May 1, 1952: Cubs defeat Dodgers, flirt with first place for three days

The 1952 baseball season had turned the page to May, and the season’s stories were just starting to bloom like ivy on the brick walls of Wrigley Field. The Chicago Cubs led the National League with nine wins (against four losses), yet were percentage points behind the first-place Brooklyn Dodgers, who had a record of eight wins and two losses. For the Dodgers, a strong start was expected. For the Cubs, who were pegged for the cellar, it was a pleasant surprise after five successive losing seasons, including last place in 1951.1   

Whenever the Dodgers rolled into town in the 1950s, it was an event. Anticipation was in the air and attendance flourished as fans looked forward to seeing the legends many had read about in newspapers or heard about on radio.2 It afforded an opportunity to assess the talents of the hometown team against a perennial power of the era.3

The Dodgers were looking for redemption after getting eliminated in the 1950 pennant race in extra innings on the last day of the season and relinquishing a 13-game lead they held as late as August 11 in 1951, That ’51 collapse set up a three-game playoff with their crosstown rival New York Giants to determine the NL winner. Brooklyn lost Game Three by a score of 5-4 on a ninth-inning three-run walk-off home run off the bat of Bobby Thomson from a pitch by Ralph Branca. It settled the playoff series and became dubbed the “Shot Heard ’Round the World.”4 The Giants won the pennant.

For the 1952 Brooklyn Dodgers, the trip to Chicago was part of their first Western road swing of the season, a nine-day, nine-game jaunt by rail from April 29 through May 7.5 It started with two games in St. Louis, followed by three games in Chicago, then a pair of two-game whistle-stops in Pittsburgh and Cincinnati.6

The Dodgers limped into Chicago after a 14-2 shellacking in St. Louis by the Cardinals the day before. Meanwhile, the Cubs were riding high, fresh off a thrilling 12-inning 9-8 walk-off win over the Philadelphia Phillies, the 1950 pennant winners.

May 1 was a great day for baseball. Temperatures hovered near the 80s accompanied by those variable winds that blow off Lake Michigan and swirl over the walls of Wrigley Field.7 The official paid attendance was 15,200, and the stands were further filled by 10,388 women, guests of the house on Ladies Day.8

The Dodgers lineup was loaded from top to bottom and included five future Hall of Famers: shortstop Pee Wee Reese, second baseman Jackie Robinson, catcher Roy Campanella, center fielder Duke Snider, and first baseman Gil Hodges. There was not a weak link. The Cubs were led by Hank Sauer and looking to rebound from a 92-loss season, relying on Frank Baumholtz, Dee Fondy, and Roy Smalley for offensive punch.

The starting pitcher for the Dodgers was Branca, who had made just one appearance since the pennant-deciding game: a complete-game win over the Giants on April 19, in which he allowed four home runs. His opponent was Johnny Klippstein, an inning-eating warrior who played for eight major-league teams in an 18-season career, winning 101 games while losing 118. Klippstein started his major-league career with the Cubs and the 1952 season was his third of five successive seasons with the team.

Reese led off the game with an infield single to third base but tried to take an extra base. Cubs shortstop Smalley alertly threw to second baseman Bob Ramazzotti, who put the tag on Reese for the out. Lon Warneke, a former Cubs pitcher in his fourth season as an NL umpire,9 made the call.

Billy Cox followed with a groundout to Ramazzotti. The speedy Robinson then beat out a grounder to second for another infield single. Klippstein walked Campanella, bringing Snider to the plate. Klippstein was in a pickle without the ball ever leaving the infield, but he struck out Snider to escape the first inning unscathed.

