runs (100 by the All-Star break) and batted .328. With Greenberg on the sideline, Detroit switched third baseman Marv Owen to first and inserted Clifton at Owen's usual position. Owen and Clifton went 1-for-36 in the Series.

Greenberg had helped Detroit even the Series at a game apiece, capping a four-run Tigers first inning in Game 2 with a two-run home run off Charlie Root (who, in his first Series appearance since being victimized by Babe Ruth's "called shot" homer in 1932, failed to retire a batter as the Cubs' starter). Detroit went on to win, 8-3, on Bridges' six-hitter. Chicago's Lon Warneke had won the Series opener, 3-0, giving up only four hits.

Jo Jo White's run-scoring single in the 11th inning of Game 3 lifted Detroit to a 6-5 triumph after Schoolboy Rowe, working in relief, had blown a 5-3 lead in the ninth. The Tigers made it three straight victories the next day when Alvin Crowder outdueled Tex Carleton, 2-1.

The Cubs rebounded in Game 5 as Chuck Klein hammered a two-run homer and Warneke pitched six shutout innings before leaving because of a sore shoulder. Bill Lee finished up for Warneke as the Cubs posted a 3-1 triumph, setting the stage for the sixth-game dramatics.

Right fielder Pete Fox, who doubled home Detroit's first run in the finale, was the leading hitter in the Series with a .385 average. Gehringer batted .375 for the Tigers after hitting .379 in the previous year's fall classic. Herman, who drove in all three of the Cubs' runs in Game 6, had a Series-high six RBIs and tied Klein for Chicago's batting lead with a .333 mark. The Tigers' Bridges and the Cubs' Warneke each were 2-0.

While neither team excelled overall, the conquerors at least (and at last) won their first World Series. The conquered are still looking for their first fall-classic title since 1908.

[Baseball Guru]

1936

The 1936 World Series was the first involving the New York Yankees in which the Yanks did not have outfielder George Herman Ruth on their roster.

A promising development for the opponent? On the surface, perhaps. It should be quickly noted, however, that the '36 Series also was the first in which the Yanks did have outfielder Joseph Paul DiMaggio on their roster.

Accordingly, 1936 was notable as a period of transition. But before long, the year also would prove notable because it marked the beginning of unprecedented World Series dominance. To the surprise of few, it would be the Yankees who would do the dominating.

Babe Ruth had played the last of his 15 seasons with the Yankees in 1934, two years after the Yanks' most recent appearance in the Series. Joe DiMaggio had joined the Yankees in 1936, and as a rookie he helped New York to a 19 1/2-game victory margin in the American League pennant race by slamming 29 home runs, driving in 125 runs and batting .323.

The Yankees' return to the World Series coincided with the New York Giants' re-emergence as National League champions. And while the Giants did not have the joy ride to the pennant that the Yankees experienced -- Bill Terry's team finished on top by five games -- they did have a meal ticket. His name was Carl Hubbell.

At 33, Hubbell put together an amazing season. The lefthanded pitcher won his last 16 decisions, finishing 26-6. His ERA was 2.31.

Hubbell, naturally, was Terry's nominee to start Game 1 of the Series. Yankees manager Joe McCarthy chose 20-game winner Red Ruffing.

Yanks left fielder Jake Powell, obtained from Washington in a mid-June trade, solved Hubbell for base hits in his first three trips to the plate. George Selkirk, who had replaced Ruth in right field for the American Leaguers, clubbed a third-inning home run off the screwballer. Beyond that, however, little more need be said. Hubbell allowed only seven hits and struck out eight batters. Incredibly, not one of King Carl's outfielders was called upon to catch a fly ball. The Giants, getting a game-tying homer from shortstop Dick Bartell in the fifth, another run in the sixth and four more in the eighth, won 6-1.

