Motor City Champs

by Scott Ferkovich

  Hank Greenberg had firmly established himself as the cleanup hitter. After the Yankees left town, the mediocre Senators shuffled in on June 22. Greenberg set the tone in the opener of a doubleheader with two RBI and two runs scored in a 7–0 pasting. Fox stroked a triple to run his hitting streak to ten games. In the nightcap, Greenberg’s 18th home run lifted the struggling Elden Auker to only his third win. Goslin also banged out three hits; he now had a modest nine-game hitting streak of his own. A day later, Joe Sullivan pitched his worst game of the year, surrendering four earned runs and failing to last the second inning, while Greenberg hit a ninth-inning grand slam in a losing cause. The first baseman continued his hot hitting the following afternoon, doubling and driving in three runs. Goslin starred as well, driving in five runs in a game the Tigers won in the bottom of the 14th inning. The Senators finally bid adieu to Detroit with a 7–4 victory; Greenberg failed to homer, but he singled, tripled, and scored a run.

  The Tigers finally left town following the long home stand. Hub Walker, however, was suddenly a man without a team. Having played in only nine games since his promotion from the minor leagues, Gee’s brother had a mere four hits in 25 at-bats. The Tigers gave him the option of an outright release or a ticket to Beaumont. Hub chose the former. Within a few days, he signed a contract to rejoin the Mud Hens.

  In a one-game stopover in the Windy City on June 27, Greenberg doubled and launched his 20th homer off former teammate Carl Fischer, whom the Sox had purchased back in May. Cochrane and Gehringer also hit round-trippers in the Tigers’ 9–5 win, as did Fox, who ran his hitting streak to 15 games. Detroit then took four out of five from the Browns at Sportsman’s Park, outscoring St. Louis, 49–19. Rowe and Auker both contributed brilliant starts. Goslin, who had hit in 16 straight, was finally held hitless on June 29, but he had raised his average to .293. Browns pitching, however, had no answers for Greenberg and Fox. The latter hit .520 with 12 runs scored and ten RBI in the series as his batting streak reached 20 games. Greenberg batted .400 with three home runs and ten RBI. With 23 four-baggers so far, there was talk that he could threaten Babe Ruth’s single-season home run mark of 60, set back in 1927. He didn’t seriously believe that he could break the record; besides, the mark he really wanted was Hack Wilson’s RBI total of 190, which he established with the Cubs in 1930 (although historians later credited Wilson with 191). In Greenberg’s view, RBI were more important than home runs, anyway. If he came to the plate with a runner on third and less than two out, he shortened his stroke, knowing that he was strong enough to drive the ball deep enough to score the run. Hammerin’ Hank had no apparent weakness at the plate. He could hit any kind of pitch, in any location. His home runs had made him a national story as he assumed the mantle of superstar.

  Returning to Navin Field on July 1 for the start of a five-game, home-away series with Cleveland, the Tigers won, 4–1, getting another fine outing from Auker for his sixth win. The sizzling Fox went 2-for-4 and scored a pair of runs. The Tigers and Indians were now in a virtual tie for second place, only three games behind New York. Bridges picked up win number 11 the next day, and Fox collected two more hits. Gehringer went 4-for-5 with a home run and three RBI, raising his average to .346. The next afternoon, Joe Sullivan, relegated to the bullpen to work on his control, threw 5⅓ innings of long relief in a win against the Tribe. That was followed by an Independence Day doubleheader sweep at League Park in Cleveland that gave the Tigers seven wins in a row. Leading off the second contest, Fox laced a single into center field, increasing his batting streak to 25 games.

  In the last series before the All-Star break, Detroit made quick work of the Browns at Navin Field. In a 16–1 laugher in the opener, Greenberg hit his 24th and 25th homers, and Fox doubled twice and singled. Tommy Bridges started the second game, but after allowing six hits, three walks, and five runs, Cochrane had no choice but to remove him for a pinch-hitter in the second inning. Rowe came on in relief and, amazingly, pitched the rest of the game. The Tigers battled back to win, 7–6, capped by Gee Walker’s RBI bunt single in the eighth. Fox, the hottest hitter in baseball, singled and scored three runs. He stroked a double the following afternoon, making it 28 games in a row, in a 12–5 triumph. He had this to say about his offensive emergence: “I believe I hit as many balls solidly last year, but more of them were caught. This year they have been falling safe. That’s the difference.”13 The Tigers, meanwhile, were on a roll, having won ten consecutive games, the longest streak in the major leagues to that point in the season. They stood only one game behind the Yankees.

