Washington DC Baseball

GeoPoto · #1 12-12-2023, 04:56 AM

Fred Schulte, who'd had four hits in the first three ballgames but none in this one, restored some hope with a single over shortstop for the Senators' seventh hit of the ballgame to start the bottom of the 11th. Joe Kuhel, up next, made it eight with a bunt that hugged the first-base line. Bill Terry let the ball roll, hoping it would go foul. Bluege sacrificed an out for the second time in the game, putting the tying run on third and the winning run on second with only one out. With the table set, Luke Sewell wasn't allowed to partake in the banquet. The Giants' brain trust dictated that Sewell be walked, loading the bases with pitcher Jack Russell, who wouldn't bat of course, up next.

The next player called into this high drama was Cliff Bolton, a young reserve catcher who nearly never caught, as the Senators still had Moe Berg to back Sewell behind the Plate. Bolton was with the club for one purpose only -- to come off the bench and drive in some runs. He hit .410 during the season but was given just 39 at-bats (he was 9-for-22 as a pinch hitter, for a .409 mark in that role). But Bolton was a lefthanded hitter, and one might have wondered about the wisdom of letting him face the great lefty, Carl Hubbell. The Senators, after all, had a capable gentleman on the bench who just happened to swing from the right side. He also happened to be the owner of a .323 career batting average over 19 big-league campaigns. We refer, of course, to Sam Rice.

Oh, for what might have been. Bolton did make solid contact, sending a shot toward second. Blondy Ryan, who'd driven in the tie-breaking run in the top of the inning, moved in and scooped up the ball, instantly flipping it to Critz, who completed a game-ending double play by relaying to first on time to nail the slow-footed Bolton. Cronin's failure to drive in runs despite opportunities in the fourth, sixth, and tenth innings, his decision to let Weaver bat for himself in the tenth and continue pitching, his reluctance to send in the illustrious Rice, or Manush's rash behavior to get himself thrown out of the game -- these were all points the second-guessers would be able to mull over forever. But it was really all academic now. The fact of the matter was that the best team in this World Series was but one loss away from elimination.

https://www.net54baseball.com/attach...1&d=1702378438

GeoPoto · #2 12-13-2023, 02:32 AM

(Yesterday's entry contained an error regarding the side of the plate from which Sam Rice batted. Rice was a lefthanded batter. Our thanks go to Val Kell (who else) for catching it. While it is embarrassing for me to have to admit I missed the error, it is presented as Deveaux wrote it. I am not going back to yesterday's post and correcting the error because to do so would make Deveaux's text nonsensical. Instead, I apologize for the annoyance, and offer only the timeworn excuse: "Deuce happens!")

Joe Cronin would observe many years later that he wished he'd never agreed to play and manage at the same time. Having had to deal with players, management, and the press, while maintaining a high caliber of play on the field was an exceedingly tall order. After this season, Cronin would nearly reconsider and ask to step down, but would decide not to. That would be something he would always regret.

For the fifth game of the World Series, the New York Giants would evidently be going with Hal Schumacher, winner of game two. Cronin, who'd used four starters, as opposed to Bill Terry's three, opted to break his own pattern and bypass Lefty Stewart, the starter of the first game, and to go instead with General Crowder, the righthander. This seemed, in the eyes of more than a few keen observers, to defy logic. Firstly, Cronin would be playing right into his opponent's power -- the Giants' two best hitters, Bill Terry and Mel Ott, were both lefthanded hitters. Secondly, Cronin had thought enough of Walter Stewart to start him in the all-important first game.

While it was true that Stewart had gotten shelled early in the first game, Crowder had hardly done any better in game two. Given that he been handed the ball less often than had Crowder during the regular season, Stewart had done just as well. Nonetheless, Cronin had more confidence in Crowder during the year, and regardless of the righty-lefty matchup, it would be the General who the Senators would follow into this last battle at Griffith Stadium.

https://www.net54baseball.com/attach...1&d=1702455646

GeoPoto · #3 12-14-2023, 03:26 AM

The very first batter of the game, Jo-Jo Moore, singled off Crowder and made it to third on a Bill Terry single. Crowder, though, got out of the inning by striking out the deadly Mel Ott and inducing Kiddo Davis to hit the ball on the ground for an infield force-out. When the General again gave up a lead-off single in the second inning, to Travis Jackson, the Giants, for the fourth time in five games, were the first to score. After Gus Mancuso walked and Blondy Ryan sacrificed for the first out by advancing the runners, pitcher Hal Schumacher, not a particularly good hitter even for a pitcher, singled to center to drive in both runners.

After a 1-2-3 Washington second, Bill Terry opened the Giants' third with, predictably, another single. But Alvin Crowder got nine straight outs and surrendered just a walk in the fourth. The Nats, however, were not generating any kind of offence in support of him. Until the fifth, the only one to get on base was Goose Goslin, who singled past short in the first inning and walked in the fourth.

