1935 World Series

The Series began on October 2d. The Cubs jumped out to an early lead when Lon Warneke shut out the Tigers, 3-0. The Cubs collected two runs in the first inning and added the third on Frank Demaree's solo home run in the top of the ninth. Both Warneke and Schoolboy Rowe pitched complete games and Warneke limited the Tigers to just four hits. The game was played before over 47,000 fans in Detroit's Navin Field.

The Tigers evened the series in game two played on October 3d. The final score was 8-3 but the Tigers suffered the loss of Hank Greenberg who had hit a home run in the first inning and ended the day with two rbis. Greenberg broke his wrist when trying to score from first on a single. Greenberg had hit .328 for the Tigers in 1935 with 36 home runs and 170 rbis - so his loss was potentially fatal to the Tigers' Series hopes. Tommy Bridges pitched a complete game for the Tigers but Cubs' starter Charlie Root was knocked out in the first inning (without recording an out) and was charged with four earned runs. Root was the pitcher who surrendered Babe Ruth's "called shot" in game three of the 1932 Series. Roy Henshaw and Fabian Kowalik completed the game for the Cubs.

Game three was played in Wrigley Field before 45,532 fans. Marv Owen replaced Greenberg at first base for the Tigers and Flea Clifton replaced Owen at third base. Chicago held a 3-1 lead going into the eighth inning when the Tigers exploded for four runs. The Cubs, however, recovered by scoring two runs to tie the game in the bottom of the ninth. In the top of the eleventh, the Tigers managed to go ahead on an rbi single by Jo-Jo White. Schoolboy Rowe, who had entered the game in the eighth inning, held the lead and the Tigers went up 2 games to 1.

Over 49,000 fans crammed into Wrigley for game four. Gabby Hartnett led off the second inning with a home run to give the Cubs the early lead. The Tigers, however, evened the score in the top of the third and gained a 2-1 edge in the sixth inning. Alvin Crowder held the Cubs scoreless from there on and finished with a complete game five hitter. The Tigers were now just one game away from their first World Series victory.

Game five featured a return engagement between Warneke and Rowe. Chuck Klein gave the Cubs an early lead with a two run homer in the bottom of the third inning. The Cubs tacked on another run in the seventh and held a 3-0 edge going into the ninth. The Tigers scored on an rbi single by Pete Fox that brought home Charlie Gehringer. However, Chicago hurler Bill Lee - who had come on in the seventh inning when Warneke developed a sore shoulder - retired the side. Rowe pitched another complete game but again came up short despite allowing just eight hits.

The Cubs victory sent the Series back to Detroit where Larry French matched up with Tommy Bridges in game six. The Tigers scored a run in the first inning but the Cubs grabbed a 3-2 lead on Billy Herman's two out, one-on homer in the fifth inning. The Tigers managed a run in the sixth to knot the score. In the top of the ninth, Stan Hack led off with a triple but was stranded on third when Tigers' hurler Tom Bridges struck out Bill Jurges, induced a ground out from pitcher Larry French and got Augie Galan to fly out to end the inning.

In the bottom half of the ninth, Mickey Cochrane singled, moved to second on a ground out by Charlie Gehringer and scored on a single by Goose Goslin.

Cochrane ended the Series with a .292 postseason average and one Series rbi. Hartnett, his Cubs counterpart, also hit .292 for the Series and collected two rbis.

According to Time magazine, the Cubs blamed their defeat on AL umpire George Moriarty. who

called the National League Cubs' First Baseman Phil Cavarretta out in a close play at second base. When the Cubs protested. Umpire Moriarty retaliated by roundly abusing the whole team, ordering Manager Charles Grimm off the field. After the game Manager Grimm made the remark that came closest to being the 1935 World Series classic: "If a manager can't go out and make a decent kick, what the hell is the game coming to? I didn't swear at him but he swore at us." Said Coach John Corriden: ''He was guilty of antagonizing and demoralizing our ball club. . . ." Coach Roy Johnson accused Umpire Moriarty of making improper reflections on the Cubs' ancestry. Said the National League's President Ford Frick: "Moriarty used blasphemous language. . . ." Next day, baseball's Tsar Kenesaw Mountain Landis held a conference with all principals involved, announced he might do something when the Series ended.

