Spud Chandler
October 11, 1943: Game 5 of the World Series is played at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. The New York Yankees beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 2-0. Spurgeon "Spud" Chandler completes his MVP season -- 20-4 with a 1.74 ERA -- with a shutout in Game 5, after he had already won Game 1, and the Yankees win their 10th World Championship, avenging the previous year's Series defeat.
The Yankees had won Game 1 of the 1942 World Series in St. Louis, but the Cards won the next 4 straight, including 3 at Yankee Stadium. This time, wartime travel restrictions led to a new format: The 1st 3 games would be in New York, and any remaining games would be in St. Louis. The Yankees won Game 1, the Cards Game 2, and the Yankees the next 3.
The key play came in Game 3: With the Cards leading 2-1, Johnny Lindell led off the bottom of the 8th, and got to 2nd base when center fielder Harry Walker mishandled the ball. George "Snuffy" Stirnweiss tried to bunt Lindell over, and 1st baseman Ray Sanders tried to get lead runner Lindell out at 3rd. As Lindell slid, 3rd baseman Whitey Kurowski lowered his head, and the men's heads collided, causing Kurowski to drop the ball. Frank Crosetti was intentionally walked to load the bases and set up an out at any base, but Billy J tripled all 3 runs home, and the Yankees ended up winning, 6-2.
The Yankees won despite the manpower drain of World War II having cost them center fielder Joe DiMaggio, right fielder Tommy Henrich, shortstop Phil Rizzuto, and pitcher Red Ruffing. In addition, pitcher Lefty Gomez retired, and an illness forced 3rd baseman Red Rolfe to retire, though Johnson filled in admirably for the rest of the 1940s.
It's a little unfair to say that they had no superstars: They still had the best catcher in the game, Bill Dickey, who had been the team's de facto Captain since the illness-forced retirement of Lou Gehrig -- who would have been only 40 years old at this point, and likely still playing.
They also had slugging left fielder Charlie Keller, known as "King Kong" because he was not just very strong, but very hairy. Like former Cardinals star Joe Medwick with "Ducky," he hated the nickname.) They also had the previous season's American League Most Valuable Player, 2nd baseman Joe Gordon.
Chandler, Marius Russo, Ernest "Tiny" Bonham and Hank Borowy filled out the rotation, while Johnny Murphy was still baseball's best relief pitcher. With the rest of the American League more affected by the manpower drain, the Yankees won the Pennant, finishing 13 1/2 games ahead of the Washington Senators. It was their 3rd straight Pennant, their 7th in the last 8 seasons, and their 14th in the last 23. The AL could have been called "The Yankees and the Seven Dwarfs."
In contrast, the Cardinals kept most of their stars, including Stan Musial, who would spend 1945 in the Navy -- the one season between '42 and '46 that the Cards didn't win the National League Pennant. Enos Slaughter would also miss '44 and '45, but not '42 or '43. They had won the '43 Pennant by 18 games over the Cincinnati Reds.
With The War -- as my grandmother taught me, always Capital T, Capital W -- going on, this was the first time that the Office of the Commissioner of Baseball (basically, the name for the organization that would one day be called "Major League Baseball") authorized an official highlight film for the World Series, to be distributed to American military personnel, and later to civilian movie theaters. It included a filmed message from Babe Ruth, which he had previously delivered over national radio.
Nobody knew it at the time, but Dickey was about to be joining the Navy, as had the man then considered the other major contender for the title of the greatest catcher ever, Mickey Cochrane. Also unknown at the time was that Seaman Lawrence P. Berra, already nicknamed Yogi, was already in the Navy, and would not only become the only man to serve in the D-Day invasion and also play in Major League Baseball, but would replace Dickey as Yankee catcher -- and as the greatest catcher ever.
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October 11, 1943 was a Monday. There were no other scores on this historic day: The NBA hadn't been founded yet, the NHL season was 19 days away from starting, and the NFL was 26 years away from debuting Monday Night Football.
