History of the World Series – 1927
The 1927 Pittsburgh Pirates were an outstanding team as the presence of Pie Traynor, Paul and Lloyd Waner and Glenn Wright would indicate. The Pirates were talented enough, in fact, to win the National League pennant, finishing 1 1/2 games ahead of the defending World Series champion St. Louis Cardinals and two in front of the New York Giants.
There was one major problem confronting manager Donie Bush’s Pirates, though, as they prepared for the World Series. Their postseason opponent would be a truly great team — quite possibly the best club in the history of the sport. Leveling opponents at virtually every turn, the New York Yankees had won the American League pennant by a staggering 19 games.
Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig were the biggest guns in the Yankees’ shoot-first, ask-questions-later attack. In the regular season, they combined for 107 home runs and 339 RBIs. Ruth, 32, set a major-league record with 60 homers, topping by one the mark he had set six years earlier. Gehrig, in only his third season as the New Yorkers’ regular first baseman, set a big-league record with 175 RBIs.
Two other Yankees, Bob Meusel and Tony Lazzeri, exceeded the 100-RBI mark. Meusel drove in 103 runs, and Lazzeri had 102.
As murderous as the Yankees’ row of sluggers was, manager Miller Huggins’ athletes could hit for average. The outfield of Ruth, Meusel and Earle Combs combined for 597 hits and a .350 average — Ruth and Combs hit .356, and Meusel finished at .337. Gehrig batted .373.
The Yankees could exhibit some speed, too — thanks largely to the presence of Combs, the gifted center fielder who whacked 23 triples in 1927. And the New Yorkers didn’t play station-to-station baseball. Meusel stole 24 bases (second-best in the league), Lazzeri 22 (tied for third in the AL) and Combs 15.
New York could get people out, too. Waite Hoyt tied for the league lead with 22 victories and was second in ERA at 2.63. Relief ace Wiley Moore won 19 games and headed the AL with a 2.28 ERA; Herb Pennock also won 19 and Urban Shocker 18. Dutch Ruether and George Pipgras ranked fifth and sixth on the Yankees’ list of winners, but they combined for a 23-9 record.
It was a many-faceted juggernaut, to be sure. One that rolled to 110 victories, an AL record that stood for more than a quarter of a century.
That the Pirates knew they had their hands full was a given. That the National Leaguers were beaten even before they started — the result of watching in awe as the Yankees displayed their long-ball proclivity in batting practice before Game 1 — is baseball lore at its unsubstantiated best.
The Yankees made short shrift of the Pirates in the ’27 Series. And they did it while flashing little of their vaunted power.
In Game 1, two Pirates errors helped New York to three third-inning runs and Gehrig drove in two other runs as the Yankees won 5-4 at Forbes Field. Second-year major leaguer Paul Waner, the NL batting champion with a .380 average, had three hits. Ruth singled three times. Pipgras yielded a triple to the first batter (Lloyd Waner) he faced in Game 2 and a sacrifice fly to the second (Clyde Barnhart) then settled down and pitched New York to a 6-2 victory.
The third game of the Series belonged to Pennock, the 33-year-old lefthander who took a 4-0 World Series record into the game. Pennock gave a hint of things to come by retiring the Pirates in order in the first inning. It was more of the same in the second and the third. In a groove, Pennock mowed down the Bucs 1-2-3 in the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh. At that point, the Yankees were in front 2-0, courtesy of Gehrig’s first-inning triple that scored Combs and Mark Koenig.
The Yankees put the game away in the seventh, scoring six times. Ruth capped the outburst by clubbing the first home run of the Series, a three-run shot.
Cleanup man Wright was Pittsburgh’s first batter in the eighth, and he grounded out to shortstop Koenig.
Twenty-two Pirates up, 22 down.
Traynor, coming off a .342 season, was up next. The Bucs’ third baseman elicited a groan from the Yankee Stadium throng of 60,695 by singling to left. Barnhart followed Traynor to the plate and further spoiled matters for Pennock by hitting a run-scoring double.
With one out in the ninth, Pennock allowed a third hit — a single by rookie sensation Lloyd Waner, who banged out 223 hits and batted .355 in the regular season. Hal Rhyne then flied out, and Paul Waner popped out. Pennock’s stirring performance in the 8-1 triumph left the Yankees one victory away from becoming the first AL club to sweep a Series.
Bush turned to Carmen Hill, who had blossomed in 1927 as the ace of his pitching staff. In limited duty in six earlier seasons in the majors, Hill never had won more than three games. But in ’27, he chalked up 22. Huggins nominated Moore, a 30-year-old rookie who had made only 12 starts in his 50 appearances.
Hill allowed a run-scoring single to Ruth in the first inning and was victimized by the Bambino again in the fifth when the power king slugged a two-run homer. The Pirates’ righthander left the game for a pinch-hitter in the seventh, an inning in which Pittsburgh scored twice off Moore to forge a 3-3 tie. The game still was tied entering the last of the ninth when reliever John Miljus started his third inning of work for Pittsburgh.
Combs walked and Koenig beat out a bunt, and they advanced to third and second base when Miljus uncorked a wild pitch. Ruth was walked intentionally, filling the bases with no one out and bringing Gehrig to the plate. Some predicament. Gehrig up, Meusel on deck and Lazzeri in the hole. And a fly ball would end the Series.
Miljus, reaching back for all he could muster, struck out Gehrig. Then, he fanned Meusel. But with Lazzeri at the plate, he let loose with his second wild pitch of the inning and Combs danced across the plate with the winning run.
This article was originally published on TSN
Game Recaps from Retrosheet
1927 World Series Stories
The 1927 Post-Season Games
World Series: New York Yankees (4) defeated Pittsburgh Pirates (0)
World Series Game 1 Played on Wednesday, October 5, 1927 (D) at Forbes Field
NY A 1 0 3 0 1 0 0 0 0 - 5 6 1 PIT N 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 - 4 9 2
BOX+PBP WP: Hoyt (1-0) LP: Kremer (0-1) SV: Moore (1)
World Series Game 2 Played on Thursday, October 6, 1927 (D) at Forbes Field
NY A 0 0 3 0 0 0 0 3 0 - 6 11 0 PIT N 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 - 2 7 2
BOX+PBP WP: Pipgras (1-0) LP: Aldridge (0-1)
World Series Game 3 Played on Friday, October 7, 1927 (D) at Yankee Stadium I
PIT N 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 - 1 3 1 NY A 2 0 0 0 0 0 6 0 x - 8 9 0
BOX+PBP WP: Pennock (1-0) LP: Meadows (0-1) HR: Ruth (1)
World Series Game 4 Played on Saturday, October 8, 1927 (D) at Yankee Stadium I
PIT N 1 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 - 3 10 1 NY A 1 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 1 - 4 12 2
BOX+PBP WP: Moore (1-0) LP: Miljus (0-1) HR: Ruth (2)
