September 7, 1941: Dodgers sweep Giants as 17-game road trip looms with pennant on line

The 1941 Brooklyn Dodgers got their season started on the wrong foot – and to add insult, it had been at home and against their archrival New York Giants. The Giants swept Brooklyn at Ebbets Field in a three-game series beginning April 15. But the Dodgers got back on track. They were 12-8 against New York as the mundane Giants (62-67, fifth place, 22 games out) visited Ebbets Field on September 7. On tap was a doubleheader that would wrap up the teams’ head-to-head meetings for the season.1

A month earlier, on August 6, Brooklyn had moved into a first-place tie with the St. Louis Cardinals, aptly enough with a 3-1 win over the Giants at the Polo Grounds, as Kirby Higbe outdueled Carl Hubbell. Although Brooklyn was 22-10 for the month of August, the Cardinals were very much in the hunt; the Dodgers bounced between first and second throughout the month and were a half-game back of St. Louis when September dawned. By the end of play on September 6, though, Brooklyn had a two-game lead over the Cardinals with the Giants’ twin bill on the agenda, capping a Saturday-Sunday three-game series.

Another month earlier, as baseball took its annual break for the All-Star Game in early July, Giants manager Bill Terry, in verbiage possibly polished by the reporting sportswriter, had predicted from his home in Memphis, “If that strong-arm trio of mound aces, Whitlow Wyatt, Kirby Higbe, and Hugh Casey, continue at top form, it appears the Dodgers will march in easily.”2 Terry’s club, then 39-32 and 9½ games out in third place, was fulfilling its part of that prophecy; from July 10 through their 4-1 loss in the first game of the Brooklyn series on Saturday afternoon, New York had gone 23-35 and sunk out of the pennant race. The Dodgers weren’t running away as easily as Terry had predicted – they had been in and out of the lead from July 25 through September 1 – but there were three weeks left in the season.

Terry was right about the three right-handed pitchers he singled out. They were indeed as advertised. Higbe and Wyatt, slated to start the Sunday games, each had 19 wins going in. Casey had 11 wins as a starter and, most recently, manager Leo Durocher’s bullpen stopper.3

Terry had been a member of the Giants since 1923 and their player-manager since June 4, 1932, when he replaced an ailing John McGraw.4 Terry had ended his playing career with the 1936 season but continued to manage. Durocher, after a playing career that began ever so briefly in 1925, had broken in as a player-manager with Brooklyn in 1939.5 He was 35 in 1941 and still playing sparingly.6

The morning action around Ebbets Field was frenzied on what became a hot Sunday afternoon as summer eased into autumn.7 While some fans “slept on the sidewalk all night for the privilege of paying to sit in the sun-scorched bleachers for six hours,” the gates opened at 9 A.M. with 25,000 unreserved seats available; they were gone by 10:30. Then, $1.10 standing-room tickets went on sale. Dodger management had closed off about 1,500 seats in center field to improve the batting background, causing many of those unable to get into the ballpark to climb to apartment building roofs, then “strain their eyes through field glasses for hours, watching a ball game three-quarters of a mile away.”8

By game time, 34,361 were either sitting or standing in the ballpark, the Dodgers’ third largest home crowd of the season. The turnout bumped Ebbets Field attendance to 1.19 million for the season.9

Higbe got Durocher’s nod in the first game. The 26-year-old South Carolinian had been the losing pitcher against New York in a relief appearance the week before, but the “grateful refugee” from the Philadelphia Phillies had rebounded with a win, his 19th of the season, on September 2 against the Boston Braves.10 Terry sent out lefty screwballer Hubbell, pitching in the 14th of the 16 seasons he toiled for the Giants en route to the Hall of Fame. The elder statesman, 38, was a respectable 10-7 so far for a club going nowhere. He had a 1-2 record and a no-decision in four previous 1941 starts against Brooklyn.

With Durocher settling himself in at shortstop for only his ninth start of the season, Higbe yielded a one-out single to Johnny Rucker in the top of the first but was easily out of the inning with groundball outs by Mel Ott and Babe Young. In the Brooklyn half, Hubbell got himself in a quick hole by walking Dixie Walker and Billy Herman, the first two batters he faced. Pete Reiser moved them up a notch with a sacrifice before Hubbell got Joe Medwick on a groundout to third base on which Walker couldn’t advance. But Cookie Lavagetto, next up, “lashed a first-pitch single to center and the two runs romped to the platter.”11

Brooklyn nicked Hubbell for two more runs in the third inning on doubles by Herman and Medwick and a single by Dolph Camilli.12 The lefty got through the fourth without further damage, but was gone when Gabby Hartnett pinch-hit for him in the top of the fifth with one out and Odell Hale on first base after a walk. Hartnett kept things going with a single that moved Hale to third base – Dick Bartell scored him with a fly ball; it was 4-1, Brooklyn.

