The Old Sarge
Player #33F: Charles E. "Gabby" Street. "The Old Sarge". Catcher for the Washington Senators in 1908-1911. 312 hits and 2 home runs in 8 MLB seasons. Debuted with the Cincinnati Reds in 1904. Caught ball dropped from top of Washington Monument. Holds MLB record for longest gap between MLB games at 19 years -- 1912-1931. Managed the St. Louis Cardinals in 1929 and 1930-1933, including the 1931 World Series championship. Managed the St. Louis Browns in 1938.
Gabby Street became known as Sergeant Street when he enlisted in the Army in March 1918. As Street put it, he was going off to fight in the “real” World Series.
Gabby's SABR biography covers a highlight of his managerial career and wraps up his time as a player: Frustration overcame (St. Louis Cardinal manager Gabby) Street as he dealt with (young pitching prospect/Phenom Dizzy) Dean and his antics during spring training in 1931. Dean would often be late or just miss workouts and meetings altogether. “Let some of the other clucks work out for the staff. "Nobody can beat me” was a line Dean often fed to Street. The veteran players and Street had a respectful relationship and although Street might talk tough, he was extremely well liked. There was no denying Dean’s ability, but he drove Street and later Frankie Frisch crazy with his clowning around. Dean was eventually sent down to Houston of the Texas League, where he spent the bulk of the 1931 season. Prophetically, Street remarked, “I think he’s going to be a great one. But I’m afraid we’ll never know from one minute to the next what he’s going to do or say.”
The 1931 season would prove that no miracle was needed. The Cards held a slim lead over the rest of the pack on May 30, then built on it and coasted to their second straight pennant with a record of 101- 53. The 48-year-old Street put on the catching gear for one last time on September 20, 1931, starting a game against the Brooklyn Dodgers and playing long enough to get one at-bat. That wrapped up a career in which he batted .208 in 504 major-league games, hit two home runs, and drove in 105 runs. A relatively new face in the Cardinal lineup was center fielder Pepper Martin. In his first full season with the Cards, Martin hit .300 and drove in 75 runs. Except for Mike Gonzalez and Frisch, the rest of the team were products of Rickey’s farm system. Their opponent in the World Series was again the Athletics. Before the Series, Connie Mack said of the Cardinals, “I don’t worry about their big hitters—Frisch, Bottomley, Hafey—but they’ve got a young man named Martin who bothers me. He’s the kind of aggressive, unpredictable who could be the hero or the goat.”
Pepper Martin certainly was no goat, batting .500 with four doubles, one homer, five RBIs, and five stolen bases. Grimes and Hallahan each won two games. Grimes won the all-important Game Seven, 4-2, while Hallahan had what today would be recorded as a save. St. Louis scored two runs in the first inning, one on a wild pitch by Earnshaw, and one on an error by first baseman Jimmie Foxx. George Watkins hit a two-run homer in the third inning off Earnshaw to make the score 4-0, and the lead held up. The Cardinals had their second world championship. “I’ve seen a lot of great ballclubs in my day, but for pitching, hitting, spirit, and all-around balance, I would back my 1931 Cardinal team against any of them,” Street said. Frisch agreed with his skipper: “There’s no question in my mind that the best club that I ever played with was the happily efficient Cardinal team of 1931.”
|