With the offseason acquisition of second baseman Rogers Hornsby, the game’s best hitter and arguably its most divisive player, the Cubs were considered preseason favorites to capture their first pennant since 1918. But the season had thus far not gone according to the script manager Joe McCarthy had written. With a record of 26-18, the Cubs were in third place, 2½ games behind the league-leading Pittsburgh Pirates and a game behind the reigning NL pennant-winning St. Louis Cardinals. However, the club was playing inconsistent, all-or-nothing team ball. Prior to their disappointing 5-4 loss to the Braves in the opening game of a three-game series the day before, the North Siders had scored just six runs combined in four consecutive losses followed by 33 runs in four straight victories. Unlike the Cubs, the Braves had no pennant aspirations. After three consecutive seventh-place finishes, the Braves owner, Judge Emil Fuchs, installed himself as manager in 1929, but the results were familiar. In sixth place with a record of 17-27, Boston was in a free-fall, having won just three of its last 19 games.

On the mound for the Cubs was 36-year-old southpaw Art Nehf, who had anchored the New York Giants staffs during their four-year hold on the NL crown (1921-1924). The college-educated, slightly built hurler (5-feet-9, 175 pounds) was in the last season of his 15-year career, during which he went 184-120. Often overlooked as one of the best pitchers of his era, Nehf revived his career with the Cubs in 1928, overcoming what appeared to be a career-ending arm injury in 1926, and served as a swingman in 1929. Boston’s Ben Cantwell, who as of 2014 held the dubious extinction of being the last big-league hurler to lose at least 25 games in a season (which he did for the Braves in 1935), was a 27-year-old right-hander in the third season of an 11-year career during which he went 76-108.

An estimated 35,000 spectators packed Wrigley Field on a Sunday afternoon as the Cubs prepared for the ninth game in a 23-game, season-longest homestand. Through the first six innings, Nehf permitted only two hits (singles by the leadoff hitter, Lance Richbourg, in the first and by Zack Taylor in the third) while an error by shortstop Woody English put Earl Clark on base. All three baserunners were erased by double plays, two of which were started by Nehf, considered one of the most agile and best-fielding pitchers of the period.

Cantwell matched Nehf’s shutout, also allowing just three baserunners (only one hit) through six innings. Cantwell faced his first trouble when he issued leadoff walks to Rogers Hornsby and center fielder Hack Wilson in the fourth inning, but alert defense quickly quashed the rally. After catcher Taylor fielded first baseman Charlie Grimm’s bouncer in front of the plate to force Hornsby at third base, Cubs third baseman Norm McMillan grounded back to Cantwell, who started an inning-ending double play.

In the tension-packed game, the seventh inning provided all of the scoring, though far from all of the excitement. The Braves struck first when Freddie Maguire launched a double to left center and then scored on George Harper’s two-out single. Clark flied out to end the inning. With one out and Kiki Cuyler on first, courtesy of Cantwell’s third and final walk, Hornsby smashed a “hot grounder to deep short” which shortstop Rabbit Maranville, Hall of Famer, fielded. Described as “his second of two great stops,” Maranville, on his knees, threw to second base to force Cuyler.2 With Hornsby on first, reigning three-time NL home-run champion Wilson clouted his 11th round-tripper to give the Cubs a 2-1 lead.

Nehf and Cantwell shrugged off the seventh inning and resumed their dominance of the opposition in the last two frames. In the eighth inning, Earl Grace collected his second single (and Chicago’s fourth hit). The conclusion of the game brought the Cubs faithful to their feet in a mixture of anticipation and confusion. With two outs, Maguire hit a slow roller near the first-base foul line. Nehf and Grimm went after the ball and collided viciously. While Nehf fell to the ground, knocked out cold, Grimm retrieved the ball and apparently tagged the runner. According to Edward Burns, players, under the impression that the game was over, gathered around Nehf. When the pitcher was revived, umpire Cy Rigler ruled the ball foul.3 Determined to finish what he had started, Nehf limped back to the mound and induced Maguire to foul out to Grace.

The victory moved the Cubs to 1½ games behind the Pirates. Described as “the classiest show of the year,” both pitchers tossed four-hitters. 4 Nehf won his third consecutive decision, improving his record to 4-1, en route to an 8-5 record that year. Cantwell dropped his fourth straight and won only four of 17 decisions in 1929.

This essay appears in “Winning on the North Side: The 1929 Chicago Cubs” (SABR, 2015), edited by Gregory H. Wolf.