The Yankees won four of the next five games, starting and ending the run with furious assaults on Giants pitchers. In Game 2, the Yanks cuffed Hal Schumacher and four relievers for 17 hits -- including a bases-loaded home run by Tony Lazzeri, only the second grand slam in World Series history. All nine Yankees had at least one hit and scored at least one run in the 18-4 laugher; Lazzeri and Bill Dickey each drove in five runs. The next day, McCarthy's men did it with finesse. Trade acquisition Bump Hadley, with ninth-inning relief from Pat Malone, was a 2-1 winner as shortstop Frankie Crosetti delivered the tie-breaking hit in the eighth.

Hubbell, unaccustomed to defeat, received a taste of same in Game 4. He allowed four Yankee runs -- two coming on Lou Gehrig's second homer in two days -- in the first three innings and lost 5-2 to Monte Pearson and the Yanks. Pearson, obtained from Cleveland after the 1935 season, had won 19 games.

On the brink of elimination, the Giants stayed alive with a 5-4, 10-inning victory in Game 5. The winning run scored on a fly ball hit by Giants manager Terry, appearing in what turned out to be the next-to-last game of his major league playing career.

Elimination did come to the Giants the next afternoon. Powell homered and knocked in four runs, and he, Lazzeri, DiMaggio and Red Rolfe each had three hits as the Yankees wrapped up matters with a 13-5 romp. Lefty Gomez, the beneficiary of a 17-hit offensive for the second time in the Series (he went the distance in Game 2), did not coast in Game 6. He left in the seventh inning in favor of Johnny Murphy and held only a 5-4 lead at the time. But Gomez remained the pitcher of record as the Yankees traded runs with the Giants in the eighth and then went on a seven-run onslaught in the ninth.

The Yankees pounded out 65 hits, with Powell and Rolfe -- .455 and .400 hitters -- collecting 10 each. DiMaggio batted .346. Gehrig was his usual productive self, knocking in seven runs and boosting his RBIs total in Series play to 31 in 25 games.

The Giants had their moments, the biggest of which came in the first game when Hubbell's wizardry enabled them to halt the Yankees' Series winning streak at 12 games. But as evidenced in Games 2 and 6, in particular, and in the other games in general, Terry's men were up against an irresistible force. And this was a force that was just beginning to assert itself in the World Series.

[Baseball Guru]

1937

Just how good were these New York Yankees, anyway?

Good enough to win 102 games for the second consecutive season. Good enough to run away with the American League pennant for the second year in a row. And good enough to make even shorter work of the crosstown-rival New York Giants in the World Series.

Joe McCarthy's 1937 Yankees fell short of the 1936 club's exploits in a couple areas. AL champions by 19 1/2 games in '36, the Yanks had to settle for a mere 13-game margin in '37. And whereas the Yanks boasted five 100-RBIs men in '36 -- Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Tony Lazzeri, Bill Dickey and George Selkirk -- they had only three in '37. But what numbers those three put up. DiMaggio drove in 167 runs, Gehrig 159 and Dickey 133 -- an amazing total of 459.

The Yankees had the horses, all right. And you could start with the Iron Horse, Gehrig, who enjoyed his last magnificent season before amyotrophic lateral sclerosis began to take its toll on his career and, all too soon, his life. Gehrig batted .351 and walloped 37 home runs. DiMaggio hit .346 with 46 homers, and Dickey finished at .332 and smacked 29 homers. Selkirk produced at a frantic pace -- 18 homers and 68 RBIs in just 78 games -- that would have placed him in the DiMaggio-Gehrig-Dickey stratosphere but missed half the season because of injuries.

Beyond their big boppers, the Yankees also had the American League's only 20-game winners in Lefty Gomez (21-11) and Red Ruffing (20-7) and a standout relief pitcher in Johnny Murphy, who recorded 12 victories while coming out of the bullpen and 13 overall.

Bill Terry's National League-winning Giants boasted two 20-game winners, but Terry's club lacked the thump of the Yankees. Carl Hubbell (22-8) reached 20 victories for the fifth consecutive season, and rookie Cliff Melton (20-9) burst upon the scene. But only Mel Ott provided Yankee-type power with 31 homers and 95 RBIs.

