Acquired on waivers in late July after he had compiled a 10-5 record for the New York Yankees, Borowy proceeded to win 11 of 13 decisions for the Cubs and helped Chicago fight off the St. Louis Cardinals in the National League pennant race. Then, in Game 1 of the World Series, he held the Tigers to six singles and was a 9-0 victor as the Cubs bombed 25-game winner Hal Newhouser. Bill Nicholson singled and tripled and drove in three runs for Chicago, which got two RBIs apiece from Phil Cavarretta (who rapped two singles and a home run) and Mickey Livingston.

Standout pitching performances continued through Game 4, at which point the Cubs and Tigers were tied at two victories each. Virgil Trucks, a 16-game winner for Detroit in 1943 and only recently discharged from the Navy, pitched a seven-hitter in Game 2 and won, 4-1, as midseason service returnee Hank Greenberg unloaded a three-run homer in the fifth. Four days earlier, on the final day of the AL schedule and in a game that marked Trucks’ only appearance of the regular season, Greenberg had smashed a pennant-clinching, grand slam in the ninth inning against the St. Louis Browns.

In Game 3, Chicago’s Claude Passeau tossed a one-hitter — Rudy York singled to left field with two out in the second — and led the National Leaguers to a 3-0 triumph. Following his teammate’s cue, Ray Prim set down the first 10 Detroit batters he faced in Game 4, but after yielding a walk, two singles and a double in what became a four-run fourth for the Tigers, Prim was removed in favor of Paul Derringer. While Derringer and fellow relievers Hy Vandenberg and Paul Erickson pitched shutout ball the rest of the way, it was to no avail. Detroit’s 4-1 triumph, fashioned on Dizzy Trout’s five-hit pitching, knotted the ’45 Series.

Now Charley Grimm went to Borowy, not once, not twice, but three times. Grimm, in his second tour of duty as the Cubs’ manager, was obviously impressed with Borowy’s combined regular-season record of 21-7, his second-half heroics for the Cubs (which netted him the NL’s earned-run-average title with a 2.14) and his 56-30 mark with the Yankees. The man could pitch, and Grimm was going to extract every bit of talent from Borowy’s right arm.

That talent had the Cubs in a 1-1 tie through five innings of Game 5, which matched Borowy against Newhouser. The 24-year-old Newhouser had just led the American League in victories (he had 29 an 1944) and strikeouts for the second successive season and topped the league with a 1.81 ERA. Newhouser wound up going the distance on this day, while Borowy departed after allowing four straight hits at the outset of the sixth. Detroit scored four runs in the inning and swept to an 8-4 victory. Greenberg slugged three doubles for the Tigers.

The Trucks-Passeau pitching pairing in Game 6 hinted at a low-scoring game, but Trucks was routed in the Cubs’ four-run fifth — which featured Stan Hack’s bases-loaded single — and Passeau left in the seventh, when Detroit scored twice. After the Cubs rebounded with two runs in their half of the inning, it was 7-3, Chicago. But Detroit struck for four runs in the eighth, the game-tying run coming on a Greenberg homer, and suddenly Manager Steve O’Neill’s Tigers were in a position to close out the Cubs in six games.

Trout came on in relief for Detroit in the last of the eighth, and when the 7-7 game moved into the ninth, Grimm decided to make another pitching change. Having followed Passeau with Hank Wyse (the Cubs’ top winner of’45 with 22 victories) and Prim, Grimm now wanted Henry Ludwig Borowy. And Borowy delivered, holding Detroit at bay with four scoreless innings. Then, in the bottom of the 12th, with two out and Billy Schuster at first base as a pinch-runner (for Frank Secory, who had come through with a pinch single), Hack hit a drive to left field that took a weird bounce and bounded over Greenberg. The hit, ruled a double, scored Schuster and gave Borowy and the Cubs an 8-7 victory.

This World Series, the one that neither team supposedly could win, had gone unclaimed through six games. Now it would have to end. The Tigers were shooting for their second World Series crown; their only previous Series title had come in 1935, against the Cubs. The Cubs were eyeing their third Series championship; their two titles came in 1907 and 1908 at the Tigers’ expense. It would be Newhouser, working on two days of rest, going against — no big surprise here — Borowy, who was going on one day of rest after pitching the final four innings of Game 6. Of course, Borowy also had also pitched into the sixth inning in Game 5.

Try as he might, Borowy couldn’t win the World Series for the Cubs. He yielded singles to the Tigers’ first three batters, Skeeter Webb, Eddie Mayo and Doc Cramer. Grimm, knowing Borowy had done all he could for the 1945 Cubs, told his weary pitcher to call it a day, and a Series.

Derringer took over for Chicago, and by the end of the inning Detroit had scored five runs — three coming around on Paul Richards’ bases-loaded double. Newhouser went on to a 9-3 victory, allowing 10 hits but also striking out 10 Cubs. The Tigers were World Series kingpins.

The Cubs, on the other hand, had finished No. 2 in their last seven Series appearances. Not even one of the more noted mid-season acquisitions of all time could do anything about that.