June 18, 1927: Sucker-punch knockout overshadows Pirates’ win over Braves

Catcher Earl “Oil” Smith was described during his playing days as “rough and ready,” “hard-boiled,” and “the champion goat-getter of both major leagues,” a scrappy receiver who was always ready to get under a batter’s skin with a line of needling talk.1 But on June 18, 1927, his truculence and toughness spilled over into violence, as he made national headlines by decking a former teammate with an on-field sucker punch.

That afternoon in Pittsburgh, Smith’s Pittsburgh Pirates played the Boston Braves at Forbes Field before a Saturday crowd of 5,000. The Pirates sat atop the National League standings – one game ahead of the surging Chicago Cubs, who had lost to the Philadelphia Phillies the day before, ending their 12-game winning streak. 

The Pirates had won their first World Series since 1909 just two years before. Many of the stars from that team were still on board two years later, including second baseman George Grantham, third baseman Pie Traynor, outfielder Kiki Cuyler, and shortstop Glenn Wright. Speedy center fielder Max Carey had moved to the Brooklyn Robins, but he had been replaced by two young outfielders and future Hall of Famers, Lloyd Waner and Paul Waner.

The Braves were once again near the bottom of the NL, in sixth place with a record of 20-28 and one tie, 12 games out of first. Since winning the World Series in 1914, they had finished in seventh or eighth place six times in 12 years. Future Hall of Famer Dave Bancroft, their player-manager, was one of the outstanding defensive shortstops of his day. During his years with the New York Giants (1920-1923), the Giants won two World Series and one NL championship. 

Earl Smith, who hit .303 with a .432 slugging percentage during his 12-season major-league career, was a teammate of Bancroft’s on the Giants. But in the middle of the 1923 season, after the last in a series of arguments with manager John McGraw, Smith was traded to the Braves.2 In 1924 Bancroft followed him there, being named the player-manager to open the 1924 season at age 33.

Earl Smith didn’t stay in Boston long: He was sold to Pittsburgh in July. By at least one account, however, Smith was in Boston long enough to kindle a feud with Bancroft.3 At one point, Bancroft, who had been friendly with Smith when both were with the Giants, fined his catcher $500 for violating team rules. In July the Braves tried to slip Smith through waivers so they could sell him to Los Angeles of the Pacific Coast League. The Pirates put a stop to that by claiming Smith for the waiver price. Smith never forgot the $500 fine and kept demanding his money back.4

On June 18, right-hander Bob Smith was the starting pitcher for the Braves. He had been Boston’s starting shortstop in 1923, but Bancroft’s arrival and his own batting struggles led to his converting to pitching in 1925. Entering the game, Smith had a 3.19 ERA with a record of 3 wins and 5 losses.5 The day before, he had come out of the bullpen to record the final two outs of Boston’s 8-7 win over Pittsburgh.6

Right-hander Ray Kremer was starting for the Pirates with a record of 7 wins and 2 losses and a 2.60 ERA. This was his first appearance against the Braves in 1927. He had a 3-1 record against Boston in 1926.

On what the Pittsburgh Press described as “a miserable afternoon for baseball, rain falling almost without interruption during the entire time of play,”7 the Braves failed to score in the first inning. In the bottom of the first, Lloyd Waner was hit by a pitch. When Hal Rhyne, starting at third with Traynor out with a thumb injury,8 attempted to sacrifice, Waner beat the throw to second, and Pittsburgh had two runners on base. Both scored on a triple to the fence in right-center by Paul Waner, his 13th three-base hit of the season.9 Paul Waner came home on a fly ball by Clyde Barnhart to give the Pirates a 3-0 lead.

In the Pirates’ second, Earl Smith singled and was forced at second by Lloyd Waner, who scored on a double by Rhyne. Pirates 4, Braves 0.

Kremer held Boston scoreless on six hits through six innings, but the Braves finally broke through in the seventh. Bancroft walked with one out. “As [Bancroft] rambled to first base, he is said to have hurled several verbal threats at the Bucco catcher,” the Pittsburgh Press observed.10 Earl Smith threw the ball to first baseman Joe Harris as Bancroft went down the line to first, nearly hitting the Braves manager-shortstop on the head.11

After Bob Smith lined out, former Pirate Eddie Moore doubled Bancroft to third base. Lance Richbourg then singled to center. Bancroft scored, and Moore came home behind him.

What happened next made this game discussed all over the country. Bancroft stopped and complained to home-plate umpire Barry McCormick, allegedly about Smith’s throw to first. Smith slugged Bancroft in the jaw with his gloved left hand, and Bancroft fell to the ground.

Bancroft lay unconscious as players and coaches from both teams rushed to the field. Several Braves teammates carried Bancroft to the clubhouse, where he regained consciousness but required three stitches on his face. Earl Smith was ejected from the game.

