“BECOMING THE BIG O” and “FIVE IN A ROW”

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724. SETON HALL PIRATES VS CINCINNATI BEARCATS

JANUARY 9, 1958

MADISON SQUARE GARDEN

QUALITY OF PLAY—8.29

DRAMA—5.51

STAR POWER—9.42

CONTEMPORARY IMPORT—6.37

HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE—8.86

LOCAL IMPACT—6.06

TOTAL: 44.51

During the Golden Age of college basketball in NYC, many stars were invited to play at Madison Square Garden in showcase games that were highly anticipated by local hoop fans and media, who seldom got to see these greats in person. Often these games were centered around holiday tournaments, but perhaps the greatest performance of any out-of-towner on Broadway was turned in on a random mid-week night against plain old Seton Hall in front of a small crowd of b-ball diehards.

For in the dawning days of 1958 Oscar Robertson was not yet “The Big O” and not yet a collegiate superstar. He was just a hugely-talented sophomore for the University of Cincinnati, one who had been sensational as a high schooler at Crispus Attucks in Indianapolis but was little-known nationally. That changed after one incredible 40-minute display inside the World’s Most Famous Arena.

Robertson was part of the first all-black team to win the fabled Indiana State High School championship in 1955, one year after tiny Milan High did it and became the root story behind “Hoosiers” (Milan shocked Attucks in the 1954 semifinals en route to the title). After going back-to-back with Attucks in ‘56, Robertson was heavily recruited, but he felt his options limited.

“In 1956, there weren't many schools offering anything to black athletes," Robertson said. "The South was taboo, and I didn't want to go out west. I wanted to go to Indiana University, but I think coach Branch McCracken didn't want Oscar Robertson. I think he felt he had too many blacks on the team to begin with.” So he went to Cincinnati, where racial animus was hardly absent but less of an issue than many other potential landing spots.

One place he might have been more welcomed was New York—Robertson recalled that his first trip to NYC was notable for “a welcome absence of the racial invective that came with the territory when you played in Indiana in the mid-’50s.” But no Gotham-area school recruited him, so the Queen City was the beneficiary.

The 7-2 Bearcats and 4-7 Seton Hall were scheduled for a Thursday night game on January 9, 1958, at the Old Garden on 50th Street. NYC can be overwhelming to visitors, and Robertson didn’t care much for the “bone-jarring” cab ride to the hotel from the airport. Robertson admitted to a local reporter he was nervous before the game (although worse was the fact the team hotel didn’t have a TV set). Playing the Palace was a huge deal, of course, and many visitors didn’t live up to the moment. “Something happened to them when they came into the Garden,” recalled Jack McMahon, a St. John’s star who played in the NBA for several years. “I felt sorry for them.”

No one would feel anything but awe for Robertson after this night was through.

Not many people could say they saw the 19-year old future immortal show off his brilliance that night. Only 4,615 were in attendance for the doubleheader (Xavier, Cincinnati’s hated crosstown rival, beat Iona in the opener), though surely many times that figure would claim to have been there watch the “crackerjack Negro” (Dick Young in the Daily News) in future years.

Joe Lapchick, the coach of St. John’s, was one person in the house, scouting the player he had heard so much about. Needless to say, he came away impressed. “He does so many things,” Lapchick raved. “He takes the ball through a pick. He makes a hook shot, a jump shot, every kind of shot. He passes beautifully. He’s marvelous on defense. It’s like running into a tornado.”

The Bearcats weren’t a total one-man show. Senior Connie Dierking was a Stretch-four type playing out of time, hitting long jumpers at 6’9”, and Wayne Stevens and Ralph Davis added scoring punch. Also on the team was Oscar’s road roommate, future longtime UC radio analyst Chuck Machock. Seton Hall on the other hand was a poor club going nowhere under coach Honey Russell.

Robertson missed his first shot of the night, but backed his man down and hit a scoop layup on the next possession, and from there he was unstoppable. He drained jumpers, beat the masses downcourt for fast break points, and completely controlled the game in a manner seldom seen in that era of basketball. He put up 24 in the first half, and kept right on going, past 30, then 40.

