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Home , Barney McCosky, Billy Jurges, Buddy Rosar, Don Padgett, Hal Schumacher, Harry Craft

SPORTSMAN'S PARK IN ST. LOUIS

First-half statistics appeared to count for little to Ken Keltner issued a walk to Finney. Hubbell then both managers. Of the top five in each league, only ended the game by getting Greenberg on a foul out TRIPLES, SCORES, White Sox Appling was in the starting to Danning and DiMaggio on a fly to Giants left AND EARNS A CYCLE AS CARDINALS lineup. Five didn't even make the team: the Browns' fielder Jo-Jo Moore. Rip Radcliff, the White Sox' Taft Wright, and the The scarcity of baserunners led to the shortest SWEEP GIANTS WITH WALK-OFFS Tigers' Barney McCosky— the numbers two, four, game (by time) in All-Star history—one hour and and five hitters in the AL— and the Dodgers' Dixie 53 minutes. Yet despite its brevity and the oppressive July 13, 1940: St. Louis Cardinals 7, New York Giants 6 Walker and the Cubs' Jimmy Gleeson —the numbers heat of a typically torrid St. Louis afternoon, the fans two and four hitters in the NL. had a wonderful afternoon. (Game One of ), at Sportsman's Park Red Sox Lou Finney was the AL's BY MICHAEL HUBER leading hitter at .359, but he did not appear until the NOTES sixth . Same for 's , Roscoe McGowen, "Jubilant Victors Reconstruct game,"New HE NEW YORK TIMES DESCRIBED THE The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that, prior to the major leagues' RBI leader with 71. Greenberg, the York Times, July 10, 1940. outcome of a 1940 midseason New York this season, Hubbell and Warneke were "veterans of starter at first base in 1939, replaced Williams in left. This account is adapted from Vincent, David, Lyle Spatz, and Giants-St. Louis Cardinals doubleheader: the pitching wars and rivals in many a mound duel, Hubbell, Danning's Giants batterymate, came The David W Smith, The Midsummer Classic: Complete History "The Giants' efforts to better their position but both had taken early showers before the thing on in the ninth and after striking out Cleveland's of 's All-Star Game (Lincoln: University of Nebraska T Press, 2001). in the flag race suffered two jolts was over."' today when they went down before the Cardinals in Hubbell, a future Hall of Famer, was the ace of the both ends of a -header both times in the last Giants' pitching staff A perennial All-Star, he had inning."' The two teams were heading in different copped two National League Most Valuable Player directions. On this day, the sixth-place Cardinals Awards, in 1933 and 1936. The named swept the third-place Giants, and both victories him the Major League Player of the Year in 1936.7 In were in walk-off fashion. three , he had a 4-2 record, accompa- was the third of the nied by a 1.79 earned- average. At 37 years old, he season for St. Louis, having taken over from interim struggled in 1940, allowing zzo hits in 24/3 . manager Mike Gonzalez (who succeeded the fired Although he started the season well, compiling five Ray Blades) on June 14, with the Cardinals mired in straight complete-game victories in May and June, last place with a 15-29 record. St. Louis won its first his season ERA of 3.65 was the highest it had been six games with Southworth at the helm, but coming in io years. (He came into this game with a 3.38 mark into this doubleheader the Cardinals had lost six and a record of 5-4.) At season's end his II wins for straight. In the end, Southworth piloted the team to the year were just behind (13) and a 69-40 record, for a third-place finish at 84-69.2 In (12) for the team lead. the other dugout, 's Giants were skidding. Warneke had been a star in his earlier years, win- Although they came into the doubleheader with a ning at least zo games three times from 1932 to 1935 record of 41-28, they found themselves at 6z-6z by while pitching for the Cubs. He was traded early September and an ii-game losing streak in the to the Cardinals in 1937 and won 18 games. Although final month of the season propelled New York down- he was 31 years old and a little past his prime by 1940, ward to a final record of 72-80. he remained a reliable starter.' His 5-7 record entering A Saturday-afternoon Ladies' Day crowd of the game belied an impressive 2.83 ERA. 7,325 was on hand at Sportsman's Park for the con- The Giants scored first. In the top of the second, tests.3 This was only the second game played after singles by , Tony Cuccinello, and Billy the All-Star Game, which also had been played Jurges plated a run. Hubbell squandered this early at Sportsman's Park.4 In the opening game of the lead by offering up back-to-back doubles to the doubleheader, took the mound for the Cardinals' and in the Giants and started for the Cardinals. bottom of the second. Later in the inning, Warneke SPORTSMAN'S PARK IN ST. LOUIS HOME OF THE BROWNS AND CARDINALS AT GRAND AND DODIER helped his own cause with an RBI single to center, Mize had a 4-for-5 game, driving in two runs. The ries in five-plus seasons gave him a .648 . In 6 Stockton. 