Posted on 06/16/2008 5:17:23 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
Last night they turned on the greatest existing battery of baseball lights at Ebbets Field for the inaugural night major league game in the metropolitan area. A record throng for the season there, 40,000, of whom 38,748 paid, came to see the fanfare and show that preceded the contest between the Reds and the Dodgers.
The game, before it was played, was partly incidental; the novelty of night baseball was the major attraction.
But Johnny Vander Meer, tall, handsome 22-year-old Cincinnati southpaw pitcher, stole the entire show by hurling his second successive no-hit, no-run game, both coming within five days, and making baseball history that probably never will be duplicated. His previous no-hitter was pitched in daylight at Cincinnati last Saturday against the Bees, the Reds winning, 3-0. Last night the score was 6-0.
The records reveal only seven pitchers credited with two no-hitters in their careers and none who achieved the feat in one season.
More drama was crowded into the final inning than a baseball crowd has felt in many a moon. Until that frame only one Dodger had got as far as second base, Lavagetto reaching there when Johnny issued passes to Cookie and Dolf Camilli in the seventh.
But Vandy pitched out of that easily enough and the vast crowd was pulling for him to come through to the end.
Johnny mowed down Woody English, batting for Luke Hamlin; Kiki Cuyler and Johnny Hudson in the eighth, fanning the first and third men, and when Vito Tamulis, fourth Brooklyn hurler, treated the Reds likewise in the ninth, Vandy came out for the crucial inning.
He started easily, taking Buddy Hassetts bounder and tagging him out. Then his terrific speed got out of control and, while the fans sat forward tense and almost silent, walked Babe Phelps, Lavagetto and Camilli to fill the bases.
All nerves were taut as Vandy pitched to Ernie Koy. With the count one and one, Ernie sent a bounder to Lew Riggs, who was so careful in making the throw to Ernie Lombardi that a double play wasnt possible.
Leo Durocher, so many times a hitter in the pinches, was the last hurdle for Vander Meer, and the crowd groaned as he swung viciously to line a foul high into the right-field stands. But a moment later Leo swung again, the ball arched lazily toward short center field and Harry Craft camped under it for the put-out that brought unique distinction to the young hurler.
It brought, also, a horde of admiring fans onto the field, with Vandys team-mates ahead of them to hug and slap Johnny on the back and then to protect him from the mob as they struggled toward the Red dugout.
The fans couldnt get Johnny, but a few moments later they got his father and mother, who had accompanied a group of 500 citizens from Vandys home town of Midland Park, N. J. The elder Vander Meers were completely surrounded and it required nearly fifteen minutes before they could escape.
The feat ran the youngsters remarkable pitching record to eighteen and one-third hitless and scoreless innings and a string of twenty-six scoreless frames. This includes a game against the Giants, his no-hitter against the Bees and last nights game.
Vander Meer struck out seven Dodgers, getting pinch hitters twice, and of the eight passes he issued two came in the seventh and three in the tense ninth.
Added to his speed was a sharp-breaking curve that seldom failed to break over the plate and at which the Dodger batsmen swung as vainly as at his fireball.
On the offense, well-nigh forgotten as the spectacle of Vander Meers no-hitter unfolded, the Reds made victory certain as early as the third frame, when they scored four times and drove Max Butcher away.
Frank McCormick hit a home run into the left-field stands with Wally Berger and Ival Goodman aboard, while a pass to Lombardi and singles by Craft and Riggs added the fourth run.
Crafts third straight single scored Goodman in the seventh, the latters blow off Tot Pressnells right kneecap knocking the knuckleballer out and causing him to be carried off on a stretcher. Berger tripled off Luke Hamlin in the eighth to score Vander Meer with the last run.
An hour before Larry MacPhail had the lights turned on there was hardly a vacant seat around, a fact which added to MacPhails prestige as a master showman. Long before the ball game got under way Brooklyns entry into the Mazda Belt was proclaimed an artistic as well as a financial success.
There was plenty of music, ably rendered by two fife and drum corps and a band MacPhail always does things in a big way flag-lowering ceremonies and a series of sprinting exhibitions by Jesse Owens, the hero of the 1936 Olympics.
