October 10, 1931: With Pepper Martin tying a World Series record with 12 hits, the St. Louis Cardinals defeat the Philadelphia Athletics, 4-2 in Game 7, and take the Series, denying the A's the chance to become the 1st team to win 3 straight Series.
Burleigh Grimes, the last pitcher legally allowed to throw a spitball, had a shutout going in the 9th, but he tired, and Cardinal manager Gabby Street had to call on Bill Hallahan to nail down the win. "Wild Bill" did not live up to his nickname, and finished the A's off.
The A's had won 107 games, 6 more than the Cardinals. Lefty Grove had perhaps the best season any pitcher had had since the institution of the 60 feet, 6 inches pitching distance in 1893: 31-4, an .886 winning percentage, a 2.06 ERA, 175 strikeouts, and (not that anybody knew about this stat at the time) a 1.077 WHIP, leading the American League in all of those categories. This was the 1st season of the current version of Major League Baseball's Most Valuable Player awards, and Grove was easily chosen for the AL's award, despite Lou Gehrig of the New York Yankees setting an AL record that still stands with 185 RBIs. Only 2 pitchers since have won 31 games, and only 1 has gotten 31.
George Earnshaw went 21-7, to form a great lefty-righty pitching combination. Jimmie Foxx, Al Simmons and Mickey Cochrane were among the heaviest hitters in the sport. Manager Connie Mack's A's were 1 win away from winning 3 straight World Series.
But Martin, perhaps the scrappiest of scrappy players in the scrappy Depression era, led a team that also included National League MVP Frankie Frisch, and sluggers Charles "Chick" Hafey and "Sunny" Jim Bottomley.
Sportsman's Park
It wasn't just the Cardinals giving the A's trouble: It was the Depression itself. Mack and Cochrane had lost a lot of money in the stock market's Crash of 1929. On October 5, the morning of Game 3 of the Series, officials from the Franklin Trust Bank told Cochrane that the bank had failed, and had come to collect on the money they'd loaned him. He was being called the best catcher in baseball, and would eventually be called the best catcher in baseball history -- before Bill Dickey, Yogi Berra and Johnny Bench came along to complicate the question -- but he went just 4-for-25 in the 1931 World Series.
The A's would not win another Pennant for 41 years, and that would only come after moving twice. By that point, the Cards had won another 8 Pennants.
Johnny Leonard Roosevelt Martin was a Leap Year baby, born on February 29, 1904 in Temple, Oklahoma, and grew up in Oklahoma City. Known as "Pepper" and "The Wild Hoss of the Osage," his scrappy style of play, and his tendency toward practical jokes, were symbolic of the Cardinal teams of the 1930s, who eventually became known as "The Gashouse Gang," winning the World Series again in 1934.
He appeared in 4 of the 1st 5 All-Star Games, and batted .298 for his career, although his low power numbers have prevented him from becoming a serious candidate for the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Having gotten 12 hits in a single World Series, Martin matched Buck Herzog of the 1912 New York Giants and Shoeless Joe Jackson of the 1919 Chicago White Sox. Unlike them, Martin's 12 hits helped his team win the Series. This would also be the case with the next player to do it, one very much in Martin's scrappy style: Billy Martin of the 1953 New York Yankees.
There have since been 3 players to top this total, with 13 hits in a single World Series, but all 3 of their teams lost: Bobby Richardson of the 1964 Yankees (to the Cardinals), Lou Brock of the 1968 Cardinals, and Marty Barrett of the 1986 Boston Red Sox.
Martin died in 1965. Infielder Ray Cunningham, who played just 3 games that season, and not at all in the Series, plus 11 more games the next season before fading, was the last survivor of the 1931 World Champion Cardinals, dying in 2005, age 100.
UPDATE: The Cardinals have a team Hall of Fame. From their 1931 World Champions, they have inducted team owner Sam Breadon, general manager Branch Rickey, 2nd baseman and manager Frankie Frisch, 1st baseman Jim Bottomley, left fielder Charles "Chick" Hafey and pitcher Jesse Haines.
Bottomley and Frisch were elected to the St. Louis Sports Hall of Fame. Rickey, Frisch, and manager Charles "Gabby" Street were elected to the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame.
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October 10, 1931 was a Saturday. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. The NHL season wouldn't begin for another month. There was 1 game played in the NFL: The Providence Steam Roller beat the Frankford Yellow Jackets, 6-0 at Baker Bowl in Philadelphia. The Yellow Jackets had to play home games on Saturdays, because Pennsylvania's ban on professional sports on Sunday wouldn't be overturned for another 2 years. Both the Steam Roller (never with an S on the end) and the Yellow Jackets folded at the end of this Depression-wracked season.
Among the notable college football games played that day were these:
* The University of Georgia came north and beat the school of their founders, Yale University, 26-7 at the Yale Bowl in New Haven, Connecticut.
* Army beat Michigan State, 20-7 at Michie Stadium in West Point, New York.
* New York University (NYU) beat Georgetown, 34-0 at Yankee Stadium.
* Princeton lost to Brown, 19-7 at Palmer Stadium in Princeton, New Jersey.
* Maryland beat Navy, 6-0 at Griffith Stadium in Washington.
* Tulane beat Spring Hill, 40-0 at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans.
* In a rivalry that will one day be known as the Backyard Brawl, the University of Pittsburgh beat West Virginia, 34-0 at Pitt Stadium in Pittsburgh.
* Vanderbilt, a good team at the time, came north and beat Ohio State, 26-21 at Ohio Stadium in Columbus.
* Michigan beat the University of Chicago, 13-7 at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor.
* Notre Dame and Northwestern played to a tie, 0-0 at Soldier Field in Chicago.
* In a rivalry that will one day become major, Nebraska beat Oklahoma, 13-0 at Memorial Stadium in Lincoln, Nebraska.
* The University of Southern California beat Washington State, 38-6 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. USC beat Tulane in the Rose Bowl, and were awarded the National Championship.
* And in what would have been a good Rose Bowl matchup in that era, Stanford beat Minnesota, 13-0 at Stanford Stadium in the San Francisco suburb of Palo Alto, California.
