Welcome to the Baseball History Podcast: Featuring This Week in Baseball History, baseball dictionary and a tour of baseball cities. I’m your game announcer Bob Wright.
This is game 6 of the 2008 baseball season
In the first inning let’s take a look at This Week in Baseball History for the 5 week of January.
January 31
1959 Former Red Sox Joe Cronin signs a seven-year deal to become the American League president.
Joseph Edward Cronin was born October 12, 1906 in San Francisco, CA.
For 14 years, Joe Cronin’s signature appeared on all the baseballs used in the American League. But a far more interesting tidbit about this former American League president is that he was once sold by his uncle-in-law – not his father-in-law, as is often reported.
Cronin was one of baseball’s “boy wonder” managers when he piloted the 1933 Senators to an American League pennant at the age of 27, a year younger than Washington’s first “boy wonder,” Bucky Harris, was when he took Washington to its first pennant in 1924.
It is often forgotten that the gentlemanly Cronin was one of the premier shortstops of his day, and knocked in more than 100 runs in a season eight times. He was also Carl Hubbell’s fifth consecutive Hall of Fame strikeout victim in the 1934 All-Star game.
A former bank clerk, Cronin came up as a slow and clumsy shortstop for Pittsburgh. The Pirates had Arky Vaughan at shortstop, and in 1928 Cronin was dealt to Washington, where he bloomed. In 1930, his second full season, he had career highs in batting average, at .346, and Runs Batted In, with 126; he was named player of the year.
In 1933, Cronin was named player-manager by Washington owner Clark Griffith, and Cronin responded by guiding the Senators to their final World Series appearance. The Giants beat Cronin’s club in five games, but Cronin batted .318.
The following year, Griffith introduced his young manager to his niece, Mildred Robertson, then a club secretary. The two were married later that year. But at the end of the 1934 season, Griffith sold his new nephew to the Red Sox for $225,000, the highest amount paid for a single player. Griffith arranged, however, for Cronin to receive a five-year contract good for $50,000 per year.
Cronin loved hitting in Fenway Park. Three times he registered slugging percentages over .500, with a career-high .536 in 1938, the year he led the American League in doubles with 51.
He hit a career-high 24 Home Runs in 1940, the year he also led the league in putouts and assists.
Despite hitting .311 with 16 Home Runs and 95 Runs Batted In in 1941, he took himself out of the regular lineup in 1942 to make room for a youngster named Johnny Pesky. He still pinch hit, though, setting a major league record of five pinch homers in 1943, including two in one day — one each in two ends of a doubleheader.
In early 1945 Cronin broke his leg, ending his playing career for good. He took the Red Sox to the World Series the following year, losing to the Cardinals on Enos Slaughter’s dash home in the seventh game.
At the end of the 1947 season, he succeeded Eddie Collins as general manager of the Red Sox and continued in that post through 1958. The Red Sox challenged for the American League pennant in 1948 and 1949, finishing second by a single game both seasons, thanks to Cronin’s aggressive trades, but they began a slow decline during the 1950s and did not seriously contend after 1950.
The Red Sox were the last team in major league baseball to integrate its roster. In January 1959, Cronin was elected president of the American League, the first former player to be so elected. Six months later, on July 21, 1959, infielder Pumpsie Green was called up from the AAA Minneapolis Millers, becoming the first African-American to wear a Red Sox uniform.
In his two terms as American League president, Cronin presided over the league’s expansion from eight to ten teams in 1960, then to 12 teams in 1969.
In 1970, he fired two umpires for “incompetency” when he learned they were trying to form a union.
In his final year as president, he blocked George Steinbrenner’s attempt to hire Dick Williams as manager, but allowed the Tigers to sign Ralph Houk away from Steinbrenner’s Yankees.
Cronin served as American League president until the end of 1973, when he was succeeded by Lee MacPhail.
Over his major league playing career, Cronin batted .300 or higher eight times as well as knocking in 100 runs or more eight times. He finished with a .301 average, 170 home runs and 1424 Runs Batted In.
As a manager, he compiled a record of 1,236 wins and 1,055 losses and won two American League championships; in 1933 and 1946.
He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1956 and his number 4 was retired by the Boston Red Sox in 1984
Joe Cronin died at the age of 77 on September 7, 1984 in Barnstable, Massachusetts.
In this inning we’ll open up the Baseball Dictionary
Under the letter: A
antitrust exemption
The 1922 U.S. Supreme Court opinion that removed baseball from the antitrust laws because, in the words of the Court, the sport “would not be called trade or commerce in the commonly accepted use of those words.”
Often derided, the exemption is a legal aberration that is not enjoyed by other professional sports and U.S. businesses: it covers team relocations, league expansion, broadcasting contracts, and protection of minor-league markets.
The Curt Flood Act of 1998 revoked part of the exemption for labor relations.
If you would like to a part of Baseball History Podcast, submit your written contribution for the tour segment. I will only be doing the tour when one is sent in by a listener. You can do the segment on any stadium or team; past or present; Minor League, Major League, Negro League or any league outside of the US. Write about 1 page in a conversational tone, send it to me, I will record it, and you will get the credit.
You can email me at baseballhistory@gmail.com. You can leave a voice mail at: 206-888-6506. If you need more baseball, I invite you to check out Just Baseball at justbaseballpodcast.com. Well, that’s it for today’s game of Baseball History Podcast. I’ll see you later at the ballpark.
TWIBH- Joe
Cronin
Dictionary- Antitrust
exemption
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