...And
That's My Opinion©
By Sandy Goldman
We’re
Still Waiting!
…the 1945 World Series
Le Moyne
Grammar School is located at 851 Waveland Avenue, within the shadows of Wrigley
Field. In October 1945 I was a student
at Le Moyne Grammar School. No, I was a pupil; I don’t think that I was a
student. . In October of 1945 the Chicago Cubs played the Detroit Tigers in the
baseball World Series. We were all Cub fans, teachers and pupils alike.
It was
difficult enough to concentrate on ones studies during the regular baseball
season. There was fan cheering and other reactions echoing across the
neighborhood, plus the booming voice of the field announcer Pat Piper “Have
your pencils and scorecards ready for today’s staring lineups.” It was a mantra
for those of us who were “tied” to our desks. But at World Series time our teachers
let us listen to the radio (T.V was just a dream). All games were day games.
Truth be known, our teachers had the same Cub disease, as did we. When we fell
in the playground, we bled blue—Cubby Blue
Everyone
had a favorite player. Mine was third baseman Stan Hack. Smiling Stan Hack had
a career batting average of 301 and was one of the most popular players in
baseball. William Veeck signed him personally to the Cubs in 1931. He was a
singles, doubles hitter and scored more than 100 runs seven times and led the
league in stolen bases in 1938 and 1939.
He retired
(the first time) in 1943 because he disliked the new Cub manager Jimmy Wilson.
When Charley Grimm replaced Wilson, Stan Hack returned to third base and in
1945 hit a career high of 323, helping to drive the Cubs to the National League
pennant for the fourth time. In those days there only two leagues: the American
and the National. The winners of each played in the World Series. There were no
round-robin playoffs (quaint don’t you think?) It was often said that, “Stan
had more friends than Leo Durocher had enemies”.
I had Stan
Hack pictures all over my room. As I grew older, however, I changed them to the
more adult pin-ups.
Sometime
in the 1970s, while I was traveling for Broyhill Furniture Industries, I made a
call to a customer in Dixon, Illinois and discovered that Stan Hack managed the
Landmark Restaurant in nearby Grand Detour, Illinois. In the entrance to the Landmark was the largest collection of Chicago
Cub memorabilia I had ever seen: uniforms, photos of players, coaches, radio
announcers and executives, scorecards and equipment. Everything there was to
collect was there.
As I
walked through the dining room door imagine my surprise, there at the bar was
Stan Hack. I felt like a giddy teenager at a rock concert. Well, I walked up to
him and said “Mr. Hack you were my boyhood idol”. Shaking my hand, he said, “it’s still Stan and let me buy you a
drink”. He did and then I did and then
we had a few more. Eventually he had to leave and I had to eat. I could hardly
wait to return to my hotel room to tell Carol of this great event (this was
before cell phones-if you can imagine such a time.)
I went
there a few more times. Sometimes Stan
was there and sometimes he was not. One time I took Carol with me on a business
trip to the area. I took her to the Landmark Restaurant hoping to introduce her
to the legendary Stan Hack. Alas, he was not there. On December 16th
1979 Stan Hack died after an extended illness.
Some had
other favorites, Phil Cavaretta, Bill Nicholson, Andy Pafko, Peanuts Lowry to
name only a few.
But back
to the World Series. The first game pitted 25 game winner “Prince Hal”
Newhouser of the Detroit Tigers against newly acquired Hank Borowy, who came
from the despised New York Yankees, where he had won 10 games. He won 11 more
for the Cubs to help fight off the even more despised St Louis Cardinals (even
then!!) The Tigers were pumped up by
the return of Hank Greenberg and Virgil Trucks from World War II. The Cubs won
9-0.
Trucks
pitched a seven hitter in game two and won 4-1 as Hank Greenberg hit a three
run homer in the fifth inning
In game
three Rudy York’s (hey, White Sox fans remember him) single with two out in the
second inning spoiled Claude Passeau’s bid for a no hitter. He allowed no other
hits and won 3-0.
Game four
went to Detroit 4-1 behind Dizzy Trout’s five hit pitching. It was at this game that tavern owner Billy
Sianis bought a ticket for his goat but was refused admission because the goat smelled.
An appeal to owner P.K. Wrigley was turned down. Sianis thereupon cast a “goat curse” on the Chicago Cubs who lost
the game and eventually the series.
Afterwards Sianis sent a telegram to Wrigley saying “who stinks now?”
In game
five it was once again Newhouser, whose season ERA was 1.81, against
Borowy. Unfortunately Borowy was pulled
in the sixth inning. Greenberg hit three doubles and Tigers won 8-4.
Trucks and
Passeau pitched against each other in game six. The Cubs had a four run fifth topped
by a bases-loaded single by Stan Hack. In the seventh inning Detroit scored
twice. In the bottom of the seventh
inning the Cubs scored twice and the score was 7-3 Chicago. But Detroit scored
four runs in the eighth; the game-tying run was a Hank Greenberg homer. Dizzy Trout came on in relief in the bottom
of the eight for Detroit. Charlie Grimm
once again called on Borowy for the top of the ninth, which eventually became
the bottom of the twelfth when Stan Hack hit a drive to left field that took a
bounce over Greenberg for a double scoring the winning run and an 8-7 Cub
victory.
The
seventh game as on Wednesday October 10th, a school day. If anyone was in school I could not tell
because I was not. My friends and I decided to play hooky and try and sneak
into the bleachers. We had a favorite
plan, which we had executed successfully during the regular season. We were
undaunted by the threat of the Truant Officer (they really did exist in those
days). Policemen would try not to see
the kids if they were swift and deft.
Our modus
operandi was to scoot up to the top of the bleacher box office, which provided
a launching pad to boast up into the bleachers and then scurry along the
concourse of the right field into the grandstands and never stop moving.
Sometimes the Andy Frain ushers would catch one or two of us. But most of the
time, most of us made it. Those who did not were relegated to begging stubs
from departing fans, who elected not to return, generally in late innings. In
any event, I wonder how the kids sneak in now?
Well, for
game seven Detroit went to a well-rested Hal Newhouser, who incidentally led
the American League in strikeouts for the second successive season. Charlie
Grimm, making possibly the worst decision in baseball history, called once
again on Hank Borowy. Remember Hank had pitched the final four innings of the twelve-inning
game six on Oct.8th and also the sixth inning of game five on Oct 7th.
He would be going into the seventh game on Oct 10th with only one
days rest. He did not last long.
Detroit put up five runs in the first inning. That was all Newhouser
needed, yielding ten hits and striking out ten Cubs for a 9-3 victory and the
Cubs lost the series.
And the
rest is history—at least until Oct. 2003.
The Cubs
are no longer Steve Goodman’s “doormat of the National League”
…but we’re
still waiting!
....And
that's my opinion
….And I'm Sandy Goldman
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