Tuesday, May 24, 1927: Washington, D.C.
You Can’t Get Pissed Off At Ruth. (But You Can Get Pissed Off At Koenig.)
Sunday night, during dinner on the train from Cleveland to Washington, D.C., Ford Frick, the beat writer for the New York Evening Journal — who’s like a slightly annoying math and statistics professor — announced that the Yankees had scored in the first inning in 20 of our 33 games, and in 12 of our 23 road games. We all agreed that it was an impressive set of statistics, and then went back to talking about Lindbergh, women, cars, farming, the floods, and anything else but baseball statistics.
Frick’s first inning statistics quickly got updated yesterday against the Senators by a Babe Ruth solo shot in the first — he crushed a Sloppy Thurston fastball, sending it over 400 feet, deep into the center field bleachers. The Babe was greeted at the plate by Gehrig, who shook his hand and then like a relay runner having been handed the baton, clouted Sloppy’s next pitch (a curveball that didn’t) over the right field wall.
2–0 after less than five minutes of play. And Griffith Stadium was in stunned silence.
Ah, to be the lucky bastard standing atop the mound with a 2–0 lead after half an inning.
That would be me.
It’s my first time back on the mound since pitching seven scoreless innings of relief, 19 days ago. (Not that I’ve been counting the days, of course.)
I start us off with two more scoreless innings — six up, six down — then, in the third, I give up a triple to Topper Rigney, the Senators shortstop. (The Professor Frick in me would like to point out that Rigney was barely batting .200, until he faced yours truly.)
A sacrifice fly by Ossie Bluege drives Rigney home, and makes it a 2–1 game. But the rest of the inning goes quickly — as do the next three.
In our top of the 7th, Pat Collins, hitting in the eighth spot just before me, leads off the inning with a single. I then drop a perfect sac bunt to move Collins to second base. Only Bill Dinneen, the umpire in the field, blows the call, turning my sacrifice bunt into a fielder’s choice, sending Collins back to the dugout and leaving me on first.
Our next batter up, Earle Combs, sends a ball sailing into the gap in left center, and I’m off to the races. The only question is whether it will be a double or a triple.
Ever the thinking man’s baserunner, I’m looking towards the third base coach even before rounding second, to see if he wants me to halt at third or continue scampering home.
He doesn’t signal for me to race home.
He doesn’t signal for me to slide into third.
He doesn’t signal for me to motor in standing up.
As I round second, I suddenly realize he’s signaling for me to get the hell back to first base.
Christ! What did I just do?!
“Boy, Tommy,” Schoolboy Hoyt gushes after the game, “Goose Goslin made a really fabulous running stab on that ball. You should have seen it.
“Of course, had you seen it, you never would have been doubled off first to end the inning.”
Good thing I don’t embarrass easily.
The baseball gods, doing their best to taunt me, send the aforementioned Mr. Goslin to the plate to start off the bottom of the 7th. He settles into the batter’s box with a wide smile on his face, both because of his amusement at my base running and because he knows I’m winded.
Goose is a horse, a left-handed power hitter with speed who’s led the league in both RBI’s and triples, the latter a couple of times. Our outfield is playing him deep.
I throw Goose an inside fork ball that jams him, but he muscles it out to short right. The Babe has a quick decision to make: Play it safe and let the ball drop, or dash in and attempt a hero catch?
Ruth makes the hero dash. He makes the hero dive. He doesn’t make the hero catch. The ball falls in front of Jidge, hops straight over his prostrate body, and rolls back to the wall.
The Babe has turned Goslin’s leadoff single into a triple.
The next batter up is Joe Judge, an MVP candidate last season and another strong hitter. Judge hits the ball in the air to right. Unfortunately for me, Ruth, after misplaying Goslin’s hit, is now playing Judge far too shallow — he has to sprint back to make the catch, and with his momentum taking him away from the plate, he’s in no position to even attempt to throw out the tagging Goslin.
That’s consecutive misplays by my right fielder, which have cost me a run.