Precisely at 8:35 P. M. the lights went on and a terrific roar came from the throng. Turning night into day was something new to Dodger fans and to say that they were pleasantly surprised would be putting it lightly.
The initial faux pas came early in the form of a false start by Ernie Koy of the Dodgers as he, Lee Gamble of the Reds and Owens were on the line for their 100-yard handicap dash. Owens, spotting the ball players ten yards, went the distance in 0:09.7, but had to be content with second, behind Koy, who triumphed by a yard. It was a great start for the Dodgers.
After clearing 23 feet 6 inches in a running broad jump exhibition, Owens hooked up with the Dodgers Gibby Brack in a novel 120-yard race. Owens cleared ten low hurdles while Brack sprinted the distance on the flat. The ball player won by 10 yards, which prompted one fan to remark: Brack should have given Owens a handicap.
As the Dodgers took infield practice Babe Ruth, perhaps wondering what this national pastime is coming to, made his appearance. He received a royal welcome.
Another Babe, Floyd Caves Herman, who will always be remembered in Brooklyn, also was on hand. Night games, however, are no novelty to him. He plays his share of them for Jersey City.
By the time the umpires made their appearance Brooklyn fans already had placed their stamp of approval on the nocturnal game. At this point, not an outfielder had been hit on the head by a fly ball. What would follow was still a matter of conjecture.
After discussing ground rules with the rival captains, the umpires added a few instructions to the crew of photographers who were on the field, it all being new to them, too. Then at 9:45 P. M., Max Butcher tossed the first pitch to Lonnie Frey and history was made at night.
On the second pitch Babe Phelps came up limping. But it wasnt because he didnt see the pitch. He just stubbed his toe, the lights having nothing to do with it.
Johnny Vander Meer was the recipient of a gift from a delegation of fans from Midland Park, N. J., before the game.
With has eighteen and one-third consecutive hitless innings, Vander Meer broke Dazzy Vances listed National League mark of seventeen and one-third, made in 1925, when he pitched for the Dodgers. The major league record for this is held by Cy Young. He went a 23-inning stretch for the Red Sox in 1904.
Butcher departed hurriedly in the third, fully convinced that there should be only two outs an inning in a night game. For it was after two were down that the Reds counted four runs.
Against a talker of even no persuasiveness, towering Cliff Melton was slightly out of his element. The strong, silent man from the North Carolina hills did a commendable job, but quietly continued setting an endurance record in reverse. The gawky southpaw, who has not finished a game in a month, added another link to that unprepossessing chain.
Lifted in the eighth for a pinch-hitter, Melton had yielded only five hits, but what is more important two of them had brought in a run. The usually reliable Dick Coffman was touched for two more safeties and another tally in the ninth.
About the only ray of sunshine to lighten the afternoon for Colonel Bill Terry was that the Cubs had the foresight to be blanked by the Bees themselves, so that the two-game lead of the Giants in the National League race remained unchanged.
This was strictly a pitching duel. Melton allowed only two safeties for six innings and Tobin was pried loose from only three. But in the seventh Gus Suhr lined a double to left center and completed the trip on Al Todds shot to left.
Then in the ninth, when that run began to attain the proportions of a dozen to a gathering of 5,874, the Pirates tacked on another as a measure of safety. Arkie Vaughan and Suhr singled in succession and Johnny Rizzo lofted a long fly to Hank Leiber.
Even at that one good drive could have saved the day for the harassed New Yorkers. Jimmy Ripple and Mel Ott opened the last frame with hits. The crowd pleaded with Leiber for a homer. He popped a ridiculous foul fly to Todd in attempting a sacrifice. Johnny McCarthy and Harry the Horse Danning skied out as Messrs. Ripple and Ott remained firmly anchored on the bases.
Tobin did a grand job achieving his fourth victory of the season opposed to three defeats, but Melton might have beaten him with a little more cooperation from anemic Giant batters. As it was he sustained his fourth setback of the campaign against seven triumphs.
Cooperation also was lacking in Umpire Parker. He could have thumbed Tobin out of the game in the fourth on a disputed ball which cause the Pirate to explode. But Tiny had a deaf ear all afternoon.
In fact all three umpires stood knee-deep in hot water all through the fray. They called everything wrong or so the Giants and Pirates insisted.
