Whenever I talk about Carl Hubbell, the subject of the 1934 All Star Game comes to mind.
Now, me personally, I don't put much stock into them. I've never been to one in any sport. Everyone is in it for fun. You're only their based on half a season.
But in Hubbell's case, it's part of his legacy, so why not?
It was the second ever All Star Game, July 10, 1934 at the Polo ground. Hubbell, who would win 21 games that season, stated for the NL.
Leading off for the AL was Charlie Gehringer. He greeted Hubbell with a single, and then advanced to second on center fielder Wally Berger's error.
When Heinie Manush walked. it was first and second, nobody out.
The batter was Babe Ruth!
Yet Hubbell struck him out with a screwball.
Then Lou Gehrig came to bat.
Hubbell fanned him, two. I guess there was too much excitement at this point because Gehringer and Manush pulled off a double steal. They caught 'em napping!
Hubbell was unruffled. He struck out Jimmy Foxx to end the inning.
The top of the second began with Al Simmons going down on strikes.
Joe Cronin followed suit. Hubbell had fanned 5 straight Hall Of Famers.
But Bill Dickey broke that up with a single. Hubbell fanned pitcher Lefty Gomez. Gomez also went to the Hall Of Fame. 6 of 7 Hall Of Famers K'd!
As it turns out, Hubbell was through for the day, and the AL ended up winning the game 9-7, as Mel Harder tossed 5 innings of 1 hit ball for the senior circut.
That takes nothing away from the above.
Yet when I think of Hubbell, I think of one of Babe Ruth's last great performances.
See, after the 1934 season, the 15 year marriage of The Bambino and the Bronx Bombers was over. So he was back to Boston, but this time with the Braves.
So his very first game as a National Leaguer was against the Giants. And Hubbell was starting!
(Understand this about this blog's author. Anytime someone does something spectacular against some team or someone, I always like to know what happens the next time out.)
So this was Ruth's first time facing Hubbell since the All Star Game the year before. It was also the first time he'd faced Hubbell in a non-allstar game.
Ruth, true to his flare for the dramatic, singled in the game's first run in his very first at-bat. He then scored a run himself later that inning. Then King Carl fanned him in the second inning
In the fifth, Ruth came up with a man on and crashed a 2 run homerun. Later that game, he made a great catch to rob Hubbell of a sure hit. Hubbell managed to fan him later that game.
In the 1933 World Series, the last World Series to feature the Washington Senators (Here that Nationals?) Hubbell held off the Sens 4-2 in game 1, then went 11 innings before emerging a 2-1 winner in game 4. The Giants went on to win the series in 5 games.
Carl would face the Yankees in the World Series (sans Babe Ruth, of course) in 1936 and 1937.
He beat Ruffling and the Yankees 6-1 in the '36 opener, a fine 7 hitter. But he couldn't hold off the inevitable, and lost game 4, 5-2, allowing 3 earned runs and 8 hits in 7 innings. The Giants managed to win game 5 in extra innings, but the Yanks won game 6 easily.
In '37 the Yankees were even stronger. Hubbell was routed off the mound in game one. Hubell managed to hold the Yankees off for 5 innings. But in the sixth, the Yankees scored 7 times off him.
The Giants soon found themselves down 3-0 in the Series, but Hubbell would save them from total embarrassment.
He must have smiled as the Giants scored him 6 runs in the bottom of the 2nd. The Yankees scored a run off him in the first and third, and still another in the ninth, but Carl spun a fine 6 hitter to win 7-3. The Yankees would win the series the next game.
As for Hubbell, he would live long enough to watch another screwball master, Vernando Valenzuela, strikeout Don Mattingly, Cal Ripken Jr., Jesse Barfield, Lou Whitaker and Teddy Higuera. Kirby Puckett the got ahold of one and grounded out.
Hubbell would carry on until 1943. He died on November 21, 1988 in Scottsdale, Arizona. He had been elected to the Hall Of Fame in 1947.
References
Sports Reference LLC. Baseball-Reference.com - Major League Statistics and Information. http://www.baseball-reference.com/. Web. 6 Sept. 2011.
Baseball's Greatest Moments.
Prod. Major League Baseball Home Video. Perf. Warner Fusselle. Major League
Baseball, 1991. Videocassette. Narrated by Warner Fusselle.
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=9opTAAAAIBAJ&sjid=OjgNAAAAIBAJ&pg=1584,5537937&dq=babe+ruth&hl=en
Seaver, Tom and Marty Appel, Great Moments In Baseball, Birch Lane Press, New York, 1992.
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