81. Was Brooklyn Still in the League?

In 1920, the Brooklyn Robins won their second NL pennant in five seasons and reached Game 5 of a best-of-nine World Series with Cleveland, all square at 2–2. In the next five innings, Brooklyn ace Burleigh Grimes allowed a grand slam, and Clarence Mitchell gave up a three-run homer to opposing pitcher Jim Bagby before coming to the plate and lining to Indians second baseman Bill Wambsganss for the only unassisted triple play in World Series history.

Over the next 20 years, Brooklyn’s fortunes hardly improved upon those five frames. Brooklyn finished the 1920 Series with one run in its final 32 innings and did not win another NL pennant until 1941, landing as high as second place only once. From 1922–1929, whether you called them the Dodgers, Robins or Superbas, Brooklyn finished in sixth place in the eight-team NL every year but one.

Having played in October during the previous two presidential campaigns, the Robins did bid for re-election to the World Series in 1924. Twenty-seven years before the New York Giants would succeed in the comeback for the ages, the Robins (as the Dodgers were then known, under manager Wilbert Robinson) tried their own. After losing to St. Louis on August 9, Brooklyn sat in fourth place with a 56–50 record, 13 games back of New York. What followed was as remarkable a stretch of baseball rallying as Brooklyn ever saw.

Led by Dazzy Vance, a rookie two years earlier at age 31 but now in the midst of posting a 2.16 ERA (174 ERA+) and 262 strikeouts in 3081/3 innings, the Robins started their rally by winning 11 of their next 13 games to pull within seven of the Giants. When St. Louis swept Brooklyn in a doubleheader, the second game by the score of 17–0, one could easily have concluded the Robins were spent. Instead, they won the last two games of the series at Sportsman’s Park, then swept three from the Giants at Ebbets Field to draw within four games of first.

“I recently saw the Robins win three straight from the Giants at Ebbets Field, and I formed one conclusion, that Uncle Robby’s men would come out on top,” wrote Sporting News columnist Joe Vila. “McGraw’s team was clearly outplayed and outclassed in those games which, by the way, drew 63,000 paid admissions, averaging 80 cents each.”

Rather unbelievably, because of makeup games, Brooklyn now faced four consecutive doubleheaders. Even more unbelievably, the Robins swept them all, scoring 57 runs in four days. At the end of play September 4, the Giants were 78–52, .003 ahead of 80–54 Brooklyn. Wins in their next two games extended the Robin streak to 15 in a row and, for a couple of hours in between a September 6 doubleheader, the Robins could claim they were in first place.

However, Brooklyn couldn’t complete the comeback. Though the Robins won 10 of their final 18 games to complete a season-ending 36–12 run, and were .001 back with four games to play, the Giants clinched the pennant on the second-to-last day of the season with a 3–2 victory over Brooklyn. No miracle here.

Charles Ebbets died the following April, and with him seemingly any semblance of competitiveness for his team. Brooklyn had no greater achievement for the next 10 years than responding to Giants manager Bill Terry’s rhetorical wondering if Brooklyn “were still in the league” in 1934 by spoiling the Giants’ postseason chances with a two-game sweep at season’s end. The Dodgers’ record that year: 71–81. A Pyrrhic victory, to say the least.

When the Dodgers finally returned to the World Series in 1941, they were the only NL team besides the Phillies that had never won it. That drought continued for 14 more years, but at least in that latter stretch they eliminated any doubters over what league they belonged in.

 

 

“The Dodgers Have Three Runners on Base” —”Which Base?”

The Dodgers have never had a .400 hitter, but Babe Herman came closest, batting .393 in 1930. You’d think that might be what Herman is remembered for, but when the legend next to your name says “doubled into a double play,” that tends to trump all (although admittedly, Russell Martin escaped this fate in the 2006 playoffs).

On August 15, 1926, Brooklyn had the bases loaded (Chick Fewster on first, Dazzy Vance on second and Hank DeBerry on third) when Herman drove one toward the right-field wall. The base runners had different reads on whether the ball would be caught—and no read on what their teammates were reading—so that when Herman raced to third base, he found Chick Fewster at the base and Dazzy Vance abandoning his attempt to score and retreating there as well.

Sorting through the confusion, the umpires ruled Herman and Fewster out. Though Vance was the primary cause of the roadblock and Fewster also should have been able to score, for decades baseball storytellers remembered Herman as the culprit. Great story, but too bad for the Dodgers’ Babe.