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| This photo of Steve Gromek (left) and Larry Doby that appeared in the Cleveland Plain Dealer was an iconic image signifying baseball's grudging embrace of racial integration. Doby, who'd become the American League's first black player in 1947, hit a homer to support Gromek's 2-1 victory for the Cleveland Indians in Game 3 of the 1948 World Series. |
By Phil Ellenbecker
It could be argued that Steve Gromek owns the biggest pitching victory in Cleveland Indians history.
Inasmuch as a World Series title is a franchise's supreme achievement, and if that franchise has won only two Series titles, and if that victory gave a particular team of that franchise a 3-1 lead in the Series -- a big boost toward winning that -- and if it came from that team's No. 4 starter, over the other team's ace -- well, you could make that argument.
And if you'd beg to differ, you'd have to agree Gromek's 2-1 win over the Boston Braves in 1948's Game 4 ranks at least as one of the biggest in franchise history, and certainly one of the very biggest in said franchise's not-so-recent memory. After all, the Tribe is still looking for another Series title.
And as big as his win was on Saturday afternoon, Oct. 9, what made it even more momentous was a photo that appeared in the next day's Cleveland Plain Dealer of Gromek embracing Larry Doby, who'd joined Jackie Robinson in breaking the color line the year before as the American League's first black player. On this day he'd supported Gromek with a homer that proved to be the difference in the game.
"With the integration of major-league baseball just one year old, and with all the emotions that came out because of it, the photo spoke volumes," Joseph Wancho wrote in an article for the Society for American Baseball Research Games Project. "For many, it was just not something they had ever seen before."
A lot of people, a World Series record crowd of 81,997, had seen Gromek for the most part whisking away Braves batters, throwing a seven-hitter with one walk and two strikeouts at Cleveland Stadium. He allowed only three runners as far as second base other than a seventh-inning leadoff homer by Marv Rickert (2-for-4 on the day) that brought the Braves within the final margin.
A lot of people, a World Series record crowd of 81,997, had seen Gromek for the most part whisking away Braves batters, throwing a seven-hitter with one walk and two strikeouts at Cleveland Stadium. He allowed only three runners as far as second base other than a seventh-inning leadoff homer by Marv Rickert (2-for-4 on the day) that brought the Braves within the final margin.
The 6-foot-2, 180-pound right-hander yielded a single to Mike McCormick following Rickert's homer and Earl Torgeson's second double of the day in the eighth. Otherwise he kept on dispatching the Braves, including his only two strikeouts, Rickert and McCormick, starting off the ninth. Pinch hitter Bill Salkeld then flied out, and it was on to Game 5 after a game that lasted 1 hour, 31 minutes.
Gromek, known as a pitcher who could get batters to hit the ball into the air with his fastball, retired the Braves on eight pop-outs, five fly balls and two liners.
Doby's solo homer to right-center field with two out in the second made the score 2-0. He jumped on a Johnny Sain change-up, according to Wancho.
“It was a change of pace,” Doby the Boston Herald. “ Sain’s change of pace is quicker than most pitchers’ fast ones. I sort of hitched on the pitch when he let up on me, but I got a real full swing and hit it with power, even though maybe it didn’t look that way from upstairs."
Typically enough, Indians shortstop-manager Lou Boudreau -- that year's AL MVP and the hero of Cleveland's tiebreaker playoff win over Boston that got them into the Series for the first time since 1920 -- gave the Indians the early lead. After Dale Mitchell singled leading off the bottom of the first, he advanced to second when Doby grounded out back to Sain. Boudreau followed with an opposite-field double to right that scored Mitchell.
Bourdeau tried to stretch his hit into a triple, but was out on a relay that went from Tommy Holmes in right to Alvin Dark at short to NL MVP Bob Elliott at third. Holmes finished fifth among NL right fielders in assists that year and had finished second the previous three years.
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| Johnny Sain, after losing 2-1 to Steve Gromek and the Cleveland Indians in Game 4 of the 1948 World Series, finished the Series with a 1-1 record and 1.08 ERA. |
Sain, who'd led the major leagues in wins with a 24-15 record and was third in ERA at 2.60, only allowed one hit after Doby's third-inning homer. He retired 16 of the final 17 batters he faced, Eddie Robinson's leadoff infield in the fifth the only hiccup. He finished with a five-hitter, striking out three and walking none.
Combined with his 1-0 four-hit shutout in Game 1, Spain had a stellar Series with a 1.06 ERA and nine hits and no walks allowed over 17 innings.
He'd go on to contribute as a reliever to three straight World Series winners with the New York Yankees from 1951 to 1953. He had a final Series record of 2-2, 2.64 across six games and 30 innings.
