April 12, 1927: Murderers’ Row Yankees kick off new pennant chase amid overflowing crowds

For the first of its eventual 110 wins, the 1927 Yankees team braved overflowing crowds, raised its 1926 pennant, and saw the Bambino whiff twice before being removed for a pinch-hitter in an 8-3 Opening Day victory against the favored Philadelphia Athletics.

“The weather was lovely, the peanuts and hot dogs were unusually tasty,” wrote James Harrison of the New York Times.1

The headlines heralded the attendance – around a quarter-million fans swarmed the seven American and National League parks hosting Opening Day 1927.2 Baseball was as popular as ever in the Roaring Twenties, as the reported 230,000-plus rivaled a similar mark in 1925, when eight games were played.3

And the biggest draw of all was at Yankee Stadium, still shiny and new at just four years old, where 72,000 faithful packed through the gates to get a glimpse of the reigning American League champions. Word had it that another 25,000 were turned away.

The New York Times broke that down: 62,000 paid customers, 9,000 invited guests, and 1,000 “other deadheads.”4 Joe Vila in The Sporting News was more skeptical about the Yankees’ reports, estimating 65,000. “Some of the newspapers went crazy and announced that the total count was 72,000, or 9,000 more than the capacity crowds that saw two of the World’s Series games in the Stadium last Fall. It was ridiculous bunk, of course, but it served to convince the skeptics who had been knocking the game all Winter, that the grand old pastime still is very much alive.”5

Vila also highlighted that the crowds may have turned out to see the Athletics’ most recent acquisitions, a pair of 40-year-olds who would be early inductees into the then-hypothetical Baseball Hall of Fame: batting king Ty Cobb and fan favorite Eddie Collins, back for a second stint. Dodgers star Zack Wheat, nearly 39, was another Athletics pickup that winter, in what would be his final season.

Having Babe Ruth play for the home team didn’t exactly drive people away, either.

Despite the Yankees being the AL champions, most sportswriters had picked the Athletics to win it all in 1927.6 Beyond Cobb, Collins, and Wheat, Philadelphia was cultivating young stars like catcher Mickey Cochrane, outfielder Al Simmons, and the starting pitcher of the day, Robert “Lefty” Grove.7

Grove, 27, had led the league in earned-run average (2.51) and strikeouts (194) in 1926, his second season in the majors.8 Opposing him was Brooklyn native Waite Hoyt, a mere five months older but with nearly a decade of big-league experience. The 1927 season proved to be Hoyt’s breakout year, as he led the league with 22 wins. Although he had pitched consistently in six prior seasons with the Yankees, he was often overshadowed by more famous teammates, including stars Herb Pennock and Urban Shocker.

The Yankees lineup had proven power in veterans Ruth and Bob Meusel, not to mention emerging second- and third-year starters Tony Lazzeri, Lou Gehrig, and Earle Combs. But some writers thought their pitching would be their Achilles’ heel.9

Although the Yankees did not usually broadcast their home games (believing it would hurt in-person attendance), that particular day they arranged for famed radio voice Graham McNamee to call play-by-play on WEAF and WJZ. The microphones went live on the only 1927 regular-season game to grace the airwaves at Yankee Stadium at 2:45 P.M.10

The traffic, however, had started before noon. Subways, taxicabs, and buses packed with people all made their way to the Bronx. Police lined River Avenue and the entrances as gatekeepers to those without tickets ($1.10 for the grandstand, 50¢ for bleachers).11

“No question it was the greatest crowd that ever saw a baseball game,” said general manager Ed Barrow, who estimated the crowd at 70,000. “We had to be careful about overloading the runways to comply with fire and police rules or we could have sold more tickets.”12

Shortly before game time (3:30), the Yankees “Mite Manager” Miller Huggins shook hands with the Athletics skipper, the “Tall Tactician” Connie Mack, as the Seventh Regiment Band blared. Pete Vischer of the New York World describe the photo-op between the 5-foot-6 Huggins and the 6-foot-1 Mack as “Mutt and Jeff.”13 Ruth and Cobb were also photographed together.

The festivities began. The marching band led the two teams onto the field, trailed by a “mysterious left-handed gentleman in a brown coat and hat” pushing a four-foot baseball.14 As the notes of the “Star-Spangled Banner” played on, the home team raised the American flag, and then their 1926 American League pennant, twice the size. Around 3:25, Mayor Jimmy Walker threw the ceremonial first pitch from owner Jacob Ruppert’s box.15

As the umpires, led by Billy Evans, conferred at the pitchers’ mound, a man with a megaphone announced the game’s batteries – Hoyt and catcher Johnny Grabowski, and Grove and Cochrane. Play ball.

