Redbirds send Lanier against Potter after losing opener, 2–1
By Leo H. Petersen, United Press sports editor
Probable lineup
| Browns |
Cardinals |
| Gutteridge, 2B |
Bergamo, LF |
| Kreevich, CF |
Hopp, CF |
| Laabs, LF |
Sanders, 1B |
| Stephens, SS |
Musial, RF |
| Moore, RF |
W. Cooper, C |
| Christman, 3B |
Marion, SS |
| Hayworth, C |
Verban, 2B |
| Potter, P |
Lanier, P |
Umpires: Sears and Dunn (NL), McGowan and Pipgras (AL).
Sportsman’s Park, St. Louis, Missouri –
The St. Louis Browns, hoping to duplicate the feat of another American League hitless wonder team a generation ago, sent Nelson Potter, a 19-gamer winner, to the mound today in an effort to make it two straight over the Cardinals in their first intracity World Series.
Manager Billy “The Kid” Southworth, trying to rally his Redbirds and even the series, chose Max Lanier, a husky lefthander who has been having arm and back trouble, for his club’s hurling chores. He won 17 games until injuries plagued him late in the season.
The Browns, American League orphans for 42 years, played the kind of ball in the opening game yesterday which characterized Fielder Jones and his Chicago White Sox back in 1906. Manager Luke Sewell’s team got only two hits off Big Mort Cooper, the Cardinal’s fastball artist, but one of them was George McQuinn’s home run with a man on base and it was all the margin Dennis Galehouse needed to win, 2–1.
Recall ‘hitless wonders’
Like the White Sox of that other era, the Browns have been short on hitting all year long, but their pitching and fielding was good enough to bring them their first American League pennant and they carried the momentum of that last-ditch stretch drive in which they nosed out the Detroit Tigers by one game into the World Series.
Just like yesterday, the crowd was slow in coming into flag-bedecked Sportsman’s Park. Not even the bleacher seats were filled two hours before game time when the Cardinals began their batting practice.
It was an ideal baseball day with a hot October sun drying up the puddles which a heavy rain last night left on the playing field.
Litwhiler benched
Southworth announced during batting drill that he was benching Danny Litwhiler, his regular leftfielder because of his bad knee, for Augie Bergamo, a rookie. The substitution also changed the Cardinal batting order with Bergamo in the leadoff spot instead of Centerfielder Johnny Hopp.
The Cards were hitting the ball much sharper in their workout and began rattling the fences with line drives.
There were about 10,000 in the park when the Browns began their hitting drill. There were a few scattered cheers, but otherwise the crowd was undemonstrative.
Potter Browns’ ace pitcher
Potter has been pretty much of a baseball traveler until this season. After the Cards let him go, he went back to the majors via the Philadelphia Athletics and, after he was found wanting by no less a judge of baseball talent than old Connie Mack, was picked up by the Browns. It proved to be a gilt-edged pickup. He won 19 games this year to head Sewell’s staff and lost only seven. he won 13 of the 15 starts he made for Sewell after returning from a 10-day suspension for throwing spitballs.
McQuinn’s homer spoils Cooper’s two-hitter
The power that won yesterday’s game for Denny Galehouse came from the Browns only two lefthanded hitters – Gene Moore and George McQuinn – and Southworth figured that Lanier may be the man to tackle them at the table.
Gaslehouse allowed seven hits against the two that Cooper yielded, but that extra mileage the Browns received at the plate was the difference. McQuinn had hit only 11 homers all year and his 11th iced the first game of the crucial Yankee series.
Galehouse, who did not begin taking a regular turn in the box until mid-season because his war plant kept him busy every day except Sunday, turned in a pitching masterpiece. He battled his way out of trouble in the early innings and then shut the scoring door when the Cards made a last ditch stand in the ninth.
Cooper loses another heartbreaker
When the Cards finally broke through his fast low ball and change of pace pitching in the ninth to score their single run and break his streak of scoreless innings at 21 – he had won one of the important Yankee games, 2–0, and had shut out Boston for four innings in another – he had enough left to retire the Cardinals one run short.
It was another heartbreaking defeat for Big Mort when facing American League hitters. His homerun ball plagued him in two All-Star appearances and three previous World Series defeats before he served that “fat” one to McQuinn yesterday.
But the Cardinals were not downhearted. Southworth was sure Lanier would square that account this afternoon and, as Pepper Martin, the old Wild Horse of the Osage, pointed out, the Cardinals lost the first game in 1942 when they eventually defeated the Yankees.