Bob Bowman took over on the mound for New York in the fifth. He got off to a decent start, picking Medwick off first base after a leadoff single. But he was back in trouble with a walk to Lavagetto. Next up, Camilli – on his way to the 1941 National League MVP award – “with three balls and no strikes against him, rocketed homer No. 31 over the right field fence.”13

With a now-five-run lead, Higbe pitched around Durocher’s error and a two-out single to avoid damage in the sixth. Just to be sure of their cushion, the Dodgers worked over Bowman for five more runs in their half, capped by another two-run homer by Camilli. Durocher, up next but apparently satisfied with the margin, retired to the shade of the dugout at that point, replacing himself with Pee Wee Reese, 22 and in his first full season with Brooklyn.14

Terry’s third pitcher, Johnny Wittig, gave up two more runs in the eighth inning as Brooklyn’s total mounted to 13. Higbe cruised the rest of the way – “an easy afternoon” – to a 13-1 win, his 20th win of the season.15

Offensively, Camilli’s three hits included his 31st and 32nd home runs of the season. He drove in five runs. Medwick’s four hits produced three runs batted in, and Lavagetto chipped in with three more RBIs. Even Higbe, with a career .172 on-base percentage, reached base twice in four trips, with a single and a walk.

In St. Louis that afternoon, the second-place Cardinals and Cincinnati – standing third but 13 games out – also played a doubleheader. St. Louis won the first game; as St. Louis and Brooklyn moved to their respective second games on September 7, the Dodgers maintained a two-game lead in the pennant race.

Durocher, benching himself in favor of Reese for the second game in Brooklyn, tabbed Wyatt as his starter. Wyatt was 33 years old and had pitched himself out of the majors in the American League before a comeback year with the Double-A Milwaukee Brewers in 1938 resuscitated his career and caught Larry McPhail’s eye in Brooklyn.16 There, the Georgian had become a dominant pitcher and stood 19-9 as he took on the Giants, trying to match Higbe’s 20 wins.

His mound opponent was a lanky, big-eared lefty from the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina. Cliff Melton, now 29, had won 20 games as a rookie with the 1937 Giants and started two games in that year’s World Series against the Yankees. As Hubbell’s teammate, he had tried to learn the screwball; the experiment never worked, and Melton never achieved the same success he had had as a rookie. Each spring training from 1938 onward, writers and fans looked for great things from him, but he tended to fall just short even in his best starts and gained the reputation of a “tough-luck loser.”17 And once again, as he faced the Dodgers this afternoon attempting to avoid a sweep, his gritty competitiveness would not quite be enough.

Wyatt and Melton traded effective goose eggs through the first four innings. And while no runs were involved, a literal dustup in the Dodgers’ fifth inning riled the crowd. With two outs and the bases empty, home-plate umpire Tom Dunn called a third strike on Camilli. It disturbed Camilli enough for him to take exception, but the volatile Durocher was enraged. “He stormed out of the dugout, kicked up clouds of dust and finally held his nose in a gesture of disgust. That earned him a trip to the showers.” As Durocher continued to remonstrate, the crowd, eager for some action, directed “a shower of pop bottles, beer cans, and fruit” at Dunn.18 And whether it happened then, while Durocher was playing in the first game, or possibly back in the clubhouse as a banished Durocher presumably continued a solitary kicking tirade, “the Skipper left the ball park with a painful charley horse and very thoughtful about playing against the Cardinals in the series starting Thursday.”19

New York, mathematically eliminated from the pennant race by losing the first game,20 found some life against Wyatt in the top of the seventh and the game still scoreless. Rucker reached first base on Reese’s boot of his groundball. Brooklyn missed a double play on Ott’s grounder to second. Wyatt got to 3-and-2 on the next hitter, Young, and Young lifted Wyatt’s next pitch over the right-field screen for a two-run homer. Jo-Jo Moore followed with a double off the same screen and scored on Hartnett’s single. The remaining Dodgers brain trust, Red Corriden, Chuck Dressen, and George Pfister, stuck with Wyatt down 3-0, but Billy Jurges doubled Hartnett to third with one out. That finished Wyatt. The happenstance triumvirate brought in Johnny Allen, who intentionally walked Hale to load the bases and get to Melton. Melton wasn’t the worst-hitting pitcher in baseball and managed 32 RBIs in his eight-year career; but when Allen had a chance to increase the lead and give himself more breathing room, he prevailed. Melton dribbled the ball back to the mound; Allen started a classic 1-2-3 double play to end the half-inning.