If it was any other player, I’d be pissed.
No rational human being can get pissed at anything the Babe does on the field.
For Chrissake, Ruth single-handedly wins more games than any other player in the league. He plays hard every play — he’s as competitive as anyone else who’s ever put on a uniform — and he plays smart (no one’s ever seen him throw to the wrong base). When he does make a mistake — even his catastrophic base running blunder in the bottom of the ninth, that cost us Game 7 of last year’s World Series — you simply cannot get pissed at Ruth.
But sweet Jesus Christ, it sure is easy to get pissed at Mark Koenig.
Koenig is without question the weak link among the regulars — a mediocre player without a great deal of confidence.
Right now he’s batting .303, but a week ago that was .336. And he’s sinking faster than the Lusitania. Of course with Ruth, Gehrig, Meusel, Lazzeri and Combs in the lineup, this team doesn’t need a strong bat at short, we just need a sterling glove. And with Koenig, we have neither.
Last year Koenig and Lazzeri were rookies. It was incredibly gutsy for Huggins to start them both at such key positions. Lazzeri immediately played like a 10-year veteran. Koenig played exactly like a rookie, uncertain in the field and at the plate. Then, in last year’s World Series he was badly rattled by the St. Louis bench jockeys, and his errors throughout the series were costly. Huggins has stuck with him though, even when most of the press and all of the fans would prefer that Hugg move Lazzeri to short and replace Koenig with one of our bench players, or trade him for another shortstop or second baseman.
For a pitcher like me who throws a lot of ground balls, Koenig is a gift from hell.
Right after Ruth’s two misplays (for which I’m not pissed at him, honest), the Senators’ slow-running catcher, Muddy Ruel, hits a high chopper directly to Koenig, who needs to rush his throw to make the play at first. But, with somewhere around ten errors in the last month (I’m sure Professor Frick knows the exact number), Koenig is gun-shy. He decides not to even attempt to make the play, and instead eats the ball.
Jesus.
On the very next pitch, my old pal Topper Rigney rolls a sure-fire double-play ball right to Koenig. Who muffs it. Now, there are men on second and third.
Now, I’m pissed off — at Koenig, and at myself.
I take a long walk around the mound to try to settle down, but I can’t shake it off.
The strike zone vanishes. I walk the next two batters in a flurry of balls — first loading the bases, and then walking in the go-ahead run. Huggins yanks me, and brings in Sailor Bob, who gets the final five outs, but the damage is done. We lose 3–2.
After the game, Gallico starts to ask me, “The two balls that Ruth mispla — ,” but I cut him off.
“As a teammate,” I tell him, “no matter what happens in right field, you can’t get pissed off at Ruth.”
“What about the two misplays by Koenig?”
“As a teammate,” I tell him, “you can’t get pissed off at Ruth.”
- 1927 Yankees
- Ossie Bluege
- Pat Collins
- Earle Combs
- Bill Dinneen
- Ford Frick
- LOU Gehrig
- Goose Goslin
- WAITE Hoyt
- Joe Judge
- Mark Koenig
- Topper Rigney
- Muddy Muel
- BABE Ruth
- SAILOR BOB Shawkey
- May 23, 1927: “Ruth Hits A Homer, But Yanks Lose, 3–2”. New York Times article and Box Score.
The Flood. The General. And Sam Rice’s Secret.
The weather of 1927 was apocalyptic.
In early May, flooding from the Mississippi destroyed the levees protecting the city of New Orleans, devastating much of the Mississippi Valley displacing hundreds of thousands of people.
Baseball games are rained out across the country. Except in Detroit, where the games are snowed out, well into May.
People believed they were witnessing the beginning of the apocalypse. Sam Rice was not one of them.
As Myles learns, the apocalypse came 10 years earlier for Sam Rice who carried a tragic secret with him throughout his Hall of Fame career.
“Hey, what’s going on with Sam Rice?” I ask.
The General takes a long time to think.
“Pour me another shot, would you.”