Hitting streak notes: Suhr increased his consecutive game batting string to sixteen. Paul Waner was stopped at fourteen and Jo-Jo Moore hit the first pitch to center in the first inning after twenty-one times a bat without a blow.
Lloyd Waner fanned in the third inning. This comes under the head of news because it was only Little Poisons third strike-out of the season.
The way Lloyd Waner and Rizzo patrolled their joint left-center sector with both clutching for fly balls led to the belief that either they should have been formally introduced or a traffic cop installed out there.
DETROIT, June 15 (AP). The Athletics extended their winning streak to five straight as they edged out the Tigers, 7 to 6, in a slugfest today.
The Mackmen made thirteen hits good for twenty-two bases. Detroit used four pitchers, George Gill, Cletus Poffenberger, George Coffman and Roxie Lawson, in an effort to halt the attack. George Caster and Lovill Dean worked for Philadelphia, the latter getting credit for the victory.
Lou Finney and Sam Chapman hit homers for Philadelphia, while Rudy York drove his fifteenth circuit blow of the year for Detroit.
CLEVELAND, June 15 (AP). Oscar Vitts Indians snapped their five-game losing streak today by pasting their jinx, young Kendall Chase, for three eighth-inning runs to top Washington, 6-4, and cling to a half-game league lead.
The Indians were only two innings removed from a loss, which would have shoved them behind the New York Yankees, when a four-hit outburst produced the winning tallies.
Lary singled and advanced on a sacrifice. Hale brought him home with the tying run. Then Solders tripled to score Hale and Averills single brought in Solders.
Earl Whitehill, Washington cast-off, thus turned in his first victory in three starts this season against his old team-mates. He was nicked for eleven hits, the same number the Tribe picked up from Chase, and walked six, but several spectacular fielding plays helped him.
The Indian triumph evened the series at one game apiece and was only the fifth of the last seventeen games in which an Indian starter has gone the route. Johnny Kroner replaced Hal Trosky on first base because of a recurrence of Troskys recent knee injury, and drove home two runs with two doubles. Trosky said he would be out several days.
Finally, in the sixth inning, it came. Lou Gehrig had just hit his eighth homer of the year to help swell the Yankee lead to 3 to 0, which gave the Sox and idea. For Rip Radcliff hit for the circuit with a comrade aboard and that wrenched two runs away from our young Joe Beggs.
In the seventh, Larry Rosenthal, pinch hitting for Johnny Whitehead, who had been pitching fine game up to then, uncorked another homer with one on and that put the Sox one ahead while the crowd went wild. Jimmy Dykes, for the moment, was easily the craftiest manager on four continents.
But at this pint poor Jimmy ran out of numbers, as well as pitchers. The Yanks hopped on Johnny Rigney and Bill Dietrich for three runs in the eighth with the help of Joe Gordons double, and that gave the McCarthy forces the battle, 6 to 4.
It also gave the world champions their second straight victory of the series and their fifth in a row in their determined bid do regain the lead. In the latter quest, however they were somewhat stalled as the Indians also won, thereby retaining their half-game margin.
As Beggs, like Whitehead, had to vacate for a pinch hitter in the eighth he, too, was not around at the finish, but the three runs the Yanks scored for him in that round nevertheless gave him his third victory, which Ivy Paul Andrews nailed down for him with a first-class relief job in the last two innings.
Asked to protect a one-run margin as he stepped to the mound in the eighth, Rigney immediately got into trouble by passing Tommy Henrich. Jake Powell followed with a single, his third hit, and Gordon doubled, driving in one. George Selkirk, batting for Beggs, was intentionally passed to fill the bases and Dietrich came in to relieve Rigney.
In this he may have succeeded, for it was with considerable relief that Rigney walked out, but Bill brought no great help to the stricken Sox. Frankie Crosetti lifted a long fly to center to score Powell and Red Rolfe smacked a single to right to drive in Gordon. That clinched it.
A trio of singles by Powell, Gordon and Beggs gave the Yanks their first tally off Whitehead in the second and in the sixth, after Gehrig had fired his No. 8 into the lower right pavilion, another tally followed when Powells double and two passes filled the bases and Beggs emptied one with an infield out.
