September 28, 1952: Stan Musial returns to mound, clinches sixth NL batting title

With the 1952 season drawing to a disappointing close and the St. Louis Cardinals mired in third place, the team’s front office, looking for a way to draw fans to an otherwise meaningless game, decided to have its star Stan Musial hark back to the earliest days of his career.1 That meant having the one-time minor-league pitcher take the mound for the first time in a major-league game. To add some drama to the event, the left-handed Musial, who on September 20, as the plan was being hatched, was leading the league in hitting with a .333 average, would pitch to Chicago Cubs right fielder Frank Baumholtz, whose .332 average had him nipping at the heels of the Cardinals superstar.2 Musial later wrote that he was not happy about the plan, both because he thought it little more than a “contrived show” and because he did not want to be seen as showing up Baumholtz.3 But Musial’s concerns were ignored by the Cardinals’ decision makers.

Ironically, the intervening week had seen Musial’s and Baumholtz’s batting averages go in opposite directions. Consequently, by game time on September 28, with Musial hitting .336 and Baumoltz at .326 the head-to-head confrontation had been reduced to little more than “a gag,” although it was still technically possible for Baumholtz to catch Musial.4 

Events unfolded quickly when, after the Cardinals, starter, rookie left-hander Harvey Haddix,  walked Cubs leadoff batter Tommy Brown. Cardinals manager Eddie Stanky emerged from the dugout and, walking toward Haddix, called for Musial to take his place on the mound. Haddix headed to the outfield, replacing Hal Rice in right while Rice took Musial’s spot in center. While this was happening, Cubs manager Phil Cavarretta told Baumholtz that the Cardinals were trying to make a fool of him, but Baumholtz understood what was happening and told his manager, “I don’t think so. I think it’s just a gimmick to get a lot of people in the stands to watch two also-rans on the last day of the season.”5 

The 31-year-old Musial, seemingly anxious to complete his task, took fewer than the allotted number of warm-up pitches as he prepared for his first professional pitching effort since 1940. But as he peered toward home plate, Musial got a surprise of his own, for the left-handed-hitting Baumholtz, who could “go along with a gag as well as anyone,” had stepped into the right-handed batter’s box to face his Cardinals adversary.6 Baumholtz reportedly made the decision to bat right-handed as a gesture of sportsmanship, not wanting “to try for a cheap hit” against the pitching impostor or “to get something for nothing.”7 The whole episode was over in no time. Musial threw exactly one pitch. He later said he “flipped the ball,” while the St. Louis Post Dispatch reported it was a “fast ball.”8 Either way, Baumholtz hit “the ball squarely,” sending a “sizzling grounder” to third baseman Solly Hemus, but the potential double-play ball “bounced on a big hop” and Hemus, unable to handle it, was charged with an error.9 A hustling Brown made his way to third.

That single pitch was the sum total of Stan Musial’s major-league pitching career and while “the Cubs peered toward the pressbox, begging for a basehit,” the argument seemed superfluous given Musial and Baumholtz’s averages at game time.10 In the end, none of that impacted the game. In short order, Musial returned to center field, Rice to right, and Haddix to the mound, and things proceeded as expected for two teams whose offseasons were right around the corner.

Indeed, unfazed by the shenanigans, Haddix induced Cubs second baseman Bill Serena to ground into a 6-4-3 double play with Brown scoring. He then struck out left fielder Hank Sauer, who was battling Pirates slugger Ralph Kiner for the National League home-run crown.11

In the bottom half of the first, Cubs southpaw Paul Minner retired the first three Cardinals he faced.    

In the top of the second, with two outs, Harry Chiti reached Haddix for his fifth home run of the season to put the Cubs on top 2-0. But Haddix struck out Hal Jeffcoat to end the inning. Minner gave up a single to Rice with one out in the bottom of the second but got Virgil Stallcup to line to first baseman Dee Fondy for an unassisted double play that ended the inning. 

After striking our Minner to open the third, Haddix gave up a single to Tommy Brown.  However, he got out of the inning, inducing Baumholtz to pop up to catcher Bill Sarni and getting Serena to fly to right.

In the bottom of the third, the Cardinals mounted a threat when Neal Hertweck’s popup to first was followed by singles from Sarni and Haddix. But Minner escaped trouble, getting Hemus to fly to left and Red Schoendienst on a groundball to first baseman Fondy, who flipped to Minner covering first to end the inning. 

