Vegetable Plate

In 1908, on the very last day of the baseball season, the Detroit Tigers clinched the American League pennant. Last week a new generation of Tigers came close to doing it again. Playing their last three games of the season in Cleveland, Detroit needed only one game to win the pennant. But the odds were 2-to-1 against their winning the first game. For in the opener they had to stand up to Fireball Bob Feller.

Rather than waste Buck Newsom or Schoolboy Rowe against Cleveland's Boy Wonder, Manager Del Baker started Floyd Giebell, a right-handed rookie brought up from Buffalo only ten days before. A gawky stringbean who had lost more games this season than he had won, Rookie Giebell looked like a sacrificial lamb as he ambled out to the mound. But no lamb was Giebell that day. With cunning change of pace and the control of an oldtimer, the green-as-grass rookie shut out the Indians 2-to-0.

Rookie Giebell had more than the Indian bats against him. A Ladies' Day crowd of 45,000 streamed into Cleveland's Municipal Stadium laden with eggs, eggplants, cauliflowers, fruit. They were there to get back at the Tigers for calling the Indians Crybabies, Boohoo Indians and Papeese (plural for papoose). As soon as the Tigers went on the field they were pelted from the stands. By the time Rudy York smacked one of Feller's pitches for a two-run homer, the diamond looked like a vegetable plate.

Time was called twice while Chief Umpire Bill Summers and Indian Manager Oscar Vitt begged the fans to stop. They were in no mood to stop. Wham! A bushel basket full of tomatoes dropped from the upper grandstand into the Tiger bull pen. Apparently aimed at Schoolboy Rowe, it scored a direct hit on Birdie Tebbetts, alternate catcher, who was chatting with Rowe. Tebbetts was knocked unconscious.

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