Luke Appling, slugging Sox shortstop who has been out with a fractured leg ever since the training season, is working out daily, but his return to the line-up still looks a long way off.
Charlie Ruffing likely will seek to make it a clean sweep for the Yanks in the series final tomorrow.
PHILADELPHIA, June 15 (AP). A ninth-inning rally today broke a 6-6 tie and gave the Cardinals a 9-to7 victory over the Phillies in a see-saw game.
The Cards scored three runs off relief pitchers Sylvester Johnson and Al Smith in the ninth after the Phils had driven Roy Henshaw to the showers to tie the score in the eighth. The Phils pushed over a run in their half of the ninth and had the tying runs on second and third when Shoun fanned Scharein for the last out.
ST. LOUIS, June 15 (AP). Two home runs helped the Red Sox to a 7-to-4 victory over the Browns today in a game marked by the early departure of Gabby Street, Brownie manager; his starting pitcher, Oral Hildebrand, and Buck Newsom.
Street and Newsom were ordered from the bench in the fourth when they argued with Umpire Steve Basil over balls and strikes.
Jimmy Foxx put the game on ice in the ninth with his nineteenth circuit clout of the season, scoring behind Joe Vosmik
Major League Baseball
American League
..Won
.Lost
Percentage
.Games Behind
Cleve
...30
19
.612
..-
N. Y
29
19
.604
1/2
Boston
28
21
.571
.3
Wash
...28
26
.519
.4 1/2
Detroit
.25
26
.490
.6
Phila
23
26
.469
.7
Chic
.18
27
.400
10
St. L
.15
32
.319
14
National League
..Won
.Lost
Percentage
..Games Behind
N. Y
32
18
.640
..-
Chic
.31
21
.596
.2
Cincin
..26
21
.553
.4 1/2
Pitts
.25
22
..532
5 1/2
Boston
.23
22
..511
6 1/2
St. L
21
26
..447
.9 1/2
Bklyn
..21
29
..420
.11
Phila
...12
.32
.273
.17
The youthful Pirate right-hander lost every debate with Umpire Tiny Parker but his salary wing spoke with far more effectiveness as he shut out the Giants with five scattered hits for a 2-to-0 victory at the Polo Grounds.
I dont think Ive heard that particular term for throwing arm before.
IMHO, this is the one baseball record that will never be broken, considering the way pitchers are used these days.
It's worth noting that the second of Vander Meer's consecutive no-hitters came in one of the first night games in baseball history. Opposing players may have had some trouble hitting against him because they weren't used to this sort of lighting in a baseball game.
Interestingly, I began to reconsider this just a little bit a couple of years later in September 1988 . . . when Toronto's Dave Stieb took no-hitters into the ninth inning in consecutive games (he ended up with a one-hitter in both games), then started the 1989 season by throwing another one-hitter.
There is a whole secondary article on this post about this being the first night game at Ebbets Field. There were special events held for the occasion, like exhibition races of ball players vs. Jesse Owens and an appearance by Babe Ruth.
It says in the article that the game started at 9:45 PM. Wow!
I knew Vander Meer had the back-to-back no-no’s but didn’t realize it was the first night game @ Ebbets.
Yes, it is a feat that not only won’t be broken, it won’t ever be duplicated. I watched Nolan Ryan pitch in Philly in ‘88, the game after he’d pitched a no-hitter. He only made it into the 3rd before being yanked. The guy pitched 7 no hitters but the day you wanted to face him was the start after he’d pitched one; he was not the same pitcher.
The late 30’s was a great era for baseball....
Yep, it’s doubtful this record will be matched or broken.
Does anyone else notice the writing style in these old newspaper articles is different than today? The word choice is different than things would be described today. Not sure how to describe it, but it’s like they are using “big” words; they weren’t trying to dumb down the news story for a lowest common denominator. And presumeably the people of the time understood what they were reading, at a time when many more people dropped out of high school than today.
The government monopoly schools have had an additional 70 years to erode the intellectual level of us readers.
As a Cincy Reds fan growing up we all knew about Johnny Vander Meer. That record of two straight no-hitters may last forever.
As promised.
Neat! Thanks
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