On this day in 1931 the eventual world champion Cardinals had a double header against their old foes the Braves. It was a one sided day, the Cards swept the lowly Braves, and a typical baseball fashion: one game was a blow-out and the other was an extra inning one run nail-biter. Baseball seems to be like that, one game is not a contest and the next game is very exciting. For the record game one was 16-1 and game two was an 11 inning 1-0 game. The recorded paid attendance was good, an estimated 35,000 Bostonians got a large extra-helping bowl full of bad tasting, uncooked Boston beans: the Cards tallied 17 runs on 28 hits while the old Beaneaters served up just 1 run on 12 hits and committed 4 errors.
Chick Hafey was the perfect cleanup hitter that day, going 5 for 5 with two homes run and double to net 8 RBI. It was a magnificent home run day: a grand slam in the third inning and followed by a three run shot in the sixth.
Of course in a game when you get 8 RBI the first three batters in the lineup had to hit well. Sparky Adams, George Watkins and Fellow Hall of Famer Frankie Frisch were a collective 7 for 14 with three walks.
This summer I attending the Cooperstown Symposium sponsored by SUNY-Oneonta and the Baseball Hall of Fame. One of the presentations was on the sixth metric: eye sight. The research presented showed that baseball players have superior eyesight to the general population. If I remember correctly, the players eyesight were in the 10/20 or better range.
As we see from Chick Hafey’s photo, he was a very rare player; he was one, if not the the first ball player to wear glasses. He was initially found and signed by Cardinals highly successful farm system as a pitcher. When he first arrived at spring training, Greg Erion in his SABR Biography Project of Hafey recorded that Branch Rickey toke note of this batting cage workout and decreed “By Judas Priest – who is that boy?… You mean he was a pitcher, from now on he is an outfielder.”
What is also important to baseball in this era, was Hafey was a good football halfback; he attended Cal- Berkeley, and yet made the decision to play baseball. The promise of professional baseball was greater than football. How to make baseball relevant and important enough for excellent athletes to eschew brain damage and a plethora of football injuries to play baseball is one of the biggest challenges for the new commissioner. Thankfully Hafey choose baseball and became on the game’s best hitters, glasses and all. For a six season span (1927 to 1932) he batted .339 with an OPS+ of 149. He also won the 1931 batting title over Bill Terry of the Giants by a difference of .00028 of a point (Hafey hit .3489 Terry .3486.) It was the closest National League batting title until 2003 when it was decided by .00022.
He was elected to Hall of Fame in 1971 by the Veterans Committee, and was a somewhat controversial choice as he has a low JAWS score. Nevertheless, he still holds a unique record of 10 consecutive hits over a three game span in 1929. Needless to say a very good hitter for a guy with glasses and not so good eyesight.
Here is the box score courtesy of Retrosheet.com with an emphasis on Hafey.
Game Played on Sunday, August 23, 1931 (D) at Braves Field
STL N 0 0 4 0 2 5 5 0 0 – 16 18 0
BOS N 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 – 1 8 4
BATTING
St. Louis Cardinals AB R H RBI BB SO PO A
Adams 3b 5 3 1 0 1 1 0 0
Watkins rf 5 3 3 1 1 2 3 0
Frisch 2b 4 4 3 3 1 0 4 3
Flowers 2b 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0
Bottomley 1b 5 1 1 1 0 2 3 1
Hafey lf 5 2 5 8 1 0 4 0
xMartin cf 5 0 1 2 0 0 6 0
Wilson c 5 1 1 0 0 1 3 0
Gonzalez c 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0
Gelbert ss 5 1 2 0 0 1 3 1
Johnson p 5 1 1 0 0 1 0 0
Totals 46 16 18 15 4 9 27 5
x – reached first on interference.
FIELDING –
DP: 1. Frisch-Gelbert-Bottomley.
BATTING –
2B: Bottomley (22); Hafey (22).
HR: Hafey 2 (12,3rd inning off Frankhouse 3 on,6th inning off Haid 2 on).
SH: Bottomley (2).
Team LOB: 9.
BASERUNNING –
SB: Watkins (13); Frisch 2 (20); Martin (10); Wilson (5).
Boston Braves AB R H RBI BB SO PO A
Maranville ss 4 1 2 0 0 0 0 4
Richbourg rf 4 0 1 0 0 0 1 0
Berger cf 4 0 2 0 0 0 3 0
Sheely 1b 4 0 1 1 0 0 7 0
Worthington lf 4 0 0 0 0 0 1 0
Spohrer c 3 0 0 0 0 0 9 2
Neun ph 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Urbanski 3b 4 0 2 0 0 1 4 3
Maguire 2b 3 0 0 0 0 0 2 0
Frankhouse p 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 1
Haid p 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1
Cantwell p 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Schulmerich ph 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0
Cunningham p 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1
Totals 34 1 8 1 0 2 27 12
FIELDING –
DP: 1. Spohrer-Urbanski.
E: Maranville 2 (30), Richbourg (3), Urbanski (5).
BATTING –
2B: Maranville (20); Urbanski (8).
Team LOB: 6.
PITCHING
St. Louis Cardinals IP H R ER BB SO HR BFP
Johnson W(7-7) 9 8 1 1 0 2 0 34
Boston Braves IP H R ER BB SO HR BFP
Frankhouse L(8-4) 5.2 10 9 9 2 6 1 30
Haid 0.2 4 7 6 2 1 1 9
Cantwell 1.2 2 0 0 0 1 0 8
Cunningham 1 2 0 0 0 1 0 5
Totals 9 18 16 15 4 9 2 52
Umpires: HP – Dolly Stark, 1B – Bill Klem, 3B – Jim Scott
Time of Game: 2:34
Sources:
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/2003-09-28-pujols_x.htm on the battling title race of 1931 and 2003
Baseball Hall of Fame
Retrosheet.com
Baseball-reference.com
SABR BioProject by Greg Erion, http://sabr.org/bioproj/person/96ae4951
Review Overview
The first bespectacled major league ball player was George (Specs) Toporcer who played for the Cardinals from 1921 to 1928.