June 15, 1940: Harry Danning’s cycle leads Giants rout after Pirates miss batting practice

On June 15, 1940, Mother Nature must have been a New York fan. The Giants got in a full set of batting practice prior to a game against the visiting Pittsburgh Pirates. A rain shower then “washed out the Pirate chance to get in a few swings”1 but ended in time for the game to be played.

In the ensuing contest, New York batters slashed out 17 hits to Pittsburgh’s five as the Giants routed the Pirates, 12-1, before a crowd of 5,941 at the Polo Grounds. New York catcher Harry Danning, a four-time All-Star and three-time .300 hitter for manager Bill Terry’s Giants in the 1930s and ’40s, led the lopsided hitfest by hitting for the cycle.

The third-place Giants had put together seven straight wins and were hosting the Pirates in the second of a four-game series. The Pirates had won four of their first six games of the season, but then a nine-game losing streak landed them in the bottom of the National League standings, and by the time this series began, they were struggling to avoid the cellar.

Right-hander Hal Schumacher was in fine form for the home team. Making his ninth start of the season, the veteran sought his third win.

His batterymate was the 28-year-old Danning, who had made the NL All-Star team in both 1938 and 1939.2 After finishing ninth in the league in batting at .313 in 1939, Danning had a .339 batting average and .558 slugging percentage while starting at behind the plate in all but three of New York’s first 44 games of 1940.

Pittsburgh’s Lee Handley opened the game with a single to center but was subsequently picked off by Schumacher, who then retired Bob Elliot and Arky Vaughan in order. The Giants also were quiet in the first, three-up and three-down against righty Joe Bowman, who counted the Pirates as his fourth big-league team in eight seasons.

Elbie Fletcher led off the top of the second with his seventh home run of the season, launched into the upper right-field stands and giving the Pirates the early lead. After striking out Maurice Van Robays and Frankie Gustine, Schumacher walked Vince DiMaggio and Virgil Davis before getting his third strikeout victim in Bowman to end the inning.

Things remained quiet until the bottom of the third. Bowman walked Billy Jurges, who was picked off by catcher Davis’s throw to Fletcher at first.

After that sharp play, however, Pittsburgh’s defense seemed to resemble that of an amateur team. Bowman gave a base on balls to Mickey Witek. With a full count to Schumacher, Witek took off for second. The pitch was out of the strike zone for ball four, but Davis threw to second anyway. It went into center field and Witek advanced to third as Schumacher trotted to first with a walk.

Burgess Whitehead then hit a grounder to second baseman Gustine, whose throw to second pulled shortstop Vaughan off the bag. Schumacher was safe and Witek scored on the play. Vaughan “screamed so long and loudly at Umpire [Bick] Campbell”3 that he was ejected.4

Jo-Jo Moore singled into right field, plating Schumacher. This extended Moore’s hitting streak to 16 games.5 Bob Seeds grounded to Pep Young, Pittsburgh’s new shortstop, who threw to second, forcing Moore, but Whitehead scored on the fielder’s choice. The Giants had taken a 3-1 lead.

Danning, batting fifth for New York, had flied out in his first at-bat in the second inning, but he led off the fourth with a double. Two outs later, Bowman walked Witek and hit Schumacher in the pitching arm with a pitch, loading the bases. But Whitehead flied out to end the inning.

An inning later, another hit batsman proved costly for Bowman and the Pirates. In the fifth frame, Moore led off by “catching one of Pitcher Joe Bowman’s pitches in the ribs.”6 Consecutive singles by Seeds and Babe Young brought Moore around to score for a 4-1 New York lead.

Then Danning lifted a 483-foot drive to dead center, well over Vince DiMaggio’s head.7 The ball “hit at the end of the grass and rolled under the [Eddie Grant] monument”8 in the Polo Grounds’ center field. Both Seeds and Babe Young scored easily, and Danning crossed home plate standing up before the relay returned the ball to the infield. The lead was now 7-1.

It was Danning’s ninth home run of the season and it turned out to be the only inside-the-park home run of his career.9 Bowman had allowed only five hits, but his four walks and two hit-by-pitches meant his time on the mound was over before he could retire a batter in the fourth.

Dick Lanahan came on in relief for the Pirates. The left-hander was back in the majors in 1940 after making a handful of appearances with the Washington Senators in 1935 and 1937.10  He retired Mel Ott on a fly out for the first out of the inning, but Jurges beat out an infield hit to second, and Witek singled to center. Schumacher also singled, plating Jurges.

Whitehead launched a pitch to center for the Giants’ fourth straight single. DiMaggio’s throw had Witek out at the plate – but Davis dropped the ball. Witek’s run counted (unearned), and Johnny Lanning entered to relieve Lanahan.

The first hitter he faced was Moore (batting for the second time in the inning). Moore singled to right, and Schumacher scored. Lanning did retire both Seeds and Young, but New York had sent 12 men to the plate, scoring seven runs for a 10-1 advantage as the Giants “hammered two pitchers from the mound.”11

After the Pirates went quietly in the sixth, the Giants were back at it. Danning led off with a hit down the right-field line. Elliott fell trying to make the play, and Danning reached third base for a triple, his third extra-base hit of the game.

