“The Greatest Day of My Life”

Chet Laabs, a Browns stalwart

I actually knew a St. Louis Browns fan. My wife’s grandfather was born in the 1890s in the St. Louis area. He was just reaching an age when sports becomes important to a kid when the American League dropped a team in St. Louis to rival the Cardinals. He told me he became a Browns fan because they were new, and because he knew the Cardinals were terrible at the time. Unfortunately for him, the Cards got better and the Browns were traditionally awful. But in 1944 they won a pennant. The day they clinched the title he call “the greatest day of my life.” Then he looked around sheepishly to make sure no one else, especially his wife, had heard that claim. I made a promise that I would never tell either his wife or his daughter (my mother-in-law) he said that.

From the beginning the Browns were bad. They finished second in 1902 (OK, they weren’t bad the first season, but just wait), which is apparently what caught the attention of my wife’s grandfather. It was downhill from there. In 1908 they got back to the first division (4th), then stayed in the second division until 1920. They had decent runs in the 1920s, finishing as high as second (1922), third in 1921, 25, and 28. They finally found a handful of quality players. George Sisler was at first, hit .400, stole some bases, had no power. Ken Williams, Baby Doll Jacobson (they don’t make nicknames like that anymore, do they?), and Jack Tobin patrolled the outfield, and Urban Shocker was a better than average pitcher who went on to play for the 1927 Yankees.

It didn’t last. The 1930s were dismal. They finished as high as fifth once and the best they could do for an All Star was Harland Clift, a good ballplayer, but not a true star. Things got better in the 1940s. They finished third in 1942, the first war year, then won their first (and only) American League pennant in 1944. That year produced the above mentioned “greatest day of my life” moment for my wife’s grandfather. So in his honor, let’s take a moment and celebrate the stars of the only Browns pennant winner. The catcher was Red Hayworth, who hit .222 with an OPS just barely over .500. The infield consisted of  (from first around to third) George McQuinn, Don Gutteridge, Vern Stephens, and Mark Christman. If you’re lucky, you’ve probably heard of Stephens; and if so, it’s probably in conjunction with his stint with the Red Sox. The outfield had Gene Moore, Mike Kreevich, and Milt Byrnes. Chet Laabs was supposed to be the regular left fielder, but was off at war work for much of the season. He got back in time to play in the Series. The staff consisted of such household names as Denny Galehouse, Jack Kramer, Sig Jakucki, Bob Muncrief, and Nels Potter. All were right-handed and none went on to greatness. The main man off the bench was Al Zarilla, of “Zarilla slud into third” fame.  They lost to the Cardinals in six games.

“Zarilla slud into third” is a good way to look at the problem of the Browns. Their most famous member was up in the broadcast booth. Dizzy Dean became the Browns radio announcer and his mangling of the English language, but obvious baseball knowledge, made him a national figure. It’s tough to take the team seriously when the announcer is their most famous member. And for those interested, Dean pitched his last game, a four inning affair in 1947, with the Browns. It gave him 10 years in the Majors and a ticket to Cooperstown.

The 1944 season was the highlight for the Browns. By 1945 they slid back to third, despite getting 77 games out of Pete Gray (whose story is worthy of telling sometime). By 1946 they were seventh, moved to sixth in ’47, then never finished above seventh the rest of their time in St. Louis. Meanwhile the Cardinals were becoming among the best teams in baseball, and attendance, never very good, was falling at Browns games. In 1947 they brought Hank Thompson to the big leagues, becoming the third team to integrate. Thompson was a poor choice, the first ex-Negro Leaguer to be a failure, and the Browns were unable to profit from their foray into black baseball.

By the end of the 1953 season the Browns were in terrible shape. But in 1953 the Boston Braves had taken a flier and moved to Milwaukee. It worked. Their attendance was up, they went from seventh to second in the National League. Browns ownership decided to move. They picked Baltimore, jettisoned the Browns name and became the Orioles. Although they did well in attendance, the team was still miserable. By 1960 they were climbing up the standings, culminating in an initial World Series victory in 1966, giving them something that St. Louis never saw, a Browns winner.

