“DON’T CRY UNCLE!” and “KNICKS UNITED”
#766/#765
766. BROOKLYN ROBINS VS BOSTON RED SOX
WORLD SERIES
GAME THREE
OCTOBER 10, 1916
EBBETS FIELD
QUALITY OF PLAY—6.24
DRAMA—6.09
STAR POWER—5.11
CONTEMPORARY IMPORT—9.35
HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE—8.55
LOCAL IMPACT—8.75
TOTAL: 44.09
“DON’T CRY UNCLE!”
It was considered one of the bigger mismatches in the young history of the World Series. In one corner were the defending champion Boston Red Sox, led by Hall of Fame outfielder Harry Hooper and an elite pitching staff fronted by Ernie Shore and a young left-hander named Babe Ruth. In the other corner was the shock champion of the National League in 1916, the perennial doormats from Brooklyn.
They were known as the Robins, not the Dodgers, in honor of their manager, a Falstaffian figure named Wilbert Robinson (some still called the team the Superbas, yet another of the multiple Brooklyn nicknames that floated about before Dodgers finally stuck). “Uncle Robbie” had been a key part of the notorious Baltimore Orioles of the 19th Century, a hard-drinking, rule-bending outfit that terrorized the American Association. But he softened when he turned to managing, in stark contrast to his Orioles teammate and manager of his great rivals, the Giants, John McGraw. Robinson had been McGraw’s assistant in Gotham for some time, but Muggsy abused Robbie more and more, at last dumping a beer over his head at an Orioles reunion party.
End of relationship.
The Dodgers/Robins under Robinson’s watch were usually bottom of the table, but once in a while the stars aligned and the lovable “Bums,” his motley crew of youngsters and castoffs, put together a dream season.
One such campaign came in 1916, thanks in part to snazzy new checkered uniforms. The pitching staff was led by workhorse Jeff Pfeffer and some older vets like Rube Marquard, who had starred for the enemy Giants. The lineup was fronted by star outfielder Zach Wheat and featured another young buck more notable for his fiery style and witty banter, Casey Stengel. The Robins won 94 games and the first pennant Brooklyn had seen since 1900, and made their first ever trip to the modern World Series. Few gave them much hope against the classy defending champs from Massachusetts, even though the Sox had traded superstar Tris Speaker after a contract dispute before the season.
The first two games were held in Boston, not at the new Fenway Park but at the much larger (and thus more profitable) Braves Field on Commonwealth Avenue. The Sox took them both, holding off a 4-run rally in the ninth inning of the opener to win 6-5 and then scoring in the 14th inning to win a 2-1 knuckle-biter behind Babe Ruth, who pitched all 14 innings for the win (and knocked in Boston’s first run). It was the start of the Babe’s legendary scoreless streak in the Fall Classic, one that would reach 29 2/3rds innings.
So the Robins were down 2-0 as expected, but the games were so tight they had found some confidence, an optimism inflated by Uncle Robbie on the train back to New York. “We can win this!” he insisted.
It was a windy, frigid Tuesday afternoon in Brooklyn when Game Three began on October 10, 1916 at Ebbets Field in front of 21,000 rabid fans, not close to a sellout on account of the cold. Carl Mays, who would soon head south to New York as Ruth did, took the hill for the Sox. His opponent for the Brooks was Jack Coombs, a classic Brooklyn Robins player. Like Alice Marble one slot before on the countdown, Coombs was an intriguing comeback story. A stud pitcher with the dynastic Philadelphia A’s of the early 1910s, he won 80 games in ’10-12 and another four World Series starts. But in 1913 Coombs contracted typhoid fever, and nearly died. True to the loving, humanistic nature of professional sport, particularly in the Deadball Era, Philly released Coombs while he lay on his deathbed. But he recovered, and made it back to the bigs in 1915 with the Robins. In 1916 he was 13-8 with a 2.66 ERA, and now the base balling Brooklyns pinned their title hopes on Typhoid Jack.
The stiff breeze that gusted through Brooklyn that afternoon came to Coombs’ aid immediately, blowing a long drive by Hooper clubbed to lead off the game just foul. Jack settled in, and his mates gave him the lead with an RBI single by George Cutshaw in the third. They scored again thanks to an error by Boston third sacker Larry Gardner, the hero of the 1912 Series, and a run-scoring hit by Coombs, helping himself.
A couple of borderline judgments by home plate umpire Hank O’Day in the fifth led to walks by Mays, and Brooklyn’s Ivy Olson, who once upon a time bullied his fellow schoolmate in Kansas City, Casey Stengel, tripled in a pair of runners to double the Robins’ lead to 4-0. Mays, always on the edge of a violent tantrum, hurled his glove down on the mound in fury.
