Mize’s feat marked the sixth time in franchise history that a Cardinals player hit for the cycle, joining Cliff Heathcote, Jim Bottomley, Chick Hafey, Pepper Martin, and Joe Medwick. It marked the Cardinals’ first cycle since Medwick did it five years earlier in 1935.

The game pitted two of the game’s best pitchers of the previous decade in New York’s Carl Hubbell and St. Louis’s Lon Warneke. Hubbell was a two-time National League MVP who had just been selected to his seventh career All-Star Game. Now in his 13^th season, the 37-year-old Hubbell entered the game with a 5-4 record and a 3.38 ERA.

The Cardinals countered with Warneke, a 31-year-old right-hander who finished second in the National League MVP voting in 1932, when he led the league with 22 wins and a 2.37 ERA. Warneke, who had four All-Star Game selections to his credit, was coming off a 10-inning performance in which he took the loss despite allowing just two earned runs. He entered the game with a 5-7 record despite a 2.83 ERA.

Neither pitcher enjoyed an easy afternoon on the mound. The Giants got on the scoreboard in the top of the second inning with an RBI single by Billy Jurges, but the Cardinals answered with back-to-back doubles by Marty Marion and Mickey Owen. Warneke helped his own cause with a single that scored Owen. In the third inning, Mize got his first hit of the day, a solo home run over the right-field wall, giving the Cardinals a 3-1 lead.

The Giants took the lead in the top of the fourth, chasing Warneke from the game with five consecutive hits to open the inning. After Jurges singled to give the Giants the lead, Cardinals manager Billy Southworth replaced Warneke with Jack Russell, a 15-year veteran from Paris, Texas. Russell got Hubbell to hit into a 6-4-3 double play that brought home another run, giving the Giants a 5-3 lead, before ending the inning.

The Giants added another run in the sixth after Russell walked Mel Ott and Tony Cuccinello. Jurges followed with a sacrifice bunt, and Ott scored on a groundout by Hubbell to make the score 6-3.

In the seventh, the Cardinals rallied to tie the score against a tiring Hubbell. Don Gutteridge, pinch-hitting for Russell, reached on an infield single. Hubbell walked Jimmy Brown before Martin hit a run-scoring single. Mize, who doubled to right field in the fifth, followed with an RBI single of his own to chase Hubbell from the game. Giants reliever Jumbo Brown walked Ernie Koy to load the bases before Joe Orengo hit a sacrifice fly to center field to tie the game 6-6.

The Cardinals’ Max Lanier and the Giants’ Red Lynn each retired the side in order in the eighth, and Lanier induced a 6-4-3 double play to end the top of the ninth. After Martin struck out to lead off the bottom of the ninth, Mize stepped to the plate a triple shy of the cycle. Incredibly, he got it when he smacked a drive off the concrete center-field wall 412 feet from home plate. Giants left fielder Jo-Jo Moore retrieved the ball and fired it back to the infield, but Jurges briefly mishandled the ball before relaying it to the catcher, Harry “The Horse” Danning.

Coaching at third base, Southworth saw Jurges’ misplay and sent Mize home. At first, that appeared to be a mistake. “Mize looked like a gone goose, but Danning, over-eager, despite a thin veneer of nonchalance, took his eye off the ball to see whether he’d have Mize by 10 feet or 20, and that was his undoing,” J. Roy Stockton wrote in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “He fumbled the bounding ball, and Mize scored the winning run.”

The official scorer ruled the play a triple with an error on Danning, simultaneously taking away Mize’s RBI and giving him the cycle.

Mize’s four-hit day raised his season average to .292 and paced a Cardinals offense that finished the game with 13 hits. Lanier was credited with the win after pitching two scoreless innings in relief, while Lynn took the loss for the Giants.

In the second game of the double-header, the Cardinals again broke a ninth-inning tie with a clutch walk-off hit, this time an RBI single by Terry Moore. With the wins, the Cardinals improved to 29-41 on the season and 14-12 under Southworth, who had taken over the club midseason.

While the Giants stumbled to a sixth-place finish, Southworth’s Cardinals surged, finishing the year with an 84-69 record, good for third place in the National League.

Give the gift of Cardinals history! The Trades That Made The St. Louis Cardinals is available now on Amazon.

The post Johnny Mize completes cycle with walk-off triple: 7/7/1940 first appeared on STLRedbirds.com.

Heading into their May 7 contest against the first-place Brooklyn Dodgers, the Cardinals had won just five of their first 15 ballgames. They opened the season by losing six of their first eight, and had already lost their first two games in the Brooklyn series.

To compound matters, shortstop Marty Marion had injured his knee and center fielder Terry Moore sprained his shoulder in the first game against the Dodgers, leaving the Cardinals short-handed and desperate for a win.

They would respond with a historic offensive performance that featured 20 hits, including seven homers, four doubles, and two triples in an 18-2 drubbing of the Dodgers. The Cardinals’ 49 bases on the day broke the modern National League record of 47, set by the New York Giants in 1931, and their 13 extra-base hits tied a modern major league record set by the Tigers and Cardinals in 1925 and the Cardinals again in 1931.[1] Their seven home runs also tied the National League record. Along the way, the Cardinals had a hit in each inning and every player in the lineup had an extra-base hit, scored, and drove in a run.

