Dazzy Pitches Superba against the Reds
(This is the 11th in a series that celebrates the 100th anniversary of Dazzy Vance’s great 1924 season with the Brooklyn Robins/Superbas/Dodgers.)
By Glen Sparks
Once again, Dazzy Vance nearly threw his first shutout of 1924. The big right-hander for the Brooklyn Superbas hurled 8 2/3 innings of scoreless baseball before the Cincinnati Reds scratched across a solo run on June 19 at Ebbets Field. The Superbas still beat the Reds, 3-1.
“For eight innings, Vance had complete control of the situation,” Charles Hoerter wrote in the New York Daily News.
Brooklyn won two of the first three games in this four-game series and entered the day with a record of 29-23, good for third place in the National League, 4 ½ games behind the leading New York Giants. Cincinnati sat at 27-27, in fourth place.
Vance, with a mark of 9-2 and 2.14 ERA, started the finale against Carl Mays, a 32-year-old right-hander who was 4-5 with a 2.94 ERA. Mays was a four-time 20-game winner and one of the game’s top pitchers but was most famous for throwing a high fastball on August 16, 1920, that killed Ray Chapman.
Dazzy struck out three batters through the first two innings. Brooklyn scored all three of its runs in the bottom of the second. Jack Fournier, enjoying an excellent season (a .356 batting average and .598 slugging percentage entering the game), began the rally with an infield hit down the third-base line. Milt Stock struck out, while Eddie Brown’s single put runners on first and third. Mays intentionally walked Hank DeBerry to load the baes.
That brought Dazzy, the usually weak hitter, to the plate. According to Jack Ryder from the Cincinnati Enquirer, “Perhaps (Mays) figured Vance would hit into a double play, but Dazzy had something better than that on his mind.”
Vance “slammed a clean single” to center field that brought home two runs. DeBerry was out sliding into third, and Dazzy scooted to second base. Andy High grounded out to end the inning.
Over the next six innings, Vance kept his shutout in order. He allowed five hits and walked two but added four more strikeouts. Jakie May, who relieved May in the third inning, and Dolf Luque, who took over pitching duties in the seventh, matched the Brooklyn starter.
Joseph Chester “Boob” Fowler began the Cincinnati ninth with a base hit. Ike Caveney, pinch-hitting for Luque, popped out in foul territory. Sam Bohne, flied out to Zack Wheat in left field. Could Dazzy retire Curt Walker and complete his shutout?
Alas, Walker grounded an infield single, bringing up Edd Roush, who slipped a hit into right field, driving in Fowler. Pat Duncan flied out to end the game.
Vance, Ryder wrote, “has just about everything that any pitcher could possess. His curve is sometimes quite far-reaching , and at other times it breaks sharply and quickly. His speed is abnormal, and he changes his pace in the most puzzling manner. … Mays was not good enough to offset this sort of thing.”
Dazzy improved to 10-2 and dropped his ERA to 2.05. He struck out seven Reds and allowed eight hits. “The fastball exponent stepped out as the leading hurler of both leagues,” Thomas W. Meany wrote in the Brooklyn Times Union. The Philadelphia Phillies were coming to town and then the Giants.
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