Although Grove and Hoyt allowed just three hits between them by the middle of the fifth, the game itself turned out less exciting. All of the Yankees’ scoring came on a pair of four-spots in the fifth and sixth innings – the first demonstration of the “five o’clock lightning” that would come to define that season.16

In the bottom of the fifth, Earle Combs hit a bases-loaded double to score two. Lou Gehrig drove in the other two (the first of his record 173 RBIs that year)17 on a double to right. (Both of those runs – scored by Hoyt, who had reached on a sacrifice and an error by first baseman Dud Branom, and Combs – were unearned.)

The Athletics came back with two in the top of the sixth. The speedy Cobb, who’d reached on a bunt single and slid safely under third baseman Joe Dugan’s glove on a short base hit by Sammy Hale, scored on Branom’s groundout. Cochrane followed with a single to score Hale.

The Yankees tacked on insurance in the bottom of the inning, on Grabowski’s RBI single. Combs reached on an error by shortstop Joe Boley (his second) to score Grabowski (unearned), then Mark Koenig tripled to score Combs (also unearned).

Ruth was scheduled to be the next batter. Grove had sent him down swinging twice with a weak popup to second sandwiched in between. In all three at-bats there was a runner on third (or in the case of the second strikeout, second base, too). Now, with Koenig 90 feet away, he was nowhere to be found. Ruth said he felt dizzy.18 Huggins claimed the Babe had a “bilious attack” – perhaps something he ate. But Fred Lieb in the New York Post suspected Ruth may have just been frustrated by “Grove’s left-handed speed ball.”19

Instead, up came Ben Paschal, who made history as one of only a handful of men to pinch-hit for The Babe. The Yankees’ fourth outfielder, whose chances to do more of distinction were blocked by his inability to crack the Ruth-Combs-Meusel juggernaut, he swatted a single to drive in Koenig (unearned). Paschal finished the game in right.

The Athletics added a run in the eighth on a double by Al Simmons and Hale’s RBI single – Hale was thrown out trying to stretch it into a double.

Hoyt went the distance, allowing three earned runs on nine hits (eight singles, one double), fanning three, and walking three.

Grove, burned by five Athletics errors, was tagged with all eight runs – only three were earned – in six innings, striking out six. Jack Quinn relieved him for the final two scoreless frames.

Dugan went 3-for-4 (all singles) and Gehrig and Combs each had two RBIs. Al Simmons had the Athletics’ lone extra-base hit, the eighth-inning double.

Beyond making headlines for leaving the game, Ruth also made news during his first at-bat when a fan, not wearing the fashionable hat most men wore at the time, ran onto the field with a silver punchbowl, trailed by a chorus of boos. As The Babe stared confusedly, Mayor Walker jumped over the rail, took off his hat, and shook Ruth’s hand, as though handing him the trophy. The hatless man disappeared.20 Ruth then proceeded with the first of his three disappointing at-bats.

“But we call your attention to one thing,” wrote Walter Trumbull in the New York Evening Post the next day. “There will be a lot of other games this season and the fact that the Babe didn’t sock one yesterday is not the slightest indication that he will not wallop one today.”21

The 1927 Yankees, known to history as Murderers’ Row, won six of their first seven games to start the season (with the outlier a tie halted by darkness22) and set the American League record in wins, at 110-44.23 They finished 19 games ahead of second-place Philadelphia and swept the Pittsburgh Pirates for their second World Series championship.

Ruth, who returned the next game, led the league with 89 strikeouts. He also hit 60 home runs.

Photo credit

SABR-Rucker Archive.

Notes

1 James R. Harrison, “72,000 Pack Park, Set Crowd Record, as Yanks Triumph,” New York Times, April 13, 1927: 20.

2 Although there were 16 major-league teams at the time, the scheduled game that day at Sportsman’s Park, where the St. Louis Browns were due to host the Detroit Tigers, was rained out.

3 The Associated Press on April 13 reported attendance at just above 230,000. The Buffalo Evening News on the same date stated 234,000. The New York Times said 241,000. Standing-room and “comp” tickets could vary attendance numbers, so figures then were estimates that fluctuated from source to source. Some sources say the Yankees hosted as few as 60,000 fans, and some said it was more than 73,000. Baseball-reference puts the overall major-league total at more than 254,000: Yankee Stadium (New York) 72,000; Wrigley Field (Chicago) 45,000; Redland Field (Cincinnati) 37,758; Baker Bowl (Philadelphia) 30,000; Griffith Stadium (Washington) 30,000; Dunn Field (Cleveland) 25,000; Braves Field (Boston) 15,000.

