August Delight: Late 1929 Fun in St. Louis

There can be few more satisfying things in baseball, for players and fans alike, than defeating the New York Yankees. This was as true in the 1920s as it is today. In the case of the historically inept St. Louis Browns, it was even more so. The Browns’ best-known dominance of New York occurred at the tail end of the 1944 season, when they swept a four-game series in St. Louis to win their only American League pennant.

Less known is a four-game sweep in August, 1929, when the Browns piled up a 22-2 composite score and shut out the defending world champions in three of the four games. The series effectively ended what re- mote chance the Yankees had of catching the Philadelphia A’s and gave hope (eventually dashed) that St. Louis would garner its second third-place finish in a row.

By 1927 only four members of the Browns’ great 1922 team remained: shortstop Wally Gerber, first baseman George Sisler, pitcher Elam Vangilder, and outfielder Ken Williams. Over the following offseason, owner Phil Ball and manager Dan Howley, who had brought the ’27 team in seventh, overhauled the club. By the time it assembled in West Palm Beach, Florida, in February, 1928, only Gerber was still around-and he was gone by April 25. The new Browns had Lu Blue at first base, Otis Brannan at second, Red Kress at shortstop, Early McNeely in left, and Heinie Manush in right. Catcher Wally Schang, third baseman Frank O’Rourke, center fielder Fred Schulte, and Kress (only seven games in 1927) were holdovers. The pitching was upgraded with the acquisition of Sam Gray, Jack Ogden, and George Blaeholder.

The revamped team finished third at 82-72, nineteen games behind pennant winning New York. It was a remarkable turnaround from the prior year. Manush was second in AL hitting at .378, was first in hits with 241 and tied Lou Gehrig in doubles at 47. The pitching was superb. Holdover Alvin “General” Crowder finished at 21-5, for a league-leading winning percentage of .808. Gray was 20-12, Ogden 15-16, and Blaeholder 10-15. Attendance improved dramatically: 339,497 came out to Sportsman’s Park, compared to 227,879 the year before. In 1929 Oscar Melillo took over at second, Frank McGowan moved into center, and Rip Collins joined the pitching staff.

By the time the Yankees arrived in St. Louis on August 22, they were fourteen games behind Philadelphia. The Browns were in fourth, percentage points behind Cleveland. New York seemed to have lost its magic, as manager Miller Huggins admitted to a Cleveland writer: “… I don’t think the Yankees are going to catch the Athletics. I don’t think these Yankees are going to win any more pennants, certainly not this one. They’re getting older and they’ve be- come glutted with success.”

Still, the Yankees had taken twelve of fourteen games from St. Louis, and a sweep just might revive the pennant race. Howley sent Gray out to pitch the first game, and he responded with a brilliant seven-hit shutout. St. Louis scored two runs in the first inning, four in the third, knocking out starter Waite Hoyt, and added two more in the fifth and eighth. Schang was out, replaced by Clyde Manion. Schulte and Manush had been injured in an outfield collision the day before, so rookie Red Badgro took over in right, with Frank McGowan in center. Badgro, who would to on to a Hall of Fame career in pro football, responded by going four for five with three RBIs. The 10-0 victory produced fifteen hits as 3,500 watched. Huggins had dropped Gehrig and Lazzeri to sixth and seventh in his batting order, moving Bill Dickey up to the third spot. The move had no effect in this game or the two that followed.

Game 1: Thursday, August 22
St. Louis 10, New York 0
WP: Gray. LP: Hoyt.

New York Times writer William Brandt said that “Missouri’s traditional blistering sun was in mid-August form” and the Browns continued their own hot streak the next day before 2,500. This time they confined their activity to the fourth inning when they produced five runs. Except for this inning, Yankee starter Herb Pennock would pitch almost as fine a game as St. Louis hurler George Blaeholder. With two runs already in, Lu Blue clinched the game for the Browns when he doubled with the bases loaded. Blaeholder gave up only five hits, and the Browns won, 5-0.

Game 2: Friday, August 23
St. Louis 5, New York 0
WP: Blaeholder. LP: Pennock.

On August 24, Howley gave the ball to Al Crowder, and he proved even better than Gray and Blaeholder. Before 9,000 delighted fans the General gave New York only two hits, both by Gene Robertson, a former Brown who had been a utility man with the 1922 team. The Browns got three of their runs in the second inning on a walk to McGowan, a single by Kress, and successive doubles by Manion and Crowder himself. The final St. Louis run came in the sixth, when Kress’s third single scored McGowan. The 4-0 win featured Crowder retiring twenty straight batters after walking Lazzeri in the second inning.

St. Louis Post Dispatch writer James Gould could hardly conceal his delight when he led his story of this game: “Just what kind of meat the Browns have been feeding on that they have suddenly become so great is not known, but whatever it is, the diet is entirely successful. … Shutting out the Yankees three times in a row has been for years one of the things that just wasn’t being done.”

Game 3: Saturday, August 24
St. Louis 4, New York 0
WP: Crowder. LP: Sherid.

The Browns had moved into third place with their second victory, and this win put them a game up on Cleveland, which had split with Boston. The success of the past three days brought 15,000 fans to the Sunday finale on August 25. The shutout streak ended, but the victory run did not. St. Louis’s only lefty, Walter Stewart, gave up only six hits in the 3~2 win. Two of these were home runs by Ruth (who had gone one for ten in the set), his thirty-fourth and thirty-fifth of the season. Huggins had moved Gehrig and Lazzeri up a notch in the batting order, given Dickey the day off, and moved Ruth into the third slot.

The visitors finally ended their scoreless streak on Ruth’s solo shot in the fourth, but the Browns tied it in the fifth. In the eighth, the home team went up, 3~1, when McGowan scored on O’Rourke’s double and O’Rourke was singled in by Melillo. Ruth made it close in the ninth with his second poke over the right field fence onto Grand Avenue, but Stewart got the side out to hold on to the victory.

Game 4: Sunday, August 25
St. Louis 3, New York 2
WP: Stewart. LP: Wells.

The Yankees limped home to New York with little hope of overtaking Philadelphia, but St. Louis couldn’t hold third place. They finished in fourth at 79-73-2 despite improved individual performances from Blue, Melillo, Kress, and Schulte. Kress hit .305, Schulte .307. Manush “dropped off” to .355. Kress was the team leader with only nine home runs. (Blue and Manush had 14 and 13, respectively, in 1928.) The pitching continued strong as four hurlers won in double figures: Gray, 18-15; Crowder, 17-15; Blaeholder, 14-15; and Collins 11-6.

Huggins would die a month later, the stock market would crash a month after that, and the Browns would not see third place again until 1942. But for four days in August 1929, life couldn’t have been better in St. Louis.

ROGER A. GODIN is team curator of the NHL’s Minnesota Wild. He admits that hockey is his first love, followed by an affection for the St. Louis Browns. He is the author of The 1922 St. Louis Browns: Best of the American League’s Worst. He lives in St. Paul, Minnesota.

 

Sources

1. Borst, Bill. Still Last in the American League. West Bloomfield, Mich.: Altwerger & Mandel Pub., 1992.

2. Meany, Tom. The Yankee Story. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1960.

3. New York Times, August 23, 24, 25, 26, 1929.

4. St. Louis Post Dispatch, August 22, 23, 25,1929.

5. The Baseball Encyclopedia, Tenth Edition, New York: Macmillan, 1996.