September 15, 1932: Cardinals’ Ray Starr shuts out Brooklyn in his first major-league start

The St. Louis Cardinals won the National League pennant in 1930, and went one step further in 1931 by capturing a World Series championship. But 1932 played out far differently: The Cardinals finished in a tie for sixth. St. Louis lost six straight in April to hit the bottom of the standings, and never climbed higher than fourth place the rest of the season. When the Cardinals lost twice to the Brooklyn Dodgers on July 26, they dropped below .500 to stay.

St. Louis began calling up minor leaguers in August, prompting The Sporting News to declare, “[The] Cardinals have all but conceded they are out of the running.”1 Among those getting a late-season look was 26-year-old right-handed pitcher Ray Starr.2

Starr had been part of the vast St. Louis minor-league system since 1926. The Cardinals offered him a roster spot in spring 1932, but Starr, fearing he would be little used, turned it down in favor of the Rochester Red Wings of the International League,3 where he won 20 games in 1931. Starr did not pitch particularly well in 1932, compiling a 9-12 record and a 5.08 ERA; nonetheless, he was summoned to St. Louis.

Starr’s first major-league action came on September 11, when he threw the final three innings of a 7-3 loss to the New York Giants in the Polo Grounds. Starr was tagged for a solo home run by Hughie Critz in the eighth,4 the only run he allowed.

On September 15 Starr made his first major-league start in the fourth game of a series between the visiting Cardinals and Brooklyn. The Dodgers had won the first three games, and could boast of nine wins in 10 games against the Cardinals at Ebbets Field.

This was to be the final game of the season between Brooklyn and St. Louis, and the Dodgers started 41-year-old Dazzy Vance (12-10), eager to sweep the Cardinals right out of town. Not only did Starr prevent the sweep; he exceeded all expectations by shutting out Brooklyn, 3-0, on two hits.

Vance had been pitching for Brooklyn since 1922, winning 187 games. With the Dodgers, Vance topped the NL in wins twice (1924-25), in strikeouts seven years in a row (1922-28), and in ERA three times (1924, ’28, ’30).

But Vance had not been pitching well of late. He picked up his 12th win by throwing five scoreless innings of relief on August 10; since then he had lost three games, and his ERA had jumped from 3.46 to 4.24.

Vance looked sharp in the first, beginning with two nearly identical plays. Jimmie Reese and Pepper Martin both grounded to first baseman Bud Clancy, who tossed to Vance covering the bag. Vance completed his first turn on the mound by fanning August call-up George Puccinelli.

If Starr was jittery about his first major-league start, he did not show it. He matched Vance by retiring the Dodgers one-two-three.

The Cardinals cleanup hitter, Ripper Collins, opened the second inning by connecting with a Vance fastball, lofting it over the right-field screen for his 21st home run, and staking Starr to a 1-0 lead. After an out, Jake Flowers singled to center. With Ray Blades at bat, Flowers stole second. The rally ended abruptly when right fielder Johnny Frederick caught Blades’ fly ball and threw to shortstop Glenn Wright covering second base for an inning-ending double play.

Starr gave up his first hit in the bottom of the second, a leadoff single by Frederick. It was followed by a walk, a sacrifice, and an intentional walk,5 filling the bases with one out. Starr got out of the jam – the Dodgers’ only real scoring threat of the game – thanks to a 6-4-3 double play, Flowers to Reese to Collins. Starr did not surrender another hit until the ninth.

St. Louis made it 2-0 in the third when Jimmie Wilson doubled, Starr bunted him to third, and Reese singled him home. The Cardinals final run came in the sixth when two of the late-season call-ups combined to hasten Vance’s departure from the game. Puccinelli singled, and with two outs 20-year-old rookie outfielder Joe Medwick – like Vance, a future Hall of Fame inductee – bashed “a prodigious double off the left-centerfield wall”6 to plate Puccinelli.

