I got to talking
baseball over breakfast this morning with Mr. Bill and Tim the Genius which is
not unusual on a Friday morning in the middle of summer. Of course, no one within 100 miles of Chicago
has much of a reason to celebrate this season, but that doesn’t hurt the
conversation any.
My contribution was
a description of a game on this date way back in 1950, a game the Cubs, having
lost five games in a row, four of which ended with the Chicago team being shut
out, met the league-leading Philadelphia Phillies in Philadelphia.
Before the first
inning was over the Cubs had lost the opportunity to tie a major league record
for consecutive shut-outs as Carmen Mauro doubled and Hank Sauer brought him
home, ending 28 innings without a run.
 |
| Walt Dubiel (Wikipedia) |
The real action
came in the sixth inning when Cubs pitcher Walt Dubiel, carrying a comfortable
4-0 lead after giving up just two hits and no walks, came face to face with
disaster. He somehow managed to begin
the sixth by walking six men, five of them in a row, yielding six runs in the
process. Mr. Dubiel threw 14 balls to start
the sixth before he managed a strike on Phillie Mike Goliat.
Cubs manager Frank
Frisch never left the dugout. In the
after-game blow-up which Tribune beat
writer Edward Burns described as “an almost hysterical outbreak” Mr. Frisch
said that he “would have kept Dubiel in there for 99 runs before he’d have
taken him out on that kind of a performance.”
 |
| Frankie Frisch (Wikipedia) |
“I may look bad for
having kept such a pitcher in there against a contender, but I’m determined to
find out what’s going on . . . I’m sick of watching some of my pitchers getting
into jams, then peep out to the bullpen to see if a reliever is ready to take
over his work for him,” screamed Frisch.
If you look at the
box score for the game, the same nine players that started the game for the
Cubs ended it. Somehow Mr. Dubiel got
out of the sixth inning and went on to give up only one more hit, retiring the
last six Philadelphia players in a row.
“I’m managing the
Cubs and I’ve got to find out what’s going on on my own team,” Mr. Frisch said
several times during his blow-up.
There have been
close to 40 Cubs managers that have come and gone since Frank Frisch tried to find out what was going on
during that July game in 1950. And I’m
guessing that every one of those guys had the same thought at some point during
his time behind the railing of that Wrigley Field dugout.
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2 comments:
Very nice post. I just stumbled upon your blog and wanted to say that I have really enjoyed browsing your blog posts.
Thanks for dropping in. It's been a hectic summer for all kinds of reasons . . . I hope to give the hobby a little more attention as August comes to a close. I appreciate your giving the blog your attention.
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