September 10, 1934: Pirates’ Burleigh Grimes earns last legal win by a spitballer in the National League

As the 1934 regular season moved into its final month, an era was about to end in the National and American Leagues. Both leagues had banned the spitball after the 1920 season, except for a group of 17 pitchers allowed to keep using it. Of those 17, only one remained active in September 1934: future Hall of Famer Burleigh Grimes, playing out the string with his third team of the season, the Pittsburgh Pirates.1

Amid the drama of a pennant race, the Pirates erased deficits of 5-0 and 6-2 against the first-place New York Giants on September 10 to claim a 9-7 victory. Two innings of relief gave 41-year-old Grimes the win. It was the last of 270 career victories for “Old Stubblebeard,”2 and as of the 2026 season, the final NL or AL victory earned legally with the spitball.

In 1933 first baseman-manager Bill Terry’s Giants had held off the Pirates by five games to win the National League championship, then beat the Washington Nationals in the World Series. The 1934 Giants moved into first place on June 2 with a walk-off win over the Philadelphia Phillies; as of September 10 they were still there, five games up on the St. Louis Cardinals with an 85-49 record. The NL pennant was hardly sewn up, though. The Giants had lost to the Chicago Cubs and Pirates on September 7 and 9 while the Cardinals swept a doubleheader from the Phillies, cutting two games off what had been a seven-game Giants lead.

Terry sent 23-year-old right-hander Hal Schumacher to the mound for the second game of the Pirates series at the Polo Grounds. “Prince Hal” entered with a lofty 21-6 record and a 3.15 ERA. He’d pitched four times against Pittsburgh in 1934, winning two against no losses.3

Terry and right fielder Mel Ott led the Giants’ offensive attack. Ott was tied for the NL lead in home runs with 32 and ranked highly in batting average, RBIs, walks, on-base percentage and slugging percentage, while Terry ranked second to Pittsburgh’s Paul Waner in hits and batting average.4 Second baseman Hughie Critz, batting second in the Giants’ order, was finding the going tougher. His .241 batting average and .270 on-base percentage ranked last in the league among qualifying hitters.

Pittsburgh also had a future Hall of Fame player-manager at the helm. Third baseman Pie Traynor took over from George Gibson on June 18 with the Pirates three games over .500 and 7½ games out of first. (Gibson’s last game as manager had been a 9-3 defeat at the hands of the Giants.) The Pirates hadn’t responded to the change: They fell into fifth place on July 29 and remained there on September 10 with a 65-65 record and one tie. They entered on a six-game winning streak.

The start for Pittsburgh went to native New Yorker Waite Hoyt, who’d turned 35 the day before. Having built a Hall of Fame resume as a starter with the 1920s New York Yankees, the righty was pitching for his sixth team in five seasons.5 Working as a swingman, Hoyt entered with a 13-5 record and a 2.89 ERA. Twice a Giant himself, he’d pitched against the Giants six times in 1934, winning two and losing one.

Grimes had signed with the Pirates on August 8 after drawing releases from the Cardinals and Yankees. It was his third stint in Pittsburgh: He began his career there in 1916 and 1917, then returned in 1928 and 1929. In his latest sojourn as a Pirate, Grimes had pitched five games, including four starts. He carried an 0-2 record and an 8.34 ERA, though he’d thrown eight innings of two-run ball against the Giants on August 14, taking a no-decision in a 3-2 Pittsburgh win. He’d lasted just one-third of an inning against the Boston Braves on August 28 and hadn’t pitched since. 

A Monday afternoon crowd of 8,0006 saw the Giants take charge in the second inning. Ott led off with his 27th double of the season to left field, and Travis Jackson sacrificed him to third. Hank Leiber’s liner to Paul Waner in right was deep enough to bring Ott home.7 Gus Mancuso extended the Giants’ advantage with a solo homer to left, his fourth.

The Pirates threatened in the third when Tom Padden singled to shortstop, took second on an error by Jackson, and moved to third on Hoyt’s groundout. They wasted the chance when Lloyd Waner hit back to the mound and Padden was caught trying to score, tagged out by catcher Mancuso.8

While the Pirates sputtered, the Giants added to their lead. Light-hitting Critz poked his sixth homer of the season, a solo shot to right, with two down in the bottom half. Terry beat out a weak single to shortstop Arky Vaughan, still another future Hall of Famer, and Ott launched his 33rd homer into the upper deck in right field for a 5-0 Giants lead.9 The New York Daily News labeled Hoyt “harried,” while the New York Times described him as “not himself.” Traynor sent up a pinch-hitter for Hoyt in the fourth, summoning Heinie Meine to replace him on the mound.10

The Pirates finally got on track offensively in the fourth. With two out and Traynor on first base, three straight singles by Gus Suhr, Tommy Thevenow, and Padden produced two runs.11

Over the next two innings, the teams exchanged single runs that brought the score to 6-3 after six frames. The Giants picked up a run in the fifth after Jo-Jo Moore singled. Moore stole second, advanced to third on Padden’s errant throw, and scored on a single by Terry. The Pirates countered in the sixth on singles by Traynor, Thevenow, and Padden, whose third hit of the day gave him eight in three games.