1946 he took over managerial duties for the Boston Braves and and St. Louis led, 2-I. In the third inning, with two Cardinals collected 13 hits to the Giants' it. Young's 7 In 1936 Hubbell led the National League in victories (26), win- guided them to the 1948 World Series. outs, Johnny Mize cracked his 22nd of the three singles and two runs scored paced the New ning percentage (.813), earned-run average (2.31), and WHIP J. Roy Stockton, "Mize Bats in One Victory and (1.059). By 1940 his and effectiveness had season. He added a double and a single off Hubbell York offense. the Other," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 14,1940: 36. The box steadily declined. later in the game. In Game Two of the doubleheader, the Cardinals gure of 3,o56. score in the New York Times lists an attendance fi 8 This game saw Warneke allow his most earned runs in the "doubleheader In the fourth inning, the Giants "finished Lon once again worked late-inning magic to secure the However, according to the Post-Dispatch, the season (5). He allowed five earned runs four more times including 3,056 paid, 2,615 with a withering five- blast which sent four runs victory They loaded the bases with one out, but the attracted a Ladies' day crowd of 7,325, in 194o; still, he finished the season with a 16-ro record women, 1,240 boys, and 414 girls." across."9 Young singled past second base, Harry Giants were close to surviving the jam when Jimmy and 3.14 ERA. 1940 the National League prevailed over the American Danning doubled to left, and looped a single Brown hit into a force play at home plate for the In 9 Drebinger. League in the All-Star Game, 4-0. The Cardinals' Mize and into center field, driving in both Young and Danning. second out. Pitching to Terry Moore, Giants hurler Moore started the game. The Giants had five players on the ro Ibid. Cuccinello and Jurges followed with singles, with Ott Hy Vandenberg appeared to stop in the middle of squad, all reserves: , Carl Hubbell, Billy Jurges, II Stockton. Jo-Jo Moore, and Mel Ott. Of the seven pl4ers, only Danning scoring. At this point Southworth lifted Warneke in his windup. This would have constituted a balk, thus Ia Drebinger. had a hit (and an RBI, driving in Ott, who had walked in the favor of Jack Russell. Russell got Hubbell to ground ending the contest, but home-plate umpire George bottom of the eighth inning). Hubbell has been retroactively Ibid. into a , but Cuccinello scored the fourth Magerkurth did not make the call. Instead, Moore credited with a . (In 1940 the save was not an official 14 Jerry Grillo, "Johnny Mize," posted online at sabr.org/bioproj/ run of the inning on the play. All four runs were delivered a single to left center while the crowd statistic.) person/a7ac6649. charged to Warneke. In the sixth, New York pushed "yelled happily."13 Two games, two ninth-inning Exactly two months earlier in the season, Warneke had 15 Players who hit for the cycle in 1940 were across a solo run to make it 6-3. walk-off wins for the homestanding Cardinals. the unique distinction of umpiring in a game between his (, June 8), Harry Danning (Giants, June 15), St. Louis sent up two pinch-hitters ( Mize, inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1981 by Cardinals and the Cincinnati Reds. Four years after he retired Mize (Cardinals, July 13), (, from pitching, he became a major-league umpire. for Owen and Don Gutteridge for Russell) in the the , was a io-time All-Star July 19), (, August 2), and (Yankees, September 8). seventh against a trio of (Hubbell, Jumbo with the Cardinals, the Giants, and the New York Brown, and Red Lynn), and the Cardinals came away Yankees. In 1940 he led the National League in home with three more runs to knot the score at 6-6. runs (43) and led both leagues in RBIs (137), slugging In the bottom of the ninth inning, with Lynn (.636), and OPS (1.039). He started the season with trying to preserve the tie, Mize strode to the plate 43 bats, causing him to remark in 1953, "To this day I having already hit a single, double, and homer. He wonder what would have happened if I had started launched a drive to deep center, over the head of the season with sixty-one bats."14 He placed second Giants center fielder Frank Demaree. The ball hit in the voting for the NL Most Valuable Player Award the wall and rebounded from the concrete, 412 feet in 1939 and 1940. from home plate.'" Jo Jo Moore retrieved In 1940 six major-league players hit for the cycle.' the ball and threw it to the infield. Shortstop Jurges Mize was the third batter of the season to do so. His bobbled the relay before he fired home to the , cycle followed that of the Giants' Danning by exactly Danning. Mize, who never stopped running hard, four weeks. Complementing his 5-for-9 performance was waved toward the plate. According to the St. at the plate for the two games in this doubleheader, Louis Post-Dispatch, "Mize looked like a gone goose, Mize flashed his leather. He had 23 in the but Danning took his eye off the ball to see whether two games at first base, including robbing Demaree he'd have Mize by ten feet or 20 and that was his of sure extra bases by snaring his line drive in the undoing. He fumbled the bounding ball and Mize first game. scored the winning run, providing the Cardinals with the walk-off 7-6 victory."" 'The official scorer ruled it NOTES a and an on Danning. Mize's three-base John Drebinger, "Giants Drop Pair to Cards, 7-6, 4-3,"New smash "sent the opener crashing down on the ears of York Times, July 14,1940: 61. the Giants."12 The scoring decision actually enabled 2 Southworth's Cardinals finished the 1940 season in third place. Mize to hit for the cycle. He helmed the St. Louis squad for the next five seasons, gar- nering two second-place finishes and three pennants (including World Series championships in 1942 and 1944). His 577 victo-