The Pecan Park Eagle

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9		R	H	E	LOB	DP
’27 NEW YORK YANKEES	0	0	5	0	0	1	3	1	0	–	10	11	1	6	1
’HOUSTON BABIE	3	0	0	1	0	0	3	0	0	–	7	10	2	1	0

Turn out the lights. The party’s over. Babies lose. The 1927 Yankees have performed a “Pittsburgh” on Houston, doing to them what they will again do to the Pirates in this same year of 1927 in the World Series. Ruth, Gehrig and Company will also take that one, four games to none.

Ruth, Gehrig, and Combs led the assault today. The Babe went 3 for 4 with 2 doubles and 1 triple producing 2 runs and 3 RBI for the ’27 Yankees. Gehrig was 2 for 5 with 2 runs and 3 RBI on a homer and a single, and Combs was also 3 for 4 with 2 runs and 2 RBI on a triple and a homer. Gehrig and Combs tied all qualified series batters with identical .471 averages, while Ruth finished 4th with a .375 mark. Joe Dugan also had a .313 record for New York, good enough for 5th place. Phil Holland was the only significant batter for average among the regular Babies with a .385 mark, good enough for 3rd place. Deacon Jones had the best average of all at .750, but the “Deak” lacked the AB’s needed to qualify for the official list of leaders. Jones did have 2 homers, however, enough to qualify him for a series withe Gehrig and Dugan of the Yankees. Babe Ruth only had a single home run, overall, but he did bang out out 3 doubles and a triple to go with it.

As a team, the 1927 New York Yankees posted a club batting average of .278 with 12 doubles, three triple, and 5 home runs. The Houston Babies managed only a .217 batting average with 6 doubles, 0 triples, and 3 home runs.  Alex Hajduk found the only Babies home run that Deacon Jones missed.

On the pitching side, things were good enough, but not remarkable. The Yankees posted a team ERA of 2.31 and the Babies checked out at 4.78. There were no complete games – and no pitcher won or lost more than a single time.

In Game 4, the Babies jumped off to a 3-0 lead in the bottom of the 1st with the help of Deacon Jones’ first solo homer to right, but the Yankees kept picking at a shaky Mike Vance until 3rd when they exploded behind Combs, Ruth, and Gehrig to take a 5-3 lead. The Deak brought the Babies back to a 5-4 deficit in the bottom of the 4th with his second solo homer of the day. By this time, Vance had been lifted in favor of Cavender due to a sore arm that had been bothering him since yesterday’s 9th inning relief appearance in Game 3.

The Yankees increased their lead to 9-4 with a run in the 6th off Cavender and 3 in the 7th off Liebman, But the Babies finally chased Shocker in the bottom of the 7th with a 3–run pot that was capped by a 2-RBI double from Alex Schmelter, who was pinch hitting for his grandfather, Bob Dorrill. With the score now standing at 9-7, NY, through the 7th, it was still anybody’s game. Then Joe Dugan came up in the top of the 8th and blasted a home run to left off Babies reliever Mike McCroskey to make it 10-7, the figure that would stand as the final score: 1927 New York Yankees 10 – Houston Babies 7.

MVP NODS

Lou Gehrig was named MVP for the Series, but the Babies MVP award went to two players; Phil Holland, for both his performance on the field and his “never-give-up” spirit – and also to Deacon Jones, whose amazing performance in limited ACTION, especially in Game 7, served as our reminder to all the other Babies: “Keep your heads up! The best is yet to come!”

 

GAME FOUR BOX SCORE: 27 YANKEES at HOUSTON JUNE 6, 1927.

’27 YANKEES (G4)	POS	AB	R	H	RBI	K	W	BA
COMBS	CF	4	2	3	2	1	1	.471
KOENIG	SS	5	0	0	0	3	0	.222
RUTH	RF	4	2	3	3	0	1	.375
GEHRIG	1B	5	2	2	3	1	0	.471
MEUSEL	LF	5	0	1	0	2	0	.125
LAZZERI	2B	5	0	0	0	3	0	.222
DUGAN	3B	5	1	1	2	1	0	.313
PIPGRAS	P	0	0	0	0	0	0	—
COLLINS	C	3	2	1	0	2	1	.111
THOMAS	P	0	0	0	0	0	0	—
WERA	3B	0	0	0	0	0	0	—
SHOCKER	P	2	1	0	0	1	0	.000
GRABOWSKI	C	1	0	0	0	0	0	.000
TOTALS		39	10	11	10	14	3

 

BATTING:

2BH: RUTH (2)

HR: GEHRIG (1), DUFGAN (1), COMBS (1)

SH: SHOCKER (1)

RBI: COMBS (2), RUTH (3), GEHRIG (3), DUGAN (2),

TEAM LOB: 6

BASERUNNING: Nothing.