“As Bancroft fell there was a hush throughout the stands,” the Pittsburgh Gazette Times observed. “Earl Smith himself appeared to realize he had acted too hastily and he took off his chest and shin protectors while the umpire ordered him out of the game. As the other athletes carried Bancroft to his club house, Earl Smith followed the procession in a manner that indicated he was sorry for his act.”12

When play resumed, with Johnny Gooch catching for Pittsburgh, Kremer walked Jimmy Welsh to put the tying run on base, but Doc Farrell flied out to end the inning.13 The Braves threatened again in the eighth, putting two runners on with no outs, before shortstop Wright turned Eddie Brown’s liner into an unassisted double play. “Brown’s liner in the eighth would have been good for an extra-base hit had not Wright speared it,” the Boston Globe lamented.14

The Pirates scored three eighth inning runs to push their lead to 7-2, and Kremer allowed a two-out, two-run homer to Jimmy Welsh in the ninth but closed out the win.

NL President John J. Heydler fined Earl Smith $500 and suspended him for 30 days, calling his actions “a vicious and brutal assault on a player of a competing club.”15 Later that summer Bancroft sued Smith for $15,000.16 Smith played in only the first game when Pittsburgh returned to Braves Field for three games on August 25 and 26. Reportedly, he did not accompany the Pirates to Boston to avoid process servers.17 One story had Smith injuring his leg when he climbed over a high wall trying to escape Braves Field without detection.18 

Newspapers continued to discuss what happened for the remainder of the summer. The Sporting News reported that Smith’s attack did not find favor among his teammates: “Some of the Pirates allege that the incident not only stirred up bitterness against the entire Pittsburgh team on the part of the Braves, but that other clubs took up [Bancroft’s] cause, and that a real ‘campaign of hate’ against Pittsburgh was inaugurated.”19

The Pirates went on to win the NL pennant by 1½ games over the St. Louis Cardinals before being swept in the World Series by the New York Yankees. The Braves closed the season in seventh place with a 60-94 record and one tie, 34 games out of first. Bancroft was fired as Braves manager in the offseason and did not manage in the major leagues again.

Earl Smith played half of 1928 with Pittsburgh before being sold to the Cardinals in July.  Bancroft, meanwhile, signed as a free agent with the Brooklyn Robins for the 1928 and 1929 seasons and returned to the Giants in 1930. Both men retired after the 1930 season.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Mike Huber and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Trading Card Database.

Sources

In addition to the sources mentioned in the Notes, the author relied on Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for pertinent information, including the box score and play-by-play. He also reviewed game coverage in the Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Pittsburgh Gazette Times, Pittsburgh Sunday Post, and Pittsburgh Press.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/PIT/PIT192706180.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1927/B06180PIT1927.htm

Notes

1 Al Demaree, “Smith Champ Goat-Getter of Majors,” Nashville Banner, July 22, 1927: 20.

2 On June 7, 1923, Earl Smith was traded along with Jesse Barnes to the Boston Braves for Hank Gowdy and Mule Watson.

3 Andrew Sharp, “Earl Smith,” SABR Biography Project, accessed September 27, 2023, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/earl-smith/.

4 Sharp, “Earl Smith.”

5 One of the losses was a 22-inning complete game against the Chicago Cubs on May 17.

6 Smith was retroactively credited with a save in that game, one of 41 during his 13-season career as a major-league pitcher.

7 Lou Wollen, “Pirates Beat Braves and Add to League Lead: Earl Smith Knocks Out Hub Pilot With Blow,” Pittsburgh Press, June 19, 1927: 43.

8 Charles J. Doyle, “Smith Knocks Out Bancroft With Right to Jaw as Pirates Beat Braves, 7 to 4,” Pittsburgh Gazette Times, June 19, 1927: 3, 2.

9 As a rookie in 1926, Paul Waner led the majors with 22 triples. His 18 triples in 1927 topped the National League. As of 2023, Waner ranked 10th in major-league history with 191 triples.

10 Wollen, “Pirates Beat Braves and Add to League Lead.”

11 Traynor corroborated this detail in a 1963 interview. Doyle, “Smith Knocks Out Bancroft With Right to Jaw as Pirates Beat Braves, 7 to 4”; Al Abrams, “Sidelights on Sports,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, June 21, 1963: 18.

12 “Smith Knocks Out Bancroft With Right to Jaw as Pirates Beat Braves, 7 to 4.”

13 Boston had acquired Farrell in a six-player deal with the New York Giants six days earlier, on June 12.

14 “Attack Made at Forbes Field: Heydler Promises to Act in Matter,” Boston Globe, June 19, 1927: A1.

15 Associated Press, “Heavy Fine for Catcher Earl Smith,” Harrisburg Telegraph, June 25, 1927: 14.

16 Associated Press, “Dave Bancroft Sues for $15,000 for Blow on Jaw,” Omaha Evening Bee-News, August 20, 1927: 7.

17 “Dave Bancroft Sues for $15,000 for Blow on Jaw.”

18 “Dave Bancroft Sues for $15,000 for Blow on Jaw.”

19 “Bush’s Militancy Gives No Quarter,” The Sporting News, August 25, 1927: 3.