Terror in the City of Champions (31 page)

“I’ll be all right in twenty minutes,” Greenberg told trainer Denny Carroll.

But he wouldn’t.

The Tigers lacked a backup first baseman. Cochrane considered various options. He could play first himself and put Ray Hayworth behind the plate, but he preferred to call the pitches. He could put Gehringer at first and bring Flea Clifton into second, but in practice Gehringer had lacked confidence at the corner. He toyed with the idea of Gee Walker or Heinie Schuble starting there, but both seemed risky. Schoolboy Rowe, a good hitter, offered to play first, but Cochrane refused to endanger his pitcher.

Owner Frank Navin involved himself in the discussions. Though he rarely intervened in managerial decisions, he inserted himself into this one. He directed a reluctant Cochrane to move Marv Owen to first and to place Clifton—the guy who had talked himself out of a minor league trip to Hollywood—at third. Some of their teammates disliked the idea, feeling that it weakened the team’s hitting. Goose Goslin questioned Navin privately.

“Did you order Owen shifted to first and Clifton to third?”

“I did, and that’s what will be done,” Navin said. “If you lose the series, I’ll take the consequences and I alone.”

Prior to the game a twenty-four-year-old broadcaster cornered Elden Auker for an interview. The kid had movie star looks and a warm, resonant voice. The Chicago Cubs had recently named him their official World Series announcer. His name was Ronald Reagan. That moment represented such a thrill for him that decades later as president of the United States he would occasionally reminisce fondly about it. Among the other 45,000 people in attendance was a teen from Georgia. The boy loved baseball, but his father could no longer take him to games since becoming paralyzed from the waist down. So a great-uncle in Chicago bought him tickets for all three local games. It was the first World Series that seventeen-year-old Ernie Harwell would see. Up in the press box, Graham McNamee had been replaced on the national radio broadcast by an up-and-coming Cincinnati Reds radio man named Red Barber. Thirteen years later Harwell would be working with Barber in the Brooklyn booth and Reagan would be the president of the Screen Actors Guild.

The Cubs took a 2–0 lead in the second inning and added another run in the fifth. But any decorum that existed began to evaporate in the sixth when Tiger coach Del Baker got ejected for arguing a play at third. A half-inning later Chicago manager Charlie Grimm charged out of the dugout to resume his series-long debate with George Moriarty. Grimm got tossed too. A few minutes passed before Cubs captain Woody English began hollering at Moriarty from the dugout steps. As Moriarty approached the Chicago bench, Cubs fans drenched him in boos. Moriarty, flaming the Cubs with the kind of expletives they had used on him, banished English from the game and then expelled the normally restrained Tuck Stainback.

National League president Ford Frick, seated nearby, overheard Moriarty. After the Tigers won 6–5 in eleven innings—with Rowe pitching the final four and Jo-Jo White driving home Marv Owen for the lead—Frick criticized Moriarty. He “used blasphemous language in talking to the Cubs.” But, he added, “Unfortunately, there were a lot of words exchanged on both sides.”

Verbal wars marred the series. Players and coaches castigated both umpires and opponents. Jewish umpire Dolly Stark said he had never been treated so terribly for so little money. (Stark would sit out the 1936 season over pay.) The ditty the Cubs directed at Flea Clifton would stay with him his whole life: “Pappy’s in the poorhouse, sister’s in jail; momma’s on the front porch, pussy for sale.” Perhaps they didn’t know his parents were dead.

The Tigers were joyous afterward, predicting that they would finish off the Cubs quickly. Cigar and cigarette smoke filled the dressing room, which was crowded with visitors. Amid the joy Greenberg was glum. “It looks like they don’t need me,” he said.

Detroit won the next game. General Crowder pitched the full nine innings. He also scored one run and drove home another. Flea Clifton also scored. Chicago fell 2–1. The victory gave Detroit a 3–1 advantage in the series. Frank Navin’s Tigers needed one more win. Their boosters were already looking forward to the grand celebration they would have on the train ride back to Detroit when they won on Sunday. But Uncle Frank was having none of it. “I’ll wait until the numbers go up on the scoreboard,” he said. “I’ve waited almost thirty years for a championship, and I guess a few more hours won’t hurt.”

