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| Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher Van Lingle Mungo helped spoil the New York Giants' 1934 Natonal League pennant hopes when he beat them 5-1 on the next-to-last day of the regular season. Mungo struck out the last three batters to close out the victory. |
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| When asked in January 1934 about the Brooklyn Dodgers' chances in the upcoming National League pennant race, New York Giants player-manager Bill Terry said, "I was just wondering whether they were still in the league." Those words came back to haunt him at the end of the season as the Dodgers beat the Giants in two straight games to knock their intrarcity rivals out of pennant contention. |
By Phil Ellenbecker
Some hot air on the Hot Stove League circuit by Bill Terry provided bulletin-board material for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1934 and might have cost Terry's New York Giants a pennant.
Asked in late January at the annual New York Baseball Writers Dinner about the coming National League pennant race, Terry, player-manager for the defending World Series champion Giants and the last National Leaguer to hit .400 with a .401 mark in 1930, mentioned Pittsburgh, St. Louis and Chicago as the teams to beat.
"Do you fear the Dodgers?" he was asked of the team that finished sixth in the eight-team NL the year before.
"I was just wondering," said Terry, "whether they were still in the league."
Well, the Dodgers were still in the league on Sept. 29 and 30, 1934, and the Giants would have to play them, and beat them, to have a chance at a pennant.
As the moment of reckoning neared, Dodgers' President Judge McKeever said, with respect to Mr. Terry, "We'll make him eat those words." Manager Casey Stengel added, "Yes, and if it chokes him, that will be all right, too."
And the Dodgers, pegged "The Daffiness Boys" in those days, had the last laugh, as they defeated the Giants 5-1 and 8-5 in 10 innings at the Polo Grounds on the final two days of the regular season. Those results, combined with St. Louis' 6-1 and 9-0 wins over Cincinnati, gave the Cardinals the flag by a two-game margin over the Giants. A Giants win and Cardinals loss on the final day would have forced a best-of-three tiebreaker playoff.
St. Louis, which went on to beat Detroit in the World Series, finished 95-58 in the regular season; New York was 93-60.
St. Louis, which went on to beat Detroit in the World Series, finished 95-58 in the regular season; New York was 93-60.
The Dodgers, in their first season under Stengel at the start of a 25-year Hall of Fame managerial career, again finished sixth with a 71-81 record, the second of six straight losing seasons.
Dodgers ace Van Lingo Mungo set the tone for Brooklyn's rousing weekend by tossing a complete-game five-hitter Saturday. He struck out seven and walked three as he finished the season with an 18-16 record and 184 strikeouts, good for second in the NL behind St. Louis' Dizzy Dean's 195. He was seventh in the league in wins.
Mungo finished with a flourish, striking out Travis Jackson, George Watkins and pinch hitter Lefty O'Doul, a lifetime .349 hitter, in succession in the ninth inning after Terry had singled leading off the inning and Mel Ott walked on four pitches. Watkins and O'Doul were caught looking.
Mungo, who had a 1969 song by jazz pianist and vocalist Dave Frishberg named after him, gave himself all the help he needed at bat earlier in the game. He led off the fifth with a single and came around to score the game's first run on Lonny Frey's single. Mungo made it 2-0 the next inning with an RBI single. The Dodgers tacked on another run in the seventh when Sam Leslie singled in Frey. Brooklyn bumped the cushion to 5-1 in the ninth when Tony Cuccinello singled in Len Koenicke and Leslie scored on a bases-loaded walk to Al Lopez.
Roy Parmalee (10-6) took the loss for the Giants, giving up 10 hits and three runs, all earned, in eight innings.
Watkins kept Mungo from a shutout with a solo homer in the seventh.
It looked like the Giants might be headed toward payback and a possible winner-take-all showdown with St. Louis when they took a 4-0 lead after one inning Sunday. But the Dodgers pecked away with single runs in the second, fourth and sixth innings, then tied the game with two runs in the eighth when Koenicke doubled in a run and Leslie scored on a wild pitch.
Brooklyn scored three runs, two of them unearned, to take control in the 10th. Leslie led off the inning with a single off Hal Schumacher, who'd relieved starter Freddie Fitzsimmons in the eighth. Cuccinello's double put runners at second and third and brought on Hall of Famer "King Carl" Hubbell. The Giants' "Meal Ticket" struck out relief pitcher Johnny Babich, but the Dodgers went ahead on an error by shortstop Blondy Ryan with Lopez batting. Two more runs scored on a fly out by Glenn Chapman and single by Buzz Boyle.
Babich, the Dodgers' fourth pitcher of the day, retired Hughie Critz, Terry and Ott on a fly out and two ground outs in the bottom of the 10th to slam the door on the Giants.
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| Casey Stengel, shown with baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis, was in the first year of a 25-year managerial career when he took over the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1934. His Dodgers only came in sixth in the National League, but they had the plesaure of keeping their intracity rivals, the New York Giants, from winning a pennant by beating them in two straight games to close the season. |
Terry and Ott, two more Hall of Famers, and the Giants' No. 3 and No. 4 hitters, went 0 for 6 in their final three trips to the plate each. "Master Melvin," the National League's all-time home run king until 1965, was 0-for-5 in the game and 0-for-8 in the final two games.
Babich got the win with two perfect innings and finished the season 7-11.
Cuccinello shined at the plate for the Dodgers, going 3-for-4 with two runs scored.
Schumacher was hung with the loss, giving him a final mark of 23-10. He ranked second in the NL in wins behind Dean's 30. The Giants' three pitchers on the day had a combined 62 wins on the season, with Hubbell fourth in the NL at 21 and Fitzsimmons tied with Mungo for seventh at 18.
As it turned out, with the Cardinals breezing in St. Louis the Dodgers' win was academic. The Cardinals still would have won the league by one game with a Giants win.
But considering Terry's words of derision in January, it had to be sweet for the Dodgers to close with not one but two straight wins over their intracity rivals on the weekend. And they made their business manager, Bob Quinn, look like a prophet. Quinn had some harsh words in the Jan. 25 New York Evening Post when appraised of Terry's remarks.
"I doubt very much if Terry made that remark but if he did, it ill befits a manager of a championship ball club, particularly a manager who was so thin-skinned himself that he was very much perturbed about writers picking his team to finish last in 1933," Quinn was quoted as saying in a 2005 "The Big Apple" blog post by Barry Potik. "And the Brooklyn club may fool Mr. Terry by being the team to prevent him from repeating his triumph of last year. At least, we'll let him know we are still in the league."
On Oct. 1, 1934, Brooklyn’s City Hall sported a huge sign over its entrance, and the letters spelled out, “Is Brooklyn still In The League?” An equally large postscript aimed at the towers of Manhattan read, “You bet we are!”
Touche.
Sources:
Play-by-play: https://www.
Cardinals clinch pennant: https://sabr.org/
Bill Terry's comments on Dodgers: https://www.
Additional background came from various sources on the Retrosheet and Society for American Baseball Research's Biography Project websites, as well as baseballreference.com.
Additional background came from various sources on the Retrosheet and Society for American Baseball Research's Biography Project websites, as well as baseballreference.com.
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