The Ebbets crowd was celebratory, but they were premature in their laurels. Boston rebounded with a pair of runs thanks to the brilliant Hooper, who tripled in one man and scored on a subsequent hit. Now down 4-2, the Sox needed some help, and they got it in the bottom of the sixth. Brooklyn’s Jake Daubert, an early star first sacker mostly lost to history, rammed a mighty shot that arrowed down the left-field line to the wall. Jake rounded the bases and barreled home. Waiting for him was the personal catcher for Mays (and Babe Ruth) that season, Chet “Pinch” Thomas, a notorious brawler who ironically was adept with sensitive types like Mays and the Babe.
The throw came in just as Daubert slid home. “Safe!!” bellowed O’Day. But Pinch was having none of it. In a lengthy defense of his position that belied his rough and tumble nature, the catcher pointed out his position and the pathway in the dirt left by Daubert’s slide, and argued the Brooklyn star could not possibly have touched home. Incredibly, O’Day, ordinarily a Hanging Judge of the first order, was swayed by Pinch’s testimony, and reversed the call. Daubert was out, the inning was over, and Boston still trailed just 4-2. The crowd unleashed a fusillade of protest, but this time, O’Day stood firm. “The decision met with scant favor in the stands, but was doubtless correct,” thought the Times.
It became 4-3 when Gardner stroked a solo homer to left, and the home team feared the worst. That was enough for Robinson. He removed Coombs, turning at last to his hulking ace, “Big" Jeff Pfeffer, who won 25 games in ’16 with a 1.91 ERA but had barely pitched in the Series thus far. Now he faced the Bostons in a key moment—Brooklyn’s hopes rested on his right arm.
Pfeffer was a highly competitive, combative sort, and he channeled that anger to good use here. “He’s no squab, nor is he a broiler,” noted the Times. “Yet no steel-muscled youth could have been a more deadly Lord High Executioner of Boston aspirations than was Jeff." He faced eight batters and mowed them all down, striking out three and not allowing Boston even a sniff at what would be a de facto Series-winning rally.
When Duffy Lewis hit a weak fly ball to right to end the game, “thousands of leaping, yelling, dancing fans swarmed from the bleachers and moved in grotesque parade about the greensward, a frenzied snake dance,” according to the Times. Pfeffer tossed his glove in the air in triumph, then shot a glare at his manager. Cowed, Robinson (not quite the fool he made himself out to be) decided then and there to start Pfeffer in Game Five.
AFTERMATH:
Brooklyn kept the mojo going in Game Four, scoring a pair in the first inning off Dutch Leonard. But Gardner turned the game Boston’s way, smashing a liner to center in the second inning that squirted away from the Robins outfielders, resulting in a three-run, inside-the-park homer that blunted Brooklyn’s momentum. “That one blow, delivered deep into the barren lands of center field,” Grantland Rice wrote, “shattered Brooklyn’s wavering defense and practically closed out the series.” Boston won that one 6-2 and returned to the Hub to take Game Five behind Ernie Shore, defeating Pfeffer and winning their second straight Series. Boston won another title behind Ruth in 1918, but a contentious 1919 season resulted in the infamous sale to New York, and the Curse of the Bambino began.
Brooklyn returned to its usual place near the bottom of the standings for the next three seasons, rebounded for another pennant (and World Series defeat) in 1920, then sailed back into the doldrums for two decades before emerging as a powerhouse, now fully known as the Dodgers, in the 40s and 50s. Uncle Robbie was long gone.
WHAT THEY SAID:
“The bright colors of the Boston Red Sox champions were lowered by National League men from Brooklyn this afternoon, and the fans of Ebbetsville are a happy lot tonight, for they hardly hoped to see their team win even one game from the skillful men from Boston.”
—T.H. Murnane, Boston Globe
FURTHER READING:
Wilbert Robinson SABR Bio, by Alex Semchuck
VIDEO:
765. NEW YORK KNICKS VS MINNEAPOLIS LAKERS
NBA FINALS
GAME SIX
APRIL 23, 1952
69TH REGIMENT ARMORY
QUALITY OF PLAY—6.51
DRAMA—7.31
STAR POWER—7.75
CONTEMPORARY IMPORT—7.55
HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE—9.05
LOCAL IMPACT—5.93
TOTAL: 44.10
“KNICKS UNITED”
Even though the place still was an open construction site, the first United Nations employees arrived for work at their new offices on the east side of Manhattan early in 1952. This new governing body that would (hopefully) prevent the wars that devoured the globe in the first half of the 20th Century was originally meant to oversee the world from an independent site, perhaps its own city, but reality prevented that. Instead, a plaza containing buildings with a wonderful sleek modern design (ideated by fabled Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier, whose relationship with NYC was long and loving) was situated on land donated by the Rockefeller family. Construction began along the East River in Turtle Bay, on First Avenue between 42nd and 48th Streets. The international offices continued a “soft open” until their official dedication in the fall of ’52, but the extraordinary modern—although some thought fascist—architecture was instantly iconic.
It was just a short walk from the new palace, not twenty blocks south and three blocks west, to the 69th Regiment Armory. It was a journey into the past. If the U.N. building was the irrepressible New, the Armory, designed in a Beaux-Arts style, represented the tossed-aside Old, built to honor New York’s “Fighting Irish” Civil War volunteer regiment. In this modern age conflicts were thought to be global, not internecine. The Armory was built in the early-1900s, but it was already a dated throwback before it turned fifty.