Another run apiece in the seventh left matters at 7-4. The Pirates owed their run to Giant misadventure: With two out and Lloyd Waner on first, Schumacher threw wildly to first on Paul Waner’s bunt. Critz, pursuing the loose ball, inadvertently kicked it away, allowing Lloyd Waner to score.12

The darkly bearded Grimes13 came on for the bottom half, and Moore greeted him with a double. One out later, Terry’s third hit, a single, brought Moore home. Schumacher and Grimes worked shutout innings in the eighth.

The Giants had already made three errors going into the top of the ninth, and third baseman Johnny Vergez opened the inning with a fourth, mishandling Padden’s grounder.14 Earl Grace, pushed out of the starting catcher job by Padden’s hot streak,15 hit for Grimes and singled. Lloyd Waner’s single to right scored Padden and moved Pep Young, running for Grace, to third. Ex-Giant Freddie Lindstrom grounded into a force at second to score Young, bringing the Pirates within 7-6.

A walk to Paul Waner put runners on first and second and ended Schumacher’s day. Yet another future Hall of Famer, lefty screwballer Carl Hubbell, came on.16 Hubbell served mainly as a starter in 1934: He led the league in complete games with 25 and earned 21 wins, the second of five straight 20-win seasons. But he also made 14 of his 49 appearances in relief, retroactively being credited with an NL-best eight saves.17

Vaughan’s single continued the parade of baserunners, scoring Lindstrom to tie the game and moving Paul Waner to third. Traynor’s fly to center brought Waner home for an 8-7 Pirates lead, their first of the game. The agonizing half-inning for Giants fans climaxed with Vaughan’s steal of second. When Mancuso air-mailed his throw there, Vaughan took third; Leiber’s return throw to third went astray too, and Vaughan scored Pittsburgh’s fifth and final run of the frame.18

It fell to second-year lefty Ralph Birkofer to hold the Pirates’ 9-7 lead in the bottom half. He did, yielding only a two-out walk to Critz and sealing the win in 2 hours and 15 minutes.19 Schumacher took the loss.

The outcome foreshadowed broader disappointment for the Giants, who went just 13-14 in September while the Cardinals went 21-7. The Giants clung to first until September 26. Then, losses to Brooklyn in their final two games dropped them to a second-place finish, two games behind eventual World Series champion St. Louis. The Pirates finished sixth at 74-76-1, 19½ games back.

Grimes pitched twice more for Pittsburgh that season, wrapping up with a 1-2 record and 7.24 ERA in eight games as a Pirate.20 He made the last legal NL or AL appearance by a spitballer on September 20, working a shutout eighth inning in a loss to Brooklyn. The Pirates released Grimes on October 11, ending his pitching career.21

In the years since, various pitchers have been accused of illicitly throwing spitballs, greaseballs, or other wettened pitches. A few, including Gaylord Perry and Preacher Roe, have admitted to it.22

In 1961 the idea of legalizing the spitter drew support from Commissioner Ford Frick, American League President Joe Cronin, and AL umpiring supervisor Cal Hubbard, but the major leagues’ rules committee overwhelmingly rejected the idea.23 Barring an unexpected development, it appeared in 2026 as if Grimes’ win on September 10, 1934, was unlikely to be duplicated in the foreseeable future.

Author’s note

Pitchers in the Negro Leagues continued to win games with the spitter after Grimes’s final victory in September 1934. According to SABR member and spitball researcher Mike Lackey, the Negro Leagues allowed the spitter “on at least a limited basis nearly as long as they continued to function.” Lackey cited news articles from Black newspapers as late as 1947 and 1950 that identified pitchers Neck Stanley and Bill Byrd as spitballers. At the time this article was written in 2026, Major League Baseball classified various Negro Leagues between 1920 and 1948 as major leagues; Byrd led the Negro National League with 10 wins in 1948, while Stanley won one game in the same circuit that season.24

Acknowledgments

This story was fact-checked by Ray Danner and copyedited by Keith Thursby.