Harry Boykoff, the St. John’s star from Brooklyn, had set the Garden record for scoring in 1947, with a 54-point explosion. The pro record at the time was held by Neil Johnston of Philadelphia with 49. Few knew about these marks, including Robertson, so there wasn’t much anticipation in the building. With 2:46 to go, he drained a pair of free throws to give him points number 55 and 56, at which point he took a seat. At that point the new record was announced to the crowd, and Robertson left the court to a standing ovation from the small but thrilled crowd.

The final score was ridiculous, 118-54, meaning the Big O had outscored the Pirates by himself. The 118 points were also a Garden record, breaking the mark set by Bradley University the year before. Robertson attained those 56 points on 22-32 shooting, including 12-12 from the line. He added 15 rebounds and 6 assists in an incredible, indelible performance for the ages.

“He’s oil-slick,” Lapchick marveled. “This is the greatest sophomore I’ve ever seen.”

After being surrounded by a media scrum roughly quintuple the size Robertson usually saw, he left the Garden. “It was late,” he recalled to the Times. “The streets were empty and glowing. A light snow was in the air. I was with my roommate, Chuck Machock. The team had long gone, so we walked back to the Paramount Hotel, talking about the game we had just played and everything that had happened afterward. I was not sure why, but I had a sense that my life would never again be the same after that night.”

Indeed not. Robertson had just taken a giant step toward becoming “The Big O.”

AFTERMATH:

The clubbing of Seton Hall began a 16-game winning streak for Cincy in which they didn’t lose again in the regular season. In the NCAA tournament they lost their second-round game to Kansas State in overtime and finished the season 24-3. Robertson would become the first sophomore in NCAA history to lead the nation in scoring, at 35.1 ppg, beating out the likes of Wilt Chamberlain at Kansas and Elgin Baylor at Seattle University to do so. He would repeat that feat in each of his next two seasons, and lead the Bearcats to the Final Four both times, where they were beaten consecutively by Pete Newell’s Cal Bears.

The Big O went on to a Hall of Fame NBA career in Cincinnati and Milwaukee, averaging a triple-double for the entire season of 1961-62, among other exploits. He is generally considered one of the top dozen or so players of all-time, depending upon the age of the person making the list.

I was fortunate enough to get to know The Big O a little bit. Years ago he was coaching a group of retired NBA players on a b-ball tour of China, where they took on the Chinese National team, one that featured a couple of big men who would come to the USA to play ball, Yao Ming and Wang Zhizhi. I covered the tour in my role as Executive Producer (it was a two-man staff…) of the Asian Basketball Show. Oscar was intriguing and crotchety (I will never forget his eruption when he discovered the quality of the toilet paper inside one of the Chinese arenas) and always fascinating to talk with, and I treasure the time we got to spend together.

As for Chuck Machock, he would forever tell listeners and his play-by-play partner, the great Dan Hoard, that one glorious night in the Mecca of basketball he and Oscar Robertson combined for 56 points.

WHAT THEY SAID:

“I have had a warm spot in my heart for New York ever since (that game), and New Yorkers continue to reciprocate.”

—Oscar Robertson

FURTHER READING:

The Big O—My Life, My Game by Oscar Robertson

VIDEO:

723. AMERICAN LEAGUE VS NATIONAL LEAGUE

MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL ALL-STAR GAME

JULY 10, 1934

POLO GROUNDS

QUALITY OF PLAY—6.24

DRAMA—6.29

STAR POWER—9.44

CONTEMPORARY IMPORT—6.94

HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE—8.38

LOCAL IMPACT—7.22

TOTAL: 44.52

“FIVE IN A ROW”

Baseball’s first-ever All-Star Game was held in Chicago in the summer of 1933, the brainchild of the legendary sports editor of the Tribune, Arch Ward. Later that fall, the New York Giants won the World Series behind the fantastic left arm of screwball specialist Carl Hubbell, who won a pair of games against the Washington Senators, pitching twenty shutout innings across the two wins.