  Not coincidentally, Detroit had put it into high gear once the bats had begun heating up. With the season’s first half in the books, Gehringer was hitting .351, Fox .339, and Cochrane .326. Goslin and Gee Walker were at .299 and .298, respectively. Rogell was a solid .288. Greenberg had put up astonishing numbers, heading into the break with 25 home runs and 101 RBI. Even Marv Owen had picked up the pace. Back on June 27, with his average an unsightly .206, he was put back in the starting lineup for the first time in nearly three weeks. Playing regularly since then, he had batted an even .300, looking more and more like the Marv Owen of 1934. Jo-Jo White remained a huge disappointment, mired in a season-long slump and no longer an everyday player.

  Little Tommy Bridges was the Tigers’ most consistent starter. With 11 wins, he was turning into a bona fide ace. The up-and-down Schoolboy Rowe had eight wins and a 4.22 earned run average, and would have to straighten things out in the second half if the Tigers wanted to repeat as American League champions. Auker, with eight wins, and Crowder, with nine, had been solid if unspectacular.

  The 1935 All-Star Game took place in Cleveland’s cavernous Municipal Stadium. Opened in 1931, the horseshoe-shaped arena could seat nearly 80,000 patrons. The Indians tried playing in it a couple of seasons, with bad results, as the distant outfield walls robbed players of home runs. The stadium’s sheer vastness made a crowd of 30,000 look more like a small get-together, while the game itself seemed a mere rumor to fans in the far reaches of the upper deck. The Tribe soon moved back to its old home, the cozy League Park. Municipal Stadium’s huge seating capacity, however, made it a perfect choice for the All-Star Game.

  The player selection process was a bit of a departure from the past. In 1933 and 1934, the fans voted for the starting players, while pitchers and reserves were selected by the previous season’s pennant-winning managers. This was not a perfect system; many complained that fans mindlessly went with the established “name” players. The managers, however, could override the fans’ choice if they felt another player was more deserving. For 1935, the fan vote was scrapped. Instead, the managers (in this case, Cochrane and Frisch) now had the honor of handpicking the rosters in their entirety. The only requirement was that each team had to have at least one player represented. From the Tigers, Cochrane nominated Charlie Gehringer as the American League starter at second, with Tommy Bridges and Schoolboy Rowe joining the pitching staff. Cochrane also selected himself, although not as a starter. In addition, Tigers coach Del Baker and trainer Dennis Carroll made the squad.

  In what seems a curious decision over 80 years after the fact, Cochrane did not find a place on the roster for Greenberg, the American League’s home run and RBI leader. In his autobiography, Greenberg had this to say about the omission: “That annoyed me because I had established myself with two good seasons in a row…. I thought to myself, What do you have to do to be selected to the American League All-Star team?”14 In truth, Cochrane assembled a fine bunch even without him. Today’s All-Star squads number 34 players. Cochrane, by contrast, had only 21 roster spots to work with, and a large pool of excellent players from which to choose. Permitted more space on the roster, he no doubt would have included Greenberg. Cochrane opted for Lou Gehrig as the starter at first base, a choice that is difficult to call into question. Cochrane did carry one other first baseman on the team, at least technically, in slugger Jimmie Foxx. But Cochrane wanted Foxx’s bat for the entire ga
me, not merely as a reserve threat. His clever strategy was to start Foxx at third base, a position he had played only twice to that point in 1935 (although he had some experience there in seasons past). A seemingly odd move, it only followed precedent, since American League manager Joe Cronin had done the exact same thing with Foxx in the 1934 game. Greenberg was a rising star having a great year, but the fact is that there is no shame in being passed over in favor of future Hall of Famers like Lou Gehrig and Jimmie Foxx.