And my wife’s grandfather? Well, he continued to follow the Browns after they moved to Baltimore. He told me he liked a number of the players and stayed with the team until those retired or were traded. By 1966, although gratified that the Orioles won, he’d switched his allegiance to the Cardinals, a team he remained loyal to until his death. And I kept my promise and never told either his wife or his daughter about his “greatest day.”

The Original “Goose”

Goose Goslin as a Senator

Use the name “Goose” around a modern fan and the odds are you’ll get one of two responses: “who?” or “Gossage.” Frankly, I’d probably respond with Gossage too. But way back there was another “Goose” who was good enough to make the Hall of Fame. As I seem to be spending an inordinate amount of time dealing with the Washington Senators/ Minnesota Twins recently, I thought I might introduce you to “Goose” Goslin.

Leon Goslin was born in New Jersey in 1900. He was good enough to play for his  local factory team, both pitching and playing the field. It got him a job with the Minor League team in Columbia, South Carolina in 1920. The team made him an outfielder. In 1921 the Senators signed him for $6000. He made the club late in the season, hitting .260 with a home run and six RBIs. By 1922 he was the regular left fielder.

This is as good a time as any to get to the “Goose” nickname. There are at least three stories. One says that Goslin was fairly inept in the field when he came up and would run around the outfield chasing the ball with his arms flapping like a goose. The second says that his large nose, known colloquially as a “honker” (a noise geese make) got him the nickname. The third, which is the one I favor, is that it simply was a natural to go with Goslin. Whatever the reason, it stuck for the rest of his life.

He played well in both 1922 and 1923, leading the team in home runs in ’23 and the entire American League in triples. In 1924 the Senators made the World Series for the first time. Goslin, playing all seven games, hit .344, led the league in RBIs, had an OPS of .937, and hit for the cycle on 28 August against New York. The Senators won the Series in seven games, Goslin hitting .344 (the same as his regular season average. I wonder how often that happens?) with three home runs, seven RBIs, and an OPS of 1.000. They were back in 1925, this time dropping the Series in seven. Playing all seven games again Goslin had three home runs, hit .308, and had six RBIs. His OPS? 1.072. For the regular season he led the AL in triples and had 200 hits for the first time.

The Senators slipped in 1926 but Goslin continued to perform well into 1930 when he was traded to St. Louis. He was having trouble getting along with manager Walter Johnson, a conflict he could never win in Washington. Freed from cavernous Griffith Stadium,  Goslin had a career high 30 home runs (37 for the season, a season noted for a juiced ball), dropped back to 24 the next season and further down to 17 in 1932. That got him a trade back to Washington (Johnson had just been fired), which promptly went out and won its third AL pennant. Although on the downside of his career, Goslin contributed a .297 average and 65 RBIs. In the World Series he played all five games of the loss to the Giants, hitting .250 with one home run. It was Washington’s last World Series and Goslin had the distinction of being the only Senator to play in all 19 of the team’s World Series games. He also logged every inning.

Goslin hadn’t gotten along with Johnson’s replacement, Joe Cronin, so he (Goslin) went to Detroit in 1934. There he teamed with Hank Greenberg, Charlie Gehringer, and Gee Walker to form the Tigers “G Men” (a play on the currently popular nickname for FBI agents). Again, Detroit promptly went out and won the AL pennant. Goslin hit .305, had  100 RBIs, and an OPS of .826. In the Series he hit .241 with two RBIs and the Tigers lost in seven to Dizzy Dean and the “Gas House Gang” Cardinals.

The Tigers were back in 1935, winning the pennant with Goslin contributing nine home runs, 109 RBIs, an OPS of .770, and a .292 average. This time, taking on the Cubs, the Tigers won the Series (their first ever) with Goslin hitting .273, having three RBIs, and driving in the Series’ winning run in game six. Again he played each game. It was to be his last Series. For his postseason career he hit .287, had an OPS of .836, hit seven home runs, had 19 RBIs, scored 16 runs, and had 37 hits, while playing all 32 games in the Series.

His last good year was 1936. He hit .300 for the last time, had 125 RBIs and 24 home runs. His OPS was .930. He also managed the first home run off phenom Bob Feller. He had a bad 1937 and was released by Detroit. He was 36. Washington brought him back for one last fling in 1938. he hit a buck .58 and was done. He managed a couple of undistinguished seasons in the Minors, then retired to a farm in New Jersey. He farmed, ran a boat business, and made the Hall of Fame in 1968. Death came in 1971.

