In 1944, the Browns fielded a team that batted .252, 61 points under the .313 figure posted by the ’22 club. The ’44 Browns had one .300 hitter, outfielder Mike Kreevich, who barely made it at .301; one man with 20 homers, shortstop Vern Stephens, who hit exactly 20; and one player over the 85-RBI mark, Stephens, who knocked in 109 runs. Nelson Potter and Jack Kramer combined for 36 victories.
Fate, of course, isn’t always kind, or fair, for that matter. Sure enough, it was the 1944 team that won the St. Louis Browns’ only pennant. With outfielder Chet Laabs drilling two final-day homers, each with a man on base, the Browns beat the New York Yankees. The victory, combined with Detroit’s loss to Washington, enabled St. Louis to finish one game ahead of the Tigers in the AL. On the other hand, the 1922 Browns wound up one game out of first place.
To say there were extenuating circumstances in the 1922 and 1944 AL pennant scenarios would be understating the case, however. The ’22 Browns, as good as they were, lost out to a team that was headed for unrivaled glory: The Yankees of the Babe Ruth era. The ’44 Browns, as ordinary as they were, won out over an AL field decimated by manpower cutbacks forced by World War II.
To their credit, though, the Browns put the American League’s best team on the field in 1944. The other major-league team in St. Louis, the National League Cardinals, fielded the best club in either league in ’44, another twist of fate that eventually would put a damper on the Browns’ long-awaited success.
In making off with their third straight NL pennant in ’44, Manager Billy Southworth’s Cardinals won 105 games and ran their three-year victory total to 316. Their lead over Pittsburgh was 14 1/2 games.
The all-Sportsman’s Park World Series — the eight-time NL champion Cardinals were, in fact, tenants of the long-downtrodden Browns franchise — began on a high note for Manager Luke Sewell’s AL titleists as Denny Galehouse outpitched Mort Cooper in a 2-1 game decided by George McQuinn’s fourth-inning home run with Gene Moore on base. The blast by first baseman McQuinn would prove to be the Browns’ only homer in World Series history.
After Blix Donnelly’s stellar relief pitching — no runs, two hits and seven strikeouts in four innings — and Ken O’Dea’s run-scoring pinch single in the 11th inning won Game 2 for the Cardinals, 3-2, the Browns came back for a 6-2 triumph in Game 3 as Kramer pitched a seven-hitter and struck out 10 batters, and McQuinn went 3-for-3 with two RBIs.
The Browns, ahead two games to one, appeared in good shape. The Cardinals then proceeded to bend them out of shape. Sig Jakucki, the 35-year-old retread who won 13 games for the ’44 Brownies after being away from baseball for five years (in his only previous experience in the majors, he was 0-3 for the ’36 Browns), lasted only three innings in Game 4, a contest in which Cards lefthander Harry Brecheen, 16-5 in the regular season, kept the American Leaguers off stride, and Stan Musial belted a two-run homer. The Cardinals prevailed, 5-1.
The next day, Cooper fired a seven-hit shutout and beat Galehouse, 2-0. Ray Sanders socked a home run for the Cards in the sixth and Danny Litwhiler connected in the eighth. Cooper was coming off another outstanding year, having thrown seven shutouts while posting 22 victories. In the Cardinals’ 1942-1943-1944 stranglehold on the NL championship, Cooper won 65 games and hurled 23 shutouts.
Max Lanier and Ted Wilks, pitchers who posted identical victory totals and earned-run averages (17 triumphs, 2.65 ERA) for the Cardinals in ’44, combined to bring the Browns’ memorable season to a halt in Game 6. Lanier worked 5 1/3 innings of three-hit ball, while the 28-year-old rookie Wilks — who lost only four times in the regular season — retired all 11 browns he faced. The Cardinals, benefiting from Stephens’ throwing error in the fourth (one of 10 Brownie errors in the Series) and getting run-scoring singles from Emil Verban and Lanier in that three-run inning, notched a 3-1 victory that wrapped up their second Series title in three years.
The World Series was becoming old hat for the St. Louis Cardinals, who had just appeared in the event for the eighth time in 19 seasons. For the St. Louis Browns, the fall classic was an experience to be enjoyed only rarely, like once in their 52-season history.