Sources

Baseball-Reference.com

Chicago Daily Tribune

Retrosheet.org

SABR.org

The Sporting News

Notes

The Chicago Daily Tribune reported that an estimated 20,000 spectators “spurned the American Derby”2 – the biggest horse race of the year in the Windy City, which took place 30 miles south in suburban Homewood – to pack the friendly confines on the north side of town. The teams engaged in an unexpected scoreless pitchers’ duel through five innings. Chicago’s starter, Guy Bush (an impressive 6-1), had been victimized for six hits and six runs (five earned) during a no-decision in just two innings in his last start, on June 6, but had since pitched 6⅓ innings of scoreless relief in two separate appearances. Luther Roy, Philadelphia’s 26-year-old journeyman right-hander, was 3-2 with a horrendous 7.47 ERA.

The offensive fireworks began in the top of the sixth. After Bush struck out Chuck Klein, Rogers Hornsby booted cleanup hitter Don Hurst’s “easy roller” for his second error of the game, opening the floodgates.3 Pinky Whitney singled and Denny Sothern followed with a double to drive in Hurst for the game’s first run. With runners on second and third, Bush issued an intentional pass to Bernie Friberg to play for a twin killing with slow-footed catcher Spud Davis at the plate. The plan backfired as the 24-year-old backstop belted his first career grand slam to make it 5-0. Courtesy of a walk, Roy was the sixth consecutive Philadelphia player to reach base, before Bush registered the final two outs.

In the bottom of the inning, Hazen “Kiki” Cuyler finally put the Cubs on the board with a leadoff home run. Despite his lofty .346 batting average, the right fielder had been mired in a power slump, with just four extra-base hits and no home runs in his last 25 games.

En route to a career-best and an NL-leading 43 home runs in 1929, Phillies slugger Chuck Klein led off the seventh with his 16th round-tripper, which sent Bush to the showers. The “Mississippi Mudcat’s” line was unimpressive: eight hits and six runs (five earned) in six innings. Trailing 6-1, the Cubs called on Trader Horne, in his first and only season in the big leagues, for mopup duty. The 30-year-old, 155-pound righty tossed an inning of scoreless relief.

The Cubs exploded for six runs in the bottom of the seventh. Charlie Grimm commenced the relentless attack by drawing a walk. After Norm McMillan beat out an infield single, rookie Earl Grace drew one of his three walks to fill the bases. Pinch-hitting for Horne, Cliff Heathcote knocked in Grimm and reached base on a fielder’s choice when Grace was forced at second. Leadoff hitter Clyde Beck drew one of his three free passes to load the bases again. Roy, who had issued six walks and yielded five hits in 6⅓ innings, was replaced by Les Sweetland. He faced the Cubs’ emotional leader, catcher Gabby Hartnett, whose mysterious arm miseries had prohibited him from donning the tools of ignorance thus far in the season. Batting for Johnny Moore in just his sixth pinch-hitting appearance of the season, “Old Tomato Face” drew the Cubs’ fourth walk of the inning, driving in McMillan.4 With pinch-runner Footsie Blair on first and the bases still filled, reliever Phil Collins struck out Cuyler. Hornsby, batting an uncharacteristic .256 (11-for-43) in his previous 13 games, “squelched the howling wolves” and boo birds by blasting a grand slam off Collins to give the Cubs their first lead, 7-6.5

After a scoreless eighth, the Phillies rallied in the ninth. Mike Cvengros, the Cubs’ fourth pitcher, walked Lefty O’Doul, who scampered to third on Klein’s single. Hurst singled, driving in O’Doul to tie the game. With runners on the corners and the game on the line, manager Joe McCarthy brought in hard-throwing Pat Malone, who led the NL with 22 wins in 1929 but also made 10 relief appearances. Malone put out the fire when Whitney lined to shortstop Clyde Beck, whose throw to Grimm doubled Hurst off first base and completed the Cubs’ fourth twin killing of the game. Malone fanned two in a 1-2-3 10th inning to give the Cubs another chance for a dramatic victory.