Ironically, then, the Armory was the site of the earliest big games played by the City’s soon-to-be favorite team, playing its soon-to-be favorite sport. Who would believe that one day in the not so distant future the Knicks would scoff at playing a championship series in this tiny building, one that could only hold about 5,000 fans? Who could countenance the media reports delegated to the deep interior of the local newspapers, the City not hanging on every jump shot?
Yes, in 1952 the NBA was still fledgling, professional basketball still nothing compared to the collegiate version, the Knicks still a fun curiosity. When the Barnum & Bailey Circus came to town every spring, it took over Madison Square Garden and kicked the ‘Bockers down and across town, to 25th and Lex, where the Armory took them in like a lost puppy, just in time for the earliest NBA Finals.
The Knicks returned to the summit of professional hoops in 1952 after a bitter seventh game defeat at the hands of Rochester in 1951. The opponent this time was Minneapolis, a town not quite so podunk as Rochester (which at least was in the state), but still flyover country, unimportant enough to recall what Dan Parker, the editor of the New York Mirror, once said about the new NBA:
“What in hell is New York doing in the same league as Sheboygan?”
The Wisconsin entry folded after one season, and in truth, Minnesota was the epicenter of early NBA action, thanks to the Lakers and their incomparable big man, George Mikan, whom we have encountered several times already in the countdown. In 1952, he led his western squad to NYC after splitting the first two games of the NBA Finals in the Land of 10,000 Lakes. They took a tough Game Three, then fell at the Armory to even the series. Minny won the critical Game Five at home, however, so they were in a position to win it all when the teams returned to the long shadow of the U.N. for Game Six, held on Wednesday night, April 23, 1952.
Only 3,000 fans turned up, a tiny number given the stakes, even smaller than the previous two games held at the Armory. “The drill shed was little more than half filled,” noticed Lou Effrat in the Times. Minneapolis’ dominating display in Game Five, with Mikan scoring 32 (with 17 rebounds) and teammate Vern Mikkelson adding 32 of his own in a 13 point victory, might have had something to do with it. The Knicks were a deep, plucky group, with a different star seemingly every night, but it was apparent they were outclassed by Mikan and the Lakers. Could they possibly extend the series?
They came out in their usual run ’n’ fun style (the 1950s version of Showtime), but New York’s shooting was horrific. They would make just 27 of 72 attempts on the night. But the Lakers were even worse, shooting 29 of 80. Mikan scored 28 but hardly dominated as he had the game before. Meanwhile, his All-Star forward combo provided no support. Mikkelson was invisible with foul trouble, and small forward Jim “The Kangaroo Kid” Pollard, who had 34 points in Game One, was injured. The guards were unable to throw the ball in the ocean. The Knicks took an early lead, and would have run away and hid but for their own poor shooting. Overall the game was an early forerunner to the Knicks-Heat wars of attrition of nearly a half-century later, only with fewer fans.
Most of the Knicks struggled in the second half, save Max Zaslovsky. The lanky Jewish lad from Brownsville in Brooklyn came alive with 17 points after halftime, and led the team with 23 overall. Mikan matched him as the game remained close throughout.
It was the Lakers who went as cold as a Minnesota lake in winter down the stretch. Mikan dunked home a missed free throw with 7:45 to play—and his team didn’t make another field goal until the final minute. New York’s Dick McGuire took over the game from there, the point guard swishing a tie-breaking jumper midway through the final period and then setting up teammates for easy looks—teammates who were repeatedly fouled on a regular path to the free throw line.
The Knicks went on an 8-0 run over that period, and would win by that very margin, 76-68, in a rather drab encounter. Had it not been an elimination playoff game in the NBA Finals, it would have resembled a Wednesday night game in midseason with both teams exhausted from travel. Mikan had predicted the series would go seven, and sure enough, he had been proven correct.
But as it was, the Knicks had won a pivotal game and forced the NBA championship to be decided by a Game Seven 48 hours hence, far and far into the west, a place where few of the newly united nations of the world thought about, unless they were Swedes.
AFTERMATH:
The fast-paced style the Knicks liked to play—aka the City Game—was blunted at the Minneapolis Auditorium, where the court was shorter and narrower by several feet, giving the Lakers slower but immense big men the advantage. And indeed, they parlayed that to a Game Seven win, taking the series in an 82-65 rout that saw the Knicks frustrated and heartbroken for the second straight season. Mikan led the way with 22 points and 19 rebounds. It was the Lakers second title in three seasons (and they won the BAA championship in 1949 before the NBA formed as well).
The winners got $7,500 to split, the Knicks $5,000.
WHAT THEY SAID:
“Our style won the game for us. Our boys kept on running and wore them down in the end.”
—Knicks coach Joe Lapchick
FURTHER READING:
When Basketball Was Jewish by Douglas Stark
VIDEO: