October 2, 1949: Stan Musial slugs two homers on final day, but just misses capturing NL batting crown

After winning the World Series in 1946, the St. Louis Cardinals had two straight second-place finishes and in 1949 were trying to capture the National League pennant once again.1 With five games to play in the season, the first-place Cardinals held a 1½-game lead over the second-place Brooklyn Dodgers. The Cardinals had just swept a two-game series against the Chicago Cubs at Sportsman’s Park.

Now they hit the road, with two games against the sixth-place Pittsburgh Pirates at Forbes Field, before finishing the season with three against the last-place Cubs at Chicago’s Wrigley Field. The Cardinals’ outlook to get back into the postseason was optimistic. The Dodgers had to play four games against the Boston Braves and Philadelphia Phillies, tougher opponents (both were just behind the Cardinals in the standings) than the Pirates and Cubs.

Within the pennant race between the Cardinals and Dodgers teams was another battle – St. Louis’s Stan Musial and Brooklyn’s Jackie Robinson were neck-and-neck to see who would win the National League’s batting title and Most Valuable Player Award. As play started on October 2, Robinson was batting .342 with a .962 OPS. Musial was batting .337 with a 1.054 OPS. Musial had won the batting title in three of the six previous seasons. He had a chance to become the first National League batting champion to retain his title since Rogers Hornsby.2 If each batter had four official at-bats and Jackie went hitless, then Musial, the 1948 NL Most Valuable Player, would need to bang out four hits to capture the crown by the slimmest of margins.3

Pittsburgh won both games against St. Louis, while Brooklyn swept a September 29 doubleheader against the Boston Braves, including a five-inning second game that was called due to rain. This dropped the Cardinals into second place, a half-game behind the Dodgers. St. Louis then lost the next two games against the Cubs, giving them their longest losing streak of the season. Meanwhile, the Dodgers lost once to the Philadelphia Phillies. Brooklyn held a one-game lead entering the season’s final day.

A Wrigley crowd of 30,834 “watch[ed] the scoreboard as closely as it did the game on the field.”4

St. Louis sent Howie Pollet to the mound against the Cubs. The 28-year-old left-hander, who had been named to his third All-Star squad in 1949, was in search of his 20th win of the year, which would make him only the second NL pitcher to get to 20 victories that year.5 His last three appearances had been in relief, including both games against Pittsburgh, and his earned-run average was 2.72, which was second-best in the senior circuit.6 Chicago gave the mound duties to another southpaw, Johnny Schmitz. He brought an 11-12 record and a 4.35 ERA to the hill. 

The Cardinals “teed off early”7 against Schmitz. In the top of the second with one out, Lou Klein hit a grounder to shortstop Roy Smalley, whose error allowed Klein to reach. Del Rice was hit by a pitch, and Schmitz walked Tommy Glaviano to load the bases. Pollet doubled, driving in the first two runs of the game. Chuck Diering was then walked, and the bases were full again. Five straight batters had reached, and Chicago skipper Frankie Frisch called right-handed reliever Doyle Lade from the bullpen. Marty Marion hit a fly ball, driving in the third run of the inning. Musial, who had grounded out in his first-inning at-bat, worked a walk, and the bases were once again loaded, but Steve Bilko flied out to end the inning. The Cardinals had batted around.

After Schmitz exited the game, Lade was the first in a “parade of Cub hurlers.”8 In the third inning, singles by Enos Slaughter and Glaviano resulted in another tally for St. Louis. In the next inning, Bob Rush took his turn to pitch for Chicago. He retired the first two St. Louis batters, but then he yielded a home run to Musial, his 35th of the season and the team’s 100th. Rush then walked Bilko. Slaughter followed with an RBI double, and Rush was replaced by Warren Hacker, who retired Solly Hemus, but the Cardinals had built a 6-0 lead.

Pollet pitched out of a jam in the fourth. He had allowed just two singles through the first three innings. In the fourth, Smalley led off with a single and went to third on Andy Pafko’s one-out double. Pollet struck out Bill Serena and retired Mickey Owen on a popout to first baseman Bilko, and the Cubs came away empty. Yet in the fifth, Pollet was tagged for a run. He walked leadoff batter Wayne Terwilliger and gave up a single to Gene Mauch. Two groundouts sent Terwilliger home, breaking up the shutout.

Hacker pitched a scoreless fifth and 40-year-old Dutch Leonard blanked the Cards through the sixth and seventh. In the eighth, Monk Dubiel became the sixth Cubs hurler. With one down, Pollet singled and Diering hit his third home run of the year, “a blast clear over the screen back of the left-center seats.”9 That made the score 8-1.

In the eighth, Chicago’s Hank Sauer singled with one out. Pafko reached on an error by third baseman Glaviano.10Serena hit a grounder to Klein at second, who stepped on the bag for the second out. Owen’s single plated Sauer with the Cubs’ second run.