Grimm led off the Cubs’ 10th with a double, the Cubs’ seventh and last hit of the game. In a poorly executed sacrifice, McMillan bunted the ball back to Phillies’ reliever Bob McGraw, who quickly threw to second baseman  Fresco Thompson. The NL leader on both putouts and errors for second baseman in 1929, Thompson caught Grimm in a rundown but not before McMillan made it to second. McGraw walked Earl Grace intentionally to either create a force at third or play for an inning-ending double play. But McMillan unexpectedly stole third to put men on the corners with just one out.6 McGraw intentionally walked Cliff Heathcote (the Cubs’ 12th free pass of the game) to fill the bases for Riggs Stephenson, pinch-hitting for Beck. Stephenson, batting .370, but making his first appearance since June 4, popped a high foul ball that both first baseman Hurst and catcher Davis went after. Hurst caught the ball “half way between the dugout and the screen”; however, home plate was unguarded because neither pitcher McGraw nor third baseman Whitney had dashed to cover it. Reacting quickly, McCarthy, coaching third base, sent McMillan racing home to score the winning run standing up.

The heads-up move brought Malone his ninth win and was a thrilling end to a victory that elevated the Cubs into second place (by percentage points) over Pittsburgh.

This essay appears in “Winning on the North Side: The 1929 Chicago Cubs” (SABR, 2015), edited by Gregory H. Wolf.

Sources

Baseball-Reference.com

Retrosheet.org

Notes

Members of the Chicago Cubs felt confident on that Thursday afternoon as they made their way to Wrigley Field. Winners of 17 of their last 20 games, the Cubs had transformed a three-game deficit on July 12 into a five-game lead over the Pittsburgh Pirates in a two-team pennant race. Prior to the doubleheader split with the Braves the day before, the Cubs had strung together nine consecutive victories to kick off a 16-game home stand. The Braves, in sixth place with a 42-58 record, had recently been playing better and had won 10 of their last 18 games. The Braves’ recent success was a product of good pitching, a seemingly annual bugaboo of the long-suffering team that had enjoyed only one winning season since 1916.

Cubs manager Joe McCarthy called on rubber-armed right-hander Guy Bush to continue Chicago’s unrelenting march to their first pennant since 1918. The 27-year-old Bush, enjoying his breakout season, was the hottest pitcher in the National League, having won 14 of 15 decisions; he finished the season with an 18-7 record and led the majors with 50 appearances, including 30 starts. Forgotten by all but the most ardent baseball historians, Bush was one of the most consistent hurlers in the NL, winning 15 or more games seven years in a row (1928-1934), and compiled a 176-136 record during a 17-year career. Boston’s starter, Ben Cantwell, was suffering through a dismal year (4-13), though his 4.47 ERA was almost a run lower than the league average (5.36). But recently, he had pitched some of his best ball against the Cubs, including a five-hit victory and a four-hit loss in his last two starts against them. With a career record of 76-108, Cantwell endured some of the worst Braves teams of the era, including the 1935 squad (38-115) for which he lost 25 games.

An eventful first inning saw six baserunners but only one run. Hoping to extend his career-best winning streak to ten decisions, Bush surrendered consecutive two-out singles to George Sisler and Les Bell before striking out George Harper to end Boston’s early scoring chance. With one out in the bottom of the frame, the Cubs’ Woody English sent a fly ball over the head of right fielder Lance Richbourg for a double – the Cubs’ only extra-base hit of the contest. Cantwell, who normally possessed good control, issued walks to Rogers Hornsby and Kiki Cuyler to load the bases. Riggs Stephenson drew a bases-loaded walk to drive in what turned out to be the game’s sole run. Charlie Grimm, batting seventh, “slapped a low rakish liner to right center” that Richbourg managed to catch, preventing a possible bases-clearing clout.

After putting down the Braves in order in the second and third innings, Bush encountered trouble in the fourth. Thirty-six-year-old “Gorgeous George” Sisler, a lifetime .340 hitter, singled. Cleanup batter Bell hit a grounder to third baseman Norm McMillan, who bobbled the ball for an error. After the runners advanced on Harper’s hopper to first baseman Grimm, Bush walked Freddie Maguire intentionally to load the bases and set up a double play with the slow-footed catcher Al Spohrer at the plate. The plan worked to perfection as the backstop bounced to Hornsby, who flipped to the shortstop English to start an inning-ending double play.

Averaging seven runs per game thus far on their homestand, the Cubs had no answer for Cantwell, who, according to Irving Vaughan of the Chicago Daily Tribune, “curved and speed balled” all afternoon.2 Hornsby, who had been on fire in his last ten games, collecting 18 hits in 44 at-bats (.409), scoring 13 times, and driving in 13 runs, managed a single in the third, but was doubled up by center fielder Hack Wilson. Hitless in the fourth through sixth innings, the Cubs mounted a threat to add to their slim lead in the seventh inning when Grimm led off with a single. After catcher Zack Taylor (acquired from the Braves in a waiver transaction on July 6) popped out, Cantwell erred as he misplayed a ball hit back to the mound by Bush. With Chicago runners on first and second, McMillan flied to center fielder Jimmy Welsh and English fanned to end the inning. In the eighth, Cantwell was replaced by 35-year-old swingman  Dixie Leverett, back in the big leagues after a two-year absence. He retired the side in order.