  Ultimately, Gehringer was the only Tiger who saw action in the game. He drew a base on balls in the first but was retired when Gehrig hit into a force play. He grounded out in the third, singled in the fifth off the Giants’ Hal Schumacher, and doubled off Cincinnati’s Paul Derringer two innings later. Foxx’s two-run homer in the first inning was all the American League needed for a 4–1 win. Despite the fine weather, the turnout was somewhat of a disappointment at 69,812. That amounted to a net gate of $82,000, all of it earmarked for charity work among needy ballplayers. That is worth noting: Today, the All-Star Game is a pre-packaged brand drenched in hype and commercialization, a field day for the modern cynic. Yet, at its creation in the midst of the Depression, it had a simple, altruistic goal, which was to lend assistance to the destitute men who had given their youth and vigor to the game.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Pulling game after game out of the fire”

  Following the All-Star break, the Tigers began a 20-day, 18-game, five-city odyssey. Before boarding a train for the nation’s capital, Cochrane was asked what he thought of the team’s prospects moving forward. He admitted that he was pleased with how the pitchers had finally begun to hit their stride. The Yankees, he felt, were not as good as Detroit, and that would become clear in the weeks to come. “We can give our pitchers better batting and fielding support than the Yankees can.” New York’s pitching, by his estimation, was too thin. The Tigers, on the other hand, were beginning to click on all cylinders. “I believe we’ll win the pennant by a wider margin than we did last year.”1

  Iffy the Dopester of the Detroit Free Press offered up this appraisal of the Tigers: “They are the only ball club in the league that is playing baseball as baseball should be played. They are lightning fast on the bases, they work the hit-and-run, the double steal, the squeeze; they bunt, they chop, they slug. They try anything and everything. Their heads are up and they are on their toes, pulling game after game out of the fire.”2

  On July 10 in Washington, the Tigers’ ten-game winning streak appeared to be over before the fans had even settled into their seats. The Senators pummeled Tommy Bridges and a wild Joe Sullivan for seven first-inning runs and piled up a 12–4 lead by the end of five. Trailing 12–6 heading into the top of the ninth, Detroit scored five runs and had runners on first and second with only one out. But Gee Walker popped to first and Gehringer flied to left to put the game to bed. Fox collected another three hits, making it 29 games in a row for him. Even in defeat, however, the Tigers had shown their mettle, wrote H. G. Salsinger. “Detroit’s ninth-inning rally demonstrated the team’s spirit. Here they really looked like champions.”3

  The following afternoon, Schoolboy Rowe faltered again, giving up six earned runs in less than eight innings of work. The Tigers won the game, 7–6, in the tenth, but Fox went 0-for-4, snapping his brilliant batting streak. General Crowder’s fine five-hitter helped Detroit take the finale, 2–1. It was Crowder’s tenth win of the year.

  Arriving in Philadelphia for a July 13 doubleheader, the Tigers were a mere game and a half behind the Yankees. Auker took a beating in the opener and was gone by the second inning, having given up seven runs, including a two-run shot by Bob Johnson. Clyde Hatter fared little better in the 18–5 drubbing. Fox drilled a two-run homer, his tenth. In the second game, Bridges rebounded from his bad afternoon in D.C., going the distance in a 6–3 victory, with Greenberg hitting home run number 26. The Jekyll-and-Hyde Rowe followed that up with a well-pitched game, but the Athletics won it in the tenth, 4–3, with Schoolboy taking the tough loss.

  The Red Sox, despite their weak offense, had been able to hang near the fringes of contention on the strength of the arms of Lefty Grove and Wes Ferrell. Grove’s renaissance had led to an 11–6 mark with an earned run average of 2.65. But Rowe was on his game at Fenway Park on July 18, blanking the Sox on five hits, while Ferrell was hit hard. Schoolboy also contributed at the plate with two singles, a triple, two runs scored and two RBI in the 8–0 win.

  Detroit won again the next day, while the Yankees were losing to the Browns in the Bronx. The Tigers woke up on July 20 with an opportunity to do something that had eluded them all season: Move into first place. It was Goslin who played the hero that day; his ninth-inning single drove in Gehringer to break a five-all tie. In the bottom half of the frame, the Sox got the tying and winning runs at second and third with two down. But Auker, who had already pitched two fine innings of relief, retired Joe Cronin on a ground ball to third to slam the door. With the Yankees idle, the win put the Tigers in a virtual tie for the top spot in the American League. In the last game of the series, Detroit’s bats pounced on Grove for six earned runs, the most he had given up all season. Pete Fox and backup catcher Ray Hayworth each collected three hits. Bridges, however, could not hold on to a 6–4 ninth-inning lead. None other than Wes Ferrell, one of the best-hitting pitchers in baseball history, blasted a three-run pinch homer to win it. The Yankees split with St. Louis and were back atop the leader board.

