Monte Irvin and the Miracle of Coogan's Bluff

As we remember Monte Irvin, who passed away this week just a month-and-a-half shy of his 97th birthday, it is worth considering the decisive role he played in the New York Giants' epic comeback from 13½ games behind the Brooklyn Dodgers on August 11, 1951, to the National League pennant. On account of his dramatic bottom-of-the-ninth three-run home run off Ralph Branca to “win the pennant! win the pennant!” Bobby Thomson is of course the ultimate hero of the "Miracle of Coogan's Bluff." Monte Irvin, however, was the Giants' best player, their most valuable player, and arguably should have been the National League MVP in 1951.

Monte Irvin and The Miracle of Coogan’s Bluff

Monte Irvin is honored in the Hall of Fame as a star player in two separate baseball universes—the Negro Leagues and the Major Leagues, where he did not get the chance to play until he was 30 years old in 1949 because black players were not allowed. Irvin was among the trailblazers following in the footsteps of Jackie Robinson, and many Negro League players believed he should have been the one to integrate major league baseball. He and infielder Hank Thompson were called up by the Giants as their first black players on July 8, 1949.

Irvin had an outstanding Negro League resume and was hitting .373 for Triple-A Jersey City when he was called to New York. With Bobby Thomson, Willard Marshall, and Whitey Lockman all hitting over .300 in the Giants’ outfield, however, there was little reason for manager Leo Durocher to make a change; Irvin played in just 36 of the 81 games the Giants had left on their schedule; he started in just 19 and came to the plate only 93 times.

Durocher, however, certainly knew the quality player he had. After starting the 1950 season with Jersey City, where he hit .510 in 18 games (yes, .510 is correct), Irvin was back in New York, in the starting line-up—first in right field, then at first base—and hit .299 in his first substantive year of major league baseball. The next year Monte Irvin began at first base, finished up in left field, and validated that he was not merely a legitimate major league player, but an elite player. 

Bobby Thomson is the hero remembered, but there would have been no Miracle of Coogan’s Bluff without Monte Irvin in the Giants’ line-up. Moreover, the legitimacy of Thomson’s “shot heard round the world” has since been somewhat tarnished, or at least called into question, by the revelation that he may have had help—Bobby Thomson always denied this was so—from spying eyes beyond center field at the Polo Grounds. 

The story well told in his book, The Echoing Green, Joshua Prager relates how Giants batters benefited at home when Durocher sent coach Herman Franks to spy on opposing catchers' signs through a powerful telescope from the Giants' center field clubhouse at the Polo Grounds, beginning on July 20. It was from that point that Thomson, who had been in a season-long batting funk that forced him into a platoon situation, came alive at the plate. He also resumed playing regularly on that very day as a replacement for Hank Thompson at third base after Thompson suffered a grievous injury that sidelined him for virtually the entire rest of the season.

Monte Irvin's hitting, however, carried the Giants at least as much as Thomson's. And Irvin had been hitting all year. At the time Durocher's spy operation went into effect, Irvin was batting .302, had 12 home runs, and his 61 runs batted in led the team. He finished the year with 24 home runs—second on the Giants to Thomson—121 RBIs to lead the league, and a .312 batting average.

When Durocher was canvassing his clubhouse to get his team's buy-in, quite likely making the point as an offer they could not refuse, Monte Irvin, according to Prager, had the temerity to tell his manager he didn't need extra help to be a dangerous hitter. Irvin proved his point, less by continuing to hit well at home (3 home runs,16 RBIs, and a .300 batting average from July 20 till the end of the season), than by going into other team's ballparks and tearing the place apart. 

In 39 road games after July 20, Irvin hit .340 with 9 home runs and 44 runs batted in. Irvin's productivity in road games was critical because not only did the Giants play more away games after July 20 than at home, all but seven of their scheduled games in the final month were on the road—where they did not have their unique Polo Grounds advantage—and they still had to make up a big deficit to catch the Dodgers.