Brown creepers

Today was a red-letter day for one of my favorite birds - the brown creeper. I saw four in Prospect and Central Park. This small tree climber does not breed in New York City but has been recorded as nesting in every other county in the state except Niagara, according to Bull's Birds of New York State. As recently as the 1960s, it was a rare breeder outside of the Catskills and Adirondacks although a nest was found in 1926 in the Bronx. Bull's theorizes that its expansion is due to "reforestation and the maturation of the eastern forests . . .."

Audubon has this to say about the brown creeper's nesting habits:

This bird breeds in the hole of a tree, giving a marked preference to such as are small and rounded at the entrance. For this reason, perhaps, it often takes possession of the old and abandoned nests of our smaller Woodpeckers and Squirrels; but it is careless as to the height of the situation above the ground, for I have found its nest in a hole in a broken stump which I could reach with my hand, although I could not examine it on account of the hardness of the wood. All the nests which I have seen were loosely formed of grasses and lichens of various sorts, and warmly lined with feathers . . .

Creepers nest not only in holes but in "hammocks" created by loose bark. The brown creeper is an elegant bird. It has a long tail which assists it in methodically "creeping" up the trunks of trees and its curved bill helps it glean insects from crevices in the bark of trees.

I've always been a big fan of woodpeckers and I think that's the reason I'm attracted to the brown creeper. As Sibley notes, this bird is more like a woodpecker than any other passerine, both in the way it forages for food and in the way it molts its feathers. Like woodpeckers, the brown creeper retains its central tail feathers while molting as it needs these for support while climbing (over and over again) the trunks of the trees in our parks and forests.

Swing Time Again

TCM has shown Swing Time the last two nights. Just thought you might be interested in a PG Wodehouse connection to this film. Victor Moore - who plays Pops in the film - had a long film and stage career. Just before filming Swing Time, Moore had starred in Anything Goes with Ethel Merman. The New York Times raved over Moore's performance:

Do you remember a pathetic, unsteady little man who answers to the name of Alexander Throttlebottom? Masquerading in the program as Victor Moore, he is the first clown of this festival, and he is tremendously funny. For it has occurred to the wastrels who wrote the book to represent him as a gangster disguised as a parson and to place him on a liner bound for Europe. Among the other passengers are a night-club enchantress, who sings with the swaggering authority of Ethel Merman, and a roistering man about town who enjoys the infectious exuberance of William Gaxton.

And who wrote the book for Anything Goes? I'll let the Times answer that one:

By keeping their sense of humor uppermost, they have made a thundering good musical show out of "Anything Goes," which was put on at the Alvin last evening. They are Guy Bolton and P. G. Wodehouse, whose humor is completely unhackneyed; Cole Porter, who has written a dashing score with impish lyrics, and Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, who have been revising the jokes in person. After all, these supermen must have had a good deal to do with the skylarking that makes "Anything Goes" such hilarious and dynamic entertainment. But when a show is off the top shelf of the pantry cupboard it is hard to remember that the comics have not written all those jokes and the singers have not composed all those exultant tunes.

By the way, Alexander Throttlebottom was the role played by Moore in the Gershwins' Of Thee I Sing. Throttlebottom was Vice President of the United States serving under President Wintergreen (played by William Gaxton). Earlier, Moore had appeared in the Gershwins' Oh Kay. In Anything Goes, he starred as Moonface Martin.

PG Day

Today(October 15th) is the birthday of P.G. Wodehouse. He was born on this date in 1881 which would make him 124 years old today. In 1935 -at the age of 54- Wodehouse published two books - Blandings Castle and Luck of the Bodkins. I've just completed Blandings Castle. It consists of several Blandings stories featuring the hapless Lord Emsworth and his prize-winning pumpkin and pig. According to Richard Usborne's Plum Sauce, these stories first appeared between 1924 and 1931. The stories also feature the marriage of Lord Emsworth's feckless son, Freddie Threepwood, to the daughter of an American millionaire who markets dog biscuits. Freddie's efforts to bring "Donaldson's Dog-Joy" to England and promote the product with a help of a bag of rats are featured in the stories.

Wodehouse's best known work, of course, involves Jeeves and Wooster. But the universes of Lord Emsworth and Bertie Wooster intersect. In the story "Company for Gertrude", we learn of the romance of the Rev. Rupert "Beefy" Bingham. Beefy Bingham's clean, bright entertainment forms the background for Bertie and Tuppy Glossop's misadventures in "Jeeves and the Song of Songs." In its September 21, 1935 issue, The New Yorker called Blandings Castle "[s]tray odds and ends for the faithful."

