Lade In Control

April 24, 1949

Lade In Control

At 0-5, the Cubs need something to get their season going. I didn’t expect a good start from Doyle Lade to do the trick.

Cubs at Cardinals

This one started out with a bang.

St. Louis rallied early. A Red Schoendienst single with two outs in the bottom of the second, followed by another single by Marty Marion, set things up for Joe Garagiola:

When the game prompted me to send Marion home, I thought this was going to start a big Cardinal rally. They still took the lead, though the difference here between one run and two runs was absolutely huge.

Scoring the Hard Way

As for the Cubs? Well, they did manage to tie it in the top of the 4th, though they didn’t get many hits in the process.

Hal Jeffcoat started the top of the 4th with a walk, but was promptly caught stealing second. Peanuts Lowrey was then hit by a pitch. That brought up Phil Cavarretta, who promptly grounded a single to send Lowrey to third.

And that brought up Gene Mauch, who was a long way away from his later managerial fame:

Frankie Gustine then grounded into a double play. Chicago had managed to get 4 different baserunners in the inning on only one hit, knotting the score in the process.

The Cubs Come Alive

The game winning rally was sparked by an excellent defensive play.

With Enos Slaughter on second base and one out in the bottom of the 7th, the computer manager decided to walk Stan Musial. It wasn’t much of a decision, actually. Musial had destroyed the Cubs the day before with a massive grand slam home run. Nobody in their right mind would want to pitch to him.

This brought up Nippy Jones:

Jeffcoat made that throw, though the play by play didn’t show it very clearly.

That became important in the top of the 7th. With one out and runners on first and second, Lade came up with a chance to help his own cause:

I thought here that the Cubs had blown it once again, and that St. Louis would surely come back to make them pay.

However, Andy Pafko surprised me:

It wasn’t the best hit in the world, but it looks like a line drive in the boxscore. It also set up Jeffcoat for a second heroic moment:

Last Gasp

St. Louis threatened a few times, but couldn’t quite put one over.

Garagiola did his best to keep hope alive with two outs in the bottom of the 9th:

That brought up pinch hitter Solly Hemus:

Now it was Slaughter’s turn, and I thought for sure that something would happen.

And that was that. It wasn’t easy, but the Cubs did manage to win their first game of the season.

Lade wasn’t exactly overpowering, with 3 walks and 0 strikeouts. 2 of those walks were intentional, however — both to Musial. St. Louis managed only a single run on its 9 hits, and simply couldn’t push any runs across the plate.