Haddix made quick work of the Cubs in the top of the fourth, while Minner retired the Cardinals in order in their half of the inning. Both pitchers set down the side in order in the fifth.  

The Cubs threatened in the top of the sixth as Baumholtz and Serena led off with a pair of singles. But with runners on first and second, Haddix got Sauer to pop to first, Randy Jackson to fly to center, and Fondy to ground out to second, ending the threat.     

Haddix got his second hit of the day to start the bottom of the sixth but Hemus popped out to first and Tommy Glaviano, who had replaced Schoendienst in the fourth inning, hit into a 6-4-3 double play to end the inning.

The Cubs scored again in the top of the seventh. Chiti led off with a double, and after Haddix struck out Jeffcoat and Minner, Brown doubled, driving in Chiti and increasing the Cubs’ lead to 3-0. Haddix struck out Baumholtz to end the inning.

Minner cruised through the seventh, while Haddix made quick work of the Cubs in the eighth.  

The Cardinals threatened in the bottom of the eighth. With one out, Minner walked Hertweck. After Peanuts Lowrey, pinch-hitting for Sarni, singled, Minner got Del Rice, pinch-hitting for Haddix, to fly out to left. Minner then walked Hemus to load the bases. But with the game on the line, Minner notched his only strikeout of the contest, fanning Glaviano to end the threat.

Mike Clark, a 30-year-old, 6-foot-4 right-hander who made his major-league debut on July 27, replaced Haddix on the mound in the ninth. He got Fondy to pop up to third, but Chiti doubled for his third hit of the game. After Jeffcoat flied to right, Minner singled, sending Chiti to third base. But Clark got Brown to ground into a force out to end the inning.    

After Musial led off the bottom of the ninth with his league-leading 194th base hit, Minner retired the next three batters in order to complete the shutout, his second of the season.   

The loss left the third-place Cardinals at 88-66 while the Cubs finished fifth with a record of 77-77. Minner’s win gave him a season record of 14-9 with an ERA of 3.74, while the 26-year-old Haddix finished 2-2 with a 2.79 ERA.  

Musial’s 1-for-3 performance left him at .336, clinching his third consecutive National League batting crown and the sixth of seven he won over his storied career. Runner-up Baumholtz finished with a career-best .325. And while they only saw Musial throw one pitch, the reported crowd of 17,422 was 5,500 more than the team’s average attendance during the 1952 season.

Sources

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

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/SLN/SLN195209280.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1952/B09280SLN1952.htm

Photo credit: Stan Musial, SABR-Rucker Archive.

Notes

1 Stan Musial and Bob Broeg, Stan Musial: “The Man’s” Own Story as Told to Bob Broeg (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, 1964), 153.

2 Tom Larwin, “September 20, 1952: Musial, Baumholtz Compete for National League Batting Title.” SABR Games Project. https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/september-20-1952-musial-baumholtz-compete-for-national-league-batting-title/.

3 Musial and Broeg, 153.

4 “Musial Wins 6th Batting Title, Does a Little Pitching on Side; Haddix Fans 11 Cubs, but Loses.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, September 29, 1952: 16; “Attention, Now Pitching for the Cardinals – Stan Musial,” RetroSimba: Cardinals history beyond the box score, September 20, 2022; https://retrosimba.com/2022/09/20/attention-now-pitching-for-the-cardinals-_-stan-musial/. Accessed September 26, 2023.

5 “Attention, Now Pitching for the Cardinals – Stan Musial.”

6 “Musial Wins 6th Batting Title, Does a Little Pitching on Side; Haddix Fans 11 Cubs, but Loses.”

7 “Attention, Now Pitching for the Cardinals – Stan Musial”; Harry Mitauer, “Stan Wraps Up Bat Crown; Cubs Grab Finale, 3-0.” St. Louis Globe Democrat, September 29, 1952: 20.

8 “Attention, Now Pitching for the Cardinals – Stan Musial”; “Musial Wins 6th Batting Title, Does a Little Pitching on Side; Haddix Fans 11 Cubs, but Loses.”

9 “Attention, Now Pitching for the Cardinals – Stan Musial”; Wayne Stewart, Stan the Man: The Life and Times of Stan Musial (Chicago: Triumph Books, 2014), 135.

10 “Musial Wins 6th Batting Title, Does a Little Pitching on Side; Haddix Fans 11 Cubs, but Loses.”

11 “Cubs Triumph Over Cardinals 3-0.” New York Times, September 29, 1952: 18. Sauer and Kiner ended up tied for the NL home-run lead with 37.