For his career, Goslin hit .316, slugged .500, had an OBP of .387, totalling .887 for his OPS (OPS+ of 128). He had 2735 hits, 248 home runs, 173 triples, and 500 doubles for 4325 total bases. He had about two walks for every strikeouts and managed 176 stolen bases in a low stolen base era. His black ink number is 10, but his gray ink number is 200. In an end of century list, the Sporting News named Goslin the 89th greatest player of the century (probably too high).

I remember putting together my own list of greatest left fielders one time years ago. I had Goslin third (Williams and Musial) because Bonds and Henderson had not yet become the stars they became and because I was still fascinated by a player hitting .300 (which still is good, just not as good as I used to think). Bill James has him 16th in his historical abstract. My guess is that Goslin sits somewhere between. He helped his team, both Washington and Detroit, win. It can’t be pure coincidence that he gets traded to two teams who just then manage to win pennants (he’s a missing piece, not the prime reason for winning). All in all he’s a player I like and think should be remembered. I have no problem with him being in the Hall of Fame.

And I love the picture of him that I placed at the head of this comment. His hat is cocked, he stands confident and looks very self-assured. Kind of like to see that in a ball player.

Calls of a Lifetime

The one and only Vin Scully

You know what I miss about modern baseball? No, it isn’t the great pitching, there’s a lot of that around. It isn’t the wonderful fielding, take a look at “Web Gems”. It isn’t the hitting, these guys can hit. What I miss is the men who used to call the games.

I miss Mel Allen. I miss Red Barber. I miss Russ Hodges. They were the main men in New York baseball when I was very young. They knew how to describe a game in vivid words that painted pictures of the game, of the field, of the players, and of the fans. Allen had sheer joy, Barber colorful use of words, Hodges wore his emotions on his sleeve. In fact, Hodges gave us all one of the single greatest calls of a lifetime with his 1951 “The Giants Win the Pennant” repeated a thousand times. Go to You Tube or somewhere and just listen to the joy and astonishment in his voice. Don’t look at the picture, just listen to the voice. You know what happened if you just listen.

Of course there were others. Dizzy Dean was a world to himself. Half the time I didn’t understand him (and neither did anyone else except for maybe Mrs. Dean) but who cared; he was wonderful. Jack Buck was understated and almost emotionless sometimes, and that was a wonderful tonic to the “rah, rah” types that drove me crazy. And nobody ever knew how to simply shut up and let the crowd do the talking than Buck.  Joe Garagiola knew more about baseball than most people could learn in a 1000 years. Both were out of St. Louis (And isn’t it amazing how many great play-by-play guys have come out of St. Louis?) so I got to hear them a lot. Ernie Harwell could describe a play better than anyone I ever heard. Bob Prince was a little too much for me, but his love for his Pirates was so obvious you let it slide sometimes. And Curt Gowdy could announce anything and have you impressed.

There aren’t a lot of them left. You still hear Jay Randolph on an occasional Cardinals broadcast (see what I mean about St. Louis) and there is not, nor has there ever been, anyone quite like Vin Scully. Take time someday and just listen to the man. Even his non-baseball talks are a treat to the ears.

Now it’s not that the new guys are bad, they just aren’t quite as good. Too many of them simply call a game and don’t describe it. I guess that’s television and the idea that you can see for yourself what’s going on. But you know what? I miss the old guys who knew you had to describe a game as well as call it.

Short but Sweet

Following up on the post about guys who made the Hall of Fame and really could only do one thing well, I began to look for other groups of players who could be linked. An easy one was guys with very short, but very intense careers who make the Hall of Fame based on a brief time of greatness. It turned out there were more than I thought. 