In a time before the Cy Young Award, Hubbell won the MVP Award in ’33, after a 23-win, 1.66-ERA season, and midway through the 1934 season he was 12-5 (en route to 21 wins and another N.L.-topping ERA, as well as 8 saves). So naturally, he was tabbed to start the second-ever All-Star Game, held in his home park, the Polo Grounds in upper Manhattan, before 48,000 fans (some 15,000 were turned away at the gates). During his abbreviated appearance on the mound, Hub helped turn the exhibition game from newly-invented curio into the Midsummer Classic, a bit of Americana that was of immense interest for the next half-century before its recent decline into near-irrelevancy.

A ‘World Series air” (Times) permeated Coogan’s Bluff on Tuesday afternoon, July 10, 1934 as the best players in the National Pastime arrived in Harlem. Before the game began, festivities were halted briefly for the unveiling of a ceremonial plaque dedicated to “Mister Giant” himself, the late John McGraw, who passed away that February. Hubbell was then presented with the 1933 MVP Award trophy at home plate.

As you might expect, Hub would have to face a murderous American League lineup in the game, fronted by the Big Bam himself, Babe Ruth. The Babe was 39 years young and in his final season as a Yankee, but formidable nonetheless (he would have 22 homers and 84 RBI to go with 104 walks in 1934). Ruth entered the All-Star Game perched at 699 career homers, an unthinkable number for the time (#700 came three days later in Detroit).

In the top of the first inning, Hub made things hard on himself. Detroit’s Charlie Gehringer led off the game with a single, and Washington’s Heinie Manush walked. That brought the Sultan of Swat to the plate with two on and nobody out. The crowd stood as one as this lefty-lefty/legend-legend matchup began.

It proved to be one-sided. “Ruth looked at one, took one, and looked at a third, and that was that,” reported Paul Gallico in the Daily News. It was a stunning “Good afternoon, good evening and good night” trio of screwballs from Hubbell. The much awaited confrontation was over, seemingly before it even began. “Ruth stood there like a big Dopey Dan and let a third strike go sizzling past his upholstered midriff,” wrote Jimmy Powers, also in the News (the paper sent four reporters to the game).

“I couldn’t even see the ball when he threw it,” admitted a dazed Babe.

But Hubbell was hardly out of the woods. Precisely on that July day in 1934, each of the next men in the A.L. lineup was considerably more formidable, if not more storied, than the Babe. Striding to the plate next was Ruth’s teammate in the Bronx, “Larrupin’” Lou Gehrig. All Gehrig would do in ’34 was win the Triple Crown, with a .363 average to go with his 49 homers and 166 RBI. But Hubbell put him down swinging. “Any more fish today?” asked Powers in a contemporary insult of the two Yankees.

Indeed there were. How about Jimmie “Double X” Foxx, the Philadelphia A’s powerhouse? In 1932 Foxx walloped 58 homers, a Ruthian figure that shocked baseball fans nationwide. He was coming off consecutive MVP seasons, and would rack up 44 more homers in ’34, but he too went down on strikes, the last one a mighty hack that Foxx missed by a foot.

Incredibly, Hubbell had just struck out three of the greatest sluggers the game has ever known. The roar from the amassed throng was titanic. The cheers grew even louder in the bottom of the first, when old friend Frankie “The Fordham Flash” Frisch, now a Cardinal but a beloved Giant for eight seasons, led off the inning with a homer off Lefty Gomez of the hated Yankees. So Hubbell returned to the mound for the second inning up 1-0.

His task wasn’t any easier. The first batter was Al Simmons of the White Sox, a lifetime .334 hitter across no fewer than twenty seasons. But he was no match for Hubbell’s scroogie. He too fanned, as did the next hitter, Washington’s “Boy Pilot,” player-manager Joe Cronin, who was runner-up to Foxx for the 1933 AL MVP and was managing the Americans on this day as well after his Senators lost to the Giants in the ’33 World Series. Five straight strikeouts, of five immortal hitters!

"Hubbell is unquestionably the greatest pitcher I have even seen," said Cronin. "He showed himself out there today. He has something no other pitcher has—a screw-ball with which you just can't do a thing. He can throw the ball through a knothole.”