Chicago prevailed in Game Five on Sunday, forcing the series back to Navin Field. On the train home Goose Goslin was in the dining car with Ty Tyson and General Crowder, slicing a Bermuda onion for his salad. Goslin predicted that he would be the ninth-inning hero in Monday’s game. They thought he was joking and laughed. Four thousand fans were waiting when the Tigers arrived at Michigan Central. It was late and the players tried to push quickly through the hordes of supporters shouting congratulations and encouragement. “The crowd oozed confidence,” said one witness. “You could tell by their greeting the peanut was in the bag.”

Throughout the series each Tigers victory had been marked by celebrations, wild parties, and noise-making into the early morning hours. Already newspaper confetti, ticker tape, and shredded city directories had snowed upon the streets. What would happen when the Tigers finally won? Or worse, if they didn’t? A city election was scheduled for Tuesday, the day after the game. Officials reminded the public that because of primary voting, liquor consumption would be prohibited after midnight on Monday and until eight o’clock on Tuesday night when the polls closed. No drunken voting, in other words.

At the ballpark concessions chief Charlie Jacobs had ordered 40,000 hot dogs, truckloads more of beer, and thousands of pies in case another Medwick-type protest sprouted in the stands. A thrown pie, after all, could make its way partly through a mesh screen. With the Tigers on the verge of winning, the papers brought Dizzy and Paul Dean, last year’s nemeses, gratingly back into the news. The Deans announced that they didn’t care who prevailed. The game meant nothing to them. In Detroit it meant the world.

Charlie Gehringer had so far hit brilliantly, played sharp defense, and scored more runs than anyone else. Writers and fellow players singled him out for praise as the top contributor. “That guy is as game as they come,” said Fred Lindstrom of the opposing Cubs. Babe Ruth added, “He’s the best ball player all around.” When asked to comment, Gehringer deflected the spotlight and spoke of how the team missed Greenberg.

Though it was Yom Kippur, Greenberg intended to play. Trainer Denny Carroll thought it unlikely, but he worked Greenberg’s wrist, treating it alternately with heat and ice and massaging it with ointment. Greenberg flinched. Carroll tried to lighten the mood with some teasing, telling him that he was not only one of the biggest men on the team but also the biggest baby.

“Go away, Doc, you old quack,” said Greenberg, finding a smile.

“Shut up, Hank, you big baby.”

And so it went as Carroll wrapped his arm tightly and thickly in tape.

“That’s the best I can do for you, son,” he said. “I hope you can make it.”

Greenberg tried to swing a bat. He had Joey Roggin toss him a few balls, lightly at first, then with speed. The pain jolted him each time. His arm throbbed. Greenberg finally conceded that he would be unable to take the field. A day later his wrist would be x-rayed again and several small fractures would be revealed. A physician would set his arm in plaster.

With the Cubs pitching lefty Larry French, Cochrane juggled his lineup slightly. He elevated Flea Clifton into the lead-off position and replaced Jo-Jo White with Gee Walker. It was the first and only time Walker would start a World Series game. During the last contest in Chicago Walker’s young sons had been listening to the game on the radio in Detroit when they heard Ty Tyson announce that a Tiger player had been picked off third base. “Was that my daddy?” one of the boys had asked. (It wasn’t; it was Pete Fox.)

On Monday in the first inning, before the largest gathering ever at Navin Field, Fox drove a double to left, bringing Mickey Cochrane home for the first run. The stands awoke. But the Cubs responded in the third when Billy Jurges scored on Billy Herman’s single. In the fourth Gee Walker singled and moved his way around the bases one at a time on Rogell’s single and Owen’s sacrifice bunt. Careful not to take too big a lead or to be distracted by the bench jockeys, Walker concentrated on the game. When pitcher Tommy Bridges grounded to third, Walker scored. A half-inning later, Bridges allowed a single to French and a home run to Herman, giving Chicago a 3–2 lead. Detroit tied the game when Owen drove in Rogell from second.

The score remained even into the ninth inning.