  With a three-game face-off looming in the Bronx, Cochrane had a message for the Yankees:

  I’m going to throw Rowe against them twice, and when we leave New York next Thursday night we’ll be out in front and there will be nothing left of the pennant race but the shouting. I’ll start him against them Monday, even if they use [Lefty] Gomez, and close with him Thursday. There’s half of the four game series. If we get the breaks and take the other two games the Yanks will never catch us, and neither will anybody else in the league.4

  Cochrane’s assessment was supported by the numbers. Rowe was 5–0 versus New York in 1934, with an earned run average of 1.76 and a WHIP of 0.935, his best marks against any club. In July of that year, he started two games in a four-game series with New York and won both of them, the second on only three days of rest. He was 2–1 against the Yanks so far in 1935, having given up only three earned runs in 26 innings. Bridges, by contrast, had never pitched well against New York; his 5–16 career mark to that point did not inspire confidence.

  The fickleness of Mother Nature threw a monkey wrench in Cochrane’s best-laid plans. A downpour in New York on Monday, July 22, necessitated a doubleheader the following afternoon before 62,000 Yankees rooters. First-inning home runs by Cochrane and Greenberg gave the Tigers a quick 2–0 advantage. But Schoolboy Rowe once again was unable to find any kind of rhythm on the mound. Trailing 4–2 in the seventh, the Tigers tied it on RBIs by Rowe and Jo-Jo White. Finally withering in the broiling heat (90 degrees in the shade), Rowe walked leadoff man Red Rolfe in the home seventh. Cochrane pulled him and brought in Chief Hogsett. By the time the inning was over, the Yankees had scored three runs, and that was essentially the ballgame. Greenberg also homered, his 27th, as did Gehrig for the Yankees. By any measure, Rowe’s afternoon had not been what the Tigers were expecting. He had given up only three earned runs, but walked five and rarely got ahead of hitters.

  The second game of the twin bill was a pitchers’ battle between little-used Vic Sorrell and Lefty Gomez, with Detroit prevailing, 3–1. It was only Sorrell’s ninth appearance of the season, a complete game that gave the staff a big lift when it needed it most. The 34-year-old veteran and former anchor of the Tigers’ rotation had kept quiet all summer, waiting patiently for Cochrane to hand him the ball. Given his opportunity, he made the most of it. “He pitched a great game,” Cochrane remarked, “and was in great shape although he hasn’t been in there for two weeks. That ought to be a lesson to some of these young pitchers who can’t keep
in shape even when they’re working in regular turn.”5

  Crowder continued his solid mound work on July 24 in a 4–0 whitewashing of New York. The win put the Tigers at 54–35, a half-game up on the Yankees, who had fashioned a 51–33 mark. More bad weather prevented the playing of the final game, but the Tigers had taken two of three. In little over a month, they had made up a deficit of seven and a half games on New York. Now, for the first time all season, they stood alone in first place, albeit by a razor-thin margin. H. G. Salsinger thought New York looked like a beaten team. “If Detroit had any fear for the Yankees it should have been dispelled by now. The Yankees of the last three games were a very weak ball club. Their hitting has been bad, their pitching not as good as Detroit’s, their base-running stupid and their morale apparently shattered. They are in a very serious slump. Whether they will come out of this slump only the future can tell.”6 The Yankees hit only .231 in the series, and, in the words of Dan Daniel, “have themselves guessing.”7

  On the negative side, Detroit was now short-handed in the pitching department. With the demotion of Clyde Hatter, the spring phenom who had gotten into only eight games in 1935, the mound staff was down to seven men. Hatter’s 7.56 earned run average would not be missed, but a team that expected to win a pennant would need a dependable arm or two to replace him. Both Cochrane and Navin hinted that, barring the sudden availability of a major league castoff, Detroit would have to plum the minor league ranks for reinforcements. But who would it be? One possibility was lefty Jake Wade, a Tigers farmhand who had recently tossed a no-hitter in the Pacific Coast League.