At last, Bill Dickey of the Yankees ended the strikeout streak, whacking a single. But Hubbell struck out Gomez to end the inning, giving him six Ks in two innings of work. It would become legend that Hub fanned six Hall of Famers, including Gomez, though the Cooperstown Museum wouldn’t open until 1939.

Hubbell struck out 1,677 batters in his 16-year career, but despite the five straight Ks he wasn’t really known for whiffing batters. “I never was a strikeout pitcher like Bob Feller or Dizzy Dean or Dazzy Vance,” Hubbell said. “My style of pitching was to make the other team hit the ball on the ground. It was as big a surprise to me to strike out all those fellows as it probably was to them.”

Surprise or not, the easy set down of Ruth-Gehrig-Foxx-Simmons-Cronin (a quintet baseball fans would recite with ease for decades) would arguably become, even given Hubbell’s other achievements, the defining moment of his career. As The Sporting News wrote, “[It] amounted to one of the greatest pitching achievements of modern times.” It would also help launch the still-nascent All-Star Game into the stratosphere of fan interest, and make the contest one that the players took very seriously well into the modern age.

Meanwhile, there was still a game to play. Ducky Medwick launched a three-run homer in the third off Gomez to make it 4-0, N.L., and it seemed this would be a day for the Senior Circuit to rejoice over besting the Junior Loop and gaining revenge for the All-Star loss from the year before. Hubbell pitched a third shutout inning, then left as Chicago’s Lon Warneke took over. Alas, “The Arkansas Hummingbird” was no Hubbell. Warneke gave up a pair in the fourth to halve the lead, and walked Ruth and Gehrig to start the fifth. The epically-named Van Lingle Mungo came in, and the A.L. rocked VLM for six runs to take the lead, 8-4.

The wild game continued, as the home team tallied three to cut it to 8-7, but Cleveland hurler Mel Harder put out the fire in the bottom of the fifth to preserve the lead, then went the final four innings, shutting out the Nationals en route to a 9-7 victory. Yes, Hubbell may have entered baseball lore, but it was the unheralded Harder who got the win and the (unofficial at the time) game MVP, with five innings of one-hit ball against the galaxy of Senior Circuit stars. It is a little-recalled footnote that in the game Hubbell whiffed the five straight legends his team lost.

"We'll get 'em in the Fall, the way we did last year," said “Memphis” Bill Terry of the Giants after the defeat.

AFTERMATH:

The N.L. did indeed get ‘em in the 1934 Fall Classic, but it wasn’t Terry and Hubbell’s Giants representing the league, as the G-men choked away the pennant. They blew a 7-game lead on September 6 and a 2.5-game lead in the final week, losing their last five and allowing the Gashouse Gang Cardinals to snag the flag. St. Louis went on to edge the Tigers in seven thrilling games to win it all, taking the last two games in Detroit to do so. Hubbell won another MVP Award, unanimously, in 1936, and would wind up with nine All-Star Game selections in all. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1947.

The Polo Grounds hosted one more All-Star Game, in 1942, a wartime affair that was originally slated for Brooklyn’s Ebbets Field but was moved to Manhattan because the Polo Grounds seated more fans, and the proceeds were donated to the war effort. The A.L. won that one too, 3-1.

WHAT THEY SAID:

“Well, you may close up the books on the great All-Star game for me. A slim, tanned fellow with No. 14 pinned to his back has gone trotting off the field…while a crowd of 50,000 thousand lovers of pure baseball cover his departure with crashing applause and cheers that lingered long after the figure in gray had taken the last pat on the back from ecstatic bleacherites who leaned far out of the stands by the locker room door in center field to pat the wonderful shoulder of the man who had struck out Ruth and Gehrig and Foxx in a row…in addition to Messrs. Simmons and Cronin. Those of us who watched Hubbell operate will treasure the brief period as some of the greatest innings of baseball ever pitched.”

—Paul Gallico, New York Daily News

FURTHER READING:

The Midsummer Classic by David Vincent, Lyle Spatz and David Smith

VIDEO:

https://www.mlb.com/video/midsummer-classics-1934-c15759677

You can also listen to the radio broadcast of the game, which is endlessly fascinating, here.