Marathon at League Park, Ed Rommel’s 18-17 Game

Connie Mack had a dilemma, a rather common, never-ending dilemma among managers of big-league baseball clubs. He was short of pitchers. Pursuing their fourth straight pennant, his Philadelphia Athletics had just played three doubleheaders in three days-July 7, 8, and 9, 1932-against the Chicago White Sox at Shibe Park. The A’s had won four of the six games, but in the process Mack had started George Earnshaw twice and Rube Walberg, Roy Mahaffey, Tony Freitas, and Lefty Grove (rusty after a four-week layoff with a sprained ankle) once each. He had used the aging knuckleballer, Ed Rommel, now strictly a reliever, for two innings on the eighth and three on Saturday, the ninth. In the process they had gained nothing on the first-place Yankees and still trailed by 7 1/2 games.

As was customary for teams subject to blue laws forbidding Sunday baseball, the Athletics would take an overnight train to Cleveland for one game, and then both teams would return to Philadelphia, where another doubleheader on Monday began a four-day series. As had also been customary on such occasions, pitchers and other plays of both teams who were not expected to be used in the single road game did not make the trip.

So who to take? Earnshaw was spent and wouldn’t start again for eleven days. Mack needed Walberg and Mahaffey on Monday, Grove on Tuesday, and somebody else on Wednesday. He chose the youngest and the oldest: rookie Lew Krausse, who had made his first start twelve days earlier and pitched four innings in relief on Thursday, and Rommel, who expected a day off after working two days in a row. But everybody knew the knuckler didn’t put any strain on the arm, even a thirty-four-year-old one. He gave catcher Mickey Cochrane the day off and took two catchers, rookie Ed Madjeski and veteran John Heving.

The Athletics were always tough for the fourth place Indians and a good draw in Cleveland. The twenty-four-year-old slugger Jimmie Foxx was making headlines threatening to break Babe Ruth’s five-year-old home-run record; he’d hit 30 of them in his first 79 games while leading the league in batting at .375.

The ten thousand fans who came to see a ball game wound up taking the wildest roller-coaster ride in baseball history. Their alternating currents of joy and despair would leave them exhausted-and late for Sunday supper.

The Athletics jumped on Cleveland starter Clint Brown; three singles and an error produced a quick 2-0 lead. The crowd’s dismay turned to delight when Lew Krausse quickly gave up two infield hits and Earl Averill homered over the right-field screen. Inexplicably, Mack decided to give a quick hook to Krausse but let him bat in the top of the second; there were no pinch-hitters on the bench except the spare catcher, Ed Madjeski, and a spare catcher was important. He sent Rommel in to start the second, knowing he had an empty bullpen. The Indians loaded the bases on two singles and a walk but a double play ended the inning.

The crowd didn’t mind when Foxx tied the score in the third with his thirty-first home run. A Foxx home run was always a thrilling sight whatever the score.

The merry-go-round spun faster; there were hits in every inning. The A’s scored two in the fourth. The Indians came back with three, then one more in the fifth. Each team scored one in the sixth, making it 8-6 Cleveland. In the seventh, the A’s finished off Brown with two singles and a triple. Willis Hudlin relieved him and walked the first two batters he faced to load the bases. The crowd booed. The manager, Roger Peckinpaugh, waved in his ace, Wes Ferrell, en route to his fourth consecutive twenty-plus-victory season. Ferrell had pitched a tough complete game in Washington on Friday, giving up thirteen hits and four walks in a 6-5 win. Dykes greeted him by clearing the bases with a long double. Simmons drove Dykes in with a single. Foxx hit his thirty-second home run. The boos grew louder-a seven-run inning louder.

In the bottom of the seventh inning, five hits, a walk, and an error changed the boos to cheering-six runs worth of cheering. Mack couldn’t change pitchers, so he changed catchers, Ed Madjeski replacing Joe Heving. It was now 14-13 Cleveland.

Both sides rested in the eighth, though the Indians mined enough energy to mount two baserunners when Averill singled and Myatt walked.

With two outs in the ninth, the crowd groaned when first baseman Ed Morgan let Dykes’s easy roller go through his legs. Simmons walked, and Foxx drove them both in with a double to left. The A’s now led, 15-14. Hometown hopes rebounded when Kamm led off the bottom of the ninth with a double and scored on an infield hit by Johnny Burnett. With the winning run on third and two outs, they screamed themselves hoarse when Joe Vosmik hit a shot down the right-field line, then collapsed like a punctured balloon when Mule Haas dove through the air and caught it.

League Park was quiet in the tenth, only one hit being made by each side. In the last of the eleventh, the Indians loaded the bases with one out. The crowd stomped and whistled and clapped and yelled-and hushed when Vosmik hit into a short-to-home-to-first double play. They went through the emotional wringer again in the twelfth when Eddie Morgan led off with a double, then was thrown out at the plate trying to score on Bill Cissell’ s single.

Everybody on the field and in the grandstand and bleachers took a time out for the next three innings, only five batters occupying the bases.

In the sixteenth Jimmy Foxx hit his third home run of the day into the left-field seats, scoring Simmons ahead of him and squelching the spirits of the exhausted spectators. The score was now 17-15.

It was past 6:00 in the evening. Empty streetcars had been waiting for the crowd on Lexington Avenue for over an hour. Suppers were getting cold or drying out in ovens all over the city. Small children were asleep in their seats or their fathers’ laps, immune to the cacophony around them. The only remaining patch of sunshine was in left field near the wall. But nobody headed for the exits. Nobody was leaving this topsy-turvy game.

Weary hearts rebounded when leadoff man Dick Porter drove a double to the center-field bleachers. Scratchy throats screeched when Johnny Burnett looped a single to right, his ninth hit of the day. A fly ball scored Porter. When Vosmik and Morgan singled, tying the score, hopes that had sunk just a few minutes before soared like a leaping porpoise. Hysteria filled League Park when Cissell sent a long drive toward the right-field screen. But that joy-killer Haas leaped against the wall and snared it.

The A’s went out in order in the seventeenth for only the third time all day. For the home team, Willie Kamm walked and was sacrificed to second but was left there. In the eighteenth Foxx singled-his sixth hit-with two out. Eric McNair singled to left. When the ball bounced over Vosmik’s head, Foxx scored. McNair, for reasons known only to him, tried to reach third, where Vosmik’s throw to Willie Kamm was waiting for him for the third out.

This time the Indians’ comeback tank was empty. After four hours and five minutes, it seemed as if the most tireless man on the field was the oldest, Ed Rommel. He struck out Averill, got Vosmik on a grounder to short, and struck out Eddie Morgan. It was Rommel’s 171st and last major-league victory.

The crowd of exhausted onlookers left quietly, their heads full of more memories than they could sort out. No way could they accurately recreate all the action of the most exciting game they had ever seen-or would ever see-to tell their friends and descendants about it. But they would try-for as long as they could find someone who would listen. They had witnessed what might be a record-breaking number of records broken (and still standing) for an extra-inning game (see ac-companying chart).

The two teams took the night train back to Philadelphia, where the Indians took the Monday double-header, 9-8 and 12-7, to begin a four-game sweep. By the end of that series, the Yankees had a 9 1/2-game lead, and the pennant race was effectively over.

 

 

NOTES

For another look at this remarkable game, see Ron Liebman, “Cleveland’s Contrasting Two Historic Games in 1932,” Baseball Research Journal (1982): 49-53.