Let me exclude from this list players who lost significant time to war. Guys like Joe DiMaggio who only played 13 years and Hank Greenberg, also 13 years, go in this group. Also I exclude Negro League players who are in the Hall of Fame for their Major League years but lost significant time to segregation. This is where guys like Roy Campanella and Larry Doby go. A third group to be left out are those guys who die while major leaguers but make the Hall. Addie Joss and Ross Youngs are the primary people in this group. All of these people have short careers because of outside influences (or internal in the case of Joss and Youngs) and not due to baseball related causes. That makes them different enough to me that I exclude them from the list I compiled. I also excluded players whose primary career was prior to 1900. Conditions were so different then that short careers were actually somewhat common and both conditions and rules changes (a mound over a pitching box, gloves vs no gloves, etc) made a difference. Still, I get a fairly impressive, and probably incomplete, list.

Among pitchers, five came quickly to mind and a survey of the info indicated I was right about them. Jack Chesbro, Dizzy Dean, Lefty Gomez, Sandy Koufax, and Joe McGinnity (alphabetically) all had very short careers that were considered Hall of Fame worthy (and I don’t intend to debate here whether they were worthy or weren’t).  In Dean’s case he only barely got the required 10 years in through a bit of trickery by the St. Louis Browns ownership. McGinnity also deserves a caveat. He left the National League after 10 years (averaging 25 wins during the 10 seasons) to return to the Minor Leagues (which were not tied to the Major Leagues as they are now) and racked up another 250 plus wins before finally retiring. I’m a bit unclear on his reasoning for the change, but his ML career was on its downside.

I knew of six hitters who met my criteria: Earl Averill, Mickey Cochrane, Earle Combs, Ralph Kiner, Kirby Puckett, and Hack Wilson (again alphabetical). Averill, Combs, Kiner, and Puckett all suffered injuries (back for both Averill and Kiner, a skull fracture for Combs to go along with a broken collarbone, and eyes for Puckett) that curtailed their careers. Cochrane was skulled in a game and told to retire. He did. Wilson drank himself out of the game.  Again each had a short, and very intense period of greatness that did not turn into a long career because of other circumstances (primarily injury except for Wilson).

By my count, there are 180 people in the Hall of Fame who are primarily players (Here’s hoping I can count.) and not managers, executives, umpires, etc. I didn’t really go through the entire list looking for people who played only 10-13 years. Instead I used people I could think of immediately. Maybe not the best way of doing it, but it’s what I used. At least 11 of them had short careers. That’s about 6%, which isn’t a bad number, although certainly not an overwhelming number either. And here I used the entire Hall without excluding those people I specifically excluded in the second paragraph. Had I done so, the percentage would, of course, be higher. It seems that if you are very good you can still have a short career and make the Hall of Fame. But you have to be very, very good.

Great Calls

The death of Ernie Harwell reminded me how much I miss the truly great voices of baseball. SportsPhd had a wonderful comment on Harwell (which you should read, especially if you’re a dad) and mentioned the now stilled voices of the past.  He mentions a lot of them, missing  Bob Prince at Pittsburgh and Russ Hodges with the Giants.  But then it’s a short blog, not a dissertation. It’s right that we sit and remember these people. They mean as much to baseball as the players, the managers, the peanut vendors, the owners, the fans, the print reporters, and the guy who trims the ivy at Wrigley Field. For some of us, it’s how we got our baseball.

They are sometimes famous for catchphrases like Red Barber’s “catbird’s seat” or Mel Allen’s “how about that”. Others are noted for the delivery style like Dizzy Dean’s mangling of the English language or Vin Scully’s use of classical allusion. Still others are best noted for simply knowing when to shut up. Jack Buck being the great practitioner of that.

There are specific calls that ring in my head when I think of baseball. None are more memorable than Russ Hodges’ “The Giants win the pennant. The Giants win the pennant. The Giants win the pennant.”  The call that announced that New York was going to the World Series in 1951 gets my vote as greatest call ever. Others will disagree. I know several people who love Bob Prince’s call of Bill Mazeroski’s home run in game seven of 1960.

Jack Buck also has two of my favorites. One is his response to Kirk Gibson’s home run in 1988, “I don’t believe what I just saw.” The other is his comment when Gene Larkin hit the little single that put the Minnesota Twins over the top in 1991, “The Twins are going to win the World Series.” What a wonderful bit of understatement. Then the Twins swarmed on the field and Tom Kelly went to the Braves bench to congratulate the Braves. Buck’s response? Silence. He knew when to shut up and let the camera do its job.

