October 1, 1930: Grove outduels Grimes in World Series opener

To win their second consecutive World Series, the Philadelphia Athletics would have to beat a red-hot St. Louis Cardinals team in the 1930 Series. After being in fourth place, 12 games behind the league-leading Brooklyn Dodgers on the morning of August 9, the Cardinals won 39 of their final 49 games to storm their way to a National League pennant. The Athletics, meanwhile, won 102 games, finishing eight games ahead of the second-place Washington Senators in the American League.

Just as he’d done in the 1929 World Series, Connie Mack didn’t name a starting pitcher in the lead-up to Game One. While many presumed Mack would give the ball to Lefty Grove, others thought he might try to surprise the Cardinals by tapping someone else for the job. St. Louis manager Gabby Street, on the other hand, named Burleigh Grimes, the 37-year-old spitballer, as the Cardinals starter before the Series started.

The Cardinals’ fantastic finish made them extremely confident heading into the Series. Gabby Street boasted, “Mack is a great leader and he has a good team, but I have a better one. And ballplayers are the ones who win ballgames. I can’t see how we can lose.”1 The most outspoken Cardinal was Grimes, who seemed to take pleasure in disparaging the Athletics lineup, saying, “They talk about (Al) Simmons and (Mickey) Cochrane and (Jimmie) Foxx, but they’re not so tough. I’d a whole lot rather pitch against them than against the Phillie sluggers.”2 The hurler declared, “If I can’t handle this team, I’m ready for the old man’s home.”3 Grimes also made it clear that he relished the opportunity to pitch against Lefty Grove, boasting, “If he uses Grove, we’ll beat him as sure as the moon looks down and then what is Mack going to do?”4

The Athletics were a determined bunch, though not as brash as the contemptuous Grimes. Connie Mack merely said that “the spirit of my players is wonderful and everybody in the squad is confident we will win our fifth title.”5 But showing more diplomacy than Grimes or Street, Mack added, “We expect no easy sailing and realize, every one of us, that we face a foe that will not crumble easily. We can win only by playing our best game.”6

As most suspected, and as Grimes hoped, Mack sent Grove to the mound to start Game One. The fireballer had led the American League in wins (28), ERA (2.54), and strikeouts (209). It would be Grove’s first World Series start after appearing in a pair of games in relief the season before. Grimes, on the other hand, had joined the Cardinals during the season after struggling with the Boston Braves. He seemed rejuvenated when he moved to St. Louis, going 13-6 with a 3.01 ERA with the Cardinals. He’d made three World Series starts in his career, a full decade earlier with the Brooklyn Robins.

With President Herbert Hoover on hand for the festivities, and “weather better suited to football than the summer sport of the nation,” Grove’s first pitch was ruled outside, and the 1930 World Series was underway.7 Grove started the game strong, retiring the first six hitters he faced, three of them on strikeouts.

Grimes, meanwhile, began the game just as colorfully as his interviews had been all week. In the first inning he knocked down Mickey Cochrane with a pitch near his head, triggering a verbal sparring match between the two that continued throughout the game.

In the second inning, Jimmie Foxx lined a ball that banged off the right-field wall. As Ray Blades went to grab it, he “dropped it like a hot coal after picking it up,” and Foxx was able to scoot into third on what the official scorer ruled a triple.8 After the game, Gabby Street commented that Blades dropped the ball because he “got his hands in the spit. You know, Grimes put a lot of moist on the ball.”9 Bing Miller then launched a fly ball to Blades, which brought Foxx across the plate with the first run of the Series.

The Cardinals responded in the third. After Gus Mancuso blooped a single to right, Charlie Gelbert “knifed a dainty single between (Max) Bishop and Foxx” to put men at first and second with nobody out.10 Grimes was next to bat. He “bluffed to bunt toward third and then deftly turned his bat and bunted on the other side of Grove. The pitcher had started toward third and when he tried to shift to the other side he slipped and fell.”11 Foxx fielded the ball, but Grimes crossed first safely to load the bases with nobody out. The next batter, Taylor Douthit hit a fly ball to center field that brought Mancuso home as Gelbert raced to third. Sparky Adams, followed with a sacrifice fly, and the Cardinals took the lead, 2-1. After Frankie Frisch beat out an infield single, Grove was able to get Jim Bottomley to pop out foul to Foxx, ending the inning without any further damage.

In the fourth inning, AL batting champion Simmons, connected with a ball “so squarely that the pill traveled as if shot out of a gun” and “kept on until it sped over the board bearing the names of the players and vanished into Twentieth Street.”12 The home run knotted the score at 2-2.

With one out in Philadelphia’s half of the sixth, Max Bishop worked Grimes for a walk. Jimmy Dykes then drove a ball to deep left-center field that looked as though it might leave the ballpark, “but at the last instant it took a nose dive and crashed against the wall.”13 Shortstop Charlie Gelbert appeared to have a play at the plate on Bishop, but, for whatever reason, he held the ball momentarily before relaying it home, allowing Bishop to score standing up, and the Athletics took the lead, 3-2.

