Dazzy Gets Back to Winning Ways

(This is the ninth in a series that celebrates the 100th anniversary of Dazzy Vance’s great 1924 season with the Brooklyn Dodgers/Robins.)

By Glen Sparks

But for a couple of Brooklyn miscues, Dazzy Vance may have thrown his first shutout of the season on June 5. He still beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 6-2, at Ebbets Field, striking out six Bucco batters and walking just one.

About 4,000 fans watched the action, many hoping that Vance could rebound from his previous start. Dazzy had won six straight games before losing to the New York Giants on May 28 at the Polo Grounds. He gave up six earned runs, including four in the final two innings.

Against the Pirates, according to Charles Hoerter of the New York Daily News, Vance looked “in mid-season form.” Dazzy and the Dodgers last faced the Pirates on May 22 at Forbes Field. Brooklyn won, 4-2, and Vance hit a two-run homer.

The Dodgers took an early 2-0 lead in this rematch against Pirates left-hander Wilbur Cooper. Jack Fournier and Milt Stock began the second inning with consecutive singles. Eddie Brown’s hit drove in Fournier, and Stock advanced to third base. After Andy High popped out, Hank DeBerry  lifted a run-scoring flyball into center field.

Through the first five innings, Vance had allowed just two hits and a walk, including a two-out triple by Glenn Wright in the first.  Clyde Barnhart’s fly out ended that threat.

Pittsburgh scored a solo run in the sixth. First, though, Vance dispatched Cooper and Max Carey easily enough on groundouts. Carson Bigbee reached on Milt Sock’s error and stole second base. Bigbee scored the unearned run on Wright’s double. Barnhart singled, but Dazzy struck out Pie Traynor to end the inning.

Vance allowed singles in both the seventh and eighth innings but escaped any damage. In the bottom of the eighth, Cooper gave up a lead-off single to DeBerry and, with two out, walked Jimmy Johnston. Zack Wheat grounded a single to score DeBerry, and Fournier followed with an inside-the-park three-run homer. “Jack Fournier sent out a line drive to Carey,”  Hoerter wrote. “Carey came in fast. The ball went over his head.”  Charles J. Doyle from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette wrote that “Carey realized his mistake too late, and his leap was not quite high enough. … The ball rolled to the fence as the three Dodgers went lickety-split around the bases.” Brooklyn took a 6-1 lead.

The Pirates got back one run in the ninth. First, Traynor reached on second baseman High’s error. Rabbit Maranville and Charlie Grimm grounded out before Walter Schmidt singled home Traynor for Pittsburgh’s second unearned run. Cooper continued the rally with a single. Carey, though, flied out to end the game.

Doyle praised Vance’s “burning speed and bewildering curve.” He led his game story this way: “The Pirate machine collided with big Dazzy Vance this afternoon with the customary result, a smashup for the Pittsburgh car.” Vance struck out six, walked one, and surrendered eight hits. “Dazzy was supreme in the pinches,” Thomas W. Meany wrote in the Brooklyn Times Union. The Pirates left eight runners on base.

Dazzy improved to 7-2, and Brooklyn was now 22-19, in third place, 4 ½ games behind the first-place New York Giants.

Leave a comment