The Cardinals' pitching staff was far and away the best in the league.
Cooper was the best in the league at this time; he was complemented by
Max Lanier, who had his best year. Lanier pitched for 14 years, most of them
with the Cardinals; he was never a durable pitcher, and missed two entire
seasons (1947-1948) before making a comeback in 1949. But he was a good pitcher
almost every year that he was in the league.
Both Cooper and Lanier were in their prime,
and were outstanding. But the Cardinals also benefitted from a brilliant
half-season from a young 22-year-old pitcher named Howie Pollet. Pollet completed
almost half of his starts, and threw five shutouts in his limited work. I
presume that Pollet left for the war midway through the season; he did not
pitch in the World Series (which the Cardinals lost to the Yankees), and
did not pitch again until 1946, when he reasserted himself as one of the
best pitchers in the league.
If you're a baseball fan, you probably know which
pitchers were the masters of certain pitches. Nolan Ryan had the great fastball,
Koufax the curve, Carlton the slider, Sutter the splitter, Niekro the knuckler.
If you know your history, you also probably know that Rip Sewell was the
master of the Eephus pitch (I hope that's the right spelling).
The Eephus pitch is like a pitch thrown in slow-pitch softball; it is thrown way up
in the air, then slowly drops down into the catchers mitt. The idea is that the
pitch looks easy to hit, but the batter usually overswings and misses it.
I don't want to seriously suggest that the
Eephus pitch was Sewell's bread and butter pitch; he was a legitimately
good pitcher, and won 148 games in his career. But he threw it more often
than any other pitcher, and he usually got good results. Sewell liked to
brag that no hitter ever hit a home run off the Eephus during a real game;
the only homer he ever surrendered on it was to Ted Williams in an All-Star.
The story goes that Williams took several steps out of the batter's box to
hit it, and would have been called out if the umpire hadn't been laughing
so hard. The last Eephus pitch I've ever seen thrown was by Pascual Perez
(who else?) about ten years ago. But maybe someone else will add it to their
repertoire.
I think the top three pitchers were Cooper,
Sewell, and Lanier. In the fourth spot I will take Elmer Riddle, who had
two outstanding seasons for the Reds in 1941 and 1943, but did little else
the rest of his career. I could also consider Hi Bithorn, a young pitcher
who went off to war next year, and didn't pitch well when he came back. Other
pitchers who deserve mention are Jim Tobin and Nate Andrews; both pitchers
had the misfortune to pitch for the Boston Braves, a team with an incredibly
inept offense.