Hubbell and the Giants were coasting with a 1-0 lead over the vaunted Yanks entering the bottom of the sixth of Game 1 of the '37 Series. Before the inning was over, though, the Yankees had struck for seven runs. DiMaggio and Selkirk each poked bases-loaded singles and notoriously poor hitter Gomez drew two walks. The Yanks, who got a bases-empty home run from Lazzeri in the eighth and six-hit pitching from Gomez, won 8-1.

The next day Melton and the Giants led 1-0 in the last of the fifth. This time, the Yankees struck for two runs -- the second scoring on pitcher Ruffing's single. Ruffing then drilled a two-run double in the American Leaguers' four-run sixth, and the Yankees were on their way to a second consecutive 8-1 victory. Ruffing yielded seven hits and, besides benefiting from his own batting prowess, received three RBIs offensive support from Selkirk.

The Yankees continued on their merry way in Game 3 as Monte Pearson, getting last-out relief help from Murphy in the ninth inning after the Giants had loaded the bases, won.

The big inning, so much a Yankees trademark, came into play again in Game 4 as the Yanks went for their fourth sweep in their last five World Series appearances. In a turnabout-is-fair-play scenario, though, it was Terry's team that set off the offensive fireworks that resulted in six second-inning runs. Center fielder Hank Leiber got things going with a base hit and then capped the outburst with a two-run single. With Hubbell capably handling the Giants' pitching chores that afternoon, the NL champions were in good shape. At least for one day. The Giants went on to record a 7-3 victory as Hubbell threw a six-hitter. In the ninth, the last inning he ever pitched in World Series competition, Hubbell allowed a home run to Gehrig. The one-out drive proved to be Gehrig's last Series homer.

In Game 5, Myril Hoag whacked a second-inning homer for the Yanks and DiMaggio connected in the top of the third, but Ott got the runs back for the Giants with a two-run shot in the last of the third. Then, in the fifth, Lazzeri hit a leadoff triple and scored on Gomez's single off the glove of Giants second baseman Burgess Whitehead. Two outs later, Gehrig doubled home Gomez. It was 4-2 Yankees, and that's the way the game and World Series ended as Gomez pushed his Series record to 5-0.

The powerful New York Yankees were World Series titleists for a record sixth time, breaking the mark they had shared with the Philadelphia Athletics.

That the Yankees were hardly pressed in this Series despite batting only .249 wasn't exactly reassuring to the National League, whose member teams must have wondered what fate might possibly await them if the Yanks were playing at peak efficiency. The senior league's worst fears soon were realized: Its next two World Series representatives found the going even more difficult against McCarthy's athletes. Yes, even tougher than the four-games-to-one humiliation that the New York Giants were forced to endure in 1937.

[Baseball Guru]

1938

The calendar said 1938, but it seemed an awfully lot like 1932.


The Chicago Cubs had just won the National League pennant. And they had done so after changing managers during the season. The New York Yankees, under the steady leadership of Joe McCarthy, easily had captured the American League flag.

Six years earlier, the Cubs copped the NL championship after dismissing Rogers Hornsby as manager in early August and replacing him with Charley Grimm. The Yanks, with McCarthy in command in '32, coasted to the pennant by a 13-game margin.

Fortunately for the Yankees and unfortunately for the Cubs, the similarities didn't end there. As in 1932, the New Yorkers were invincible in the World Series.

The Yankees had reached the 1938 World Series in typical crunching fashion. Five New York regulars compiled RBIs totals exceeding 90, and those five -- Joe DiMaggio, Bill Dickey, Lou Gehrig, rookie Joe Gordon and Tommy Henrich -- had home-run figures ranging from 32 to 22. Red Ruffing led the American League in victories with 21, followed in the rotation by Lefty Gomez (18 wins), Monte Pearson (16) and Spud Chandler (14). The result was a 9 1/2-game lead over the Boston Red Sox in the AL.

