Fenway 1946: Red Sox, Peace, and a Year of Hope by Michael Connelly
Despite the title, this book covers 1917 to 1946 in the history of the Boston Red Sox, although most of the focus is on 1946, a very special time in American life. While major league baseball was played during World War II, most of the good players were in the military so the quality of the games wasn’t great. After the war ended, the nation exploded with good will, and baseball was a big part of the post-war recovery. Boston always had a special relationship with the Sox, a team of lovable losers (most of the time) that hadn’t won a World Championship since 1918.
The book begins by chronicling the close connection between the team and local politicians over the decades. In 1934, Sox owner Tom Yawkey had a big dinner party to celebrate the opening of the fully renovated Fenway Park. Two former Boston mayors, John Fitzgerald and James Michael Curley, showed up and behaved well despite the fact that they were intense political rivals. Fitzgerald was a fanatical Red Sox fan while Curley wasn’t, but they each realized that associating with the hometown team was good politics. Curley did become good friends with Sox pitcher Babe Ruth, although they were very different – Ruth being uncouth and Curley listening to classical music and quoting Shakespeare.
Curley was elected mayor for the fourth time in 1945 after having mysteriously dropped out of the congressional race in the 11th District. With Curley out of the contest, John Fitzgerald's grandson, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, waltzed into the seat. There is good evidence that JFK’s dad, Joseph Kennedy, gave Curley enough money under the table to run a successful campaign for mayor, which was enough of an inducement to clear the field for JFK.
In September of 1946, soon-to-be Congressman John Kennedy was in charge of a Victory Over Japan Day party. He brought medal of honor winners and celebrities to Boston for the bash that was attended by 20,000 veterans and witnessed by two million people. These were heady times for the country. As a local bonus, that fall the Red Sox were leading the league for the first time in many years.
The book starts by talking about one of the greatest players of all time, Babe Ruth, who began his career in Boston. By 1917, the Babe was a certified star and a persistent discipline problem. He baited umpires and tried to punch them if he disagreed with a call. Sometimes he’d leave the Sox to play with independent teams that paid him more than Boston did. After one of his tirades, Ruth was suspended and fined $500. He left in a huff and joined a barnstorming team that played games all over the northeast. By 1919, he was probably the best baseball player in the world. He demanded an unheard of $30,000 salary which he eventually got.
We know the rest of the story. Despite the fact that the Red Sox had won four world series between 1910 and 1919, Harry Frazee, the team owner, was in financial trouble due to some bad investments in his theater company. The New York Yankees, perennial losers, approached Frazee about buying Babe Ruth. After some haggling, the deal was struck. For the price of $125,000 in 1919 the Babe moved to the Bronx and made his new team consistent winners. Boston fans were irate. A few years earlier, the Red Sox sold star player Tris Speaker to Cleveland for $50,000. The team that had been one of the best in baseball soon became one of the worst under the Curse of the Bambino.
Tom Yawkey bought the Red Sox in 1933. During renovations that he was making to improve the park, a major fire broke out, causing a lot of damage. Yawkey rebuilt Fenway, which was ready for opening day, 1934.
In 1941 Ted Williams hit .406The sports pages had a big story about the Red Sox. Six-time all-star shortstop Joe Cronin was thinking of moving into management and giving his job to the young Johnny Pesky who was ready for the major leagues. As fans read their newspapers on December 7 morning, Japanese planes were bombing Pearl Harbor.
As the nation geared up for the war, many people thought that baseball was too frivolous for these fraught times. The commissioner, Judge Kenesaw Landis, figured that the decision about the baseball season was above his pay grade so he contacted the White House. FDR saw baseball as boosting morale, giving people something positive to think about during the fight, and giving people jobs. The games would go on.
Early in the war, FDR came to Fenway Park and addressed 50,000 fans, way above allowed capacity. He gave a great speech that played to patriotism and got a long-standing ovation. Roosevelt had his convertible drive around the outfield as he smiled and waved. When he was about to leave the field, he told his driver to “Take another lap!” Besides being a great leader, FDR was a consummate showman.