An aggressive, fast worker on the mound (the game took just one hour and 33 minutes to play), Bush set down Braves in order in the fifth, yielded yet another single to Sisler, in the sixth, and got out of a jam in the seventh after Maguire tripled. With the tying run 90 feet from home plate, Bush was in no mood to play the odds and walk Spohrer intentionally to face the weak-hitting Cantwell. Bush induced Spohrer to pop up to end the inning, and then retired all six batters he faced in the eighth and ninth innings.

Bush won his tenth consecutive decision to improve his record to 15-1 and maintain the Cubs’ five-game lead in the standings. The Cubs continued to play exceptionally well, winning 18 of their next 24 games to run away with the pennant, but the Braves slid to the basement, losing 40 of their last 54 games.

This essay was published in “Winning on the North Side: The 1929 Chicago Cubs” (SABR, 2015), edited by Gregory H. Wolf.

Sources

Baseball-Reference.com

Chicago Daily Tribune

SABR.org

The Sporting News

Notes

On the mound for Brooklyn was 27-year-old left-hander Watty Clark, en route to a breakout season, leading the majors in starts (39), and the league in innings pitched (279), but also in losses (19). Winner of 16 games in 1929, Clark emerged as the staff’s ace, a designation long held by Dazzy Vance. “I’ll pitch a curve roughly half the time,” said Clark. “Even when my arm is sore I’d rather pitch a curve than a fastball.1 Over a four-year stretch (1929-1932), Clark averaged 16 wins and 246 innings per year, making him one of the top southpaws in the NL. Hard-throwing right-handed fastballer Pat Malone got the call for the North Siders. In his second season, the 26-year-old Pennsylvanian had already established himself as one of the most feared and best hurlers in the game. He had struck out 10 and 11 batters respectively in his last two outings, both complete-game victories, to reach the 20-win benchmark for the first of two consecutive seasons. The workhorse on the Cubs staff from 1928 to 1932, Malone averaged 18 wins and 251 innings during that span.

An estimated 20,000 spectators turned out on a sunny afternoon for the Cubs’ eighth game on a 17-game homestand.2 A “genuine autumnal bite to the breeze” blowing off Lake Michigan portended a low-scoring game.3

Lacking his overpowering fastball, Malone relied on guile and some good defense to keep the Robins scoreless in the first three frames. Brooklyn’s Eddie Moore led off the game with a single to left field in front of a diving Riggs Stephenson, and moved to second on Johnny Frederick’s walk. But Chicago turned the first of three double plays to thwart a possible Brooklyn score. Malone began the second by issuing his second and final walk, to Del Bissonette. Wally Gilbert hit a screeching liner back to Malone, who knocked the ball down. Second baseman Rogers Hornsby picked it up and started another twin killing. Brooklyn had another scoring chance in the third inning when Frederick tripled with two outs. Malone reared back and whiffed hot-hitting Babe Herman, who had entered the game batting .388.

Unlike Malone, Clark breezed through the first three innings, allowing only a second-inning single to Hack Wilson, who was erased on Brooklyn’s first of three twin killings. Things changed in the fateful bottom of the fourth inning when Norm McMillan led off with a low line drive that “almost carried Clark’s right ear with it.”4 McMillan moved to second on Woody English’s sacrifice bunt. Hornsby, batting .511 in his previous 12 games (23-for-45) with 16 runs scored and 20 runs batted in, took advantage of Clark’s mistake – an inside fastball. According to Thomas Holmes of the Brooklyn Eagle, the “Rajah” “pulled it through the left side of the infield a mile a minute” to drive in McMillan.5 The next batter, Hack Wilson, slashed Clark’s first pitch down the right-field foul line, scoring Hornsby to make it 2-0. The Cubs possessed a “real Jack Dempsey knack for finishing off a slightly groggy pitcher,” wrote Holmes.6

Center fielder Wilson, often derided for his defensive deficiencies, saved a potential run in the sixth inning. With Herman on first, cleanup hitter Harvey Hendrick smashed a deep fly ball. According to Roscoe McGowen of the New York Times, Wilson “stood with his back against the left centre-field screen” to rob Hendrick of a possible extra-base hit.7 Herman, thinking the ball would not be caught, had rounded second. He quickly sprinted back to first base, but had neglected to touch second base. Hornsby took Wilson’s throw and touched second base for the out.