It was Medwick’s second double off Vance, and when he beat out a grounder through shortstop in the eighth off reliever Fay Thomas, it gave Medwick three hits or more in four of his first 16 big-league games. Also in the eighth, St. Louis manager Gabby Street was ejected for the second time in the series. Street protested that Puccinelli had not struck at the third strike, and home-plate umpire George Barr banished Street from the field.7

Starr carried a one-hitter and a three-run lead into the bottom of the ninth. Joe Stripp opened the frame with a single, bringing Lefty O’Doul to the plate. O’Doul, at age 35, was a great player enjoying his last great season. In the first three games of the series, O’Doul had gone 6-for-12, extending a hitting streak to 16 games. The San Francisco native entered the day comfortably atop the NL batting race at .375. So far, though, he was hitless: retired on a popup to short and two outfield flies.  

In his final at-bat O’Doul rocketed a pitch down the first-base line for what looked to be a double. Instead, Collins made a leaping catch and stepped on the bag before Stripp could retreat, turning O’Doul’s potential double into an unassisted double play. Frederick, who had singled in the second, popped out to Collins, ending the game.

Starr did not strike out anyone and walked four. He limited the Dodgers to two hits for his first major-league win. For the most part, Starr “had the batters sending pop flies to the outfield or grounding out easily.”8 The St. Louis defense recorded two double plays, eight groundouts, and 17 fly outs.

The St. Louis Globe-Democrat contended that Starr’s greatest feat was keeping O’Doul hitless.9 O’Doul finished 1932 with a .368 batting average to win his second NL batting crown. (His first came in 1929 when he hit .398.) Looking at a modern metric, O’Doul’s OPS in 1932 was .978, good for third in the NL behind Chuck Klein (1.050) and Mel Ott (1.025).10

The Cardinals gave Starr one more start, on the final day of the season, but he could not repeat his performance. Pitching in the first game of a season-ending doubleheader on September 25, Starr tossed eight innings against the Pittsburgh Pirates. He gave up six of their seven runs, and took the loss, as St. Louis tumbled to its first losing season since 1924.

Starr was traded to the Giants on October 10. In 1933 he pitched in six games for the Giants and nine with the Boston Braves, losing one game with each team without a win.

Beginning in 1934 Starr traveled a winding path through minor-league and semipro baseball before joining the 1941 Cincinnati Reds at age 35. The next season Starr was 15-13 for the Reds, pitching well enough to be named to the 1942 NL All-Star team, although he did not pitch in the game. Starr last appeared in the major leagues with the pennant-winning 1945 Chicago Cubs, and he left behind a lifetime record of 37-35 with nine shutouts.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Kurt Blumenau and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Ray Starr, Trading Card Database.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for play-by-play and pertinent statistical information. The author reviewed game coverage in the New York Daily News, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Brooklyn Times-Union, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and St. Louis Globe-Democrat, and reviewed SABR BioProject biographies for several players participating in the game

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1932/B09150BRO1932.htm

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BRO/BRO193209150.shtml

Notes

1 “Cardinal Officials Turn to Next Year,” The Sporting News, September 1, 1932: 3.

2 The best-known 1932 roster addition was Joe Medwick. At age 20 he built an OPS of .905 in 26 games.

3 Terry Bohn, “Ray Starr,” https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/ray-starr/.

4 Critz hit his first home run of the season just two days earlier.

5 J. Roy Stockton, “Starr Allows Only Two Hits; Collins Knocks Home Run,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, September 15, 1932: 15. Neither Retrosheet nor Baseball Reference lists it as an intentional walk, but in Stockton’s play-by-play he reports, “Clancy was purposely passed, filling the bases.” With runners on second and third and one out, an intentional walk would be the logical move. Intentional walks have been officially tracked only since 1955.

6 “Ray Starr Allows Two Hits in Whipping Dodgers, 3-0,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, September 16, 1932: 19.

7 Stockton. Found in the play-by-play Stockton provided. Baseball-Reference lists it as a strikeout looking.

8 “Ray Starr Allows Two Hits in Whipping Dodgers, 3-0.”

9 “Ray Starr Allows Two Hits in Whipping Dodgers, 3-0.”

10 OPS is the sum of on-base percentage and slugging percentage.