Conversely, all the Cubs’ first-inning batting action happened in the outfield. Ramazzoti – who entered 1952 as a lifetime .219 hitter in five seasons as a reserve infielder with the Dodgers and Cubs – led it off with a triple to the right-center-field gap. According to Chicago Tribune reporter Irving Vaughan, “Branca made sure there was no hitting by the next two men Bob Addis and Baumholtz. He walked them both.”10

Sauer, a fan favorite dubbed the “Mayor of Wrigley Field,” stepped to the plate with the bags jammed and ripped a liner off the left-field wall that cleared the bases, giving the Cubs a three-run lead. Headed for the NL Most Valuable Player Award and the majors’ home-run and RBI crowns in 1952, Sauer was not known as a speed demon. In fact, he was downright slow. Yet perhaps the encouragement of the large crowd emboldened Sauer to try to stretch the double to a triple. He failed, struck down at third on a throw from Andy Pafko to Cox.11

There would be no further scoring in the first inning. Ransom Jackson and Toby Atwell both flied out to left field to finish the frame with the Cubs up, 3-0.  

Klippstein retired the Dodgers in order in the second and third innings. Likewise, the Cubs did not score, although three batters did reach base.

Two Dodgers reached base in the fourth, but neither scored. In the bottom of the fourth, the Cubs’ assault on Branca continued when Atwell,12 a 28-year-old rookie catcher, smashed a leadoff triple to left field. Fondy grounded out, but Smalley doubled to left to score Atwell. Klippstein stepped aboard the hit machine and helped his own cause with a single to center, scoring Smalley. After a two-out single by Addis, Branca gave way to former Cub Johnny Schmitz, who induced the final out of the inning. But the Cubs had extended their lead to 5-0.          

Both teams went three up and three down in the fifth inning. The Dodgers went down quietly in the top of the sixth inning. The Cubs, however, made noise in the bottom of the sixth, taking advantage of erratic pitching by Schmitz, who walked Fondy, the leadoff batter. Fondy advanced to second base on a passed ball with Smalley at bat. Smalley then walked. Schmitz struck out Klippstein to bring Ramazzotti to the plate. A wild pitch advanced both runners into scoring position. Ramazzotti singled to left field, scoring Smalley and Fondy, to give the Cubs a 7-0 lead.

Brooklyn went down one-two-three in the top of the seventh, despite a leadoff single by Snider.

Joe Black – a 28-year-old Negro Leagues veteran appearing in his first National League game – replaced Schmitz in the bottom of the seventh and brought the heat to retire the side in order, striking out the first two Cubs he faced in the process.13  

Six Dodgers stepped to the plate in the top of the eighth inning, yet none of them crossed that plate.14 Likewise, the Cubs failed to score in the bottom of the eighth and the game moved to the ninth inning, the Cubs still leading 7-0.

Klippstein, who ultimately threw 154 pitches, had shown signs of tiring in the eighth when he walked the first two batters. He continued to look vulnerable in the ninth. Luckily for him, the Cubs’ offense had afforded him a seven-run cushion.

Snider tagged Klippstein for a leadoff line-drive single to center. Pafko followed with a groundball single to center that moved Snider to third base. Hodges grounded to Ramazzotti at second, who tossed to Smalley to erase Pafko. It ended Klippstein’s quest for a shutout as Snider scampered home for the first Dodgers run of the game.

Klippstein yielded another single to Furillo that advanced Hodges to third. Cal Abrams, pinch-hitting for the pitcher, lined to left for the second out of the inning. Reese followed with a single to center, scoring Hodges and slicing the deficit to 7-2. Then, Cox’s fly ball to right fielder Baumholtz ended the game.

The 35-year-old Ramazzoti boosted his average to .333 by going 3-for-5 with two RBIs and a run scored along with two putouts and four assists in the field.

The win began three glorious days for the Cubs, as they took two out of three from the Dodgers and hovered at or near first place for that first weekend of May. But a midsummer swoon after June led to losing records in July and August and the Cubs ended 1952 in fifth place with a 77-77 record, 19½ games off the pace. While not impressive, it was their best record of the 1950s and the only time from 1948 through 1957 that the Cubs were in first place after April.15 

For the Dodgers, it was a bump in the road that did not detour their path to redemption. They won the 1952 NL pennant by 4½ games over their nemesis, the Giants, before losing a thrilling seven-game World Series to the New York Yankees.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Victoria Monte and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

The author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for box scores, play-by-play information, and other pertinent data.                                                                                                                             

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CHN/CHN195205010.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1952/B05010CHN1952.htm

Photo credit: Johnny Klippstein, Trading Card Database.