FIELDING:

DP: 1

E: KOENIG (1)

 PITCHING:

’27 YANKEES (G4)	RECORD	1P	H	R	ER	K	W	BF	ERA
SHOCKER	W, 1-0	6.1	7	7	5	3	0	26	7.11
THOMAS	H, 1	1.2	2	0	0	1	0	6	0.00
PIPGRAS	Sv, 1	1.0	1	0	0	1	0	3	0.00
TOTALS		9.0	10	7	5	5	0	35	—-

 

BABIES (G4)	POS	AB	R	H	RBI	K	W	BA
MARTIN	RF	4	1	2	1	0	0	.333
McCROSKEY	P	0	0	0	0	0	0	.000
Z HAJDUK	CF	4	0	0	0	0	0	.111
J HALE	C	0	0	0	0	0	0	.167
HOLLAND	2B	4	0	2	0	1	0	.385
A HAJDUK	LF	4	1	1	2	2	0	.083
D JONES	1B	4	3	3	2	0	0	.750
MURRAH	3B	4	1	0	0	1	0	.222
PENA	SS	4	0	1	0	0	0	.286
DORRILL	C	2	0	0	0	0	0	.000
SCHMELTER	PH/CF	2	1	1	2	0	0	.200
VANCE	P	1	0	0	0	0	0	.000
CAVENDER	P	1	0	0	0	0	0	.000
LIEBMAN	P	0	0	0	0	0	0	—
LOPEZ	P	0	0	0	0	0	0	—
MIGGINS	PH/RF	1	0	0	0	1	0	.125
TOTALS		35	7	10	7	5	0

BATTING:

2BH: SCHMELTER (1)

HR: A HAJDUK (1), JONES 2 (2)

RBI: MARTIN (1), A HAJFUK (2), JONES (2), SCHMELTER (2)

TEAM LOB: 1

BASERUNNING:

DP: 0

E: Pena (1), Dorrill (1)

FIELDING:

PITCHING:

BABIES (G4)	RECORD	1P	H	R	ER	K	W	BF	ERA
VANCE	L, 0-1	3.2	4	5	4	8	2	19	9.64
CAVENDER		2.1	2	1	1	2	1	10	4.26
LIEBMAN		.2	3	3	3	2	0	5	27.00
LOPEZ		.1	0	0	0	1	0	1	0.00
McCROSKEY		2.0	2	1	1	1	0	8	4.50
TOTALS		9.0	11	10	9	14	3	43

 

TIME: 2 HOURS, 2 MINUTES

ATTENDANCE: 165

UMPIRES: ZZ TOPP, Back by Popular Demand and accompanied this time by a young blues man named Lightnin’ Hopkins

FAN OF THE DAY: The whole crowd that chanted these especially talented musical umpires, and all the players from both clubs to stay for a reprise of post game concert that took place after Game Three.

 POST GAME/SERIES SHOW – The Spirit of the Blues Man: This time, young Lightnin’ Hopkins and his guitar played out a blues song he spontaneously wrote as a tribute to the spirit of the Houston Babies. You will simply have to imagine the finger work, the poetic delivery of the lightning man’s words, and the pacing of his riff pats on the guitar he played to pieces for fifty years beyond this time. He went on for about twenty minutes with this one tribute blues song here because of soul. It was a song of soul that consecrated that  fabled day at the George Ranch in 1927, but we will have to settle for a capsule version here. It finished with a roar from the crowd. Even the Babe loved it:

The Houston Babies Blues

By Lightnin’ Hopkins

 

Looked out my window, Baby,

Seen the rains a pourin’ down.

Said I looked outside my window, Honey,

Seen the hard rains – just a pourin’ on down.

 

Tryin’ to think of somethin’

To make the rain go away,

Tryin’’ to think of somethin’

This is all – that I can say:

 

We is still the Houston Babies,

We be the kings – of this old town.

We’ll just keep on playin’ base ball.

We won’t let this get us down

 

We’re the Houston Babies, Baby,

Ain’t no time – to take sad flight,

So come over here to me, Sugar,

And sweeten up the sweet night,

If you plea-E-E-E-E-E-E-EASE!

 

Just sweeten up the sweet night, Darlin, OK’!

 

Oh YEAH!