Major leaguers were expected to serve their country. Many signed up right away, including pitcher Bob Feller and first baseman Hank Greenberg, both of whom were perennial all-stars. Ted Williams and catcher Moe Berg were called up from the Red Sox. Berg headed off to war and ended up doing critical work for the Office of Strategic Services, the country’s spy agency. Ted didn’t. He wanted to keep playing baseball. He was at the peak of his career and would rather put up with verbal shots from the fans than ducking deadly shots in a combat zone. Ted stalled at first but did enlist a few months after Moe. Williams did try to get reclassified as his mother's sole support which would get him out of harm's way. It worked. President Roosevelt let Ted stay and play. The fans hated it. In 1943, Ted finally joined the Navy. All of the best players on the team ended up in the service and the Sox promptly fell out of first place.
Many Negro League players were still playing during the war. Eventually, many were drafted, but bald racism – they’re not good enough to fight for the country – delayed their participation in the war. As a result, there were many games between white professional teams and Negro League teams, and the whites usually lost. Once fans saw how good the Black players were, there was mounting pressure on major league baseball to integrate the sport. The old guard was really against that, but there was some talk about giving Black players a chance to be in the majors. In 1942, the Red Sox invited three players, including Jackie Robinson, to try out at Fenway. They did and they played extremely well but no one was signed by the Sox. Tom Yawkey said that the players were with established teams and that it would be bad to move them to the Sox.
During the war, the Red Sox played poorly but did a lot for the war effort. There were exhibition games to raise money for the troops, and Tom Yawkey routinely set up blood drives at Fenway to help our troops.
Earl Johnson was a mediocre Red Sox pitcher who was drafted early in the war. He landed at Normandy on D Day and was in the famous Battle of the Bulge in December of 1945. His unit was commanded by General Anthony McAuliffe who became famous because of his behavior in the battle. The Germans surrounded his unit and demanded surrender to which McAuliffe wrote: “To the German Commander - “Nuts!” The Americans prevailed in that fight and led the way for victory in Europe. Johnson was a better soldier than he was a pitcher. He was a real hero who received two battlefield promotions, two Bronze Stars, and a Silver Star.
Many major league players and others who worked in the major leagues died or were wounded in the war. Warren Spahn, a great Boston and Milwaukee Braves pitcher, was seriously wounded and almost died. Ralph Houk, later a Yankees manager, also came close to death.
After the war ended, American troops occupying Germany held an exhibition baseball game featuring major leaguers against non-professionals. Over 50,000 people showed up. The big leaguers lost, perhaps in part due to the fact that the scrub team had Black players who were very good.
Although the war was over, there was a lot of work to do to get to peace. One major problem was bringing the troops back home. Many were needed to occupy the defeated countries, but people at home believed that more of the soldiers should come home. There was a huge frustration in the land about the slow pace of returning soldiers to the country. The following was printed in the Boston Globe and in many newspapers across the land:
See Here Our Fellow Citizens:Under the rights of the United States, respectfully call upon the citizens of the US to demand a clarification and speed up of the hopelessly confused demobilization program.
General Dwight David Eisenhower, the hero of D Day, agreed with the lamentations of the people and made a public statement about how it was time to bring the boys home. They came home.
After the war, attention returned to baseball. The Red Sox had done miserably for the past four years and there was pressure on manager Joe Cronin to win. The Sox had lost more players to the war than any other team and it showed.
The Sox players gradually returned home. Most were welcome, but the team was hesitant to give Johnny Pesky a good contract. Pesky, a great skater, worked out with the Boston Bruins, but the home town baseball team came to its senses and gave Pesky a reasonable contract to play for the Sox.
While Joe Cronin was looking forward to having Ted Williams back, he was a little nervous about it. Ted Williams was a very complicated man. He was a pretty angry person who liked and loathed himself at different times. He was biracial, with a Mexican mother, and he felt different because of that. His mother was a fervent supporter of the Salvation Army, something that really bothered Ted and his brother. She may have been more concerned about saving souls than raising her sons.
Williams wanted to be known as the best hitter in baseball but Yankee great Joe DiMaggio was considered a better all-around ball player by many. Joe was steady, played hard, ran hard when he hit the ball, and was nice to the fans and press. Ted was mercurial. Sometimes he’d go through the motions of running when he didn’t get a hit. He let fans get under his skin and he saw reporters as the enemy. Williams and DiMaggio did have one thing in common: They were two of the best who ever played the game.
