November 1, 1934
Code:
NATIONAL LEAGUE STANDINGS
NORTHERN W L PCT GB
New York Y 95 59 .617 --
Brooklyn 81 73 .526 14
Philadelphia 75 79 .487 20
Pittsburgh 75 79 .487 20
Boston 72 82 .468 23
New York G 62 92 .403 33
MID-EAST W L PCT GB
Baltimore 89 65 .578 --
Washington 84 70 .545 5
Cincinnati 79 75 .513 10
Cleveland 77 77 .500 12
Detroit 69 85 .448 20
Milwaukee 66 88 .429 23
AMERICAN LEAGUE STANDINGS
CONTINENTAL W L PCT GB
Portland 96 58 .623 --
Chicago W 92 62 .597 4
Seattle 92 62 .597 4
St. Louis 79 75 .513 17
Chicago C 65 89 .422 31
Kansas City 59 95 .383 37
PACIFIC
Oakland 86 68 .558 --
Hollywood 84 70 .545 2
San Francisco 80 74 .519 6
Los Angeles 66 88 .429 20
San Diego 66 88 .429 20
Sacramento 59 95 .383 27
The second half of the 1934 baseball season was as intriguing as the first half had been mundane. At some point in the summer, three of the four division races were close, and one team who had led at the break lost its lead before the summer was through.
The one runaway winner was the mighty New York Yankees. The
National League's Outstanding Hitter and
Outstanding Pitcher both wore pinstripes: first baseman
Buck Leonard and righthander
Bill Swift. Leonard, a repeat award winner, hammered 52 homers, drove in 146 runs, scored 150 times, and batted .359. Swift became the third pitcher in major league history to win 25 games (25-5), and pitched to a 2.14 ERA.
Al Simmons enjoyed another banner year, and
George Earnshaw and
Brian Whaley emerged as 16-game winners, bolstering the Yankees pitching staff.
The Washington Senators got hot in late July and put pressure on the Baltimore Orioles. The Nats won seven straight games, including a three-game series sweep of the O's, and pulled within a game of the lead. The Orioles rose to the challenge, however, and behind the strong pitching of
Mike Crawford, Ted Lyons, and
Dick Barrett (18, 17, and 17 victories, respectively), the Baltimore nine defended their division title by five games.
The perennial AL Pacific champion Oakland Oaks won "only" 86 games in 1934, their lowest total since 1926. That was enough for them to qualify for postseason play for an unprecedented sixth straight year. Indeed, no team other than the Oaks has ever won the Pacific Division, since it was created in the 1930 realignment.
AL Rookie of the Year
Bill Knickerbocker (.308-7-75) gave the Oaks another potent offensive player and a solid glove at short, while veterans like
Heinie Manush and
Jimmy Welch continued to hit with authority, and mound stars like
Ed Walsh and
Ad Liska kept retiring opposing hitters regularly.
On August 3, Oaks fans cheered 41-year-old outfielder
Curt Reeves as he collected the 2500th hit of his major league career. Reeves spent most of his career with the New York Giants, arriving in Oakland in a June trade and giving the Oaks a solid bat off the bench. Reeves is a career .307 hitter who has scored 1276 runs and driven in 1208.
Despite their stars' best efforts, the Oaks' victory didn't come easily. The Hollywood Stars actually caught them in mid-August, powered by the big bat of
Joe Hauser. "Unser Choe" hit .400-7-31 in August, winning the American League Player of the Month award and, on August 23, he joined Mule Suttles in the exclusive 400-home run fraternity. Hauser is 35 years old; can he remain productive enough to reach the magical 500 milestone?
The Continental Division race remained close until the first of August; by then, the Portland Beavers had taken it in hand.
Chuck Klein hit .336 with eight homers and 36(!!) RBI during July, and pitcher
Pat Caraway went 5-1 with a 1.88 ERA in August. Both Beavers stars received postseason honors; Klein (.348-36-133) claiming his fifth consecutive AL
Outstanding Hitter prize, and Caraway (21-8, 3.10) his first
Outstanding Pitcher Award.
Two youngsters from whom the Beavers have expected great things lived up to their billing over the second half of the season. Third baseman
Ray Dandridge hit .331 from July 1 on, while catcher
Josh Gibson posted a .335-13-50 line.
In the National League Championship Series, the Yankees disposed of the Orioles in five games.
Bill Swift and
Brian Whaley each pitched shutouts, and Whaley won two games as the New Yorkers defended their National League championship.
Pat Caraway won twice for the Beavers, who ended the Oaks' reign by defeating them in five games. Long-suffering Beavers fans rejoiced as their beloved team advanced to its first World Series.
The Yankees won the first three games of the Series and looked to be on their way to an easy championship. Swift shut out the Beavers in Game Two, and Leonard won Game Three with a walk-off solo homer against Caraway.
Then, the Beavers turned the Series around, winning Games Four and Five easily. In Game Six, a huge Vaughn Street Stadium crowd went wild as
Terry Moore singled in Klein to give the home team a 4-3 win in the bottom of the thirteenth inning.
After the thrills of Game Six, the deciding game seemed anticlimactic. Portland won, 5-3, to clinch the first World Championship in the team's history.
Among some fans, there was as much attention being paid to the bottom of the standings as there was to the top. That's because the June 1935 rookie draft class contains two players with the potential to turn a team around.
Outfielder
Joe DiMaggio, a life-long Seals fan from the Windy City, and Iowa farm boy
Bob Feller, a teenaged fireballer, will almost certainly be the first two players chosen in next June's lottery. The Kansas City Athletics and Sacramento Solons, by virtue of their tie for last place in the overall standings, will have the first shot at these stars-in-the-making.