October 4, 1941: Fitzsimmons’s injury, Casey’s blunders, Russo’s pitching lead Yankees in Game 3

Led by MVP Dolph Camilli, the Dodgers staved off a fierce challenge from the St. Louis Cardinals to capture the pennant in 1941, winning 100 games for skipper Leo Durocher. (Photo: SABR-Rucker Archive)

Brooklyn’s Freddie Fitzsimmons knew nothing but hard luck on the big stage.

He had started three World Series games for the New York Giants and lost them all. In 1933 he lost a shutout in which he got no support. In 1936 he lost a pitchers’ duel in which he was brilliant. Later in that Series he lost a blowout in which he was terrible. He had lost in every way imaginable. But his most shattering October disappointment was yet to come.

With the Yankees and Dodgers tied at a game apiece, the 1941 World Series shifted to Ebbets Field. After a rainout on Friday, Saturday dawned sunny and steamy, more like July than October. Flatbush hadn’t seen a World Series in 21 years and the park was humming. An usher compared the frenzied fans to the residents of a nearby asylum. The New York Times observed, “An astonishing number of alcoholics roamed through the bleacher section.”1 Yankees starter Marius Russo was practically a neighbor, Brooklyn-born and residing just five miles away, but as he warmed up, the fiery crowd hollered and heckled him all the same.

The Game Three pitching matchup was a study in contrasts. Russo was a quiet, self-effacing left-hander, a conventional-looking athlete with conventional stuff. And then there was the colorful Fitzsimmons, with his gelatinous belly and dancing knuckleball. The veteran right-hander was something to behold. “He would turn his back completely to the batter as he was winding up, wheel back around and let out the most god-awful grunt as he was letting the ball go – rrrrrhhhhhooooo!” recalled his manager, Leo Durocher. “[He sounded] like a rhinoceros in heat.”2

Now 40 years old and clearly at the end of the line, Fat Freddie was the oldest pitcher to start a World Series game. He pitched in constant pain, his elbow ballooning after every appearance, but he still could be effective in the right spots. Durocher gave him a start once every week or two throughout the season – half of those against Pittsburgh. Fitzsimmons responded with a 6-1 record and an ERA of 2.07 in 12 starts, including a critical win over St. Louis in mid-September. His Game Three start was his first action in 16 days.

Russo had sat in the bleachers at Ebbets Field as a kid but now he was starting a World Series game there – a very different situation. He looked out of sorts at the beginning. He walked two men in the first two innings, was consistently behind hitters, and worked slowly. “To tell you the truth, I was nervous,” Russo admitted. “So, I took it easy, cooled down, and tried to work on myself.”3 The early walks didn’t hurt, and after that the Dodgers didn’t know what to do with him. He didn’t allow a hit until Joe Medwick’s roller up the third-base line with two out in the fourth, and through six innings no Dodger advanced past first base.

Fitzsimmons was nearly as dominant, surrendering four hits through six innings. The Yankees’ only serious chance came in the fifth, when Joe Gordon, who had reached base successfully in all eight plate appearances in Games One and Two, tripled high off the wall in left-center field. After an intentional walk to Phil Rizzuto, Fitzsimmons struck out Russo to extinguish the threat.

Everything changed in the seventh. Gordon reached again, this time on a walk, and was on second base with two outs for Russo, a man who could handle himself at the plate. On a 1-and-1 pitch, he smashed a low liner up the middle. Fitzsimmons was an excellent fielder and much nimbler than he looked, but he didn’t react quickly enough. The drive struck him on the knee and ricocheted about 20 feet into the air to shortstop Pee Wee Reese, who squeezed it. “One of the hardest balls I ever hit,” Russo recalled. “It would’ve scored a run if Fitzsimmons hadn’t got in the way.”4

That play ended both the inning and Fitzsimmons’s day. As his wife, seated behind the dugout, brought her hand to her face and broke into tears, Fitzsimmons limped off, supported by his teammates and muttering obscenities with every agonizing step. X-rays were negative. It turned out to be just a severe bruise, but the pain was too much. “Leaving that game was the disappointment of my career because I felt sure I could have won it. … I wanted to win that one more than any game I pitched.”5

In the top of the eighth, Durocher summoned relief ace Hugh Casey, who proceeded to undo Fitzsimmons’ masterpiece in a matter of minutes with a bewildering sequence of mental blunders. The first mistake occurred as he prepared to enter the game. His warm-up pitches were slow and casual, almost as if he assumed Fitzsimmons was fine. Dodgers President Larry MacPhail was sitting alongside one of his scouts, Ted McGrew, and was dumbfounded. “[W]hen we watched Casey just lobbing the ball up in the bullpen we both relaxed, feeling sure Fitzsimmons would be back. We both almost fell out of our seats when we saw Casey called in.”6

With one out, Red Rolfe singled, and then on a hit-and-run Tommy Henrich slapped one to the right side, just beyond the reach of first baseman Dolph Camilli. Second baseman Pete Coscarart darted to his left and made the play right behind Camilli, but when he looked up there was no one to throw to. Casey was late covering first and everyone was safe. (Casey claimed he initially broke toward the bag but stopped once the ball eluded Camilli, figuring it would get through to the outfield.7)

Next came American League MVP Joe DiMaggio, who was 1-for-10 in the Series but in the midst of arguably the greatest season of his career. Durocher called for a pickoff play. Coscarart sneaked in behind Rolfe, who was leaning toward third, and had Casey made the throw, Rolfe probably would have been out. Instead, he held the ball.

