September 4, 1941: The Earliest Pennant Clinching

Joe DiMaggio (left) and manager Joe McCarthy.

Holy cow, that's a rookie Phil Rizzuto at the right.

September 4, 1941: The New York Yankees clinch the American League Pennant. Aside from the 1918 season, when World War I forced an early end to the baseball season, making the Boston Red Sox and the Chicago Cubs premature winners, this is the earliest that any team in what we would now call Major League Baseball has clinched its League's Pennant.

The Yankees beat the Boston Red Sox, 6-3 at Fenway Park in Boston. Today, this would seem like a very big deal, because the Yankees and the Red Sox are the biggest rivalry in North American sports. But, at the time, the rivalry was one-way: Red Sox fans hated the Yankees, but Yankee fans treated the Red Sox as just another team, and the rivalry between the New York Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers was much bigger.

Atley Donald started for the Yankees, and went the distance for the win. Sox starter Dick Newsome didn't get out of the 3rd inning. Joe DiMaggio got the day off. But shortstop Phil Rizzuto, who would have won the AL's Rookie of the Year award had there been one at the time, went 3-for-5 with an RBI. For the Red Sox, Ted Williams drew 3 walks and singled.

With the game won, the Yankees now led the Red Sox by 20 1/2 games, and the Chicago White Sox by 20 games. Had the White Sox won every game remaining, they would have been 90-64. But if the Yankees had lost every game, they would have been 91-63, and the Yankees still would have won the Pennant.

In the end, the Yankees went 101-53, and finished 17 games ahead of the Red Sox, 24 ahead of the White Sox, 26 ahead of both the Cleveland Indians and the Detroit Tigers, 31 ahead of the Washington Senators and the St. Louis Browns, and 37 ahead of the Philadelphia Athletics.

Williams finished the game with a batting average of .411, and the season at .406. No player has batted .400 or higher -- or even .391 or higher -- in a full season since. Yet DiMaggio received the American League's Most Valuable Player award. Red Sox fans, now 3 generations removed, remain angry about this. They say that Ted's .406 average was a greater achievement than DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak the same season.

They forget that the award is named Most Valuable Player, not Most Outstanding Player. Ted's great season did not get the Red Sox above 6th place. Whereas, with the streak, DiMaggio put the Yankees on his back, and carried them to glory. On Game 3 of the streak, on May 17, the Yankees were 7 1/2 games out of 1st place in the American League. When the streak was stopped in Game 57, exactly 2 months later, they were in 1st place by 7 games, a 14 1/2-game swing; and, as I said, ended up winning the Pennant by 17 games, a 24 1/2-game swing.

Furthermore, Joe had more hits, 193 to Ted's 185; 348 total bases, to Ted's 335; 43 doubles, to Ted's 33; 11 triples, to Ted's 3; and 125 RBIs, to Ted's 120. Ted did have more home runs, 37 to 30.

*

September 4, 1941 was a Thursday. These other baseball games were played that day:

* The Pittsburgh Pirates led the Cincinnati Reds, 4-0 after 5 innings at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh, when the game was called due to rain.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Detroit Tigers, 7-6 in 10 innings at Briggs Stadium (later Tiger Stadium) in Detroit. Two future Hall-of-Famers started, Bob Feller and Hal Newhouser. Feller went the distance, Newhouser didn't. Dizzy Trout relieved Newhouser, but his defense let him down.

* And the Chicago Cubs swept their arch-rivals, the St. Louis Cardinals, 3-0 and 4-3. Claude Passeau pitched a 5-hit shutout in the opener, and a Cardinal error gave the Cubs the game in the bottom of the 11th inning.