In the three-game playoff to decide the pennant with the Dodgers, Irvin had one hit in each game, including a home run in the first game when the Giants got the jump on Brooklyn by beating them in Ebbets Field. So dramatic were the Giants' pennant drive and the Thomson home run to win it all that the ensuing World Series against the all-mighty Yankees was almost an afterthought. The Giants lost in 6 games, but Monte Irvin hit .458 (11 hits in 24 at bats) to lead both teams, got on base in exactly half of his plate appearances (also the best on both teams), and stole two bases—including home with guardian Yogi Berra making a desperate lunge to tag him out. Unlike Mr. Berra's insistence till the end of his days that Jackie Robinson, in another World Series steal of home plate against the Yankees, was out—OUT! OUT!—Yogi did not say the same about Monte Irvin's theft.

Based on the wins above replacement metric, Monte Irvin was only the fourth-best position player in the National League in 1951, after Jackie Robinson, Stan Musial, and Ralph Kiner. But especially given his clutch performance in the final two months of the season—Irvin hit .338 with 11 home runs and 49 runs batted in—when his team had to make up a seemingly insurmountable deficit against the Brooklyn Dodgers, a strong argument can be made that Monte Irvin was the Most Valuable Player in the National League. The Giants surely would not have won without his exceptional productivity.

Monte Irvin wound up with only five first-place votes for MVP, second-most in the balloting, and finished third overall in the voting. Brooklyn's Roy Campanella, who had 33 home runs, 108 RBIs, and a .325 average, won the award by a land slide, getting 11 first-place votes. Stan Musial finished second overall.

Through no fault of his own, Monte Irvin did not have the major league career that by rights should have been his. That does not change that he was one of the greatest players of his generation, and one of the best of all time.

Charlie Dressen's Worst Day at the Office: To Walk or Not to Walk Thomson, Was That Ever the Question?

What if, surely knowing that Bobby Thomson was not a good match-up for Ralph Branca, Dodger manager Charlie Dressen decided to walk him with first base open, putting the potential pennant-winning run on base, and have Branca take on Willie Mays instead? What factors might have led Dressen to make such a decision--the emphasis on "might" since there's no way to know--instead of the one he did? This is the second of two Insights offering possible explanations for Dressen's decisions made (or not made) in that fateful ninth inning leading up to Thomson's home run and "The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!" 

Charlie Dressen's Worst Day at the Office--Part II

When last we left Charlie Dressen, he had just brought in Ralph Branca instead of Carl Erskine to relieve starter Don Newcombe and protect what was now a 4-2 lead (after Whitey Lockman's double) with the dangerous Bobby Thomson coming to bat for the New York Giants in the bottom of the ninth of the third playoff game to decide the 1951 National League pennant. The Dodgers needed just two more outs to advance to the World Series, where the Yankees were waiting. Although quite controversial, certainly in the historical retelling, his decision to bring in Branca was reasonable given the alternative, if Dressen was indeed concerned with Erskine's inability in his recent appearances to pitch consistently within the strike zone, as I argued he had every reason to be (although we don't know if he actually was) in my previous post http://brysholm.blogspot.com/2014/08/charlie-dressens-worst-day-at-office.html.

With Branca toeing the rubber, Dressen had one immediate decision to make: whether to pitch to Thomson with the tying runs in scoring position, one out and first base open, or intentionally walk the veteran slugger and the Giants' leading home run hitter (31 at the moment) to pitch to the rookie on deck, Willie Mays. And after Mays was another rookie, Ray Noble, who had come into the game in the top half of the ninth as a defensive replacement after Giants' manager Leo Durocher pinch hit for starting catcher Wes Westrum (probably because Westrum's .199 average against right-handers in general and .167 against Newcombe in particular were more compelling as weaknesses than his 20 home runs on the season were as a strength).