As for Gromek, Game 4 in 1948 was it for him in the Fall Classic. Boudreau opted to go with Gromek over all-time great Bob Feller, who'd lost to Sain in the opener, to give Feller three days rest for Game 5. (Boston won Game 5, 11-5, leaving Feller at 0-2, 5.02 in the only Series he pitched in).
Boudreau wasn't taking a big chance, as Gromek had gone 9-3 with a 2.84 ERA during the regular season, starting nine games, relieving in 28 others. He slid in nicely behind the Tribe's Big Three of Lemon, rookie Gene Bearden (who'd beaten the Red Sox in the playoff) and Feller with 20, 20 and 19 victories, respectively.
Speaking of what he brought to the pitching mound, Braves second baseman Eddie Stanky said of Gromek, “He’s smart. He’s in and out and always changing. He doesn’t compare with the others, but he’s smart, pitches with his .”
Gromek had contributed down the stretch of the pennant race, in his last start before the Series, with a three-hit, 2-0 blanking of Philadelphia on Sept. 19 in the second game of a doubleheader. That win brought the Indians within a half-game of Boston. Detroit beat Cleveland 7-1 on the final day of the regular season to force the playoff.
Gromek, a native of Hamtramck, Michigan, had a highly respectable 17-year major league pitching career, going 123-108 with a 3.41 ERA. He won 19 games with Cleveland in 1945 and 18 with Detroit in 1954.
But it certainly didn't get any bigger, on a bigger stage, than the afternoon of Oct. 9, 1948.
The photo
The photograph of Gromek and Doby smiling broadly and hugging each other in the Cleveland clubhouse was transmitted across the country.
"At a time when resistance
to black players was intense, it was a signal moment of brotherhood," Gromek's New York Times obituary read.
''That picture of Gromek and Doby has unmistakable and blood cheeks pressed close together, brawny arms tightly clasped, equally wide grins,'' wrote Marjorie Mackenzie, a columnist for the African-American newspaper The Pittsburgh Courier. ''The chief of the Doby-Gromek picture is acceptance.''
Gromek shrugged off the home folks' reaction to the photo when he returned to Hamtramck in the offseason.
''People who were close to me would say, 'Steve, how can you do it? That stuff didn't bother me,'' he said.
Or perhaps as Wancho put it, "Maybe the photo was not just about a black man and a white
embracing. Perhaps it was just two teammates enjoying
the moment of victory, and not giving a
what people thought."
But make no mistake, the moment meant a lot to Doby, as he recalled when he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1994.
''That was a from within, the human side of two people, one black and one white,'' he said. ''That made up for everything I went through. I would always relate back to that whenever I was insulted or rejected from hotels. I'd always think about that picture. It would take away all the negatives.''
Biggest win?
As regards the biggest win argument for Gromek, it could be argued that Lemon's Game 6 win that clinched the title in 1948 is the biggest. But Lemon had a little bit more help in his, winning 4-3, and the Indians would have had the Game 7 fallback if they hadn't gotten this one. And in Bill Voiselle, Lemon wasn't going up against an ace like Gromek was.
Although Warren Spahn wasn't this year's Braves ace, winning 15 games, he is the third-winningest left-hander in baseball history, so Lemon's Game 2 win over Spahnnie, especially coming after Spain had won Game 1, certainly also ranks up on the bigness scale. Bearden bested Vern Bickord in Game 3 for the Indians' other victory.
As for the other year the Indians won the World Series, they topped the Brooklyn Dodgers 5-2 (best of nine series that particular year) in 1920, so no win in particular looms as particularly crucial. No big wins, maybe, but certainly they had a big winner as Stan Coveleski went 3-0 with a 0.67 ERA, including the opening and clinching wins. He gave up only two runs in those three games. Sherry Smith came up large, too, with a 2-1 win in Game 3 that gave Cleveland a 2-1 edge, and a 1-0 victory in Game 6.
There were no big wins for the Indians when they went back to the World Series in 1954, although Lemon and Feller were still around, because the New York Giants swept Cleveland.
Complete games were a thing of the past the past two times Cleveland went to the World Series, but the Indians did get some big performances out of their starting pitchers. They just came in losing causes both times, both in heartbreaking fashion.
Chad Ogea got two wins in 1997 and allowed two runs over 11 2/3 innings, including a 4-1 Game 6 win. But Florida took the deciding game the next night, 3-2 in 11 innings.
Corey Kluber allowed only one run over 12 innings in pitching the Indians to a 3-1 lead in 2016 with Game 1 and Game 4 victories. But the Chicago Cubs ended their 108-year curse without a Series title while extending Cleveland's to 48 years by winning the final three games. In Game 7, the Cubs prevailed 8-7 in 10 innings.
So all things considered, as we said at the beginning, this vote goes to Steve Gromek for the Indians' biggest win of all time.
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