September 17, 1934: From sandlots to big leagues, Reese Diggs earns first win in Senators blowout

The 1933 Washington Senators won 99 games and captured the American League pennant. The 1934 season was a different story. Injuries up and down the roster contributed to the team’s decline. The list of maladies ranged from sore arms, pulled muscles, and beanballs to more unusual cases such as facial paralysis, pleurisy, and an injured toe from a dropped trunk.1 Player-manager Joe Cronin suffered a fractured wrist in early September and was out for the rest of the season. Starting pitcher Earl Whitehill saw a specialist in Cleveland and discovered that the pain in his finger was due to a ligament injury and chip fracture.2

On September 17 the Senators limped into Cleveland with a five-game losing streak and a record of 61-78. But Washington offered a new wrinkle on this afternoon: Right-hander Reese Diggs would start the series opener, five days before his 19th birthday.

Diggs had signed just weeks before after scout Joe Cambria saw him pitch for an amateur team in Baltimore. Initially a batting-practice pitcher, the novice hurler was added to the active roster because the Senators were desperate for pitching. Diggs had made his major-league debut on September 15 in a relief appearance versus the Detroit Tigers and impressed Cronin enough to give him the start in Cleveland.

The Indians, managed by Senators legend Walter Johnson, entered the five-game series with a respectable 76-65 record but were out of pennant contention. The Tigers were in command of the AL, with only the New York Yankees within striking distance at 5½ games back. Oral Hildebrand, carrying a record of 11-8, got the starting assignment for the Indians. On this Monday afternoon, a paltry 298 fans paid to see the game.3

The Senators came out swinging against Hildebrand in the first. Ossie Bluege and John Stone both singled, and Buddy Myer reached on an error by Cleveland shortstop Bill Knickerbocker to load the bases. Heinie Manush hit a fly ball and Pete Susko tripled to score two more. A single by Luke Sewell and a double by John Kerr followed to give Washington a 5-0 lead. The inning finally ended after 10 Senators had come to bat. Diggs set the Indians down in order in the bottom half of the inning.

The Senators added another run in the second inning. Susko’s single drove in Stone, who had led off with a walk.

Cleveland threatened in the bottom of the second, but Diggs pitched out of trouble. Odell Hale singled and advanced to second on a balk. A walk to Willie Kamm followed, but a 6-4-3 double play off the bat of Knickerbocker ended the threat.

Bob Weiland relieved Hildebrand to start the third and then accounted for Cleveland’s first run of the game in the bottom of the inning. Weiland struck a line drive over the head of the shortstop and into League Park’s spacious left-center-field gap. The pitcher rounded the bases for an inside-the-park home run, cutting the deficit to 6-1.

The Senators scored three more runs in the fourth, again aided by the Indians’ shoddy defense. Myer started the inning with a bunt single and Manush reached on an error by first baseman Hal Trosky. It was Cleveland’s fourth miscue of the game. Susko singled to load the bases, and Weiland walked Sewell to force in a run. Kerr then drove in two with a base knock to give Washington a 9-1 advantage.

Five more Senators singles, three off Weiland and two off reliever Belve Bean, plated two more runs in the fifth. Now armed with a seemingly secure 10-run lead, Diggs took the mound in the bottom of the fifth. Earl Averill came to the plate with two men on and two outs and took advantage of the park’s friendly right-field dimensions with a three-run home run, his 28th of the season. All three runs were unearned following a catcher’s interference call earlier in the inning. Washington’s lead was now 11-4.

Diggs, according to one sportswriter, “burned over a fast hop and occasionally a wicked curve.”4 He pitched into trouble in the sixth and seventh but escaped unscathed.

Aside from the seventh inning, the Senators had runners on base in every frame. The lineup, largely composed of bench players, banged out 21 hits, all but three of them singles. Susko, a 30-year-old rookie filling in at first base for Joe Kuhel, went 5-for-6 with a double, triple, and three RBIs. This was the only year Susko played in the major leagues, and he had 64 hits total during his brief career. Kerr, at third in place of Cecil Travis, had three hits and four RBIs, both season highs. Diggs even got in on the action with his first big-league base hit, a single in the top of the eighth. By the ninth inning, the Senators held a 13-4 lead.

Averill and the Indians did not go down without a fight. Diggs allowed his seventh base on balls of the game to Milt Galatzer with one out in the ninth. Averill then drove a ball off the 40-foot-high right-field fence for a triple.5 Joe Vosmik drove in Averill with a double to make it 13-6, and this would be the final score after Diggs retired Hale to end the game.

Diggs started two more games before the end of the 1934 season. He threw another complete game against the Philadelphia Athletics on September 24 but lost, 5-4, on a home run by Jimmie Foxx in the bottom of the eighth. In that game, Diggs collected another base hit when he singled to left field in the sixth inning. His final start was at Griffith Stadium on September 29, but he was knocked out in the second inning and took another loss. He was 1-2 with a 6.75 ERA in his four games.

Diggs reported to spring training in 1935 and pitched poorly in the exhibition opener versus Albany.6 He was sent to the minor leagues and bounced between Chattanooga, Harrisburg, and Albany that season. After struggling at each of these stops, the 19-year-old Diggs was released and never played professional baseball again.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Bruce Slutsky and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

The author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for pertinent information, including the box score and play-by-play.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CLE/CLE193409170.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1934/B09170CLE1934.htm

Notes

1 Francis E. Stan, “Wrist Fractured, Joe Out for Year,” Washington Evening Star, September 4, 1934: 14.

2 Francis E. Stann, “Rook Slabs Well in Tribe’s Defeat,” Washington Evening Star, September 18, 1934: 11.

3 Francis E. Stann, “Rook Slabs Well in Tribe’s Defeat.”

4 Francis E. Stann, “Rook Slabs Well in Tribe’s Defeat.”

5 Bill Johnson, “League Park (Cleveland, Ohio),” SABR BioProject, https://sabr.org/bioproj/park/league-park-cleveland/, accessed December 28, 2020.

6 John B. Keller, “Coppola Is Best in Practice Tilt,” Washington Evening Star, March 16, 1935: 11.