Clark yielded only one “fluke” hit in the final five frames.8 Kiki Cuyler (batting .412 in his last 13 games, 21-for-51) hit a “funny homer.” Irving Vaughan of the Chicago Daily Tribune described how the ball went on a line to the right-field corner, where outfielder Babe Herman was there to field it but “the ball took one hop and vanished from his sight. It had jumped into the extreme end of the grandstand, and being more than the prescribed 250 feet from the plate, it had to be rated a homer.”9 [The ground-rule double took effect in the National League for the 1931 season and a year earlier in the American League.]

Brooklyn’s Hendrick and Bissonette recorded the team’s seventh and eighth hits with one out in the ninth. But Malone, despite permitting 11 baserunners (including one batter he hit), was effective in the pinches. After Gilbert flied to center, the game ended when Hornsby jumped to snare a “lazy liner” off shortstop Jack Warner’s bat to preserve the Cubs’ 3-0 victory.10

On the day the Philadelphia Athletics clinched the AL pennant, Malone registered his 21st victory and fourth shutout en route to leading the NL in both categories (22 and five respectively). Tough-luck loser Clark fell to 14-17. “It seems as though the Robins lacked the killer instinct to as great a degree as the Cubs possessed it,” wrote Holmes.11 Four days later, on September 18, the Cubs clinched their first pennant since 1918.

This essay was originally published in “Winning on the North Side: The 1929 Chicago Cubs” (SABR, 2015), edited by Gregory H. Wolf.

Sources

Baseball-Reference.com

Brooklyn Eagle

Chicago Daily Tribune

New York Times

SABR.org

The Sporting News

Notes

Luckily for the Cubs, Wilson’s struggles had not resulted in any damage. Their starting pitcher, Charlie Root, winner of 19 games in 1929, was cruising, having allowed only three hits. Chicago’s vaunted offense, meanwhile, had taken an 8-0 lead. It simply was not the Athletics’ day.

Nine more outs was all Root needed. Nine more outs, and the Series would be tied at two games apiece. Just two days ago, the Series had seemed all but over, the Athletics having won the first two contests at Wrigley Field, including a 13-strikeout gem by seldom-used journeyman Howard Ehmke. Chicago took Game Three, however, in a hostile Shibe Park, behind Guy Bush’s tough pitching. Now, the momentum seemingly had shifted back to manager Joe McCarthy’s Cubs. They had 22-game-winner Pat Malone ready for Game Five, and the final two would be back at Wrigley, where Chicago had been nearly unbeatable that summer, at 52-25. Only the Athletics, at 57-16, had had a better home record in the majors in 1929.

Al Simmons, Philadelphia’s slugging left fielder, led off the seventh. On Root’s third offering, “Bucketfoot Al” hit a home run to left that cleared the roof. The shutout was lost, and the home crowd finally had something to cheer about. Root took a new ball from home plate umpire Roy Van Graflan.

Jimmie Foxx singled, and Bing Miller hit a fly ball to center. The staggering Wilson lost it in the sun, and it fell in for a single, with Foxx taking second. Singles by Jimmy Dykes and Boley scored Foxx and Miller to make it 8-3.

With runners on first and third and nobody out, George Burns pinch hit for pitcher Eddie Rommel. He was quickly dispatched on a pop fly to shortstop Woody English, the runners holding.

Max Bishop, who had hit only .232 during the regular season but had also led the league with 128 walks, singled to left, scoring Dykes, sending Boley to third. Suddenly, the Cubs lead had been cut in half. McCarthy headed to the mound, took the ball from a frustrated Root, and waved in lefty Art Nehf from the bullpen to face the left-handed-hitting Mule Haas.

In center field, Wilson adjusted his cap and dark sunglasses, the better to peer in against the blinding beams of the sun. At 29, Wilson had led the National League in home runs three of the previous four seasons. Born in the steel mill town of Ellwood City, Pennsylvania, he was the illegitimate son of an alcoholic steelworker and a teenage mother who died when he was seven.