My personal favorite is Vin Scully, but then I’m a Dodgers fan. I love his use of the  language. I still remember him calling Sandy Koufax’s perfect game late in the evening on the radio. Wow.

I’ve left out a bunch: Joe Garagiola, Jay Randolph, etc. But there’s no slight meant. I’d give a whole lot just to hear the voices of those that are gone and those that are retired. I hope the generations that follow get to hear something like them. If not, those generations are really going to miss something very special.

Rest in Peace, Ernie Harwell.

Baseball as Myth: the Trickster

The second of my three views of the relationship between baseball and myth concentrates on the mythological figure of the trickster. He’s the closest myth comes to a comic relief guy (guess they didn’t know about drama, huh?). Our trickster is a clever god or person who is able to play tricks on the unsuspecting foil with either funny or horrifying results. In Norse myth it’s Loki, for the Greeks it’s Hermes. Odysseus gets into the act sometimes also. The “No Man” line in the Odyssey is about as close as Homer gets to humor.

Baseball has its set too. Let’s start by dropping the clowns. These guys aren’t what I’m talking about. You may have seen them at the ballpark. They’re not around much anymore, but these were guys who showed up at the stadium and for a fee ran around doing goofy things, insulting the Ump, harassing coaches, etc, trying to be baseball’s version of the Harlem Globetrotters. Now mostly mascots do this sort of thing. What I’m talking about are the showmen who put a bit of levity into the game. For our purposes there are three preeminent among these: Dizzy Dean, Satchel Paige, and Yogi Berra. I’ve done a post of Dean before so let me look at the other two.

Paige honed his skills in the Negro Leagues. He wasn’t overtly funny most of the time, and is perhaps the very best great player who also gets credit as a trickster. He had a great wit, but was most famous for what he did with his playing ability to frustrate the opposition. The stories are legion. A couple of my favorites include telling the other team before the game starts what pitches he’s going to throw today and having his infield sit down (or leave the field) while he strikes out the side. Great bits of showmanship and trickery (Trickeration?). He was also good with a line. The most famous being “Don’t look back, something might be gaining on you.” Actually not bad advice.

Yogi Berra on the other hand didn’t give out good advice. He simply blew the English language (as did Casey Stengel, but Ol’ Case was a manager and I’m doing only players). I’m not sure how much of Yogi’s stuff was put on to amuse the crowd and how much was simply goofiness, but it made such a mark that he’s obscured just how good a player he was. This man won three MVP’s in an era when Mickey Mantle played on the same team. He may be the greatest catcher in Major League history and he’s most known for his attacks on the English language. My favorite Yogiisms:

“Nobody goes there anymore, it’s too crowded.”

When asked if he wanted his pizza cut into six or eight pieces, “Make it six, I don’t think I can eat eight.”

And from the Aflac commercial “And they give you cash, which is just as good as money.” (OK, I know the last one was done by ad writers, but you gotta admit it’s great.)

Joseph Campbell and Baseball

The definitive book on mythology is written by Joseph Campbell. It looks at what myths are, how they develop, and how they grow. Many of his ideas are applicable to baseball. As you may have noticed if you’ve managed to hang around here for very long, I have a fascination with the mythology and legend of baseball. In the future I want to do a series of comments on baseball legend and mythology. To do that I need some help.

If you looked at the Dizzy Dean post you saw some comments at the bottom. In them I asked for other people’s opinion of just who has moved from ballplayer to mythological or legendary figure. I suggested Babe Ruth (who I refer to here as BABE RUTH!!!!! when dealing with the legendary aspect of the man), Sandy Koufax, Lou Gehrig, Jackie Robinson, and of course Dean himself. Bill Miller added Satchel Paige, Shoeless Joe Jackson, and Nolan Ryan. SportsPhd suggested Yogi Berra.

All of those are certainly people to explore and I will. But I’d like other people’s opinion. Who am I missing that you think has gone beyond mere ballplayer to myth? To put it into another field, who’s gone from actor to John Wayne!!!!? I promise I’ll take a look at the people. I don’t promise I’ll buy off on all of them, but I’ll check ‘em out. Give me your “able to leap tall buildings at a single bound” list and I’ll study it. At some point, and it will be at least a couple of weeks, I’ll start a post, or more likely a series of posts, on the idea of legend, mythology, and baseball. Deal?