4 Harrison.

5 Joe Vila, “Huggins’ Fast-Breaking Yankees Show Old Traits in Early Games,” The Sporting News, April 21, 1927: 1.

6 Gary Sarnoff, The First Yankees Dynasty (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2014), 130. Fred Lieb of the New York Post said the Yankees’ pitching strength was “doubtful” as excerpted in G.H. Fleming, Murderers’ Row: The 1927 New York Yankees (New York: William Morrow & Company, Inc., 1985), 80. The New York Telegram said they’d be “astonished” if the Athletics “don’t breeze in” and gave the Athletics 9-to-5 odds, the Yankees 3-to-1; excerpted in Fleming, 84, 86. Walter Trumbull of the New York Post, Joe Vila of the New York Sun, Grantland Rice of the New York Herald-Tribune, and Monitor of the New York World all picked the Athletics to finish first, all excerpted in Fleming, 87-88.

7 Also on the bench that day was 19-year-old Jimmie Foxx, whose major-league career at that point consisted of just 36 games. He made his season debut on April 15.

8 Grove also led in strikeouts during his rookie campaign, the first of six straight seasons he captured that title, through 1931. As for ERA, just one other AL pitcher, Cleveland’s George Uhle (2.83), had finished with an ERA below 3.00 in 1926.

9 In addition to Lieb’s doubts (quoted in Fleming, 84), Bill Corum of the New York Evening Journal said that Pennock was the Yankees’ only “reliable” pitcher: “‘Dutch’ Reuther is an uncertain quantity. Waite Hoyt pitches in streaks. Bob Shawkey is old. Walter Beall is wild.” Fleming, 83.

10 Among those tuning in was Johnny Sylvester, the sick boy for whom Babe Ruth hit three home runs in the 1926 World Series. Young Johnny had been invited to the game, but his parents nixed it, worried he would not be strong enough to go. “Johnny Sylvester Wont [sic] See Yankees Play; Babe Ruth’s 11-Year-Old Friend Not So Well,” New York Times, April 12, 1927: 1; “Babe Ruth’s Protege Fails to See Game; School Wins Over Baseball, but Radio and Phone Call From His Idol Help Johnny Sylvester,” New York Times, April 13, 1927: 27.

11 Joe Vila in The Sporting News reported that the opening four-game series with the Athletics netted $120,000, of which Philadelphia took $30,000.

12 Pete Vischer, New York World, April 13, 1927, excerpted in Fleming, 90.

13 Vischer in Fleming, 91.

14 Vischer in Fleming, 91.

15 James Harrison of the New York Times said that the pitch was thrown to Yankees backup catcher Johnny Grabowski. Peter Vischer of the New York World said that Yankees mascot Eddie Bennett caught it, noting that Walker “did it like a veteran, repeating the performance twice to make sure that every photographer had a record of the event.” Fleming, 91.

16 The game time was 2 hours, 5 minutes. As it started at 3:30 – as most weekday games did those days – the sixth inning would likely have come right around 5 o’clock.

17 Gehrig’s 173 RBIs stood as a major-league record for three years, when the Cubs’ Hack Wilson drove in 191 in 1930. Gehrig raised the American League record to 185 in 1931.

18 Harrison.

19 Fred Lieb, New York Post, quoted in Fleming, 94. His colleague Walter Trumbull felt similarly. See “Babe Didn’t Hit, Time Taking Toll, Lefty Grove’s Support,” New York Evening Post, April 13, 1927. Paul Gallico of the Daily News thought perhaps Ruth was out of shape as “something seemed to quiver and shake as the Babe jogged in from the outfield.” Fleming, 94.

20 Vischer in Fleming, 92. The Associated Press said the presentation “jinxed” Ruth. See Associated Press, “Yankees Capture First Game of Season Over Athletics,” Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, April 13, 1927. Both the AP and James Harrison of the New York Times claimed Walker made the presentation himself, with no mention of the suspicious man. The odd timing of the event – in the middle of play – would be the strongest evidence that Vischer’s account was more accurate about it being an impromptu decision on the part of Walker.

21 Walter Trumbull, “Babe Didn’t Hit, Time Taking Toll, Lefty Grove’s Support.”

22 The third of the opening four-game series against the Athletics ended in a 9-9 tie after 10 innings due to darkness. The Yankees took games two and four, 10-4 and 6-3 respectively.

23 That record has since been surpassed by the 1954 Cleveland Indians (111-43), the 1998 Yankees (114-48), and the 2001 Seattle Mariners (116-46). However, the 1927 Yankees still have the highest winning percentage of any AL team that won the World Series (.714)