Dodgers starting pitcher Hugh Casey allowed five of the Cardinals’ seven home runs, allowing 13 runs on 15 hits over seven innings. Mercifully, he was replaced by reliever Max Macon for the eighth inning, though Macon didn’t perform any better, allowing five runs on five hits, including two home runs.

Altogether, Johnny Mize and Eddie Lake hit two home runs apiece, while Don Padgett, Stu Martin, and Joe Medwick each hit one.

Padgett got the Cardinals on the scoreboard with a second-inning home run that landed just beyond the 422-foot measurement in center field. He hit the ball so hard that Dodgers center fielder Charlie Gilbert gave up on the play 25 feet short of the outfield wall.[2]

The Cardinals rallied for five more runs in the third. Lake led off the inning with a home run, then Martin singled and scored on a triple by Slaughter. Medwick hit an RBI single to score Slaughter, and Mize blasted a two-run homer to make it 6-0.

At that point, former Cardinal shortstop Leo Durocher, now managing the Dodgers, removed himself from the game and inserted rookie Pee Wee Reese to play the remainder of the game. Making just the 10^th appearance of his career, the future Hall of Famer had little impact on the game’s outcome as the Cardinals continued to build upon their lead.

Martin added a solo homer in the fourth, and in the fifth Johnny Hopp hit an RBI double and Lake added a two-run double. Medwick hit a two-run homer and Jimmy Brown added a sacrifice fly later in the inning to make the score 13-0.

Lon Warnecke shut out the Dodgers through the first seven innings – including a stretch in which he retired 14 consecutive batters – before they finally got on the scoreboard with four hits in the eighth. Casey was finally replaced with a pinch hitter in the inning.

“He asked to stay in there,” Durocher said. “He hadn’t had much work, and as long as the game was gone, I let him continue.”[3]

Macon didn’t fare any better, as Mize and Lake each homered, Hopp hit an RBI single, and Warneke added an RBI double.

For the game, Lake finished with two homers, a double, and five RBIs to lead the Cardinals’ effort. Mize had three hits, including two homers and a double, to finish with three RBIs, and Martin added three hits, including a home run.

Warneke finished the Dodgers off in the ninth to capture his first win of the season. For the day, he allowed two earned runs on nine hits and a walk.

Warneke pitched the ninth inning to catcher Bill DeLancey, who entered the game in place of Padgett for his first major-league appearance in almost five years. DeLancey had caught every inning of the 1934 World Series for the Gashouse Gang and was considered by Branch Rickey to be one of the best catchers he ever saw. In 1935, however, he fell ill with serious lung ailments and retired to Phoenix, Arizona, where it was believed the dry air would assist his recovery. DeLancey missed the entire 1936 season and became a player-manager for the Cardinals’ minor-league affiliate in Albuquerque in 1937.

DeLancey was declared fit to play for the Cardinals in a part-time role in 1940, and he was credited with helping the development of prospect Mickey Owen, who was only four years younger than DeLancey.

“DeLancey, as he strode to the plate, drew even greater cheers than the Cardinals’ tremendous hitting had attracted,” the St. Louis Globe-Democrat reported.[4]

DeLancey played in just 15 games, and the next two seasons he served as a minor-league manager. Following the 1942 season, DeLancey left baseball as his health deteriorated once again. He died on his 35^th birthday in November 1946.

After the Cardinals made history with their home run barrage, Brooklyn’s ballclub made its own history. With their flight from St. Louis to Chicago, the Dodgers became the first major league team to travel by plane.[5]

Meanwhile, the win didn’t turn the Redbirds’ season around, but it did show their terrifying offensive potential. After a 9-5 loss to Brooklyn on June 6 that dropped the Cardinals’ record to 14-24, manager Ray Blades was removed from his position. Mike Gonzalez served as interim manager for six games (losing five) before Billy Southworth was named manager.

Southworth guided the team to a 69-40 record for the remainder of the season, good for third place in the final National League standings. Southworth’s Cardinals won 97 games to place second behind the Dodgers in 1941 before winning the National League title and the World Series in 1942.

Enjoy this post? Get Cardinals history delivered to your inbox!

[1] Martin J. Haley, “Cards Break 2 Records and Equal 7 in Routing Dodgers, 18-2,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 8, 1940.

[2] Martin J. Haley, “Cards Break 2 Records and Equal 7 in Routing Dodgers, 18-2,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 8, 1940.

[3] “Casey Wanted to Stay In,” The Sporting News, May 16, 1940.

[4] Martin J. Haley, “Cards Break 2 Records and Equal 7 in Routing Dodgers, 18-2,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 8, 1940.

[5] “Dodgers in Chicago After First Mass Plane Flight by Major League Team,” Brooklyn Citizen, May 8, 1940.

The post May 7, 1940: Cardinals clobber seven home runs in 18-2 rout of the Dodgers first appeared on STLRedbirds.com.