Ol’ Diz

When I grew up, you could spend hours listening to greatness on the radio. There were Mel Allen and Russ Hodges. There were Red Barber and Jack Buck. There was the incomparable Vin Scully. Then there was Dizzy Dean.

Dean was from Arkansas, born in 1910. There used to be some dspute about when, but all the sources seem to have settled on January 1910. Part of the problem was Dean himself. He gave a variety of different answers to the question “When and where were you born?”  The gag was that everybody got a scoop, but it’s possible Dean simply didn’t know. One of the best of the pioneering farm system at St. Lous (Stan Musial gets my vote as the best), he got to the Cardinals in 1930, pitched one game, a three hit, one run, victory, then spent 1931 in the minors. Back with the Cardinals in 1932, he became a staple of the “Gas House Gang”, becoming their ace on the mound. In 1934 he became the last National League pitcher to win 30 games, as he led the Cards to a World Series victory over the Tigers. He won two games, his brother Paul the other two. He picked up the NL MVP award that season. In the 1937 All Star game he was injured (he broke his toe), cameback too soon, and his career fell apart. He was sent to Chicago, where he got into one more World Series in 1938, losing his only game. Pitching with decreasing ability he was done by 1941. In 1947 his employer, the St. Louis Browns, realized he needed one more year to be eligible for the Hall of Fame. He was announcing games at the time and had complained about the quality of Browns pitchers. The Browns pitchers wives essentially told him to put up or shut up, so the Browns, serving two purposes with one game,  got him into a game . He pitched four innings, gave up three hits, no runs, and got a single in his only at bat, giving him a season average of 1.000. His quip to the press was “Even Babe Ruth never done that”.  He pulled a muscle rounding the bag, which led to “I’m just glad I didn’t pull a muscle in my throat.”  He made the Hall of Fame in 1953.

The stories about him as a player are legion. Here’s a couple of my favorites. In 1934 he bet he could strike out Vince DiMaggio (Joe’s brother) four times in a game. He fanned DiMaggio the first three times at bat, then DiMaggio hit a foul pop in his fourth at bat. Dean yelled to the catcher “Drop it.” The catcher did and Dean proceeded to strike out DiMaggio for the fourth time. Also in 1934 he told the press he and his brother would win 45 games between them. The press accused him of bragging. The Deans ended up winning 49 games (30 for Dizzy, 19 for Paul). Dean’s response? “It ain’t braggin’ if you can do it.”

After he left the field, Dean got a job as the announcer for St. Louis Browns radio baseball, much to the joy of fans in the midwest and to the horror of English teachers everywhere. Dean was colorful as an announcer and was famous for butchering the English language. His most famous line was ” (Al) Zarilla slud into third.” Other wonderful moments included “He nonchalantly walked back to the dugout in disgust,” “The runners returned to their respectable bases,” and he occasionally signed off with “Don’t fail to miss tomorrow’s game.”

All this got him into trouble with English teachers. When they attacked him for saying “ain’t” his response was classic Dean. “A lotta folks who ain’t sayin’ ain’t, ain’t eatin’.” He finally compromised with the teachers by saying, “You learn ‘em English, and I’ll learn ‘em baseball.” Seems to have worked.

By the 1950s he was on television doing the Falstaff (a beer company) “Game of the Week.” He went through a number of color guys (I always wondered why Dean, of all people, needed a “color” guy.), but finally ended up with Dodgers great PeeWee Reese as his most famous “pardner.” He broadcast into the late 1960′s then retired. He died in July 1974 (everybody agrees on that).

I loved listening to Dean when I was younger. His voice was distinctive, his stories wonderful, his language colorful. To end this I want to give you my top Dean story. In the 1934 World Series he was a pinch runner. Trying to break up a double play, he was skulled. Unconcious, he was sent to the hospital. There are a couple of versions of what happened next. This is my favorite. Dean got out of the hospital and the reporters asked him what happened. He delivered my all time favorite deathless baseball line. “They x-rayed my head and didn’t find nothin’.”  Gotta love that man.

