1937 World Series: Yankees Wipe Out Giants For Second Straight Year

It was a few minutes after the Yankees won Game 1 over the Giants and several of the writers were standing in the victorious clubhouse talking to that day’s winning pitcher, Lefty Gomez.

Gomez had just hurled a complete game six-hitter, allowing a solitary run as the Yankees rolled to an 8-1 victory at Yankee Stadium over Carl Hubbell to get the jump on the Giants. He had pitched beautifully, matching Hubbell out for out through the first five innings until the Yankee bats came alive in the sixth, producing an explosive seven-run rally that blew the game open and made the rest of his afternoon easy.

Gomez’s legendary fastball was jumping past the Giant batters, his control was pinpoint, and he offered further proof that Joe McCarthy was right on when he said one time of Gomez, “If there’s one game I have to win, I wouldn’t be afraid to give the ball to Gomez.”

But rather than regale the scribes on how he managed to retire all those Giants, all Gomez wanted to talk about was that sixth inning offensive orgy. “Any of you guys know if two walks in an inning is a World Series record?” he asked the assembled press corps. As a matter of fact, it was.

Gomez was a notoriously poor hitter, but on this day, something came over him. In batting practice before the game, he sent a ball into the bleachers, walked away nonchalantly and told reporters standing around the batting cage, “Where did it land? I couldn’t stand there gaping; I had to make sure the Giants think that happened every day.”

Gomez didn’t anything into the bleachers once the game began, but he stood his ground and drew a pair of walks during the decisive sixth inning that helped set the table for the big boomers in the order. And later on in the eighth inning, he lined a shot into the gap that would have gone for a double had right fielder Jimmy Ripple not made a fine running catch. “Imagine that,” he said between gulps of beer. “Me hitting a double in a World Series game and then getting robbed of it. Nuts.”

Nuts was an appropriate description of Gomez, the all-time funniest Yankee. If not for his golden left arm, Gomez would have killed in the nightclubs had he so chosen. Gomez made a career out of blowing pitches past the opposition, then blowing smoke in the Yankee clubhouse, keeping the atmosphere loose and light with his antics and one-liners.

One time late in his career during a train ride to the Midwest, Gomez’s arm had been giving him trouble and he was no longer part of McCarthy’s rotation in what would turn out to be his final year with the club. McCarthy stopped for a quick word, then continued on and someone said, “Smart manager, isn’t he Lefty?” Gomez replied, “Must be, he hasn’t asked me to pitch in over a month.”

That was the essence of Gomez, always quick with a line, always the guy to lift the spirits of everyone he came in contact with. A sampling of his wit:

Gomez was asked one time if he ever talked to the ball on the mound and he said, “Sure, lots of times.” What did you say? “Go foul, go foul.”

Upon his induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1972, Gomez opined that, “it’s only fair, I helped a lot of hitters get in.”

After his career ended, he was asked what the key to his success was: “Clean living, a fast outfield, and (relief pitcher) Johnny Murphy.”

Of his active nightlife, Gomez said, “I’ve never had a bad night in my life, but I’ve had a few bad mornings.”

He rarely had many bad afternoons. You could easily see right through his self-deprecating humor because Gomez possessed startling talent and the ability to pitch his best when games meant the most. He poked fun at himself, but he also owned a career World Series record of 6-0.

“On a ballclub that approached its baseball in a business-like manner such as the Yankees, Lefty was just the touch of comic relief we needed,” said his best friend on the team and longtime roommate and drinking partner, Joe DiMaggio. But whenever DiMaggio talked of Gomez’s satirical nature, he never failed to add that, “Gomez was first and foremost a great pitcher. His kidding was strictly a sideline. If he had been a clown, he wouldn’t have lasted with McCarthy, who had no use for comedians.”

Gomez used to drive DiMaggio to the ballpark, and on those rides they would often go over the opposing team’s lineup together and Gomez always had a keen analysis of how to pitch to certain hitters or where to play them in the field. He was an artist on the mound, and much of his success had to do with his ability to figure out the weakness of the batters he faced.

The one hitter Gomez never figured out was slugger Jimmie Foxx. “His hair has muscles,” Gomez used to say. “He wasn’t scouted, he was trapped” was another of his lines. One afternoon Gomez peered in looking for the signs from Bill Dickey and he shook everything off. Dickey called time, trotted out to the mound and asked Gomez what he wanted to throw. “Nothing. Let’s wait a while, maybe he’ll get a phone call.”

Foxx was the exception. Gomez won 189 games as a Yankee, fewer than only Red Ruffing and Whitey Ford.

In the opener, Gomez allowed just one single through four innings before the Giants scored their lone run in the fifth. That run meant nothing a short while later when the Yankees scored a touchdown and kicked the extra point, and it all started when Gomez walked to lead off. Frank Crosetti followed with a single, and Gomez moved to second. So unaccustomed to being on base, Gomez nearly cost the Yankees an out when he wandered too far while taking his lead. Catcher Gus Mancuso gunned the ball to shortstop Dick Bartell, but Bartell dropped the throw and Gomez made it back safely.