Sources and photo credit

In addition to the specific sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for box scores and general player, team, and season data.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NY1/NY1193409100.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1934/B09100NY11934.htm

Image of 1960 Fleer Baseball Greats #59 downloaded from the Trading Card Database.

Notes

1 Grimes began the 1934 season by pitching four games for the St. Louis Cardinals before being released on May 15. He then made 10 appearances for the New York Yankees before being released on July 31. The Pirates signed him on August 8.

2 Grimes got his nickname from his habit of wearing a two-day unshaven stubble to the mound on days he started. Charles F. Faber, “Burleigh Grimes,” SABR Biography Project, accessed March 2026.

3 One of Schumacher’s 1934 no-decisions against the Pirates came in the first game of a May 28 doubleheader at the Polo Grounds, when he pitched 10 innings of five-hit ball, allowing two unearned runs in the 10th. The Giants won 3-2 in 11 innings, with reliever Dolf Luque getting the win.

4 Waner had 193 hits and was hitting .364; Terry had 184 hits and a .352 average.

5 Hoyt’s resume included 18 games with the 1932 Giants.

6 According to Baseball-Reference and Retrosheet. The New York Times gave a slightly higher attendance of 9,000. John Drebinger, “Giants Are Upset by Pirates in 9th,” New York Times, September 11, 1934: 26.

7 Description of Leiber’s sacrifice fly as a “liner” from Edward F. Balinger, “Pirates Win 7th, Beat Giants, 9 to 7,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 11, 1934: 14.

8 Game stories in Pittsburgh and New York newspapers do not specify whether Jackson’s error that allowed Padden to reach second was of the throwing or fielding variety. They also do not say whether Lloyd Waner’s grounder to the mound, on which Padden was retired at home, was a sacrifice bunt attempt or a grounder. It’s possible that sportswriters left these plays out of their stories because the plays did not result in a run, and because there was plenty of other action to summarize.

9 Balinger, “Pirates Win 7th, Beat Giants, 9 to 7”; Drebinger, “Giants Are Upset by Pirates in 9th.”

10 Jack Miley, “Giants Again Nipped in 9th!,” New York Daily News, September 11, 1934: 50; Drebinger. The pinch-hitter, Red Lucas, flied out to end the top of the fourth.

11 Some inconsistencies exist regarding the Pirates’ run of hits. Retrosheet describes all three hits as singles to center. In the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Balinger described Suhr as beating out an infield single. In the New York Daily News, Miley said Suhr “singled over second” and Thevenow singled to left, not center.

12 Miley, “Giants Again Nipped in 9th!”

13 Drebinger, “Giants Are Upset by Pirates in 9th.”

14 Drebinger.

15 “Champions Hit New Low for Season,” Pittsburgh Press, September 11, 1934: 27.

16 Hubbell’s last previous appearance had come on September 7, when he started and pitched five innings in a loss against the Chicago Cubs.

17 Saves were not an official major league statistic until 1969. Hubbell also led the NL with a 2.30 ERA in 1934, his second straight ERA title; he’d also struck out five future Hall of Famers in a row at that season’s All-Star Game on July 10.

18 Drebinger, “Giants Are Upset by Pirates in 9th.” Leiber was credited with the Giants’ sixth and final error of the game on the play. The New York Daily News suggested the fault might not have been entirely his, reporting that Vergez let Leiber’s relay “go through him.”

19 It was the first of two saves earned by Birkofer in a five-season career that included 132 pitching appearances.

20 Grimes’ total pitching line across all three teams in his final season: 22 games, including four starts; a 4-5 record and  one retroactively credited save; and a 6.11 ERA.

21 Grimes managed the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1937 and 1938. The team finished in the second division both years.

22 Mark Armour, “Gaylord Perry,” SABR Biography Project, accessed March 2026; Warren Corbett, “Preacher Roe,” SABR Biography Project, accessed March 2026.

23 Christopher Matthews, “1961 Winter Meetings: The Mets, the Colt .45s, and Debating the Return of the Spitball,” Baseball’s Business: The Winter Meetings: Volume 2 1958-2016 (SABR, 2017). Reasons cited for supporting the re-legalization of the spitball included an expected reduction in home runs and the difficulty umpires faced in calling the pitch.

24 Mike Lackey, “The End of the Spitball: Sloppy, Dirty, Disgusting … and Almost Impossible to Get Rid Of,” SABR Baseball Research Journal, Fall 2025. Thomas Kern’s SABR Biography Project article on Bill Byrd, accessed in March 2026, confirms that Byrd threw a spitter among a repertoire of other pitches.