The balance of Blandings Castle consists of a Bobbie Wickham story (another character from the universe of Bertie Wooster) and several Mulliner stories which are set in Hollywood. "The Castways" -like the others in this group - is set at the Perfecto-Zizzbaum studio where the characters are bamboozled into working on the script of Scented Sinners. Wodehouse himself had worked at MGM as a screenwriter in the early 1930s. The description given in "Castaways" of the predicament of Bulstrode Mulliner appears to accurately summarize Wodehouse's exprerience of Hollywood:

He was not unhappy. A good deal has been written about the hardships of life in motion-picture studios, but most of it, I am glad to say, is greatly exaggerated. The truth is that there is little or no actual ill-treatment of the writing staff, and the only thing that irked Bulstrode was the loneliness of the life.

Happy Birthday, PG!!!!!

New York Night

I've just completed New York Night by Mark Caldwell. A history of night in New York might conceivably cover many topics; a history of artificial illumination, of New York nightlife - itself a many-headed theme, of the covert activity (sexual and otherwise) that night so often enables, etc. Of course a book of four hundred plus pages is unlikely to be encyclopedic (or even thorough) on all of these topics. And, in fact, Caldwell gives us a little bit about each of the above.

His style is engaging but much of the material is sordid and, at times, morbid and so there were moments when my interest began to flag. On the other hand, Caldwell's account of New York night riots and recent developments in night life was illuminating. Of particular interest was his detailed description of the Stonewall riot of June 1969. Although the event had its frightening and momentous side, it did not lack for comedic flair. When riot police arrived to quell the disturbance, according to Caldwell, they were met by "an opposing formation: a line of men, arms linked, and advancing on them in a chorus-girl kick line and singing,

We are the Stonewall girls,
We wear our hair in curls.
We wear no underwear;
We show our pubic hair!"

Only in the city of Sophie Tucker, Ethel Merman and Tex Guinan!!!

1935 World Series Preview

Cubs versus Tigers. Let's start with the Cubbies.

This was a team, according to Time, which was picked to finish fourth in the NL. However, by dint of a twenty-one game winning streak, they snatched the pennant from the Cardinals. The Cubs went into the lead on September 14th and never looked back - eventually winning the NL flag by four games. According to Time, they were led by their catcher:

Catcher Gabby Hartnett, their heaviest hitter is a huge, red-faced Irishman who has been with the Cubs since 1922. Lon Warneke a lanky, hay-pitching, coon-hunting 26-year-old from Arkansas, is the right-handed ace of the pitching staff (Warneke, French, Root, Lee), which rotated with rhythmic brilliance through their winning streak.

But another catcher, Mickey Cochrane, graced the Time cover of October 7, 1935. Cochrane was the Tigers' player-manager. In fact, this series featured a matchup between two of the greatest catchers of all time. Bill James in his Historical Baseball Abstract ranks Cochrane as the fourth greatest catcher of all time and Hartnett as the ninth. James calculates that Hartnett would have won the Gold Glove as catcher in 1935 and eight overall in his career.

In 1935, Cochrane batted .319 but with just five home runs and 47 RBIs in over 400 at bats. He was an All-Star with the third best on-base percentage in the AL. Hartnett hit .344 with 13 home runs and 91 RBIs. Hartnett would win the NL MVP and was among the top five in the NL in batting average, slugging average and on-base percentage.

The Tigers had fallen to fifth place in the AL after a loss to the Yankees on May 27th. A ten game winning streak brought them to second place on July 7th. On July 24th they defeated the Yankees, 4-0 and moved into first place. They never relinquished the lead and finished the season with 93 wins.

The Tigers had never won a World Series crown. They lost in 1934 to the Cardinals after taking a 3 games to 2 lead. In 1907 and 1908, the Tigers had lost the Series to the Cubs. Time speculated about "a long-standing Chicago jinx."

Nonetheless, excitement was high in Detroit. As Time reported:

The Tigers have a super-star Hank Greenberg, on first base. Their pitching ace, Schoolboy Rowe a lanky Arkansan like Lon Warneke last year won 16 games in a row. Until Aug 3 this year he won only half his games then took nine out of his next eleven. Furthermore, in Mickey Cochrane the Tigers possess not only the best catcher in either league but one who is apparently on his way to proving himself the ablest major-league manager since the late John McGraw. In keeping with his disbelief in the baseball taboo against mentioning a pennant before winning it, Cochrane made his speech in August: "Last year we had the jitters because only two of us—Goose Goslin and I ... had ever played in a World Series before. This year it will be a different story. ..."