The First Great Reliever

Firpo Marberry

This is the story of Firpo Marberry. He wasn’t the first reliever. As far back as the National Association (1871-75) pitchers failed to complete games and relievers were employed. But as a rule relievers weren’t specialists, they didn’t make careers coming out of the bullpen. Some, like Carl Mays or Dave Danforth, had a year or so in relief then went on to be a starter, while others were older guys just hanging on. But Marberry came to the Major Leagues as a reliever and was so good at it he set records.

Fred Marberry was from Texas. After a couple of years in the minors, he got to the big leagues in late 1923 with the Washington Senators (now the Minnesota Twins). In some ways it was a perfect place to create a relief specialist. The Senators’ main pitcher, Walter Johnson, was aging (35). Number two pitcher, George Mogridge, was only a year younger (remember this is 1923 when careers are generally shorter) and most of the rest of the staff was pretty mediocre with high ERA’s, poor walk to strikeout ratios, and all four guys who started more than 30 games gave up more hits than they had innings pitched (including Johnson). So there was going to be a lot of relief work available. Additionally, owner Clark Griffith was a former Major League pitcher and manager who had used himself as a reliever in the latter part of his career. He knew the value of a good bullpen man, and in Marberry he found one.

In his rookie season, Marberry went 4-0 with a 2.80 ERA in 11 games, (seven in relief). The Senators finished fourth. The next season they won the American League pennant. Now let’s not be hasty and award Marberry primacy of place as the reason. The team made a change of manager (Bucky Harris replaced Donie Bush), Johnson turned his career around and had a terrific year (23-7 and led the league in ERA, shutouts, strikeouts–just your basic Walter Johnson year), Mogridge and Tom Zachery had good years on the mound. Six of the eight regulars improved their batting averages while four improved their slugging percentage. And then there was Marberry. He pitched in 60 games, starting only 14 (and completing six of them). He went only 11-12, but put up a 3.09 ERA (good for the period), and saved a record 15 games (he didn’t know that). The Senators won the series in seven games with Marberry taking a loss, picking up two saves, and posting a series low ERA of 1.13. The next year he pitched 55 games, all in relief, again posting 15 saves. Again the Senators headed to the World Series, this time dropping the series in seven games. Marberry had one save and a zip ERA.

The Senators fell back after 1925, no body was going to keep up with the Murder’s Row Yankees, but Marberry kept on. He got 22 saves in 1926, a new record that lasted until 1949, 11 in 1928, and 13 in 1932 (for teams that finished fourth, fourth, and third). Along the way he started a handful of games, topping out at 25 in 1931, the first year he’d started more than he relieved. After 1932 he was traded to Detroit.

So what have you got at this point? Marberry pitched 465 games with Washington, starting 138.  His record was 117-69 (a winning pecentage of .629) with an ERA in the threes and 96 saves.

Detroit tried to make him a starter. It worked. He was 16-11 and 15-5 in his first two years as a Tiger. He started 51 of 75 games and had a total of five saves. His ERA was decent in 1933, but rocketed above four in 1934. Detroit got to the World Series in 1934, losing to Dizzy Dean and the Gas House Gang Cardinals in seven. Marberry pitched twice, both in mop up relief roles registering a terrible ERA and having no decisions. The 1934 season was his last good one. He pitched only five games in 1935 (when he was 36), developing unspecified arm trouble. Released by Detroit, he spent the season umpiring in the American League, refusing to arbitrate games involving his old Senators team (but apparently agreeing to ump Tigers games). His last season was 1936. He pitched a third of an inning for the Giants before being sent back to Washington for a five game close out of his big league career. He returned to the minor leagues and played until 1941. He retired in his home state of  Texas and died in 1976.

For his career, Marberry was 148-88 (.627 winning percentage-a top forty number among pitchers wth 100 wins), with 101 saves, an ERA of 2.63, 822 strikeouts and 686 walks in 2067 innings. The save total was a record when he retired. By 1946, it would fall to third all-time (Jack Russell and Johnny Murphy) remaining there  until the 1970′s explosion of relief pitching. They invented the save statistic in the 1960′s, while Marberry was still alive. I have no idea if he knew he had 101 and was third ever.

As an aside, the nickname “Firpo” comes from a resemblence to the heavyweight boxer of the era Luis Firpo. Marberry didn’t like the nickname. It stuck anyway.