With two out in the fifth, the Nationals did mount what looked like a serious threat, getting the first two batters on. Fred Schulte had opened with a single, beating a slow roller toward Travis Jackson at third. Schulte quickly found himself on second when Joe Kuhel singled cleanly to left.

With nobody out and the fans entranced now, Ossie Bluege followed the book and attempted to bunt the runners ahead. When Hal Schumacher got two strikes on him, the Nats decided to try again anyway. The bunt attempt went foul, and Bluege was out. After Luke Sewell lined to left, failing to advance any runner, Prince Hal let a pitch slip off his fingers and Schulte made it to third while Kuhel held first. With two out and baserunners on the corners, it was the pitcher's turn to bat, and Joe Cronin let General Crowder take his turn.

In the manager's defense, it was less common in this era to pinch hit for starting pitchers in the middle innings. Nevertheless, Lefty Stewart was on the bench, and so was Jack Russell, who'd already pitched very well in his two appearances, and obviously, the Senators were in desperate need of some runs. In fact, they'd scored but one run since the seventh inning of the third game. The options were Sam Rice, a .294 hitter during the regular season, or Cliff Bolton, a super hitter in a pinch in '33, as the batter in Crowder's stead. But Cronin stuck with his man Crowder, decidingly a poor-hitting pitcher. The Prince got the General to ground out to short.

https://www.net54baseball.com/attach...1&d=1702545843
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GeoPoto · #4 12-15-2023, 03:13 AM

Again in the top of the sixth, with the Giants still ahead 2-0, New York's first batter, outfielder Kiddo Davis, got a hit off Crowder, this time a double down the leftfield line. Travis Jackson sacrificed Davis along, but it was unnecessary because Gus Mancuso then slammed a double beyond Schulte's reach in Griffith Stadium's very deep center field. This put New York up three runs and knocked Crowder out of the game. Second-guessing aside, everyone in the park then knew that the Senators really had squandered an opportunity to get on the board in the previous half inning.

Jack Russell, who'd allowed but four hits and no walks in 5.2 innings so far in the Series, was brought in. He threw seven pitches and struck out Blondy Ryan and Hal Schumacher to put an end to the Giants' festivities. The downcast crowd was soon upbeat again. In the bottom of the sixth, after Myer and Goslin made routine outs, Heinie Manush and Joe Cronin hit back-to-back singles. Fred Schulte, 1-for-2 and batting .294 for the Series as he stepped up to the plate, then crunched a Schumacher offering and sent it sailing into the left field pavilion for a three-run homer. It was 3-3, just like that.

Now it was anybody's ballgame, and the Nats were showing signs of wanting to make it theirs. Joe Kuhel followed Schulte with a hard smash along the ground that rattled off second baseman Hughie Critz's legs. The ball was hit solidly enough for Kuhel to be credited with a base hit by the official scorer. Ossie Bluege then shot a hot potato toward third that sent Jackson scrambling, but the veteran came up with it. His throw to first was wild, pulling Bill Terry off the bag and allowing Joe Kuhel to bring the tie-breaking run as far as third.

Terry had seen enough, as Prince Hal had given up five consecutive hits, with the latter three crushed particularly hard. A new player was introduced into this Series. Terry called in 43-year-old Cuban Dolph Luque. A Caucasian, Luque had been a big star in American baseball in the 1920s. Having first come to the States in 1912, he'd had a couple of unsuccessful trials with the Boston National League club before catching on with the wartime Cincinnati Reds. He'd won 189 regular-season games since that time, and had shown consistency despite winning 20 or more only once -- in 1923, when he won 27 and led the league in earned run average, which he did again in 1925.

Washington Senators' 1933 Infield Quartet -- Ossie Bluege (3B), Joe Cronin (SS), Buddy Myer (2B), and Joe Kuhel (1B):

https://www.net54baseball.com/attach...1&d=1702631260

GeoPoto · #5 12-16-2023, 04:59 AM

In 1933, Luque still had a very good curve, and retained the meanness and guile which allowed him to last 20 years in the major leagues. Luke Sewell, who would hit just .176 in these games, was the first to toe in against the 5'7" portsider. Kuhel and Bluege were left stranded at their stations, as Luque got Sewell to ground out to Critz at second. But the Senators were so much better off than they'd been minutes before.

Jack Russell continued to pitch well, and so did Luque. They coasted through the next three innings, with Russell yielding three inconsequential singles and Luque one. For the second day in a row and the fourth time in 12 games dating back to 1924, a World Series game between these two clubs would be decided in extra innings -- and decided suddenly.

After Russell obtained two easy outs, he served up a pitch to Mel Ott that "Master Melvin" expelled with a long arc toward deep center field. Fred Schulte, the Senators' man of the hour, had a bead on the ball, tracked it, and got his glove on it. Just as he did, he came into collision with the wall and when he did, the ball plopped into the first row of the bleachers. It was a home run. Or was it?