A key factor for consideration was certainly that Bobby Thomson was on a roll with a hot hand. He already had two hits in this game, extending his hitting streak to 15 games, and Thomson had now hit safely in 22 of 23 games. (Most of these were on the road, by the way, where Thomson would not have benefited from knowing what pitches were coming, courtesy of the spy operation set up in the Giants' clubhouse beyond center field at the Polo Grounds, where coach Herman Franks sat behind a powerful telescope stealing opposing catchers' signs.) Thomson was batting a torrid .457 (37 hits in 81 at bats) in those 23 games, including six home runs. And let's not forget he was 3-for-6 in the last three games Branca had pitched against the Giants, all since September 1st, including two home runs, the second of which beat Branca in game one of this pennant-race playoff.

Willie Mays, waiting on deck, by contrast was a 20-year old rookie with tremendous promise who was in a batting funk. Not only did he have just one hit in ten at bats so far in this playoff against the Dodgers. Not only did he have just three hits in his last 32 at bats (.094). Not only had he struck out in 10 of his last 32 plate appearances. Not only did he have just seven extra-base hits since September 1st, only one a home run. But Ralph Branca totally owned Willie Mays. Mays had come up to bat 19 times against Branca, and Branca had gotten him out 17 times. Finally, although perhaps unbeknownst to the Dodgers, the kid was scared to death waiting in the on-deck circle, thinking the Giants' season might come down to him.

In his manager's mind, parsing the situation, thinking through the possible outcomes of his various options, Dressen could have decided he would rather intentionally walk Thomson to load them up than risk Branca pitching to him--especially given the game-winning two-run home run Thomson hit just two days before--even if Mays were to drive in a run while making an out--an important caveat--which would make it two outs with Noble up next  and the Dodgers' lead now possibly down to one run, 4-3. What are the odds, Dressen might have asked himself, that a backup catcher, and a rookie, could win this thing for the Giants? Ray Noble had only 141 at bats for the season (and in his career) with a .234 batting average, was hitting only .207 against right-handers and had never faced the right-handed Branca.

Although deliberately putting the potential winning run on base, as an intentional walk to Thomson would have done, was certainly not an optimum move--and few managers, especially in Dressen's time, would think to do so--discretion in this case may have been the better part of valor.  After all:

Thomson was hot.
Mays was not.

And Durocher had no viable pinch hitting options to bat for Noble. He had used both Bill Rigney and Hank Thompson, his best players on the bench, to pinch hit in the eighth inning and then been forced to put Clint Hartung into the game as a pinch runner for Don Mueller, who broke his ankle sliding into third base on Lockman's double.

Walking the lock-in veteran to pitch to the struggling rookie (and then, if necessary, another rookie after that) would have been a move worthy of a manager who prided himself on his baseball genius, on his ability to out-think the guy in the other dugout (or, in this case, the third base coach's box, where Durocher now stood). It would have been risky, to be sure, but Dressen--whose mantra is said to have been, "Keep it close, I'll think of something"--was a believer that taking risks, doing the unexpected, the unconventional thing, often made the difference in winning close games. Of course, if the unconventional move backfires--say, Willie Mays breaking his slump with an extra-base hit to drive in three runs to win the game and the pennant--the relentless second-guessing that is the bane of managers' existence begins.

Charlie Dressen went with the more conventional wisdom of not putting the possible winning run on base, especially not in the bottom of the ninth--a defensible move to be sure. He allowed Ralph Branca to pitch to Bobby Thomson. And we all know how that turned out for him. He has been relentlessly second-guessed to this day, although for bringing in Branca instead of Erskine to pitch to Thomson.

Charlie Dressen's Worst Day at the Office--Explaining Why Branca and Not Erskine

Managers are relentlessly criticized by us passionate fans for decisions made and not made in heartrending losses, but as knowledgeable as we fans like to believe we are, we do not know all the considered factors that go into those decisions. At this year's annual SABR conference in Houston from July 30 to August 2, I presented on Charlie Dressen's worst inning in baseball, identifying some possibilities of what Brooklyn's manager might have been thinking--emphasis on "might"--in the decisions he made in that fateful ninth that led to Bobby Thomson's home run and "The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!" This first of two Insights assumes Dressen knew exactly what he was doing when he chose Ralph Branca to pitch to Thomson instead of Carl Erskine and offers a possible explanation of why Erskine's inopportune bounced pitch while warming up was so troubling to his manager.

