September 27, 1940: The Cleveland Crybabies

Ossie Vitt (left) and Bob Feller, 1939

September 27, 1940: The Cleveland Indians complete the blowing of what could have been their greatest season.

The season began superbly, on April 16, as Bob Feller pitched a no-hitter against the Chicago White Sox. It remains the only no-hitter ever pitched in a season opener. The Indians would get a 27-11 season from Feller, and 18-10 from Al Milnar. They got good hitting seasons from Lou Boudreau, Hal Trosky, Ken Keltner, Ray Mack, Roy Weatherly, Beau Bell and Ben Chapman.

As late as September 18, they were in 1st place in the American League. There seemed to be a good chance at an All-Ohio World Series, as the Cincinnati Reds were winning the National League Pennant.

Their manager was Oscar "Ossie" Vitt. A former 3rd baseman for the Detroit Tigers and the Boston Red Sox, he had managed one of the greatest minor-league teams ever, the 1937 International League Pennant-winning Newark Bears, a New York Yankees farm team. The Indians immediately hired him, and he took them to 3rd place in 1938 and 1939.

He was a demanding manager, saying when he was hired, "I don't want any lazy players on my club. If the boys won't hustle, out they go." This led to some ill feeling between him and the players.

On June 11, 1940, matters came to a head when he went to the mound to remove Mel Harder, usually his 2nd-best starting pitcher behind Feller. "When are you going to start earning your salary?" asked Vitt of Harder, who had won at least 15 games for 8 consecutive seasons, including two 20-win seasons.

The team revolted, and many players signed a petition to have Vitt removed. After the incident with Harder, 12 Indians players met with team owner Alva Bradley to state their grievances against Vitt, whom they described as a "wild man." They made it clear they hoped he would be fired.

In the closed-door meeting between Indians players and owner, Harder told Bradley: "We think we have a good chance to win the Pennant, but we'll never win it with Vitt as manager. If we can get rid of him, we can win. We feel sure about that."

Bradley sought to keep the controversy quiet, but the story quickly got out. In those days, the media tended to side with management against players, because team owners tended to be rich men who bought advertising space in newspapers. So headlines, all over the nation, referred gleefully to the Indians as the "Cleveland Crybabies."

Bradley refused to fire Vitt. Through June, the Indians were 42–25. After June, with the "Crybabies" harangue clanging in the papers and from the stands, they went 47–40. Despite the hullabaloo and ridicule, the Indians battled the Yankees and the Tigers for the Pennant. After winning it 4 times in a row, the Yankees tailed off toward the end.

On Friday, September 27, the Indians began a season-ending 3-game series against the Tigers. The Tigers led by 2 games, so the Indians had to sweep the series to win the Pennant. A crowd of 32,553 filed into Municipal Stadium that afternoon -- the stadium already had lights, but this was a day game -- and the Indians had the right man on the mound, Feller.

The Tigers started Floyd Giebell, a 30-year-old righthander from West Virginia, with all of 24 1/3rd major league innings under his belt. While both teams had serious hitters in their lineup -- the Tigers included Hall-of-Famers Hank Greenberg and Charlie Gehringer -- the pitching matchup seemed to seriously favor the Indians.

Feller went the distance, allowing 2 runs on 3 hits, striking out 4, but also walking 8. In contrast, Giebell had the game of his life, allowing 6 hits and 2 walks, and pitching a shutout. In the top of the 4th inning, Gehringer drew a walk, and Rudy York hit a home run. That was all Giebell needed, as he made the 2-0 score stand up to the end. The Tigers had their 3rd Pennant in the last 7 seasons.

Floyd Giebell

The Indians won the last 2 games of the series and the season, 2-1 and 3-2, but it didn't matter. They finished 1 game back. The Tigers went on to lose the World Series to the Reds in 7 games. In 3 seasons as Tribe manager, Vitt had won 86, 87 and 89 games, decent totals that would normally have earned him a 4th season. But with the defeat in the Feller-Giebell matchup, the blame shifted from the "crybaby" players to him. Bradley fired Vitt.

Then Bradley made the opposite mistake: He hired Roger Peckinpaugh as his new manager. Once one of baseball's best shortstops, he closed the 1914 season as the interim manager for the Yankees for 15 games. At 23, he was the youngest manager in baseball history. He didn't manage again until 1928, with the Indians, leading them through 1933. In 1941, he was no longer a kid, but was, perhaps, a little too lenient, and the Indians had a losing season. Bradley fired him.

Boudreau was just 24, but had captained the baseball and basketball teams at Bradley University (not named for Alva Bradley), and offered himself as the next Indians manager. With World War II already taking possible candidates, Alva Bradley agreed. After he sold the team, new owner Bill Veeck loved Boudreau as a shortstop and a hitter, but not as a manager. Boudreau hung on until 1948, leading the team to a World Championship at age 31.

The win advanced Giebell to 3-1 in his career. It would be his last career decision. He made 17 appearances for the Tigers in 1941, all but 2 in relief. He spent the 1942 season with the International League's Buffalo Bisons, and the next 3 seasons serving in World War II. He got as high as the Class AA Dallas Eagles, but finished in 1948. He lived until 2004.

Vitt never managed again, at any level. He returned to his native Oakland, California, and died in 1963.

To this day, there has never been an All-Ohio World Series. Both the Indians/Guardians and the Reds have made the Playoffs in 1995, 1999, 2013 and 2020, but they've never won their respective Pennants in the same season.

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September 27, 1940 was a Friday. These other baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Philadelphia Athletics, 6-2 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. Johnny Babich outpitched Marius Russo. Joe DiMaggio went 1-for-4. Babich went 14-13 that season, but 5-1 against the Yankees, and that made the difference: The Yankees ended up finishing in 3rd place, 2 games behind the Tigers and 1 behind the Indians. With Hall of Fame pitcher Lefty Gomez hurt for much of the season, and shortstop Frank Crosetti batting just .194, leading to his replacement the next season by rookie Phil Rizzuto, it would be the only season between 1936 and 1943 when the Yankees didn't win the Pennant.

* The New York Giants lost to the Philadelphia Phillies, 6-0 at the Polo Grounds. Hugh Mulcahy pitched a 4-hit shutout, to outpitch Carl Hubbell. Center fielder Johnny Rucker got 2 of the Giants' 4 hits. Mel Ott went 0-for-2 with 2 walks. Chuck Klein and Bernie Warren hit home runs.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Washington Senators, 24-4 at Fenway Park in Boston. The BoSox fell behind 2-0 in the 1st inning, but scored 5 runs in the 3rd, 10 in the 4th, and 7 in the 8th. Ted Williams went 2-for-5 with 4 RBIs. Dom DiMaggio (Joe's brother) went 4-for-5 with 2 RBIs. Bobby Doerr and shortstop-manager Joe Cronin hit home runs.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Cincinnati Reds, 4-3 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. Arky Vaughan doubled home Bob Elliott in the top of the 10th inning. It didn't matter, as the Reds ran away with the Pennant.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the St. Louis Browns, 4-3 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Luke Appling singled Joe Kuhel home in the bottom of the 10th inning.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat their arch-rivals, the Chicago Cubs, 11-1 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis.

* And, to make it easier on each team's schedule, the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Boston Bees (this would be the last of 5 seasons under that name, before going back to "Braves") agreed to move today's scheduled game at Ebbets Field to make a doubleheader for the day before. Boston won both games, 5-2 and 5-4.