Notes

1 “Box Score of Ballots.” The Sporting News April 16, 1952: 3. The Sporting News compilation of voters had picked the Dodgers for first place and the Cubs for last place in the National League. 

2 The 11 Dodgers games in Chicago drew 241,474 and accounted for 23.5 percent of the 1952 Cubs’ home attendance, an average of 21,952 per game vs. the Cubs’ overall average attendance of 13,309.

3 From 1945 through 1957, the Dodgers finished no lower than third place in the National League and won the pennant six times, in 1947, 1949, 1952, 1953, 1955, and 1956.

4 Despite the dramatic victory to win the pennant, the Giants’ magic did not extend to the World Series. The Yankees won their third straight World Series in six games.

5 Rail travel was still the preferred transportation mode in 1952. The Dodgers were the first team in baseball to purchase their own airplane, but that was in 1957. According to the Museum of Flying: “In 1957, they bought a Convair 440, brand new right from the factory. The purchase of a twin-engine plane for more than $700,000.” “The History of Dodgers’ Baseball Aviation,” Museum of Flying, accessed October 26, 2024, https://www.museumofflying.org/mof/history-of-dodgers-baseball-aviation/.

6 The eight-team National League included the New York Giants, Brooklyn Dodgers, Boston Braves, and Philadelphia Phillies as the so-called Eastern teams; the Pittsburgh Pirates, Cincinnati Reds, Chicago Cubs, and St. Louis Cardinals came to be known as the Western teams (the Cardinals being the westernmost franchise, the only NL team on the west side of the Mississippi in 1952).

7 “The Weather,” Chicago Tribune,  May 2, 1952: 1 Game time was 1:30 P.M. The official Chicago weather was 80 degrees at 1 P.M. and 87 at 2 P.M. with variable winds.

8 The 10,388 number was confirmed in Chicago and New York newspaper game accounts.

Ladies Day was a longstanding and popular Cubs promotion that offered free general admission tickets to women at the gate. Ron Grossman, “Ladies Once Had Their Day at Chicago’s Ballparks,” Chicago Tribune. September 10, 2023.

9 Warneke pitched 10 seasons for the Cubs, winning 109 games (19th all-time for the team) and appearing in the 1932 and 1935 World Series. On retirement, he pursued a profession as an umpire and was a National League umpire from 1949 through 1955.    

10 Irving Vaughan, “Cubs beat Dodgers 7-2. Klippstein’s 9 Hitter Halts First Placers,” Chicago Tribune. May 2, 1952: C1.

11 Pafko, a Wisconsin native, played eight full seasons for the Cubs from 1943 to 1950. He then was traded to the Dodgers during the 1951 season. After this 1952 season, the Dodgers traded him to the Milwaukee Braves, for whom he played from 1953 to 1959. Pafko played in World Series games for all three teams.

12 It was Atwell’s rookie season and he posted career high numbers resulting in a selection to the 1952 NL All-Star Team. 

13 Black went on to win Rookie of the Year honors and finish third in the NL MVP voting in 1952. He was the winning pitcher in Game One of the World Series, making him the first Black pitcher to win a World Series game.

14 Furillo walked, Shuba walked, Reese struck out, Cox singled to load the bags. But Robinson hit a foul popout to first and Campanella flied to center field for the third out.   

15 It was the most wins the North Side Chicago team would attain until 1967. Interestingly, despite their teams’ never finishing over .500, Cubs players won three MVP Awards in the 1950s, starting with Sauer in 1952. Ernie Banks, who debuted in 1953, won the MVP in 1958 and 1959.