St. Louis responded in the top of the ninth. Hemus singled and took second on Rice’s sacrifice. After Glaviano flied out, Pollet singled in Hemus. It was Pollet’s third hit of the game. Consecutive singles by Diering and Marion brought Pollet home. This prompted another pitching change, as Dewey Adkins relieved Dubiel. Musial greeted Adkins with his 36th home run, a three-run blast. It was the sixth time in the season that Musial had swatted two homers and the fourth time he had knocked in four runs. St. Louis had now scored 13 times.

The Cubs rallied with two outs in the bottom of the ninth. Pollet retired both Bob Scheffing and Hal Jeffcoat on popouts to Klein. Herman Reich singled, as did Smalley, bringing Sauer to the plate. In his final at-bat of the 1949 season, Sauer hit his 31st home run. Pollet retired Pafko on a comebacker to the mound to end the game.

The Cardinals won 13-5. Seven Chicago pitchers had given up 14 hits, including three home runs. However, the Dodgers beat the Phillies (in extra innings), and “a pennant that a week ago seemed earmarked for delivery [for St. Louis] had gone to Brooklyn instead.”11 The Cardinals had finished in either first or second place in nine straight seasons. To exaggerate their disappointment, the St. Louis Star and Times inserted a black box with “R.I.P.” above the Cardinals-Cubs box score.12 Pollet earned his 20th win but told reporters, “I only wish it could have been the game that won for us.”13 Even the Chicago press chimed in. The Chicago Tribune told its readers that Musial’s home runs were “spectacular but useless because the Dodgers staggered to the wire ahead of the Phillies.”14

On the final day of the regular season, Stan Musial had belted two homers, adding a single, a walk, two runs scored, and four RBIs. Musial’s three hits in five at-bats were not enough. He finished second in the batting title race at .338 and in WAR (9.2). For the Dodgers, Robinson went 1-for-3 with two walks against the Phillies, keeping his batting average at .342. He led the majors with 37 stolen bases and had a 9.3 WAR.15

In 1949 Stan the Man led the majors in games played (157), hits (207), doubles (41), and total bases (382). He also paced the NL in triples (13) and on-base percentage (.438), while coming in third with 36 home runs and 123 RBIs.16 Lastly, he hit for the cycle on July 24, in a game in which the Cardinals routed the Dodgers, 14-1.17 Despite Musial’s hitting prowess, Robinson won the MVP Award, gaining a 79 percent share of the votes (12 first-place votes) to Musial’s 67 percent (five first-place votes). The next season, however, Musial led all National Leaguers in batting average with a .346 mark, and he retained the batting crown in 1951 (.355) and 1952 (.336), adding his name to Hornsby’s.18

Sources

In addition to the sources mentioned in the Notes, the author consulted baseball-reference.com, mlb.com, and retrosheet.org.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CHN/CHN194910020.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1949/B10020CHN1949.htm

Notes

1 The Cardinals had won the NL pennant in 1942, 1943, and 1944 as well, winning the World Series in 1942 and 1944. They placed second in 1945.

2 Hornsby won the NL batting title six years in a row, from 1920 through 1925, meaning he successfully retained his title five times.

3 Coming into the final game of the season, Robinson had 202 hits in 590 at-bats (.3424). Musial had 204 hits in 607 at-bats (.3361). With four hits, Musial’s average would climb to .3404, and with no hits, Robinson’s average would drop to .3401. Note: Both Baseball-Reference and Retrosheet have an at-bat discrepancy for Musial in the second game on August 23, 1949, which leads his game logs to sum to 611 AB versus his official total of 612. The author used 612 (the official total) for this potential scenario.

4 Bob Broeg, “Paradise Lost – and Yankee Dollars; Cardinals Didn’t Choke, Says Dyer,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, October 3, 1949: 4B, 6B.

5 In 1949 (and also in 1950) Milwaukee’s Warren Spahn led the National League with 21 wins.

6 Pollet’s teammate Gerry Staley finished the season with a 2.73 ERA. Pollet’s four earned runs in this game caused his ERA to rise to 2.77, placing Staley in second place, behind New York Giants starter-reliever Dave Koslo (2.50).

7 Broeg.

8 Martin J. Haley, “Defenseless Birds Jar Cubs, 13-5, See Last Hopes Fade With Philadelphia Story,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, October 3, 1949: 21.

9 Haley.

10 It was Glaviano’s 20th error of the season.

11 Broeg.

12 W. Vernon Tietjen, “Birds Lost Six of Their Last 8 Games,” St. Louis Star and Times, October 3, 1949: 20.

13 Tietjen.

14 Robert Cromie, “Cards Defeat Cubs, 13-5, but Finish in 2d,” Chicago Tribune, October 3, 1949: 39.

15 Wins Above Replacement (WAR) did not become a statistical measure to compare players until more than 60 years after the 1949 season, but the values are included here for comparison.

16 Ralph Kiner led the league with 54 homers and 127 RBIs. He batted .310 for the season.

17 Robinson hit for a reverse natural cycle on August 29, 1948, against the Cardinals.

18 Musial also led the NL in 1957 with a .351 mark.