Charlie Dressen's Worst Day at the Office--Part I

A double by Whitey Lockman had narrowed the Dodgers' lead to 4-2 over the Giants in the last of the ninth at the Polo Grounds in the third and final playoff game that would decide the 1951 National League pennant after New York's 37-7 record to finish the schedule had entirely erased Brooklyn's 13-1/2 game lead on August 11 to force a playoff. With the tying runs in scoring position, one out and Giants' slugger Bobby Thomson coming to bat, it was obvious Brooklyn starter Don Newcombe could go no further. Including his 8.1 innings in this game, Newcombe had now faced 91 batters in 23 innings pitched in 3 games over five days--which included a season-saving shutout of the Phillies on the next-to-last day of the season (on only two days of rest after a complete game victory against the Braves) and 5.2 innings of shutout relief from the 8th to the 13th inning the very next day against the Phillies in a game the Dodgers absolutely had to win (and did, in the 14th) to force the playoff. But who was Dressen gonna call to relieve Newk?

A good question, because ... the underlying reality was that Brooklyn no longer had a bullpen worthy of the name. For most of the season the Dodgers did have a decent bullpen--Brooklyn relievers were 27-16 with 15 saves and a 3.79 ERA through the end of August.  But in September, the Dodger bullpen was a shambles. With a collective ERA of nearly 5.00, the Dodgers' relievers were sufficiently ineffective that every Dodger victory down the September stretch except for the 14-inning win on the final day of the scheduled season required a complete game effort from Dressen's starting pitcher. What happened to the bullpen?

Well, Dressen using Clyde King, his best reliever, for 23.2 innings in 11 games over 26 days between July 24 and August 22 is what happened. Clyde King is best remembered as one in a long line of Steinbrenner managers, both after and before Billy Martin, but in 1951 he was the Dodgers' relief ace. As of August 22, King had a 14-5 record with 5 saves and a 3.36 ERA in 38 appearances. On that day, however, King pitched a total of four innings to win both games in a doubleheader. He was never the same thereafter, and I do mean never, and certainly not in 1951. He appeared in only 10 more games with a 10.67 ERA, including 12 earned runs in only 9 September innings.

With King unavailable, Dressen had few options. Bud Podbielan, who was the winner of that 14-inning schedule finale that (temporarily) saved the Dodgers' season, and Johnny Schmitz pitched the most innings in relief for the Brooklyn in September, but the southpaw Schmitz wouldn't do because Thomson was a right-handed slugger and despite Podbielan having pitched well in seven relief appearances down the stretch, his limited major league experience (only 54 games in parts of three seasons, all of which included time in the minors) made it unlikely that Dressen would have trusted him in such a critical situation--two outs away from a pennant. Another right-hander, Phil Haugstad, was similarly inexperienced and had given up 25 runs in 30.2 innings.

Then there were the starting pitchers. Preacher Roe was a superb 22-3 on the season and had limited Thomson to a .250 batting average and only one home run in eight at bats, but he had been ineffective his last two starts and was probably suffering from the arm trouble that would plague him the entirety of next year. There is no indication Dressen ever considered Roe. So warming up for the Dodgers were Ralph Branca and Carl Erskine. Bobby Thomson was batting .333 against both Brooklyn pitchers in 1951 with 9 at bats against Erskine and 12 against Branca (not including his epic at bat still to come). And Thomson had hit two home runs off both pitchers, his pair off Erskine coming in May and and his pair off Branca since the beginning of September, including a two-run blast that beat Branca in the first game of this playoff for the pennant.

