Historic Tiger Baseball #40--1934 Pennant and WS
The 1934 season for the Detroit Tigers actually began in December of 1933. On December 12, the Tigers sent Johnny Pasek and $100, 000 to Philadelphia for Mickey Cochrane. In addition to being the Tigers' starting backstop, Cochrane was acquired to serve as the team's field manager. Eight days later, on December 20, Goose Goslin arrived via Washington in exchange for outfielder John Stone. Before Christmas of '33, the Tigers had improved their chances dramatically for the 1934 season.
The addition of outfielder Goslin to a lineup that already featured stars Hank Greenberg and Charlie Gehringer, earned the Tigers' offense the nickname "G-Men" after the legendary FBI officers of the day. While G-Men were known to get into shootouts with gangsters, the Tigers' G-Men formed the nucleus of an offense that helped the club roar through the American League in 1934 posting a 101-53 record.
Four Tigers, Greenberg (139), Gehringer (127), shortstop Billy Rogell (100) and Goslin (100), each had 100 RBI campaigns. Gerhinger paced the league in hits, as well, with 214. However, the Tigers of '34 not only could hit, but they could run, too. JoJo White (28), Pete Fox (25) and Gee Walker (20) finished amongst the top five in the American League steals leaders. The G-Men led the AL in runs, batting average (an incredible .300), doubles and stolen bases in 1934.
Greenberg, Goslin, Gehringer, Fox
Mickey Cochrane, who hit .320 with two homers and seventy-six RBI, was named the AL's Most Valuable Player in 1934. The Tigers' player/manager beat out Lou Gerhig, who won the AL Triple Crown that season, for the award. Including Cochrane' s honor, Tiger players would win four of the next seven AL MVP awards.
While the offense got the headlines, Schoolboy Rowe and Tommy Bridges led an equally impressive pitching staff. Rowe went 24-8 with 20 complete games and Bridges followed right behind at 22-11 with 23 complete games. Rowe also posted a dazzling .750 winning percentage and was third in strikeouts with 149. Bridges was second in the AL in strikeouts with 151. Eldon Auker and Firbo Marberry chipped in with 15 wins a piece.
Alas, the Tigers' G-Men would run into a powerful National League foe in the World Series: "The Gashouse Gang" St. Louis Cardinals. Just ask the New York Giants, National League leaders most of the year and seven games ahead of Manager Frankie Frisch's roisterous group of Cardinals on the morning of September 5. They found out only too well how effectively the fun-loving Cards could kick, scratch, claw and, most important, hustle their way to victory. By season's end 3 1/2 weeks later, the Cardinals were NL pennant winners by two games.
The Tigers led St. Louis three games to two in the World Series and felt relatively comfortable as they headed home for the conclusion of the fall classic, but you just couldn't feel too comfortable around the Gas House Gang. Needing only one victory to clinch their first Series championship, the Tigers sent Schoolboy Rowe to the mound for Game 6. A second-year major leaguer, Rowe had won 16 consecutive games in a June-to-August stretch and pitched masterfully in Game 2 against the Cardinals. St. Louis banked on a rookie pitcher to keep it alive. But this was no typical first-year man. This was Paul Dean, who in the heat of the pennant race had thrown a no-hitter against Brooklyn.
Paul Dean prevailed over Rowe with his arm and bat. He held the Tigers to seven hits and, with the score 3-3 in the seventh inning, delivered a game-winning single. Now, after the Cards' 4-3 victory, it was up to brother Dizzy Dean, who had given credence to his "it-ain't-bragging-if-you-can-do-it" claim by winning 30 games for the National League champions. Diz was matched against Eldon Auker in the Series finale and as matchups go, this one was found wanting.
The Cardinals struck for seven runs in the third inning, an outburst touched off by Diz's double. The big blow in the Cardinals' rally, which was waged against four Detroit pitchers, was Frisch's three-run double. In the sixth, Medwick knocked in a run with a triple -- he slid hard into Tigers third baseman Marv Owen for what is considered a cheap shot of historic magnitude -- and scored on first baseman Rip Collins' fourth hit of the game. It was now 9-0.
The mood among Detroit fans, festive at the start of Game 7, was changing with every new entry to the Cardinals' half of the scoreboard. In fact, when Medwick returned to his left-field station during the middle of the sixth inning, Tiger boosters couldn't contain themselves. Nor their containers. Bottles started flying in Medwick's direction. Plus fruit, vegetables and other debris. A 9-0 deficit and a hard slide had added up to trouble, which Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis quelled by ordering Medwick from the game. The commissioner apparently thought the Cards hardly needed Joe's services at this point. Landis was right. Out came Medwick and in went Chick Fullis. And on St. Louis went to a Series-clinching 11-0 victory, with Diz permitting only six hits and the Cardinals collecting 17 overall.
Medwick, 22, been a pain to the Tigers and their fans right from the start. In the Series opener, he collected four hits -- including a home run -- as the Cardinals, behind Dizzy Dean's steady pitching, rolled to an 8-3 triumph. To say the Tigers had early-Series jitters may be understating the point; with one out in the St. Louis third, Detroit already had been charged with five errors.
Rowe put on an amazing pitching demonstration in the 12-inning second game, limiting the Cardinals to one hit over the final nine innings of a game Detroit won, 3-2. To pull out the victory, Cochrane's Tigers needed a game-tying pinch single in the ninth by Gee Walker and two 12th-inning walks and a single by Goose Goslin, who had played for Washington in the previous year's Series.
Martin, the center fielder-turned-third baseman and star of the Cardinals' Series triumph over the Philadelphia Athletics in 1931, was up to his old tricks in Game 3. He doubled, tripled and scored two runs in support of Paul Dean, who shut out Detroit for 8 2/3 innings and wound up a 4-1 winner.
Detroit then seized the Series lead with 10-4 and 3-1 victories, with Billy Rogell and Hank Greenberg combining for seven RBIs and Auker going the distance in Game 4 and Tommy Bridges pitching a seven-hitter in Game 5.
Then came the Deans. Again.
After winning 49 games in the regular season, Dizzy and Paul combined for all four St. Louis victories in the 1934 Series. Diz even overcame being struck in the head with a thrown ball while serving as a pinch-runner in Game 4. A day later, he yielded only two earned runs in eight innings while losing to Bridges. Then, in Game 7, he fired a shutout and collected two hits of his own.
Medwick batted .379 against Detroit pitching and drove in five runs, while Collins hit .367 and Martin finished at .355. Center fielder Ernie Orsatti proved a pesky Cardinal with a .318 mark, and right fielder Jack Rothrock -- while batting only .233 -- led St. Louis with six RBIs.
Second baseman Charlie Gehringer paced Detroit with a .379 average and Greenberg hit .321 with a Series-leading seven RBIs. Cochrane, named the Tigers' manager after being acquired in December 1933 from the Athletics, struggled in the Series with a .214 average and one RBI.
While the Tigers came up a game short in '34, the season marked the beginning of what may have been the greatest era in Detroit baseball history.
This article is a nearly word-for-word splice from the following two links:
http://www.tigerscentral.com/history.php?year=1934
http://www.sportingnews.com/archives...ries/1934.html
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Last edited by IdahoBert; 02-09-2006 at 11:44 AM.
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