Washington DC Baseball

[GeoPoto]

Player #128C Part 3: Joseph E. "Joe" Cronin. Shortstop for the Washington Senators in 1928-1934 and the Boston Red Sox in 1935-1945. 2,285 hits and 170 home runs in 20 MLB seasons. He had a career OBP of .390. He was a 7-time All Star. Boston Red Sox #4 retired. Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame. In 1956, he was inducted to the MLB Hall of Fame. His best season was probably 1930 for Washington as he posted a .422 OBP with 127 runs scored and 127 RBIs on 686 plate appearances. He managed the Washington Senators in 1933-1934 and the Boston Red Sox in 1935-1947. He was General Manager of the Boston Red Sox in 1948-1958. He was president of the American League in 1959-1973. When he left the Red Sox in 1959, they were the only MLB team without a black player. He and team owner Tom Yawkey are generally viewed as responsible for this injustice which ended six months after Cronin's departure.

The three pitcher's Cronin named were lefthanders Earl Whitehill of the Tigers and Walter Stewart of the Browns, and righty Jack Russell of the Indians. (This is the same Jack Russell for whom the Phillies' spring training facility in Clearwater, Florida was named -- in his later years, Russell was City Commissioner of Clearwater and instrumental in getting the facility built.) It was Cronin's opinion that the Yankees were the team to beat, and that what separated the Yankees from the Senators was pitching, particularly of the lefthanded variety. Whitehill and Stewart were two who matched up well against the Bronx Bombers. As for Russell, Cronin wanted him for quite another reason -- he had owned the Senators the previous season, and that had to mean something.

Griffith decided to accede to Cronin's demands, possibly spurred on by vanity after Cronin expressed confidence in his skill as a shrewd negotiator. When they got to New York, Cronin was dispatched to the hotel lobby to accost some of the officials of the three teams the Senators wanted to deal with. Their first move was to reverse a trade they had made on June 9 by reobtaining southpaw Carl Fischer (who had had one good year with the Senators in '31 when he went 13-9) in exchange for Dick Coffman. Fischer had gone 3-7 for the Browns after the June deal, but the Detroit Tigers had some interest in him. Coffman, a lefthanded, had registered a 1-6 on a strong Washington club. . . .

. . . Joe Cronin now had all he had asked for, and more. In addition to the three pitchers, the Senators were better set behind the plate with the reliable Sewell. Goose Goslin's lefthanded power and Fred Schulte's righthanded bat were expected to round out an even better outfield with Heinie Manush, the high-percentage lefthanded-hitting left fielder for whom Goslin had been traded 2 1/2 years earlier, being the third flycatcher.

At the Biloxi training camp, the young manager sought to enlist the support of the veterans the way Bucky Harris had during the Senators' salad days in the midtwenties, and he got it. One day, however, General Crowder, yanked out of a game by Cronin, hurled his glove all the way from the mound to the dugout. When fined $25 on the spot, Crowder yelled at Cronin that $25 amounted to a bush-league fine. To which Cronin retorted that Crowder's outburst had been exactly that -- bush. There was nothing bush about General Crowder's results in 1933, however, as he went on to win 24 games, best on the staff. (The Washington Senators by Tom Deveaux.)

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