Branca had pitched poorly down the stretch, although his start in the first playoff game was not bad--3 runs (2 thanks to Thomson's home run) in 8 innings. But before then, Branca had lost five of his six September starts, including his last four, and in four of those decisions failed to last six innings and had an ugly ERA of 11.35. Branca had started three games against the Giants since the beginning of September and lost them all, by 8-1 (September 1), 2-1 (September 9) and 3-2 just two days before. In those three games, Bobby Thomson had tagged Branca for 3 hits in 6 at bats, including the two home runs, plus he had walked twice.

Erskine, for his part, in four starts and three relief appearances had his best ERA month of the season in September, although that ERA was a shade under 4.00 at 3.99. But he lost both of his last two starts, giving up 11 runs (8 of them earned) in 10.1 innings. Erskine had not faced the Giants since August 8, when he got the win by allowing only one run in 7 innings of relief. Thomson faced off against him three times that afternoon, and Erskine got him out each time.

The standard narrative of why Branca and not Erskine mentions that Dressen's decision was made after Oisk bounced a pitch while warming up to come (maybe) into the game. The subtext of how this decision was made is usually portrayed along the lines of Dressen losing his grip, that he was not thinking clearly in the heat of the moment. What was he thinking, letting Branca pitch to Bobby Thomson, who had gone deep against him just the other day to win game one?

What was he thinking? We of course can only speculate, but what he certainly must have known was that Erskine was having difficulty of late with his control and location. In his last three appearances of the season (two starts and one in relief), Erskine had given up 8 walks--only one intentional--in 12.1 innings. And he had averaged 4 walks per 9 innings in 38.1 September innings, compared to 3.6 per 9 in 151.1 innings through August. Hearing of Erskine's bounced pitch while warming up to enter the game may have caused Dressen major heart palpitations and convinced him that Oisk was not the pitcher for this moment in time--even though Thomson had been treating Ralph Branca like a batting practice pitcher in the last three games they faced each other, including the game-winning shot two days before. (It's not as though Branca had been a control artisan recently, by the way, as he had walked five Giants batters in eight innings in his playoff start ... but, at least he didn't bounce any pitches in the bullpen ... presumably.)

While the decision to bring in Branca seems reasonable given the alternatives--especially if Dressen was indeed concerned about Erskine's recent inability to pitch consistently within the strike zone, Charlie Dressen still had one immediate decision to make: whether to pitch to Bobby Thomson with the tying runs in scoring position, one out, first base open and the pennant on the line ... or pitch to the rookie waiting on deck, one Willie Mays.

That will be the subject of my next post.

(Losing Amidst) Hot Streaks

After losing Sunday night, the Dodgers are 46-12 (.793) since June 21. No matter how great the team, or how hot a team is for any given period of time, it is very very difficult to go for very long without suffering back-to-back losses.  This Baseball Historical Insight looks at the extent to which the teams with some of the most dramatic drives to overcome big pennant-race deficits were able to avoid consecutive losses. 

(Losing Amidst) Hot Streaks

My previous post noted that four major league teams that went at least two months without back-to-back losses were all historically great teams at the beginning or in the middle of dynastic runs.  This begs the question about teams that had historically notable stretch drives to come from far behind to win the pennant or division title: what was the longest stretch any of them went without back-to-back losses?

In their dramatic drive to overtake the defending NL champion Brooklyn Dodgers, the 1942 St. Louis Cardinals came closest to not losing twice in a row for two months when time ran out on them.  After losing back-to-back games on August 1 and 2 to fall nine back of Brooklyn, the Cardinals finished the season with a 45-10 (.818) run, no two losses consecutive, to beat out the Dodgers, 106 wins to 104.  Their streak included winning five of six games they played against Brooklyn in the final two months of the season, and a 21-4 record for the month of September.  The season ended, however, on September 27, meaning the Cardinals' streak ran exactly eight weeks--just four days officially shy of two months from August 2.  Of course, throw in their winning four of five against the Yankees in the World Series, which ended October 5, and the 1942 Cardinals did indeed go more than two months without consecutive losses.