The umpire at second base, Charles Pfirman, thought the ball had bounced off the ground and over the fence, and when Mel Ott reached second, Pfirman stopped him there. Bill Terry came storming out of the Giants' dugout, and Pfirman was coerced into consulting with the plate umpire, who happened to be the crew chief, Charley Moran. With the approbation of Moran, who'd been much further from the play than Pfirman, the call was reversed. It was the right call, though, and the Nats faced elimination as never before in this game.

https://www.net54baseball.com/attach...1&d=1702724275

GeoPoto · #6 12-17-2023, 03:48 AM

Joe Cronin, the major leagues' best shortstop, who'd given no evidence in this World Series of being anywhere near that status as a manager, came up to bat with two down in the bottom of the tenth and, worse still, with no one on base. Luque had already disposed of Goslin and Manush, but Cronin got his second straight hit off him, the only Washington player to get on base against "The Pride of Havana." Fred Schulte, who'd gone from hero to goat in a single inning, looked at four straight pitches and bumped Cronin along to second. Everything would rest on the shoulders of the lefthanded-hitting Joe Kuhel, a potent .322 slugger with 107 runs driven in during the season. Kuhel had entered the game batting .067 but had managed two hits in this contest. It wasn't to be his moment, though. He struck out, and the season was over.

For the old Giants manager, John McGraw, who'd been in professional baseball since 1891, the victory of the young manager, Bill Terry, was also his. Not well enough physically to continue to occupy his place in the dugout, McGraw nonetheless thought of this Giants team as his own. Before the beginning of the next season, he would be dead at age 60. As for the Senators, the players received their losers' share of $3,019.86 per man (it was $4,256.72 for the Giants), as receipts were the lowest for a World Series since 1922. The Series had been witnessed by fewer fans than any since 1918 despite the fact that, since that time, four Series had gone just four games.

As for the supporters of the losing side, they knew in their hearts that the favored team, the Washington Senators of 1933, was indeed the best team in all of baseball and should have won the Worls Series. The everlasting sentiment among the fans of the nation's capital was that the Nats had been victimized by bad breaks, ill-advised decisions, and worse umpiring. It was a cruel fate for what history shows was the best Washington Senators' baseball club ever. (The Washington Senators by Tom Deveaux.)

https://www.net54baseball.com/attach...1&d=1702806354

GeoPoto · #7 12-18-2023, 04:52 AM

The 1934 Washington Senators played 154 games, won 68, lost 86, and finished in seventh place in the American League. They were managed by Joe Cronin and played home games at Griffith Stadium. In the eighth inning of their game against the Boston Red Sox on June 9, the Washington Senators hit 5 consecutive doubles � the most ever hit consecutively during the same inning.

Deveaux takes us into the 1934 season: In the real world, FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover's G-men (short for Government men) made significant inroads into bringing down a criminal element that had become increasingly prevalent in American life during the desperate depression. As for Bonnie and Clyde, John Dillinger, and Pretty Boy Floyd, the fate met by baseball's G-men (short for Griffithmen) in 1934 was a miserable one. While the gangsters paid with the price of their lives, our Senators incurred physical injury on such a widespread basis that the club dropped further in the standings in just one year than any other pennant winner in major league history.

The history of the Senators became once again intertwined with that of the Yankees during this (1934) campaign. Lou Gehrig's consecutive-games streak, begun against the Senators on June 1, 1925, was placed in jeopardy on June 29, 1934, when he was hit in the head by a pitch during an exhibition game with the Yank's Norfolk affiliate. As Gehrig was taken to hospital, manager Joe McCarthy moaned that the pennant was surely lost. Diagnosed as a concussion, not a fracture, the injury did not keep Gehrig down. He traveled to Washington by steamboat and made it on time for the next game against the Senators. Equally amazing is the fact that the Iron Horse hit three triples in three at-bats, one to each field. Happily for the Senators, who were trailing as a result of this onslaught, the game was washed out by heavy squalls before it became official. Gehrig of course kept the streak going until it reached 2,130 games, an all-time record no one thought would be broken. But it was, of course, by Cal Ripkin, Jr., on September 6, 1995.

On September 29, 1934, Babe Ruth hit his last American League home run at Griffith Stadium. The 708th of his career was off of Sid Cohen, a rookie and younger brother of Andy Cohen, a middle infielder with the Giants in the late twenties. The following day marked the last time Babe Ruth appeared in the pinstripes that he, more than anyone, had made famous. With Ruth's wife and daughter on hand, Senators fans presented him with a scroll of appreciation. The band from St. Mary's Industrial School in Baltimore, where Ruth was raised, provided music for the occasion. With 0-for-3 on the day, the Babe flew out to Nats prospect Jake Powell in center to end the game. He left the field crying. In this way, an era drew to a close.

I don't have an image for 1934, so, before we leave Washington's pennant-winning 1933 season completely, one last image from 1933 -- manager and owner celebrate winning the American League, a pennant they would struggle to defend in 1934:

https://www.net54baseball.com/attach...1&d=1702896535

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