I listened on the radio to the first world series game I ever heard in 1941 and this story will be about that game. But I will first mention some things about baseball that were new to the eleven year-old kid I was at the time. During spring training before the season, I learned there were two major leagues, the American League and the National League.
Family Gathered Around the RadioI liked the sound of “National” better, but read scores of games of both leagues through the season, and got to know the names of just a few players. Back then, there were eight teams in each league. St. Louis was the most western city (if one can call St. Louis a western city), so most Henryettans in 1941 were fans of the St. Louis Cardinals of the National League. St. Louis also had an American League team called the Browns. They didn’t have nearly as much following as the Cardinals and moved to Baltimore in 1950. st louis browns
Through 1941’s summer I listened to a lot of night baseball games played in the long ago AA class Texas league, but I don’t recall listening to major league games, and might not have known they were on the radio, probably because nearly all were played in the afternoon when my sisters liked to listen to long ago soap operas.
I must also have listened to the soap operas since I still remember some, like one about a woman named Stella Dallas and another about a man named Lorenzo Jones.
At the end of the 1941 season, the teams that qualified for the World Series were the New York Yankees of the American League and the Brooklyn Dodgers on the National league. Having liked the name, National” better, I pulled for the Dodgers. 1941 dodgersStarting with the 1941 World Series, the Dodgers became my favorite team, and they were still my favorite after they moved to Los Angeles in 1959, but over time, my interest in baseball diminished because, with use of spot relief pitchers and pinch hitters and even pinch runners, repeated throws by pitchers to hold a batter on first base, and batters backing out of the batter’s box after every pitch to bang his cleats with the bat, it has become a slow game. I understand some changes are currently in process to change that. If the changes are sufficient, my interest may return.
As mentioned in earlier stories, my older sister, Betty Lou, was the baby sitter for Mr. and Mrs Marion Anglin. Mr. Anglin was the great Hen coach (both football and basketball) of the 1940s. The Anglin children, Eddie and Nancy, were still pre-schoolers in the fall of 1941. Betty also helped Mrs. Anglin with housework. My younger sister, Dora Jane, was the baby sitter after Betty graduated from HHS in 1944, but she didn’t help Mrs. Anglin with housework. Saturday, October 2, 1941, Mr. Anglin brought Betty home from the Anglins and when she came into the house, she said he had been listening to the World Series on the radio. I don’t know if he had been listening in his car or in their house as Betty helped Mrs. Anglin with housework. I had been listening that afternoon to some early season college football game, and was surprised to learn the World Series game had been on the radio. Remember, I was just 11, and I guess my thinking power reached the point where I would naturally think that if minor league games had been on the radio at night, far more important World Series games would be on the radio.
1941 YankeesWith that introduction, I will now tell about the game I heard on the radio on Sunday October 3, 1941. Joe McCarthy was the Yankee manager, and had been for seven World Series Championship. He was quite a manager and continued on in that role for several more years.
The Dodgers were led by second year manger Leo Durocher, who used many fiery expressions. Because of that, he was known as “Leo the Lip,” and was famous for his one liner, “Nice guys finish last.”leo durocher
Going into the game played at Brooklyn’s Ebbets Field, the Yankees were leading the best 4 out of 7 game series 2 games to 1. I will skip the early details of the game and get to the all-important ninth inning. Going into the ninth inning, the Dodgers were leading 4-3 and their great pitcher, Hugh Casey was on the mound. Then, with two out in the top of the ninth and nobody on base, Casey was facing Yankee Tommy Henrich for what could be the last out of the game. I was really getting excited, because if the Dodgers won to tie the series at 2 wins apiece, and with the Monday game to also be played in Brooklyn, there was a fair chance that the series could go back to Yankee Stadium with the Dodgers leading 3 game to 2. But my mother, who was listening with me, told me to not get too excited until the Dodgers had really won. (I think she said something like “Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.”) Well, with a 2 strike and no balls count on Henrich, he swung and missed Casey’s next pitch. That would have been the end of the game with the Dodgers winning, but the ball got away from Dodger catcher Mickey Owen and went clear to the wall behind home plate. For those less familiar with baseball, the rule is that if the umpire calls a third strike on the batter or if the batter swings and misses a third strike pitch, and there is no runner on first base, the batter can run to first base will be called safe unless the catcher retrieves the ball and throws it to first before the batter gets there. With the ball going clear to the wall behind home plate before Owen could get it, Henrich was safe. Joe DiMaggio then singled, and Charlie Keller doubled to drive both Henrich and DiMaggio home. Bill Dickey then walked and Joe Gordon doubled to drive Keller and Dickery home. The Yankees were finally retired after scoring 4 runs and going ahead 7-4. That was the final score, and the Yankees won the next day to win the series 4 games to 1.
MickeyOwensDodgersAfter the game, Mickey Owen said Hugh Casey’s pitch was outside and low and should have been called a ball, rather than a strike, apparently meaning that with nobody on base, it wouldn’t have been anything except a pitch that got away. But in saying that, he ignored the fact that Henrich swung at the pitch. Still, some old-time umpires said at the time that when a batter purposely swung at a third strike pitch on the hope that the ball would get away from the catcher, they had disregarded the swing and called the pitch a ball.
The Dodgers lost the World Series to the Yankees in 1947, 1948, 1952, and 1953, before they finally beat them 4 games to 3 in 1955 as I watched the last game on TV in the Amarillo, Texas airport. The Dodgers also won a few world series since they moved to Los Angeles in 1959, and I managed to see them win a World Series game there. But with them not being the Brooklyn Dodgers, with the game now so slow for the reasons mentioned earlier, I seldom pay much attention to baseball anymore – except for the College World Series and the Little League World Series.
Mickey Owen continued as the Dodger catcher through the 1945 season and was on the National League All-star teams from 1941 through 1944. He served briefly in the Navy following the 1945 season (WWII had ended a few weeks before the end of that season) and would have returned to Brooklyn in 1946 if he had accepted the Dodgers’ proposed contract. But he signed to play in the Mexican league that was formed that year and attracted quite a few major leaguers with the high paying contracts being offered. Baseball Commissioner Happy Chandler placed a lifetime suspension on players that “jumped” to that league, but the suspension was later reduced to three years.
Owen returned to the majors in 1949 and played for the Chicago Cubs until 1951, when he moved to play for the Boston Red Sox until 1954, after which he spent two seasons as a Red Sox coach before becoming a Cubs scout. Returning to the Ozarks in his native Missouri he founded the Mickey Owen Baseball School, which he ran until 1963. He spent his last years in the Springfield Missouri Veterans Home where he died at 89 in 2005.
Before concluding, I must state that many of the details included here were found by looking on the internet. I knew some details at the time, such as the names of Joe DiMaggio and Leo Durocher. I don’t recall whether I already knew the name of Yankee manager, Joe McCarthy or not, and know I didn’t recall the details of what the Yankee batters after Henrich did, or the full manner of scoring the four runs after Owen missed the ball. Those details from the internet are included to help readers know just what the process was and just who the characters were in this story about the first World Series game I ever heard on the radio, and whose outcome I have definitely always remembered.
Back to the comment about enjoying the Little League World Series. I live a little north of Houston and Pearland, Texas is a little south of Houston – about 50 miles from my house. Pearland has a very good Little League program and has made it through all the preliminary tournaments to qualify for and play in the Williamsport, Pennsylvania Little League World Series three times in the past six years. A few weeks ago, they placed second in the U. S. and third in the world, which is exactly the same as they placed in 2010. If they keep their program going, the day will come when they will win it all.