Washington DC Baseball

[GeoPoto]

Player #128D: Joseph E. "Joe" Cronin Part 3. 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 Senators' owner was incredulous, thinking that not even Cronin could be worth that much. He was very emphatic in stating that there was no chance that he would sell the rights to his nephew, the majors' premier shortstop. Yawkey was not deterred and called again a couple of weeks later. Griffith once again told him that he was not selling, and politely requested that Yawkey please consider the matter closed. Another week passed and Yawkey called again, more insistent than ever. The heir to a lumber and iron empire worth millions kept making the point that he could do a darn sight more for Griffiths new nephew than Griff himself could. Griffith was no millionaire. His club's nosedive in 1934 had cost him dearly, and he owed the banks about $125,000. Tom Yawkey was requesting a meeting in New York, and he expected Clark Griffith to be there.

Now Yawkey had the Old Fox really wondering. Was he doing the best thing for young Joe? Cronin would be the manager at Boston, just like he was in Washington. Besides, Griffith had taken a lot of heat during the year, as it had become popular, unfairly so, to poke fun at Cronin's marriage into the family. Unfair charges of nepotism, Griffith envisioned, would never go away. He agreed to at least listen to what Tom Yawkey had to say.

The negotiations did not go smoothly. Griffith thought the exchange might be done if the Red Sox would include shortstop Lyn Lary in the transaction. But Yawkey had just paid $35,000 for Lary, and balked at including him in the negotiations. That appeared to be the end of the discussion, and Griffith and his business manager, Ed Eynon, got up to leave. The old man was likely not bluffing, and mentioned to Eynon that they didn't have much time if they were to catch the train for Washington that night. Yawkey turned abruptly to his general manager, Eddie Collins, and asked what Collins thought of giving up Lary. Collins indicated that it would be okay with him as long as the boss, Yawkey himself, didn't have any objections.

Tom Yawkey grabbed a bill of sale, made it out for $225,000, which had been agreed upon as the adjusted price following the inclusion of Lary, and signed it. There were some final conditions. Griffith requested a healthy raise for his nephew, and Yawkey would go along with a five-year pact, unheard of in this period. The contract would stipulate that Cronin could not be released, which would guarantee his salary. There was one last proviso -- Joe Cronin would have to be agreeable to all this. When he got back to Washington that night, it was with great trepidation that Griffith phoned Cronin, who was in his hometown of San Francisco, having just arrived there on a honeymoon trip that had taken him and his new bride through the Panama Canal.

Whatever apprehension Griffith might have had was quickly dispelled by Cronin, who took it all in stride, like a fat pitch right down the middle. This was the Depression, and his uncle needed the money. Joe and Mildred decided to consider the matter overnight. When he called back the next day, Cronin told Griffith not to worry about what he thought of the proposal, and that he should immediately call Boston and tell them that they had themselves a deal. Cronin reportedly cut the conversation short by insisting that he should hang up, joking that long-distance telephone charges were going to eat up all the profits. Unlike the decision he'd taken to be a player-manager at Washington, this was something Joe Cronin would never regret.

Cronin's passing from the local baseball scene prompted at least one contemporary columnist to write that he thought Clark Griffith really had something there -- that he sure wished he could have sold his own son-in-law for a quarter of a million dollars. The Washington Senators Baseball Club would never, arguably, have a star player of the caliber of Joe Cronin again. For Cronin, this move began an association with the Red Sox organization which would last a quarter of a century, and which would someday lead to the position of President of the American League. (The Washington Senators by Tom Deveaux.)

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