Red Rolfe singled to load the bases, then DiMaggio drove a single to left-center scoring two runs. Lou Gehrig was walked intentionally to re-load the bases, and Dickey beat out an infield hit that chased Rolfe home with the third run. Myril Hoag’s grounder forced DiMaggio at the plate, but George Selkirk delivered a two-run single which made the score 5-1 and ended Hubbell’s day.

Harry Gumbert relieved and should have been out of the inning when Tony Lazzeri hit a ground ball to second baseman Burgess Whitehead. Instead, Whitehead fumbled it, everyone was safe and Hoag scored. Dick Coffman relieved and promptly walked Gomez and Rolfe to force in the last run.

“The Yanks are a tough ball club,” Giants manager Bill Terry said, echoing his comments from the previous year. “When they get started, they’re hard to stop.”

Hubbell, who had handcuffed the Yankees in the 1936 Series opener, said, “I had some stuff, but it just wasn’t enough. Say, that Gomez is a right good pitcher, isn’t he?”

The same could be said for the Yankees Game 2 starter, Ruffing. And unlike Gomez, Ruffing was an excellent batsman, and he was his own best friend as the Yankees pounded out their second straight 8-1 blowout.

Ruffing, who had held out at the start of the 1937 season demanding an extra $1,000 be added to his contract due to his skill at the plate, proved it was money he truly deserved as he banged out a pair of hits that drove in three runs. As for his true specialty, he yielded a first-inning run, then blanked the Giants the rest of the way, scattering seven hits and three walks while striking out eight.

“I don’t know which gave me my greatest thrill, pitching or hitting,” Ruffing said afterward. “You know I’m proud of both.”

Up two games to none, the Yankees began to smell victory, and George Selkirk seemed prophetic when he said, “If Monte has his stuff he’ll handle ‘em as easy as Gomez and Ruffing.”

Monte Pearson had his stuff in Game 3, and while he didn’t have it as easy as Gomez and Ruffing thanks to a late Giant threat, he pitched comfortably almost all day during a 5-1 victory that left the Yankees one win away from a clean sweep.

The Yankees chipped away at Giants starter Hal Schumacher as they loaded the bases in the second to score one run, tacked on two more in the third, another in the fourth and one more in the fifth for a 5-0 lead, casting a pall over the Polo Grounds. To this point, Pearson had retired all 12 batters he had faced, but the Giants broke up his perfect game in the fifth and his shutout in the seventh. No matter. They didn’t score again.

“Say, for a bunch of reputed sluggers, we’re hitting the ball like a lot of old washwomen,” said Selkirk. “What’s going to happen to those Giants if we really find the range tomorrow? Imagine any team holding the great Yankees to one home run in three games.”

It was true. The Bronx Bombers, as they had become known by now, had gone deep only once - Lazzeri in the eighth inning of the first game.

“It’s all over but the counting (of Series money) now,” was a popular refrain in the Yankee clubhouse, but the counting was delayed by a day when the Giants triumphed, 7-3, behind Hubbell and a six-run second-inning eruption off Yankees starter Bump Hadley.

Hubbell’s catcher, Mancuso, was amazed by the crafty left-hander’s performance. “Ever see anyone like him?” Mancuso asked the reporters. “With only two days rest he comes back to pitch one of the greatest games of his career.”

Unfortunately for the Giants, Hubbell couldn’t pitch the next day. Cliff Melton gave it a valiant effort, but the Yankees did just enough damage to produce four runs, and that was all Gomez needed. In what served as a perfect conclusion for this one-sided competition, it was the light-hitting Gomez who drove in what proved to be the winning run with a single in the fifth inning.

When Babe Ruth was with the Yankees and he and Gomez were roommates, they had a standing wager every year. Ruth would put up $250 to Gomez’s $50 that Gomez would not collect 10 base hits in a season. Gomez made out on that deal because he he did so only once.

Ruth would have been proud of his pal on this day. Hoag and DiMaggio hit solo home runs in the second and third innings, respectively, to stake Gomez to a 2-0 lead, but the Giants tied the game in their half of the third.

In the fifth, Lazzeri - playing his final game as a member of the Yankees - tripled to deep center, and Gomez followed with a liner that went off Whitehead’s glove at second base to give the Yankees a 3-2 lead. Rolfe walked, and with two outs, Gehrig slashed a double to center that scored Gomez.

The Giants could work only five more singles and no runs off Gomez, and fittingly, Gomez recorded the last putout when Jo-Jo Moore grounded to Gehrig who flipped to Gomez covering the bag, wrapping up the Yankees’ sixth world championship.

“Oh well, that’s the best ballclub I’ve ever seen,” Terry said of the Yankees. “They had good pitching all the way through, and power, too. They hustled and that’s why they got the breaks. We did the best we could under the circumstances.”

Gehrig, in a radio interview from the clubhouse, said, “We all consider ourselves lucky to be with such a great organization like the Yankees. Thank you.”