The Cubs made it to the Series on a late charge that featured one particularly dramatic moment. On September 28, as darkness descended on Wrigley Field, Chicago manager Gabby Hartnett walloped a two-out, ninth-inning home run that lifted the Cubs to a 6-5 victory over Pittsburgh and enabled the North Siders to slip past the Pirates into first place. Until Hartnett's homer -- which gave Chicago a half-game lead in the standings -- the Pirates had been atop the National League for 2 1/2 months. The Cubs held on to first place, winning the pennant by two games.

Hartnett, the Cubs' 37-year-old catcher, had been thrust into the managerial role three weeks into July as successor to the deposed Grimm. As in 1932, the Cubs had dipped into their player ranks upon naming a new manager (Grimm, strictly a dugout manager beginning in 1937, was the Cubs' first baseman when he took over in '32).

While Hartnett obviously lit a fire under these Cubs -- the club was in a virtual tie for third place when he became manager -- he had no powerhouse. First baseman Rip Collins led the team in homers with 13, and outfielder Augie Galan topped the Cubs in RBIs with 69. While the thunder was missing, third baseman Stan Hack and outfielder Carl Reynolds at least provided some lightning. Hack batted .320 and led the National League with 16 stolen bases, and Reynolds hit .302. Bill Lee and Clay Bryant were the staff pitching aces with 22 and 19 victories. Dizzy Dean, who tried to come back too soon after his All-Star Game toe injury of 1937 and hurt his arm, had been obtained from the St. Louis Cardinals in April and won 7-of-8 decisions.

Lee got the call for the Cubs in the Series opener. And while the big righthander pitched relatively well, he did not pitch well enough to win. Dickey went 4-for-4 against him, scoring a run and driving home another, and the Yankees jumped on top in the fall classic with a 3-1 triumph.

Game 2 was emotion-packed as the brash Dean, pitching mostly on guile, contained the Yankees for seven innings at Wrigley Field. 0l' Diz, changing speeds and using his experience, had given up only three hits and led 3-2. George Selkirk collected the Yankees' fourth hit as the leadoff batter in the eighth, but two force outs left Dean in a position to escape unharmed. Frankie Crosetti, the low man on the Yankee regulars' home-run list in 1938 with nine homers, was up next with Myril Hoag inching off first base. Crosetti promptly sent shudders through the crowd, laying into a Dean pitch and driving it into the left field stands. Yankees 4, Sentimentality 3.

While 0l' Diz, a 27-year-old righthander, struck out Red Rolfe to end the eighth, he couldn't get through the ninth. Henrich began the inning with a single and DiMaggio dashed Dean's and the Cubs' hopes by following with a home run. Gomez was credited with the 6-3 victory, his sixth and last in Series competition against no defeats.

Ahead two games-to-none with the Series shifting to Yankee Stadium, the New Yorkers seemed to be a lock. And they were.

Gordon rapped a bases-empty homer and a two-run single in Game 3, leading the Yankees to a 5-2 victory. Crosetti flexed his muscles again in Game 4, driving in four runs with a double and a triple as New York completed its fourth sweep in its last six World Series appearances. The stinging 8-3 defeat in the finale meant the Cubs had finished on the short end in their last six Series.

While the Yanks' sweep was yet another similarity to 1932, one aspect of the '38 Series bore no resemblance to what had transpired six years earlier. Gehrig, who slugged three homers and drove in eight runs in the '32 fall classic, neither hit a homer nor collected an RBI this time around. He managed four hits, all singles, in 14 at-bats in his last Series.

Gehrig's legacy was many-faceted, and it included the fact he had just become a member of the first team to win the World Series in three consecutive years

[Baseball Guru]

1939

The New York Yankees managed only five hits in Game 3 of the 1939 World Series. Would you believe all four hits were home runs?

For the fourth consecutive year, the National League's representative in the fall classic became a believer in the wondrous deeds performed by Joe McCarthy's Yankees. And those deeds never seemed more awe-inspiring than on October 7, 1939, when the Yanks bludgeoned the National League champion Cincinnati Reds with a four-hit attack.

