Welcome to Baseball History Podcast, featuring baseball biographies. I’m your announcer Bob Wright.
This is game 04 of the 2012 baseball season.
In the first inning let’s take a look at This Week in Baseball History for the 4 week of January.
January 27
1943 The Reds trade pitcher Paul Derringer to the Cubs for cash.
Samuel Paul Derringer was born October 17, 1906 in Springfield, Kentucky.
Derringer had such command of his pitches that he was called ‘The Control King.” He was known as a great spot pitcher able to put the ball in unhittable places. In addition to his fastball and curve, he also from time to time mixed in a knuckle ball.
He had instant success in his rookie year in the majors but slipped a bit and then regained his form to win 223 games. He was hot tempered at times, but on the mound he exhibited great control.
Derringer started his professional baseball career in 1927 and in 1931 was in the spring training camp of the St. Louis Cardinals. In his first assignment, according to Bob Considine, Derringer strode to the mound, his jaw grimly set with the intention of showing just how good he was. On his very first wind-up Derringer lifted his leg so high his spikes were caught in the webbing of his glove, and when he attempted to follow through he tumbled off the mound to the delight of everyone. But the young Derringer showed his stuff and impressed Branch Rickey so much that Rickey gave him a spot on the pitching staff and sent Dizzy Dean to the minors in order to retain Derringer. The move was a wise one, for Derringer won 18 and lost 8 that year with a 3.36 Earned Run Average and helped the Cardinals to win the 1931 pennant.
Things deteriorated in the World Series against the A’s. Derringer struggled and lost two games in 12-2/3 innings. The slump continued in 1932, and he was 11-14 with the Cardinals with a 4.05 Earned Run Average. Derringer, never a man to take things lightly, began to have skirmishes with the Cardinals front office. This got him traded to Cincinnati on May 7 1933.
Earlier on, Derringer had almost escaped what was then called the “St. Louis Chain Gang.” He was promised that at the end of 21 days he would get a bonus of $2,500 and a salary of $750 a month if he made good, or released if he did not make the grade. Rickey never showed up at the end of twenty-one days and not for days after that deadline. Enter Cy Slapnicka of the Cleveland Indians. Slapnicka told Derringer he liked him and would sign him. Slapnicka wrote out a bonus check for $5,000 and promised a monthly salary of $1,000. Slapnicka told Derringer to pack his bags at night and slip out the back of the hotel where he would be waiting with his car. Derringer slipped out all right, right into the waiting arms of coach Bill McKechnie of the Cardinals, who was having a smoke. “Where do you think you are going?” asked McKechnie. After Derringer told McKechnie what was going on, McKechnie took Derringer to the club secretary and demanded the right to sign him and give him the promised bonus.
Like a number of good pitchers before and after him, Derringer pitched for some weak teams and absorbed more than his share of losses. F or example, he suffered through a disastrous 7-27 mark with the Cardinals and Reds in 1933 despite a 3.30 Earned Run Average that was just below the league average of 3.33. He followed that up in 1934 by finishing 15-21 with a 3.59 Earned Run Average that was considerably better than the league average of 4.06.
The 1933 season was painful for Derringer, who took losing hard, but he was becoming very important in reviving Cincinnati aspirations toward a better future. His 27 losses were especially frustrating, for the team rarely produced many runs for him. In one fit of temper, he almost killed Larry MacPhail, the Cincinnati general manager. MacPhail was reading Derringer the riot act for not sliding on a close play at home plate. Derringer, tiring of the tongue-lashing, picked up an ink well on MacPhail’s desk and threw it at MacPhail, barely missing him. MacPhail said, “You might have killed me, Derringer.” Derringer replied, “That’s what I was meaning to do.” MacPhail, never at a loss for words and actions, took out his checkbook and wrote a check to Derringer for $750 with a note that read, “Thank you for missing my head.”
To discuss Paul Derringer is to discuss two men-a pitcher with exceptional control of his pitches and general work on the mound and a man with little or no control of himself anywhere else.
His most egregious fracas occurred on June 27, 1936, at the Bellevue Stratford Hotel in Philadelphia. Robert Condon was at the hotel trying to get the American Legion Convention to come to New York. In Condon’s words, “I had gone to Philadelphia at the request of Mayor LaGuardia to have the American Legion Convention come to New York the next year and was entertaining the Secretary of War and other guests and their wives in my suite. There was a knock on the door, I opened it and this man was standing there. He was obviously under the influence of liquor and was in his shirt-sleeves. He wanted to know why my party was so exclusive. I told him that it wasn’t but that he couldn’t come in. I tried to shut the door and he hit me behind the ear and then began jumping on me. He almost tore my clothes off and my wrist-watch was broken. I was laid up for eight weeks and lost possible earnings of $10,000.”
Derringer denied everything. His side of the story was that the man tried to invade his room and that he only gave him a shove to keep him from entering. Condon had a judge issue an arrest warrant on Derringer for whenever he would come to New York. Coincidentally, Derringer was selected to pitch in the All-Star Game in New York that year, and it was doubtful if he would show up because of the warrant. Derringer eventually lost the case and was ordered to pay $8,000 in damages. With the suit settled Derringer pitched in the All-Star Game. The Reds helped Derringer by paying part of the damages, but Derringer paid the greater part but, more important, avoided prison.
From 1935 to 1940, as the Reds improved, Derringer turned in won/loss records of 22-13, 19-19, 10-14, 21-14, 25-7, and 20-13. Becoming one of the dominant pitchers in the National League, he helped lead the Reds to league pennants in 1939 (when they were swept by the Yankees in the Series) and 1940 (when they defeated the Detroit Tigers). Derringer won the seventh game of the 1940 World Series when he outpitched Bobo Newsom of the Tigers for a 2-1 win and the title.
Derringer was the starting pitcher in the first night game ever played in the major leagues on May 24, 1935, when the Reds hosted the Philadelphia Phillies. Derringer won that game, 2-1.
Derringer remained with the Reds through the 1942 season until on January 27, 1943, he was sold to the Cubs.
In his final season, 1945, he went 16-11 to help the Cubs reach the World Series. Despite the early terrible seasons, he wound up with 223 wins against 212 losses and a respectable 3.46 Earned Run Average.
In 1958 Derringer was named a founding inductee into the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame.
Paul Derringer died on November 17, 1987 in Sarasota, Florida at age 81.
A large part of this biography comes from the SABR Baseball Biography Project written by Ralph Berger. It can be found online at http://bioproj.sabr.org
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Well, that’s it for today’s Baseball History Podcast. I’ll see you later at the ballpark.