Yet, the Giants had a lead. Brooklyn chipped away with three singles against Melton in their seventh with Reiser scoring on yet another Camilli RBI. Melton rallied to close out the Dodgers without a baserunner in the eighth, and took the 3-1 lead into the ninth.

There, he ran into real trouble. Herman singled, leading off. Second baseman Hale butchered Reiser’s groundball for a two-base error, putting the tying runs on second and third with no outs. Medwick, 4-for-5 in the first game but hitless to this point against Melton, rifled a sharp opposite-field single down the first-base line to bring home Herman and Reiser. The fans, with little to cheer about since the first game, erupted: “There never had been such a scene in Ebbets Field as was unfolded in the ninth following Medwick’s game-tying hit. Seemingly every fan present rose and all began sending a storm of paper onto the field. It came in cascades of torn bits as well as whole newspapers and score cards.”21 The “snowstorm” of paper “almost concealed the Giant outfielders from the stands” and was accompanied by a “terrific volley of sound.”22

Umpire Dunn immediately had the field announcer inform the crowd that unless they stopped throwing paper the game would not proceed. It took 10 minutes for “the regular ground crew and every available usher from the lower stands” to clear the field. When the game resumed, Lavagetto sacrificed Medwick to second. Terry had stuck with Melton after Medwick’s hit and the delay, and the lefty gutted his way out of the inning without further scoring, retiring the dangerous Camilli and Reese on groundballs with the potential winning run on second base.

Casey, one of the Dodgers pitching stalwarts singled out by Terry back in July, had come on to replace Allen in the top of the ninth and had retired New York in order. He did the same in the 10th. Even then, with the pitcher’s spot the Giants’ only hope with two outs, Terry allowed Melton to bat; this time he got more bat on the ball than he had in the seventh but still grounded out to second base.

Back on the mound, the ill-fated southpaw was immediately in a hole when Mickey Owen, leading off the Brooklyn 10th, singled. Casey sacrificed him to second, but Melton retired Walker on a fly ball to center field for the second out. To get to a lefty-on-lefty matchup, the Giants intentionally walked Herman, bringing up Reiser, although he was leading the National League in batting average.23 The second-guessable strategy didn’t work; Reiser responded as he had all season, belting Melton’s 3-and-2 pitch “into deep left field,” scoring Owen.24

This time, “the noise was puny compared with the earlier din, when telegraphers couldn’t hear their instruments click.”25 “The bugs poured out on the diamond, hundreds of them forming behind that utterly screwy band from Greenpoint, which headed for the dugout of the departed Giants [with] their rendition of Chopin’s funeral march, then around the ball park blaring forth tunes of victory.”26

Casey got the dramatic 4-3 win; Melton went 9⅔ tough innings only to absorb another loss.

Out west, Cincinnati won the second game in St. Louis, boosting Brooklyn to a three-game lead in the pennant race. But the vicissitudes of scheduling at a time when ballclubs traveled by train had left the Dodgers facing a 17-game road trip that took them to every other National League ballpark – except the nearby Polo Grounds. The trip started in Chicago on September 10 and ended in Boston on September 27. In between, the Dodgers had stops in St. Louis, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia. The Dodgers wouldn’t be back to Ebbets Field until September 27 and a two-game series against Philadelphia.

Brooklyn started the trip in potentially disastrous fashion by losing both ends of a doubleheader to the Cubs at Wrigley Field on September 10; the twin loss cut their lead to a single game going into a crucial series in St. Louis. But there, they regrouped to win the first game in 11 innings and two of three, increasing their edge to two games.27 Over the rest of the trip, Brooklyn showed its mettle, winning nine of 12 games against the lesser lights of the National League to keep the Cardinals at bay.

St. Louis stayed close, but through the long trip the Dodgers’ lead was never smaller than a game, never more than 2½ games – their season-ending edge over the Cardinals. The team their writers and fans lovingly called “the Bums” didn’t “march in easily,” as Bill Terry had predicted at the All-Star break, but with Camilli, Reiser, Medwick, Higbe, Wyatt, and Casey leading the way they persevered to win 100 games for the first time since 1899 and their first National League pennant since 1920.28

EPILOGUE

Some might have had forebodings, but none of the jubilant Dodgers fans assembled that Sunday afternoon in Ebbets field knew that exactly three months later, December 7, 1941, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor would draw the United States into World War II – altering their lives, the lives of the players they watched that afternoon, and lives all around the world.

