World Series

Will Rogers occupied a box with Henry Ford. Cinemactor George Raft sat with Radio's Father Coughlin. Bradenton, Fla. changed its name to Deanville. Two men died of heart failure. Children in Detroit were happy: a radio was installed in every schoolhouse auditorium to enable them to hear about it. A newborn baby was named Marvin Dean Gonda. The members of the Byrd Expedition at Little America learned that Funnyman Joe E. Brown was in Detroit. To the U. S. public, the meaning of this series of irrelevant events was completely clear. Two baseball teams were playing each other last week in the oddly named World Series.

First Game. A jubilant crowd of 45,000, eager to see the city's first pennant-winning team in 25 years, crowded into Detroit's Navin Field. Jerome Herman ("Dizzy") Dean, pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals, promptly punctured their excitement. While he was allowing Detroit's Tigers eight hits, his teammate Joseph ("Ducky-Wucky") Medwick made three singles and a homerun that helped the Cardinals win, 8-to-3.

In San Juan, Puerto Rico, a Judge declared a recess so that court attendants could watch a Scoreboard from the balcony. In Detroit, Mrs. Babe Ruth wore a corsage of orchids sent to her by one of her husband's teammates while her husband sat in the press-box in front of the reporter who was ghostwriting his story.

Second Game. In the 12th inning, large-nosed Leon ("Goose") Goslin of Detroit cracked out a hit that did more than win the game, 3-to-2. It made a hero of Detroit's Pitcher Lynwood ("Schoolboy") Rowe who, after giving the Cardinals two runs in the first three innings, had given them only one hit in the nine that followed.

Twenty-two years old, 6 ft., 4 in. tall, Schoolboy Rowe's achievement climaxed a season in which he had already distinguished himself by winning 16 consecutive games. At New Brighton, Staten Island, N. Y., James Mutrie, one of the organizers of major-league baseball in New York, was so impressed by Rowe's size and prowess that he told reporters how he had come to nickname the New York team "Giants" in 1888: "All the players were tall that year. One day I looked out on the field and shouted: 'You're giants in size and you're giants in playing. Come on, you giants!' "

For the third game, the teams moved to St. Louis. In the crowd of 34,000 were a Mr. and Mrs. A. O. Taylor of Minden, Nev., who had sold their 200-acre farm, driven their car for five days and six nights to be there. Pitcher Dizzy Dean's brother, Pitcher Paul ("Daffy") Dean, allowed 14 Detroit batsmen to get on base, but only one of them scored. When St. Louis had won. 4-to-1, he described the game: "I couldn't get my curve ball breaking properly. We'll go right through them now. . . ."

Before the fourth game, Third Baseman John ("Pepper") Martin of St. Louis, hero of the 1931 World Series, announced that he would eat a plateful of apples for good luck, as he did in 1931. Next day Pepper Martin made three errors, his teammates two more. Sent into the game as a substitute baserunner, Pitcher Dizzy Dean got his head in the way of a ball thrown so hard it bounced 50 ft. into the air. He was taken to a hospital. Henry ("Hank") Greenberg, Detroit's first base man, made two singles and two doubles. Four St. Louis pitchers, including famed Arthur ("Dazzy") Vance who, after 14 years as a major-league player, lasted one inning in his first World Series game, were knocked out of the box. Detroit, 10, St. Louis, 4.

Fifth Game. Dizzy Dean bonnets--doll-size straw hats with red ribbons --were sold for souvenirs. A block of stock of the St. Louis National League Baseball Co. was put on the market also. St. Louis merchants estimated that 15,000 World Series visitors had spent $600,000 in three days. At Sportsman's Park, Dizzy Dean appeared with a policeman whom he introduced as his bodyguard, had himself photographed in steel helmet, said he planned to wear a bandsman's red coat and tam o'shanter when he becomes a vaudeville actor, finally strutted out to the middle of the diamond. Two hours later, the game was over and he had been completely outpitched by a neat, businesslike little player named Tommy Bridges who won for Detroit, 3-to-1.

Sixth Game. The teams moved back to Detroit. Pleased with the success of his daring strategy the day before, Detroit's Manager Mickey Cochrane confidently selected his best pitcher, Schoolboy Rowe. Manager Frankie Frisch picked Paul ("Daffy") Dean. In the seventh inning, with the score tied. Pitcher Daffy made the hit that won the game for St. Louis, 4-to-3. Forty thousand tickets were put on sale for the last game of the most profitable World Series since Depression.

Seventh Game. Detroit chose "Young" Eldon Auker, who had pitched and won the fourth game. St. Louis chose Dizzy Dean. In the third, with one out and the Cardinals at bat, things began to pop. After Dean, Martin and Rothrock had scored, out went Auker, in came Schoolboy Rowe. After Frisch and Collins had scored, out went Rowe, in came Hogsett. After Delancey and Orsatti had scored, out went Hogsett, in came Bridges. The inning's score: 7 runs for St. Louis, four pitchers for Detroit. Practically speaking the game and series were over. But not the excitement. In the sixth the Cardinals' Ducky Medwick slid with raised spikes (an old Ty Cobb trick) into third on a triple. When he tried to resume his left-field position at the inning's end, Detroit fans furiously took potshots at him with bottles, oranges. Three times he had to retreat to the infield. Then Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who had warned against "recklessness" before the game started, threw Medwick off the field. But the sixth inning fracas was nothing to the final rout of the Detroit Tigers--11-to-0, greater even than the World Series' 9-to-0 whitewash the Giants' Christy Matthewson handed the Philadelphia Athletics in 1905.

Every World Series produces oddities and heroes. Of all the oddities thrown into the eye of the U. S. public last week, none was stranger than the Deans. Ablest pitchers of the year, they enabled St. Louis to win the pennant by winning a total of 49 games. In St. Louis last summer, Jerome Dean was such a celebrity that when he was pitching the team's advertisements said: "Dizzy Dean in person." Brother Paul Dean three weeks ago pitched the National League's first no-hit game in five years. A third brother Elmer ("Goober") Dean sold peanuts in St. Louis Sportsman's Park until Mrs. Jerome Dean made him stop because she felt that it lessened the dignity of her husband.

Last fortnight the Deans received diamond rings from their St. Louis admirers. Penniless five years ago, they expected to make $50,000 from vaudeville and baseball next year. When Vice President Branch Rickey of the St. Louis Cardinals congratulated Dizzy Dean on winning the first game last week, Dizzy Dean wired a characteristic reply: "Many, many thanks. . . . Breezed through today with nothing but my glove. . . . Tell everybody hello. Henry Ford will be my guest in St. Louis. . . . Cook a good meal for all of us. Sandwiches and everything." Sportswriters, who gave the Deans their nicknames, were proud of their erratic heroes when Dizzy Dean broadcast a speech of his own composition which might have been invented by the late Ring Lardner:

"I would be tickled to death to pitch tomorrow's game. I think I would have my stuff tomorrow, and probably would shut the Detroit Tigers out, because after pitching today without my stuff, and they didn't know I didn't have my stuff, I could go out there tomorrow and shut the boys out. I think that if they pitched me the whole four days I would win all four of them."

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