In MLB's last true pennant race (because there was no wild card to fall back on), the 1993 Atlanta Braves went 39-11 (.780) in their last 50 games to erase San Francisco's 9-1/2 game lead on August 8 and win the NL West on the last day of the season, 104 wins to 103.  The Braves lost back-to-back games only once in that stretch--on August 19 and 20--after they had given fair warning to the Giants that they intended to make a race of it by winning nine straight to kickstart their drive.  In the remaining six weeks-plus two days of the regular season after August 20, the Braves did not lose consecutive games again . . . until losing Games 4, 5 and 6 to the Philadelphia Phillies in the NLCS, denying them a third consecutive appearance in the Fall Classic.

The 1914 Boston "Miracle" Braves, who famously went 68-19 (.782) to win the pennant by 10-1/2 games after trailing the New York Giants by 15 on July 4, lost twice in a row twice during that stretch.  Their first two-game losing streak was at the hands of the Cardinals, then in third place, on July 14 and 15, which left the Braves still in last place and now 11-1/2 games out.  Boston did not lose consecutive games again for six weeks, with a 27-6 record enabling them to leapfrog six other teams and tie the Giants at the top of the NL heap before back-to-back defeats on August 26 and 27 dropped the Braves a game-and-a-half back.  This proved only a very temporary setback as the Braves finished the remaining six weeks going 34-8 without consecutive defeats to decisively win the National League pennant.  And then they swept the much-superior Philadelphia Athletics in the World Series.

The 1935 Chicago Cubs also went six weeks without two losses in a row as they surged from third place, 3-1/2 games behind the Giants, after a double-header loss in Brooklyn on August 14 to win the pennant by four games over second-place St. Louis.  This was the Cubs team that won 21 straight games in September to overtake both the Cardinals and Giants before losing their final two games of the season on September 28 and 29.  Their winning streak included four straight against the Giants in their third-to-last series of the season to finish off New York, and three straight in St. Louis in their last series of the season to end the Cardinals' hopes.  After going 23-3 (.885) in September, the Cubs went only 2-4 in the month of October, losing the World Series to Detroit.

The 1951 New York Giants' famous 39-8 (.830) drive that began with them 13-1/2 games behind the Dodgers on August 11 and culminated in Bobby Thomson's epic walk-off home run included back-to-back losses on September 11 and 13, meaning the longest they went without losing two in a row was exactly one month.  Until losing Games 4, 5, and 6--and the World Series--to the Yankees, that two-game losing streak in September was the longest the 1951 Giants endured after August 11.  In winning 53 of their remaining 74 games (.716) to demolish the Boston Red Sox' 14-game lead on July 17, the 1978 Yankees had four two-game losing streaks and one three-game losing streak.  The longest they went without losing back-to-back games was one month, between August 22 and September 22.  And in trailing the Chicago Cubs by 10 games on August 13, the 1969 New York Mets finished the season going 38-11 (.776) to win the first-ever NL East title by eight games, but their 11 losses included two in a row on August 31 and September 1 and three straight on September 19 (a double-header) and 20.

Meanwhile, back in the here and now, the 2013 Los Angeles Dodgers are in the midst of one of the greatest performance stretches by any team in history.  Since being dead last in the NL West on June 21, 9-1/2 games out of first and 12 games below .500, the Dodgers had opened up a 10-1/2 game lead in their division by winning the opening game of their just-concluded three-game series with the Red Sox during which they lost as many as two in a row only once in more than two months--on the 18th and 19th of August.  Their 46-10 (.821) record between June 22 and August 23 is the best by any team for that many games since the 1998 Yankees, on their way to 114 victories, won 46 of 56 games (which included two two-game losing streaks) after starting the season 0-3.  The Dodgers began their drive too late in the season to think of winning that many games, but they have a chance to make this one of the greatest comeback stories ever written in baseball history, rivaling that of the 1914 "Miracle" Braves coming from 15 back on July 4 to win the pennant by 10-1/2.