Throughout it all, the fans at Shibe Park continued to show their displeasure with Burleigh Grimes. Sportswriter James L. Kilgallen reported: “How they booed him! They got on him early and by the sixth inning his every appearance was greeted with a Bronx cheer.”14

In the seventh, Grimes “replied to jeers” from the crowd by singling with one down, but then the Athletics defense took over.15 Douthit hit a grounder between short and third, and shortstop Joe Boley made “a lateral dive” to stop the ball, and “while still on the ground” he fired the ball to Bishop at second to force out Grimes.16 Connie Mack called it the turning point of the game, and said the play was “one of the greatest I have seen in my long baseball career. It was remarkable.”17 Boley’s acrobatic play looked even bigger when the next batter, Sparky Adams, singled. With two on and two out, Frankie Frisch hit a line drive to left field that looked as if it might tie the game, but second baseman Max Bishop made a terrific leaping catch. Frisch later said that if the ball “had only been over his head or a foot or so to his right or left, it would have been an entirely different ballgame. It would have tied the score and probably put us ahead.”18

Mule Haas tripled down the right-field line in the Athletics’ seventh. He scored on a “stunning specimen of the squeeze play engineered in the most scientific manner by Boley.”19 Philadelphia added an insurance run in the eighth when Cochrane got his revenge on Grimes for knocking him down in the first. He lined a pitch over the right-field wall, to make the score 5-2. As Cochrane rounded the bases, “Grimes looked like a man who had just read the stock market quotations.”20

Grove retired the Cardinals in order in the ninth, making his first World Series start a complete-game win. He allowed nine hits, striking out five and walking one. The outspoken Grimes allowed just five hits and three walks. However, all five hits were for extra bases – two home runs, two triples, and a double. A disgusted Grimes complained after the game, “Who ever heard of a team getting five runs on five hits?”21

Grimes remained impertinent after the loss, saying, “In a short series like this, a club gets a certain number of breaks. The A’s got all the breaks against me. Under the law of averages, they can’t expect another break in the whole series.”22 Gabby Street echoed his hurler’s sentiments: “Listen, if that’s the best they’ve got we’ll beat them. We’ll beat Grove the next time. Five hits, five runs. Why, man, you’ve got to be the luckiest team in the world to win like that!”23

In contrast to Grimes’ bombast, the Athletics continued to have a quiet confidence about them. When asked after the win what he thought about the Cardinals, Grove responded, “Tell you more about it when the series is over.”24

SOURCES

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com.

NOTES

1 J. Roy Stockton, “Mack Is Silent but He Is Expected to Start Grove Against Grimes in Opener,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, September 30, 1930: 1B.

2 Stockton.

3 James L. Kilgallen (International News Service), “Burleigh Anxious to Defeat Rivals’ Greatest Pitcher,” St. Louis Star, September 30, 1930: 18.

4 Stan Baumgartner, “Frisch Looks for Four Straight Wins Over A’s if Grove Hurls in First Game Against Grimes,” Philadelphia Inquirer, September 30, 1930: 1. “‘Nothing to Give Out,’ Mack’s Only Reply to Queries About His Starting Pitcher,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, September 30, 1930: 1.

5 James C. Isaminger, “Earnshaw Favorite as Pitching Choice in First Contest,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 1, 1930: 22.

6 Isaminger, “Earnshaw Favorite as Pitching Choice in First Contest.”

7 J. Roy Stockton, “Grimes Yields Only 5 Hits; Cochrane and Simmons Get Homers; Grove Is Effective,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, October 1, 1930: 2B.

8 James C. Isaminger, “Cochrane, Simmons Rap Circuit Clouts; Foxx Begins Hitting,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 2, 1930: 16.

9 James L. Kilgallen, “Burleigh Loafed on Bases and Let A’s Bunt in Pinch,” St. Louis Star, October 2, 1930: 16.

10 Isaminger, “Cochrane, Simmons Rap Circuit Clouts; Foxx Begins Hitting.””

11 Stockton, “Grimes Yields Only 5 Hits.”

12 Isaminger, “Cochrane, Simmons Rap Circuit Clouts.”

13 Stan Baumgartner, “Cards Got Nine Hits to Macks’ Five, but Blows Were Feeble,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 2, 1930: 16.

14 James L. Kilgallen, “Burleigh Loafed on Bases.”

15 Stockton, “Grimes Yields Only 5 Hits.”

16 Isaminger, “Cochrane, Simmons Rap Circuit Clouts.”

17 Kilgallen, “Burleigh Loafed on Bases.”

18 Stan Baumgartner, “Snappy Series Singles from Shibe Park as Macks Shuffled Cards in Starter,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 2, 1930: 18.

19 Isaminger, “Cochrane, Simmons Rap Circuit Clouts.”

20 Baumgartner, “Snappy Series Singles.”

21 Kilgallen, “Burleigh Loafed on Bases.”

22 Kilgallen, “Burleigh Loafed on Bases.”

23 “Cards Stormy Over Defeat by ‘Lucky’ A’s,” Chicago Tribune, October 2, 1930: 21.

24 Baumgartner, “Snappy Series Singles.”