Then he made the same mistake again, only worse. With the count full on the ninth pitch of the at-bat, Coscarart again slipped behind Rolfe, but instead of firing to second, Casey came home. DiMaggio rifled the pitch through the hole that Coscarart had vacated and into right field, bringing home Rolfe with the first run of the game. Charlie Keller followed with another single, which scored Henrich and made it 2-0.

Casey is best remembered for throwing a curveball that eluded catcher Mickey Owen and led to the game-winning run in Game Four, but the botched pickoffs, though less dramatic, were themselves a major turning point. When Durocher confronted him in the clubhouse, Casey didn’t offer much of a defense. “I don’t know what happened to me, Skip. I wanted to throw the ball but I just froze.”8 Durocher replied, “Casey, that’s just like you coming in here telling me there was $1,000 laying on second base today but you walk in here without picking it up!”9

Several years later Casey put part of the blame for DiMaggio’s hit on Coscarart. He was filling in for Billy Herman, who had exited in the fifth inning with a pulled muscle in his side. “I didn’t work out any signs with Coscarart the way I always did with Herman,” Casey contended. “It was a three-and-two pitch and I think Billy would have been where the ball was hit.”10

Russo faltered a bit his third time through the order. The Dodgers wasted Pete Reiser’s double to start the seventh, but cashed in on Dixie Walker’s leadoff double in the eighth as Reese delivered a two-out RBI single.

Brooklyn finally may have been figuring Russo out, but manager Joe McCarthy was committed to his starter and Russo knew it. “Oh, yeah. Even though we had Johnny Murphy, one of the best relievers ever. McCarthy had so much confidence in me, even if I wasn’t sure I could make it.”11 He rewarded his manager’s faith, setting down the heart of the Brooklyn lineup in order in the ninth, preserving the 2-1 victory and giving New York a two-games-to-one lead in the series.

The Dodgers were sparing in their praise for their conqueror. “Was Russo that good? I’ve seen him a lot faster,” snapped Cookie Lavagetto.12 Durocher didn’t sound overly impressed either. “It’s just that we’re not hitting the ball at all.”13

Meanwhile, bouquets piled up at Fitzsimmons’s feet from all directions. “Gosh, he pitched great ball. He had marvelous stuff. Everything he threw had a sharp break to it,” said DiMaggio.14 “It was great to win, but I’m sincerely sorry Fitz had to lose his chance of winning that way.”15

Sorry didn’t begin to describe the emotions the Dodgers were experiencing. Durocher felt the anguish as keenly as anyone. “We would have won, 1-0, if Fitz could have stayed in there. There isn’t the slightest doubt of that in my mind.”16

SOURCES

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author used the Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org websites for pertinent information, including play-by-play and box scores:

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BRO/BRO194110040.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1941/B10040BRO1941.htm

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

“Third Series Game in Detail,” Brooklyn Eagle, October 5, 1941: 2C.

Drebinger, John. “Four-Hitter by Russo,” New York Times, October 5, 1941: 8-9.

Rennie, Rud. “8th Inning Attack Wins 4-Hitter for Russo After Fitzsimmons Is Injured,” New York Herald Tribune, October 5, 1941: Sec. 3, 1.

The author also would like to thank Jack Zerby for his assistance.

NOTES

1 Meyer Berger, “Brooklyn Frenzy Hits a New High,” New York Times, October 5, 1941: 9.

2 Leo Durocher and Ed Linn, Nice Guys Finish Last (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), 145.

3 Lou Cohen, “Russo Didn’t Have All His Stuff, Says Gordon,” Brooklyn Eagle, October 5, 1941: 2C.

4 Bill Madden, Pride of October: What It Was to Be Young and a Yankee, (New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2008), Kindle e-book, in chapter “Echoes of the Iron Horse, Cro, and Fat Freddie Fitzsimmons.”

5 Joe King, “Diamond Dossier: Fitzsimmons,” The Sporting News, April 23, 1952: 11.

6 “McPhail Is Dissatisfied,” New York Times, October 5, 1941: 8.

7 “1941 10 08 World Series Game 4 Yankees at Dodgers Radio Broadcast,” YouTube, uploaded by Classic Baseball on the Radio, December 10, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKI46b0RdZ8. (Casey comment about covering first base occurs during the pregame at 10:44.)

8 Durocher and Linn, 161.

9 Harold Parrott, “Both Sides,” Brooklyn Eagle, December 1, 1941: 15.

10 Bill Roeder, “Baseball,” New York World-Telegram, September 6, 1947, cited in Lyle Spatz, Hugh Casey: The Triumphs and Tragedies of a Brooklyn Dodger (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016), 89.

11 Madden.

12 Harold Parrott, “Casey Fails Fitz in Clutch, Blowing Two Plays,” Brooklyn Eagle, October 5, 1941: 1-2C.

13 “Casey Fails Fitz in Clutch.”

14 Peter J. DeKever, Freddie Fitzsimmons: A Baseball Life (Bloomington, Indiana: AuthorHouse: 2013), 259.

15 “Gossip of Third Game,” The Sporting News, October 9, 1941: 7.

16 “Casey Fails Fitz in Clutch.”