Manager Bill McKechnie's Reds out-hit the Yankees by more than a 2-to-1 margin in Game 3, but all 10 of Cincinnati's hits were singles. New York, meanwhile, got two-run homers from rookie Charlie Keller in the first and fifth innings, a two-run blast from Joe DiMaggio (who batted a career-high .381 in the regular season) in the third and a bases-empty shot from Bill Dickey in the fifth. Enough said.

Before their homer-happy 7-3 triumph in Cincinnati, the Yankees had ridden the pitching of Red Ruffing and Monte Pearson to victories in Games 1 and 2 -- games in which the major leagues' winningest pitchers of 1939 went down to defeat. In the Series opener, Ruffing's four-hitter beat 25-game winner Paul Derringer 2-1. With the score 1-1 in the ninth, Keller hit a one-out triple and, after an intentional walk to DiMaggio, trotted home on Dickey's single. Matched against 27-game winner Bucky Walters in Game 2, Pearson tossed no-hit ball until Reds catcher Ernie Lombardi singled with one out in the eighth. Babe Dahlgren doubled and homered in support of Pearson, who wound up with a two-hit, 4-0 triumph.

Dahlgren had supplanted Lou Gehrig at first base for the Yankees, taking over May 2 when failing health and an accompanying decline in skills had forced Gehrig out of the New York lineup after 2,130 consecutive games. Not since 1923 had the Yankees engaged in postseason play without Gehrig.

Game 4 was a 0-0 battle until the seventh when Keller and Dickey slugged bases-empty home runs off Derringer. But the Reds came back in their half of the inning for three unearned runs off reliever Steve Sundra, who had replaced ailing starter Oral Hildebrand in the fifth, and tacked on an insurance run in the eighth off Johnny Murphy.

The Reds soon discovered they weren't carrying enough insurance. And what they needed, it turned out, was collision insurance.

Shortstop Billy Myers' error on Dickey's potential double-play ball in the ninth -- the run-scoring grounder enabled the Yankees to move within 4-3 -- helped turn a possibly harmless inning into a game-tying rally. New York scored again in the inning when DiMaggio, who would have been a force out victim at second if not for Myers' misplay, beat a throw to the plate on Gordon's grounder to third baseman Bill Werber (with Gordon credited with a hit on the play).

With runners on the corners and one out in the Yankees' 10th, DiMaggio singled to right, snapping the 4-4 tie. That would have been trouble enough for Cincinnati, but right fielder Ival Goodman misplayed the ball and another run -- in the person of Keller -- headed home. That, too, would have been trouble enough for Cincinnati, but catcher Lombardi not only failed to hold Goodman's throw to the plate, but he also was knocked down by the onrushing Keller and the ball rolled away. As a result, DiMaggio was able to circle the bases as the Reds' receiver lay stunned. "Schnozz's snooze" the play was called, and it won a special place in baseball lore despite its seemingly minimal impact overall.

Murphy protected the Yankees' 7-4 lead in the last of the 10th, working out of a jam in which the Reds sent the tying run to the plate three times. On the third such occasion, Wally Berger lined out to shortstop Frankie Crosetti. The New York Yankees, pulling off their second consecutive sweep, were World Series champions for the fourth consecutive year.

That the Reds had made it into their first Series since 1919, the year of the Black Sox scandal, was an amazing advance, considering Cincinnati had finished in the National League basement in 1937. For the Yankees, it was business as usual. Actually, a little better than usual: 106 victories and 45 losses. They won the pennant by 17 games.

Keller, 23, was the Series star, leading all regulars in runs scored (eight), hits (seven), home runs (three), RBIs (six) and batting average (.438).

Fittingly, such dominance as that exhibited by Keller came from a member of the Yankees, who had won 13 of their last 14 Series games and 28 of their last 31 games in baseball's premier event.