Wilson didn’t appear athletic at 5 feet 6 inches tall, 190 pounds, with an 18-inch neck, spindly lower legs, and size 5 1/2 feet that only a ballerina could love. Yet he could hit a baseball a mile. He began his big-league career with the New York Giants. But manager John McGraw, the dinosaur disciple of small ball, wasn’t won over by the top-heavy Wilson, despite his .295 average in a limited role in his rookie year of 1924. The Giants traded him to the Toledo Mud Hens in August of 1925. Following that season, the Cubs, in an unnoticed transaction, acquired Wilson in the Rule 5 draft.

Wilson and Jazz-Age Chicago were partners in perfect pitch. In awe of his clouts onto Waveland Avenue, Wrigley Field’s denizens cheered him in the afternoon, and then toasted him late into the night as he made the rounds of the Windy City’s numerous speakeasies. In 1930, his annus mirabilis, Wilson whacked 56 home runs, and established a major-league single-season record with 191 RBIs, one of baseball’s most enduring numbers. 1931 was Wilson’s annus horribilis, with only 13 home runs and 61 RBIs; within three years his career was finished, the fall precipitated by alcohol and riotous living. He gained induction into Cooperstown in 1979, 31 years after his death. But on the late afternoon of October 2, 1929, at the corner of 21st and Lehigh in the City of Brotherly Love, Hack Wilson was about to engage in combat one too many times with Hyperion the sun-god, and end up getting burned.

One out, runners on first and third, 8-4 in favor of Chicago. Mule Haas, who had hit 16 home runs in 1929, sent Nehf’s first fastball on a line toward center field. Wilson drifted back. Despite his sunglasses, he again lost the ball in the glare. It soared over his head and rolled to the fence. The desperate outfielder ran the ball down, Boley and Bishop scoring. Haas, defying his nickname, sprinted like lightning around the bases. Wilson heaved a late throw in, and Haas slid into the home dish in a cloud of dust. Safe, declared Van Graflan.

The Cubs had blinked, and the score was suddenly Chicago 8, Philadelphia 7, with only one out.

The 36-year-old Nehf, winner of 184 games over 15 seasons, walked Mickey Cochrane. McCarthy, for the second time in the inning, marched out to the mound, and Nehf, for the final time in his big-league career, marched off of it.

Enter pitcher John Frederick “Sheriff” Blake, who failed to lay down the law. Al Simmons, back in the saddle for the second time that inning, singled to left. Foxx did the same, scoring Cochrane to tie it. McCarthy yanked the badge off Blake and tried his luck with Pat Malone, who plunked Bing Miller with his first pitch. Jimmy Dykes doubled, driving in two more to put the Athletics up by a deuce.

The Shibe Park crowd was delirious with delight. Strikeouts by Boley and Burns brought the frame to an end, but the book had already been written.

Athletics manager Connie Mack brought in Lefty Grove, winner of 20 in 1929, to start the eighth. He fanned four of the six batters he faced. At 3:42 pm, Rogers Hornsby flied to left for the final out of the game. Wilson was left on one knee in the on-deck circle.

What had looked like a 2-2 Series tie had suddenly become a three-games-to-one Athletics lead. Chicago never recovered. They lost the Series the following day in equally heartbreaking fashion, when Philadelphia scored three runs in the bottom of the ninth to wipe out a 2-0 Cubs lead.

Declared Mack to his men after Game Four, “I’d just like to be able to express to you the things I feel. But I can’t. I’ll have to let it go at that.” To reporters he gushed, “I’ve never seen anything like that rally. There is nothing in baseball history to compare it with. It was the greatest display of punch and fighting ability I’ve ever seen on a field.”1

In the dejected Cubs clubhouse, McCarthy mumbled, “You can’t beat the sun, can you?”2 Then, in an effort to deflect blame from his star center fielder, he pointed out, “The poor kid simply lost the ball in the sun, and he didn’t put the sun there.”3

Ed Burns of the Chicago Tribune wrote, “The greatest debacle, the most terrific flop in the history of the World Series. We’ve been looking at our score book for an hour now, thinking there must have been some horrible mistake, but ten she is folks.”4

“Couldn’t see the balls,” Wilson clarified.5 “I’m a big chump, and nobody’s going to tell me different.”6

Wilson and his four-year-old son Bobby departed the park together in a taxi. “The devil with them, Daddy,” he remarked. “We’ll get them next year.”7

Sources

Chastain, Bill. Hack’s 191: Hack Wilson and His Incredible 1930 Season (Guilford, Connecticut: Lyons Press), 2012.

Kashatus, Bill. Connie Mack’s ’29 Triumph (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland), 1999.

Notes