Stanwood Fulton Baumgartner pitched in parts of eight seasons for the Phillies and Athletics, then spent thirty years as a baseball writer for The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Sporting News.
In 1945, he said his former manager Connie Mack:
“(I)s a kindly person. His 62 years in baseball have been marked by few displays of emotion.
“When the Athletics made their famous 10-run rally in the fourth game of the 1929 World Series he merely wigwagged his scorecard a bit faster. Even when Burleigh Grimes thumbed his nose at him in 1931, Connie merely smiled.
“Yet he once shook his fist at Babe Ruth—and that gesture cost him $5,000.”
Baumgartner said the story was about a young pitcher who, 1924 “(H)ad sold himself to Connie Mack,” after a successful minor league season in 1923.
Stanwood Fulton Baumgartner
The pitcher, he said:
“(W)asn’t a success. Every time he stepped out of the dugout fans would shout, ‘Take him out.’”
The pitcher “pleaded for one last chance,” before Philadelphia would have to pay the pitcher’s purchase price of $5000 if he stayed on the roster after May 30.
“That very morning, Mack made up his mind to send the young pitcher back to New Haven. He ordered a train ticket.
“Eddie Rommel was starting (the second game of a double header that day) for the Athletics. As Rommel started to warm up, the young left-hander went to his locker. There he found the ticket for New Haven.
“The young fellow felt a terrific emptiness. But he changed his shirt and went back to the bench.”
Early in the game, Baumgartner said Mack told the young pitcher he would take the mound if Rommel needed to be relieved.
The Yankees scored two runs in the fourth and sixth innings—including a Babe Ruth two-run home run—and Rommel was lifted for pinch hitter Paul Strand in the seventh, with Philadelphia trailing 4 to 1.
The young pitcher came out for the bottom of the seventh inning with the Athletics still trailing by three runs. He retired New York in order for two innings while Philadelphia scored four runs in the eighth on three singles and a Bing Miller home run off Sad Sam Jones.
With a 5 to 4 lead, Mack sent the young pitcher out for the ninth inning:
Connie Mack
“Wally Shang, first Yank at bat in the ninth inning, fanned; then Everett Scott was caught at first for the second out (Baumgartner’s memory was faulty more than twenty years later, the contemporaneous account in The Philadelphia Record said Scott struck out, and Fred Hofmann was retired for the second out). The Athletics breathed a sigh of relief. Only one more man to go! But (pinch hitter) Joe Bush got a one-base hit. Then the left-hander hit Aaron Ward with a pitched ball; and Joe Dugan made first base after an easy grounder took a bad hop against Chick Galloway’s chest.”
Here again, Baumgartner’s memory was faulty. Bush did single, but the next two batters were pinch hitter Wally Shang, who walked, then Dugan, who did not reach on error, but was hit by a pitch—Galloway’s error had come earlier in the game.
In any event, what Baumgartner recalled correctly was that the Yankees had loaded the bases trailing by one run, with Babe Ruth due up.
“As the Babe walked to the plate, a wave of futility engulfed the pitcher. Tomorrow, he knew, he would be back in New Haven—in the minors and oblivion.
With a shrug of despair, he looked at catcher Frank Bruggy for a signal. But Bruggy was looking for a sign from Connie to bring in another pitcher.”
Baumgartner said Mack stood up in the dugout, and the pitcher’s “heart sank,” but then:
“Connie did the most amazing this baseball fans had ever seen. He shook his fist at Babe Ruth. The pitcher watched that fist and a wave of confidence surged up within him. Now he saw only Ruth and his catcher.
“Bruggy signaled for a curve and Ruth swung and missed.
“Bruggy signaled for another curve. Again, Ruth swung; missed.
“The third pitch was a slower curve. Ruth swung with every ounce of his 220 pounds. There was click as the bat met the ball. But it was only the click of a foul ball. Bruggy smothered it in his glove for the third out, and the game was over.
“Hundreds of cushions whirled out of the stands onto the diamond. Connie Mack Draped his arm around the pitcher.
‘”Give me that ticket to New Haven,’ he whispered. ‘You won’t need it now.’
“That night Connie Mack made out a check to the New Haven club for $5000.
“How do I know? I was the pitcher”
Baumgartner
Neither The Record nor The Inquirer mentioned the embellishments of Mack’s fist shake, the “Hundreds of cushions,” nor that Ruth’s strikeout was foul tip in their coverage of the game. He likely overstated his imminent return to New Haven as well—Baumgartner, although used sparingly, had pitched well and won two games in relief before the May 30 game–—but what was true is he had learned to tell a good story in the intervening two decades.
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