TODAY IN BASEBALL HISTORY

For two straight years, August 14th belonged to Pitcher Lynwood “Schoolboy” Rowe. In 1934 the largest weekday crowd in history watched the Tigers’ win their 14th straight at Yankee stadium as Schoolboy Rowe notched his 13th consecutive “W”. Rowe improved to 17-4, and Red Ruffing who started for the Yankees drops to 12-8.

The top of the Tigers order did the damage, knocking out 10 hits and driving in and scoring 6 of the 7 runs. Charlie Gehringer lead the way with 3 hits, 4 RBI’s and a homerun. Lou Gehrig knocked one out for the Yankees.

One year later to the day, in 1935, the “Schoolboy” tossed an 18-2 victory over the Senators while going 5 for 5 at the dish.

His hits include a double and a triple, and he scores three and knocks in 3. The Tigers knocked out 17 hits and walked 7 times against a tri of Washington pitchers, Hank Greenebrg also chipped in 3 hits and 3 RBi’s for the Tigers.

Todays win gave the Tigers their 67th win and a 6 game lead of the Yankees.

"How'm I Doing, Edna?"
With his southern charm and eccentricities, Schoolboy Rowe became a fan favorite in Detroit. He was known as "a superstitious player who carried good-luck charms", including "a magical US Eagle ten-dollar coin" as well as "enchanted copper pieces from Belgium and The Netherlands, a fortunate black penny from Canada and a chipped but still powerful jade elephant from the Orient." He also avoided stepping on the chalk line while walking to and from the mound, always picked up his glove with his right hand and dropped it with his left hand, and even talked to the ball.

Rowe was loved particularly by female fans for his good looks and public devotion to his high-school sweetheart, Edna Mary Skinner. During a September 13, 1934, nationally broadcast interview on the popular Rudy Vallee radio show, Rowe asked his fiancee, "How'm I doing, Edna honey?" The line became famous and the incident endeared Schoolboy to women across the country, but led to relentless heckling from fans and opposing players, who enjoyed taunting him with his own words: "How'm I doing, Edna?"

During his 16-game win streak in 1934, a reporter asked him for his secret, and Schoolboy responded that he would "just eat a lot of vittles, climb on that mound, wrap my fingers around the ball and say to it, 'Edna, honey, let's go.'"

Rowe was 158-101 in the majors during a 15-year career. He pitched in three World Series and was named to three All-Star teams.

He had his best year in 1934, going 24-8 with a 3.45 ERA for the Detroit Tigers. In that year's World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals, he retired 22 consecutive batters en route to a Game 2 victory. However, he was the losing pitcher in Game 6 as the Tigers lost the Series in seven games.

The next season, 1935, Rowe won 19 games as the Tigers reached the World Series again. He lost both of his starts facing Lon Warneke, but he also won Game 3 in relief of Elden Auker and Chief Hogsett. The Tigers held on to beat the Chicago Cubs four games to two.

After a 19 win 1936 season, with his era going up by almost a full run, Rowe battled arm issues in 37 & 38. After a shaky 1939 (10-12, 4.99 ERA), he had a miraculus 16-3 1940 season leading the Tigers to there third World Series in 6 seasons.

Rowe however had no luck in the series, going 2-5 over his career.

He seemed done again during the 1942 season, when both the Tigers and the Brooklyn Dodgers gave up on him, but he made a second comeback in 1943, when he was 14-8, 2.94 for the Philadelphia Phillies. World War II then intervened and Rowe left baseball to serve in the Navy from February 1944 to November 1945. He then returned to pitch four more seasons with the Phillies, from 1946 to 1949, winning in double figures the first three of these. After his playing career ended, he was a Tigers coach in 1954 and 1955 and was a scout for the club until his death.

Rowe was often used as a pinch-hitter. He had 28 major league pinch-hits in 101 at-bats. His overall lifetime major league batting average was .263 in 909 at-bats. Rowe launched two pinch-hit home runs for the Philadelphia Phillies in 1943 to tie the major league single season record for pitchers.

Factoid - April 8, 1933 – Prior to a pre-season contest in New York, (and exactly one week before Schoolboy Rowe’s official major league debut), the highly touted Tigers pitching prospect launches a batting practice bomb into the Polo Grounds’ center-field bleachers, a feat never before performed since the stadium’s 1923 reconfiguration. It will be more than 15 years—July 18, 1948, to be precise—before Rowe’s feat is finally matched in the course of a game, by Negro Leaguer Luke Easter, and roughly 20—i.e. April 29, 1953—before the first major league version, courtesy of Joe Adcock.

Todays Podcast

August 14th, 1902 – The Pittsburgh Pirates “Little” Tommy Leach hits two inside the park home runs at Boston. He would end the year as the National League home run king, closing out the season with 6, every single one, inside-the-park homers.

August 14, 1942 — The New York Yankees turn a major league-record seven double plays in an 11 – 2 win over the Athletics. Bill Dickey guns down two runners following third strikes, three are started by the double play combo of Phil Rizzuto and Joe Gordon, reliever Johnny Murphy triggers another, and 3B Red Rolfe initiates one. The seven twin killings give the Yankees 150 on the year; they’ll finish with 190, just missing the (since surpassed) major league mark of 194 they set the previous season.

August 14, 1958, At Cleveland Stadium. Vic Power of the Cleveland Indians steals home twice in the same game against the Detroit Tigers, becomes the first player in seventy years to steal home twice in one game. His second stolen base gives the Indians a ‘slide-off’ 10-9 win in 10 innings. Not known for his base-stealing ability, Power will finish the season with only three stolen bases.

August14th, 1977 Carl Yastrzemski leads the Red Sox to an 11-1 thrashing of Seattle by collecting his 506th career double. This moves Yaz past Babe Ruth on the all-time doubles list. Boston has now defeated Seattle 10 straight times.

August 14, 1979 — The Houston Astros Joaquin Andujar hurls a four-hitter and hits a two-run inside-the-park homer, to defeat the Montreal Expos, 2 – 1.

August 14, 1981 — Dave Kingman’s home run, a monstrous blast estimated to have travelled 515 feet, is, and will remain, the longest round-tripper ever hit in the 44-year history of Shea Stadium. Kong’s tape-measure home run, a solo shot over the left-center wall, comes in the fourth inning off Larry Christenson in the Mets’ 8-4 loss to Philadelphia.

August 14th, 1999 Texas backstop Ivan “Pudge” Rodriguez becomes the first catcher in major league history with 20 homers and 20 stolen bases in the same season.

 ANSWER TO TODAY’S TRIVIA

TRIVIA ANSWER: AUGIE GALAN  

- Ans. Galan played in 154 GIDP-free G in 1935 playing for CHC. Since tied by Dick McAuliffe in 1968, Craig Biggio in 1997 & Matt Carpenter 2018.

- #1 Galan went deep in the 1936 mid-summer classic, in the 5^th inning off the Tigers’ Schoolboy Rowe.

- #2 Played for the 1933 S.F. Seals of the PCL, where he hit .356 with 51 doubles & 22 triples.

Thank you Horsehide Trivia

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