SOURCES

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author accessed the Baseball-Reference.com, Retrosheet.org, and BaseballCube.com websites for play-by-play details and box scores, and for season, team, and player pages and daily batting and pitching logs.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BRO/BRO194109071.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1941/B09071BRO1941.htm

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BRO/BRO194109072.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1941/B09072BRO1941.htm

NOTES

1 A single game was originally scheduled for September 7. The rainout of a Giants-Dodgers doubleheader scheduled for July 4 moved one of those games to August 12, also as part of a doubleheader. The other rainout game was moved to September 7. https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/BRO/1941-schedule-scores.shtml.

2 Associated Press, “Terry Picks the Dodgers,” New York Times, July 10, 1941: 24. At the close of play on July 6 for the 1941 All-Star break, Brooklyn had a three-game lead over St. Louis in the National League.

3 Russell Wolinsky, “Hugh Casey,” SABR Baseball Biography Project. https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/312ca33d.

4 Jimmy Powers, “Bill Terry Replaces M’Graw,” New York Daily News, June 4, 1932: 28.

5 Durocher, 19, had one plate appearance with the 1925 New York Yankees. He was back with them in 1928 for 102 games (385 plate appearances) at second base and shortstop.

6 Durocher gave himself 43 plate appearances in 18 games during the 1941 season. He played shortstop and second base and hit .286.

7 Jack Smith, “Flock Wins 13-1, 4-3,” New York Daily News, September 8, 1941: 34.

8 Hy Turkin, “25,000 Dodger Seats Sold in Hour and Half,” New York Daily News, September 8, 1941: 35.

9 Roscoe McGowen, “Bottle Shower at Ebbets Field,” New York Times, September 8, 1941: 18. The Dodgers finished 1941 with attendance of 1.21 million, leading the National League for the third straight season. They continued that string through 1943.

10 The Dodgers acquired Higbe from the moribund Phillies during the 1940-41 offseason for three players and $100,000. New York Daily News writer Jack Smith dubbed him “a grateful refugee.” Jack Smith, “Dodgers Blast Giants in 1st Game, 13-1,” New York Daily News, September 8, 1941: 34.

11 Smith, “Dodgers Blast Giants.”

12 Camilli’s single driving in Medwick gave him an even 100 RBIs for the season. Smith, “Dodgers Blast Giants.”

13 Smith, “Dodgers Blast Giants.”

14 Durocher left the game hitting .300. He played in only two more games in 1941, going hitless in two at-bats.

15 Smith, “Dodgers Blast Giants.” Higbe was the first NL pitcher to reach 20 wins in 1941. McGowen, “Bottle Shower at Ebbets Field.” By season-end, Higbe had 22 wins, matched by his teammate Whitlow Wyatt. Bob Feller of the AL Cleveland Indians led the major leagues in 1941 with 25 wins.

16 Jack Zerby, “Whit Wyatt,” SABR Baseball Biography Project. https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/107fef7b.

17 Jack Zerby, “Cliff Melton,” SABR Baseball Biography Project. https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/4beba279.

18 Jack Smith, “Dodgers Blast Giants.”

19 Tommy Holmes, “Giant-Dodger Season Series Set a Record,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, September 8, 1941: 13.

20 Holmes, “Giant-Dodger Season Series Set a Record.”

21 McGowan, “Bottle Shower at Ebbets Field.”

22 Tommy Holmes, “Dodgers Off on Last Junket to ‘Badlands,’” Brooklyn Eagle, September 8, 1941: 13.

23 Smith, “Flock Wins.” Reiser went into the September 7 doubleheader hitting .335 and went on to win the batting title at .343. He led the 1941 National League in runs scored, triples, batting average, slugging, total bases, and hit by pitches, and tied with Johnny Mize of the Cardinals in doubles. He finished second to Camilli in the 1941 NL MVP voting. https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/r/reisepe01.shtml.

24 Smith, “Flock Wins.”

25 McGowan, “Bottle Shower at Ebbets Field.”

26 Holmes, “Dodgers Off.” The band was presumably the Dodger Sym-Phony. https://historicgreenpoint.wordpress.com/2014/04/26/the-dodger-sym-phony-band/.

27 Brooklyn won the first game in St. Louis on a two-run single by Walker in the top of 11th. Freddie Fitzsimmons had pitched the first 10 innings and got the win. Casey closed out the Cardinals with a clean inning. Camilli had a crucial three-run homer in the fourth, with Reiser, who had been hit by a pitch, one of the runners on base when he hit it.

28 The Brooklyn franchise dates from 1884 and had several names. In 1899, the Brooklyn Superbas won 101 games to top the 12-team National League. The Dodgers name appeared for the first time in 1911 was used again in 1912, but when the team won the 1920 National League pennant, it was known as the Brooklyn Robins. The Brooklyn Dodgers appeared again in 1932; the franchise has carried that name through the present time – in Brooklyn through 1957 and in Los Angeles thereafter.