Ott doubled Danning home. An out later, Witek singled, driving in Ott with New York’s 12th run. Witek was thrown out at second trying to advance on the play. Schumacher singled again, but he was stranded.

Three more quick Pittsburgh outs brought the Giants right back into the batter’s box. With two outs in the bottom of the seventh, Young singled, and then Danning followed suit with a single, giving him the hit necessary for completing the cycle.

The scoreboard showed zeros for the rest of the game, and New York prevailed, 12-1.

Danning had “supplied baseball’s version of the ‘hat trick’ with a single, double, triple and home run,” observed the New York Times.12 He became the 15th player in franchise history to hit for the cycle. He was the second of six major leaguers to do it in 1940.13

Danning’s big game led a true team effort. Every Giants player, including pitcher Schumacher, had at least one hit and one run scored. Schumacher reached on three singles, a walk, and a hit-by-pitch to accompany his complete-game handcuffing of the Pittsburgh batsmen. Only Jurges did not collect a run batted in.

It was New York’s eighth win in a row, which turned out to be their longest stretch of W’s of the 1940 season. Capturing 18 of 30 games in June, the Giants got within a game of the NL-leading Brooklyn Dodgers and Cincinnati Reds. From July 1 onward, however, New York lost 58 of its final 93 games and ended up in sixth place.14

Similarly, Danning was on the way to his best career year in 1940, and he led the National League in hitting for much of the summer, sporting a .364 average at the end of June. For the third consecutive season, he was named to the NL All-Star team.

Like his club overall, Danning struggled in the second half, batting .260 after the All-Star break and only .200 in September. It took a three-hit game on the next to last day of the season to give him a final .300 batting average. Still, he finished 1940 with a career-high 91 RBIs, led the NL in games caught for the second season in a row, and was named the catcher on The Sporting News 1940 Major League All-Star Team.15

Family matters may have preoccupied Danning as 1940 progressed. His wife was pregnant with twins during the season but required an appendectomy in September. On October 12, the New York Daily News reported that the twins had died a day earlier, shortly after being born prematurely.16

Danning played two more seasons with the Giants after 1940, making his fourth straight NL All-Star team in 1941. He retired from baseball after serving in the Army during World War II.17

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Kevin Larkin and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

In addition to the sources mentioned in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com, MLB.com, Retrosheet.org, and SABR.org.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NY1/NY1194006150.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1940/B06150NY11940.htm

Notes

1 Arthur J. Daley, “Giants Top Pirates, Gain Second Place,” New York Times, June 16, 1940: S1.

2 Danning also appeared in the 1940 and 1941 All-Star Games.

3 Jack Mahon, “Giants Win 8th, 12-1; Take Second Place,” New York Daily News, June 16, 1940: 78.

4 Campbell was an umpire in the American League from 1928 to 1931 and then in the National League from 1938 to 1940. He led the majors in ejections in both 1939 (13) and 1940 (12). From September 23, 1939, to this game (June 15, 1940), Campbell had a stretch of six straight ejections involving Pirates players, including Vaughan twice.

5 The streak reached 17 games, as Moore went 1-for-4 the next day against Pittsburgh. In that stretch, he was 29-for-71.

6 Ben Gold, “8th in Row Gives Giants Second Place,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, June 16, 1940: 15. According to the Daily News, Moore “was hit in the–er–pants.” See Mahon.

7 The Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported that Danning’s homer traveled 483 feet. The New York Times claimed the ball went 460 feet. The New York Daily News told its readers the ball landed 463 feet from home plate. The local paper for the visitors, the Pittsburgh Press, gave Danning credit for only a 450-foot drive. Retrosheet’s play-by-play states that the ball “landed behind the Eddie Grant memorial 460 feet from home plate.” In any event, with the ball rolling under the monument, Danning had an easy inside-the-park home run.

8 Gold.

9 Danning hit 57 home runs in 10 seasons. This was his first in close to two weeks; he had last homered against the Pirates on June 3 at Forbes Field.

10 Pittsburgh selected Lanahan in the Rule 5 major-league draft after the 1939 season.

11 Daley.

12 Daley.

13 The six players to hit for the cycle in 1940 were Harry Craft (Cincinnati Reds, June 8, against the Brooklyn Dodgers); Danning; Johnny Mize (St. Louis Cardinals, July 13, against the Giants); Buddy Rosar (New York Yankees, July 19, against the Cleveland Indians); Joe Cronin (Boston Red Sox, August 2, against the Detroit Tigers); and Joe Gordon (New York Yankees, September 8, against the Red Sox).

14 The Pirates won 45 of 67 games between July 6 and September 11 and finished fourth in the NL with a 78-76 record.

15 An October 1940 column in the Pittsburgh Press suggested, “[p]ossibly the strain of going behind the bat every day, and twice in double-headers, took some of the edge off Danning’s batting eye.” Les Biederman, “The Score-Board,” Pittsburgh Press, October 22, 1940: 23.

16 “Danning Suffers Double Loss,” New York Daily News, October 12, 1940: 30.

17 Warren Corbett, “Harry Danning,” SABR Biography Project, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/harry-danning/, accessed March 2, 2023.