Stan Hack, leading off for Chicago, blistered a pitch to deep center field. By the time Walker retrieved it and hurled it back to the infield, Hack was on third base with no one out. The long hit deflated the hometown crowd. Bridges had not been his usual crisp self. He had already given up twelve hits and now the Cubs were on the cusp of taking the lead. Then they would need only three outs to force a seventh game—as St. Louis had done one year ago.

But Little Tommy Bridges bore down and struck out Jurges on three straight strikes. He then got French to ground out back to the mound. Hack remained on third base. Augie Galan, who had managed only four hits the whole series, came to bat. Bridges pitched him outside and Galan, reaching across the plate, popped an easy fly to Goslin to end the inning. It was, in the estimation of Cochrane and almost every other veteran observer, the most exemplary, high-pressure World Series pitching performance ever.

During the pandemonium Bridges went into the tunnel beyond the dugout and smoked a cigarette to calm his nerves. He was on his haunches puffing away when Mickey Cochrane singled through the right side of the infield. Cheers rose from the stands. Bridges could hear the commotion above him. He wanted to go into the dugout to see what had happened, but he didn’t want to risk a jinx. So he lingered in the tunnel, still in a crouch as Gehringer blazed a grounder to first. It wasn’t fielded smoothly and Cochrane moved into scoring position. He was there when Goose Goslin strode to the batter’s box with two outs. Usually Goslin talked to the pitcher or catcher. This time he didn’t.

The crowd began its usual collegiate-style chant. “Yeaaaaa, Goose!” The cadence rose on the first word and fell on the second. “Yeaaaaa, Goose!” All season fans in the bleachers had been welcoming Goslin to the field with “Yeaaaaa, Goose!” After fouling off the first pitch, Goslin looped the second one into right field. It got beyond Chuck Klein. Center fielder Frank Demaree relayed it toward home.

The throw was late.

Cochrane scored. Detroit won.

The Tigers charged off the field to escape the fans who were flowing over the fences and hurling scorecards, hats, and seat cushions onto the field. Police stood at home plate and the pitcher’s mound, which last year had been excavated by souvenir hunters. They guarded the dugouts, atop which stood six or seven fans who soon began calling for Goslin. “We want Goose! We want Goose!” It was just after three-thirty in the afternoon and word was spreading like a gas fire across the city. The Tigers had won their first world championship.

In the clubhouse Cochrane clenched Goslin and kissed him on the cheek. Schoolboy Rowe hoisted Bridges onto his shoulder. Players shouted and embraced, broke out sodas, and lit cigars and cigarettes. Each man was $6,544 richer. Cochrane spoke of Bridges as if he were an Arthurian knight. He had “the heart of a lion.” He was “150 pounds of grit and courage.” He “never flinched.” He was brave and gallant and “he threw the six greatest curves I ever caught.” Bridges shook Cochrane’s hand. “Mike, I owe it all to you. You kept me going in there.”

Uncle Frank Navin fought his way through the aisles, past the pawing hands of the crowd, and into the dressing room. He went from cage to cage shaking players’ hands, thanking and congratulating them, and whispering promises of bonus checks. He found Gehringer, Owen, and others naked in the showers and walked onto the steamy tile to grip their soapy hands. Navin posed with Bridges and Goslin and kissed their foreheads. A smile splintered his usually impassive face. This was his moment too. “Without question, I am the most pleased man in America,” he said. “I’m almost speechless with pride. . . . I am a sober man. But I have an almost irresistible inclination to get intoxicated tonight.”

If he partook, he wasn’t alone. All night thousands flowed into the downtown area to revel in the glory. Nearly a half million people joined the carnival, blocking avenues, clogging sidewalks, packing beer gardens, halting streetcars and automobiles, singing and drinking, blowing horns, and banging trash cans. They partied outside the hotels near Washington Boulevard and Grand Circus Park. From the high floors they dropped streamers and, sometimes, bags of water on the celebrants below. In spots the rowdier elements broke store windows, set fires, and tried to tip trolleys. The city had not seen anything comparable. It dwarfed even the merriment of Armistice Day in 1918.