Washington DC Baseball

[GeoPoto]

Deveaux on the 1940 season: The decade of the forties, destined to be the darkest of the century for major-league baseball, got off with the biggest kind of a bang. On April 16, 1940, 21-year-old "Rapid Robert" Feller of the Indians pitched a no-hitter on Opening Day, the first time this had ever happened. The command performance was given in 47-degree weather at Comiskey Park in Chicago. The final out registered when Feller induced Taft Wright to ground out.

The 29-year-old Wright had been a Washington Senator until recently, when he'd been traded to Chicago, with Pete Appleton, in exchange for a powerfully built 31-year-old outfielder named Gerald "Gee" Walker. Walker had slipped below .300 the previous season for the first time since 1933, but had slugged 13 homers, with 111 ribbies, as compared to just four homers for Taffy Wright. As for Appleton, he had not been an especially effective pitcher since 1936, and would not be again.

Gee Walker had hit as high as .353 in 1936, and had followed that up with .335 in '37. He had been immensely popular in Detroit before moving on to the White Sox prior to the 1938 campaign. While he often made up for his deficiencies with his bat, his frequent mental lapses when dealing with other phases of the game had earned him the unflattering nickname of "Ironhead." Once, he tried to steal a base while the batter was being walked intentionally. On another occasion, he was picked off base twice in the same inning.

At Detroit, Walker had been on the outs with manager Bucky Harris for two seasons because of something that happened in 1933. He had hit a line shot directly to the second baseman, who made a nifty stab on a hard skip. Walker, disgusted, flung his bat and headed for his defensive position. His playing time was curtailed after that. Then, during the 1934 World Series, while busy arguing with some of his enemies on the St. Louis Cardinals bench, he was picked off first base.

At Washington Gee Walker would not disappoint Bucky Harris, under whom he'd played for three years in Detroit; this time he produced 13-96-.294 numbers for the Senators on what was ironically the most anemic offense in the American League in 1940. Second baseman Jimmy Bloodworth was the only other player on the club to hit more than six homers. In terms of home run production, the Nats finished dead last in the league, by far, with their total of 52. They scored the fewest runs in the process.

By way of contrast, the Yankees, who would finish third, but a mere two games behind the pennant-winning Tigers, slugged 155 home runs. Clark Griffith raised a few eyebrows at the 1940 winter meetings of baseball's owners by sponsoring a motion prohibiting trades between the pennant winner and other clubs in the league. In actual fact, it had been years since the Yankees had obtained a player in a trade who had made a critical difference in a pennant race. When the Yankees wound up third, the whole no-trade notion was permanently scrapped. (The Washington Senators by Tom Deveaux)

(This thread will now enjoy a pause.)