June 8, 1933: Jimmie Foxx hits three homers for A’s against Yankees

It was 92 degrees, with humidity that made it feel like triple digits. The suffocating torpor that hovered over Philadelphia was a metaphor for the Athletics’ season and where the franchise was headed.

Two years earlier they had won their third straight American League pennant, but by 1933 the splendid Al Simmons was gone, stalwart pitchers Lefty Grove and George Earnshaw looked like shadows of their former selves, and attendance at Shibe Park was cratering. The future turned out even bleaker than it appeared. It was two cities and almost four decades until the Athletics were relevant again.

But for the moment the A’s still clung to a few shreds of their erstwhile glory. For the moment they still had Jimmie Foxx.

Double-X, the 1932 American League Most Valuable Player, got off to a roaring start before slipping into a tailspin in late May and early June. He finally sparked back to life on June 7 with a home run, triple, and five RBIs against Washington, and entered the June 8 game with eight homers, third most in the AL behind New York’s Lou Gehrig (10) and Babe Ruth (11).

The first-place Yankees tried to cool Foxx off with one of the league’s best pitchers, Lefty Gomez. As it happened, Foxx owned the two-time 20-game winner like almost no one else. Coming into the afternoon, Foxx’s career numbers against Gomez included a batting average of .448 with eight home runs and an OPS of 1.219. Gomez once remarked that Foxx probably could hit him blindfolded.1

A week earlier the Athletics had visited Yankee Stadium and couldn’t get out of their own way. New York swept the series and held Foxx to just two hits in four games. The Yankees made a lot of people look silly early that season. They had won 31 of their first 44 games, including an 8-0 mark against Philadelphia, and held a six-game lead over the White Sox and Senators. The Athletics were next in line, in fourth place, 7½ games back.

The Yankees scored quickly against young lefty Tony Freitas, who was hitting the rocks after a sensational rookie season. Earle Combs scored on Gehrig’s fielder’s choice and then Ben Chapman singled in Joe Sewell for a 2-0 lead. In the second inning Gomez helped himself with a run-scoring grounder to extend the New York advantage.

In the third, Foxx lined a Gomez pitch into the left-field stands, a ball hit so hard that “it sped as if shot from a gun,” according to the Philadelphia Inquirer’s James Isaminger.2 Later in the inning, Dib Williams tripled in Pinky Higgins to draw Philadelphia to within 3-2.

Foxx led off the fourth with a massive solo shot the other way, over the right-field wall and off the awning of a home across 6th Avenue.3 Then in the fifth inning Foxx ended Gomez’s afternoon. With two on and two runs already in, Foxx hammered a ball off the roof of the left-field stands, where it bounced once and then disappeared from sight.4 That made it 8-3, prompting manager Joe McCarthy to replace Gomez with Wilcy Moore. The home run was Foxx’s 11th, tying him with Ruth for the league lead. It also gave him home runs in four consecutive at-bats (he homered in his final plate appearance against the Senators the day before), tying a modern major-league record set by Gehrig against the Athletics a year earlier.

The Yankees, though, wouldn’t roll over. They rallied with a pair in the top of the sixth, including a solo shot from Gehrig, which lifted him into a three-way tie for the lead in the AL home-run race. Gehrig doubled in another run off Freitas in the seventh, reducing the gap to 8-6 and ending Freitas’s day. Roy Mahaffey stepped into the fire with men at first and third and one out. After Chapman popped up, Tony Lazzeri doubled to right to score Ruth from third and Gehrig from first. Bill Dickey followed that with another double, which plated Lazzeri and gave the Yankees an improbable 9-8 lead.

Moore had kept the A’s quiet in the sixth and seventh, but the eighth inning proved to be his downfall – not that it was altogether his fault. Philadelphia had a man on first and one out when Doc Cramer grounded to shortstop Frank Crosetti. It could have been an inning-ending double play, but Crosetti booted it and then the dominos started to fall. After Bob Johnson singled to short left to load the bases, Ed Coleman ripped a bases-clearing double into the left-center-field gap to put the A’s back up, 11-9. Foxx and Mickey Cochrane walked to load the bases again. After Higgins struck out, Williams’s RBI single scored Coleman and Foxx, and then an infield hit from Lou Finney, who had led off the inning pinch-hitting for Mahaffey, drove in Cochrane. It was 14-9 in favor of Philadelphia. Only two of the six runs off Moore were earned.

Connie Mack called upon Bobby Coombs to mop it up. Coombs, the nephew of the A’s 1910 World Series pitching hero Jack Coombs, was making his official professional debut, fresh off the campus of Duke University.5 The first batter he faced was Ruth, who christened him with a mammoth blast that landed two streets away beyond the right-field wall.6 Later in life, Coombs liked to joke that it was the longest home run Ruth ever hit.7

That cut the lead to 14-10 and put the Babe back in front in the home-run chase. However, if that rude welcome rattled Coombs, he didn’t show it, as he retired Gehrig, Chapman, and Lazzeri on routine groundballs to nail down the victory.

(Coombs’ career journey was unique. After being hit hard as a rookie he spent nearly a decade in the minor leagues, only to return to the majors in 1943 as a 35-year-old wartime reliever for the New York Giants.)

Foxx homered again the next day. And the next day. And the day after that. It was a streak that propelled him to a second consecutive home-run title and the American League Triple Crown.

Gehrig and Ruth were bigger names and their fame would endure through the ages. But on this afternoon the 12,000 Philadelphia fans in attendance could head home knowing they had just witnessed a bravura performance by a man who was, at that moment, the greatest hitter alive.

SOURCES

In addition to the newspaper sources cited in the Notes, the author used Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for play-by-play and other information:

The author also reviewed the following source for play-by-play and other information:

Drebinger, John. “Athletics’ Attack Upsets Yanks, 14-10,” New York Times, June 9, 1933: 24.

NOTES

1 W. Harrison Daniel, Jimmie Foxx: The Life and Times of a Baseball Hall of Famer, 1907-1967 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 1996): 114.

2 James C. Isaminger, “A’s Crush Yanks as Giants Nip Phillies,” Philadelphia Inquirer, June 9, 1933: 17

3 Isaminger.

4 Isaminger.

5 Coombs appeared in the top of the 10th inning in a game against the Senators on the previous day and surrendered a go-ahead run, but the game was interrupted by rain. By rule, the game reverted to a tie and the statistics from the 10th inning were wiped out. See Shirley L. Povich, “Washington Gets One Run in Tenth, Preceding Deluge,” Washington Post, June 8, 1933: 13.

6 Marshall Hunt, “Foxx Socks 3, Ruth One; A’s 14, Yanks 10,” Daily News (New York), June 9, 1933: 61.

7 Sharon Cummins, “Captain, Baseball Star Called Maxwell House Their Home,” Seacoastonline.com, seacoastonline.com/article/20080424/LIFE/804240356 (accessed October 2, 2018).