Ted grew up a bit in the service. He was calmer and more mature when he returned to Fenway. He still had little use for fans and the press but he had mellowed. When he showed up for spring training in February of 1946, he enthusiastically greeted his teammates and worked the room like a politician. He had gained weight while in the service and was ready to have a great year.
The country was excited about the return of major league baseball. Many teams did barnstorming tours around the country so that more fans could attend spring training games in Cuba, Florida, Alabama, and other states. Because of playing games all over the place, Joe Cronin was worried that he wouldn't be able to get the military veterans on the team back to being focused on baseball. He also worried that some would be unable to adjust to civilian life. Joe was worried about PTSD before anyone knew what it was. Since the Red Sox had sent more players off to war than any other team, that could be a real problem.
Pitcher Earl Johnson, hero of the Battle of the Bulge, and pitcher Charlie Wagner, had problems. Johnson had trouble being a civilian and no doubt had trauma from his wartime experience. Wagner had picked up a parasitic infection in the South Pacific that still bothered him after he came home. He lost a lot of weight and was weak, in no condition to be an effective pitcher. Since they hadn’t played baseball in years, all of the pitchers who had served had trouble getting their arms in shape.
The last two exhibition games in 1946 were played at Fenway against the Boston Braves, the National League team that also played in the city. 34,000 fans attended each game with thousands more hanging around outside the gates. Williams hit two homers and knocked in seven runs in the first game. Ted – The Kid – was back.
One major problem in post-war America was a lack of housing as millions of soldiers returned home. Harvard Stadium became a huge tent city for veterans. Ads ran in the local papers imploring homeowners with extra rooms to rent to vets. Even Red Sox players had trouble finding places to live, with many ending up in cities and towns far away from Fenway.
Another problem was a shortage of food, particularly in war-torn Europe where millions were starving. President Harry Truman set up guidelines so that Americans had less to eat so that they could send food over to Europe. People grumbled – they were sick of sacrificing – but they did share their food with others who were really in need.
There were other shortages – beer and whiskey were in short supply and nylon stockings were hard to find. Despite these post-war bumps, fans in Boston were ready for baseball. This was the year that the championship would return to Fenway.
In 1945 Brooklyn Dodgers owner Branch Rickey needed good players. He pressured major league baseball to break down the color barrier and let Blacks into the big leagues. He argued that they had fought and helped win the war so it was time to give them a chance to prove their baseball mettle. He got a lot of pushback and many personal threats, but in 1945 he signed Jackie Robinson to the Dodgers organization. Soon after, he signed four others who played in the Negro Leagues, including catcher Roy Campanella and pitcher Don Newcombe. Both were perennial all stars and Campanella is in the Baseball Hall of Fame. The Red Sox had passed on signing Robinson in 1942. The team would be the last one to desegregate, signing second baseman Pumpsie Green in 1959.
The Red Sox were in Washington playing the Senators on Opening Day 1946. President Truman, surrounded by military leaders and politicians, threw out the first ball. Wounded veterans had the best seats in the stadium. The Sox won, 6-3, so the president lost his bet with South Boston Congressman John McCormack and forked over $2. Ted Williams hit a ball 465 feet and hit .500 for the opening series.
The home opener at Fenway was probably the most anticipated in Red Sox history. Filene’s department store was also a ticket seller for the team so it did a lot of cross-promotion, connecting items on sale to some aspect of the team. Filene’s newspaper ads often promoted the ball team. The Sox won and Johnny Pesky hit a home run, something he didn’t do too often.
The Sox rolled through April with a 20-3 start, but the Yankees, who had greatly improved their roster, were 15-7 when the two teams played for the first time that season at Yankee Stadium. The Sox came in with a 14-game winning streak, Williams Pesky, and Dom DiMaggio (Joe’s brother who played for Boston) were hitting over .400 combined. The four Red Sox starting pitchers had a record of 14-1. This was a juggernaut.
Three Boston radio stations covered the games. The Yankees put on a pre-game show, with 15 models strutting down a runway wearing the latest fashions. The first 500 women in the park were given a pair of nylon stockings that were still very hard to find. Ray Bolger, famous for the Wizard of Oz, was the MC. The Sox won the game 5-4, with Earl Johnson, who had recovered from his Battle of the Bulge bad memories, came in as a reliever and shut the Yankees down. The Sox won the series, 2-1, and jubilation broke out in the Sox locker room. For decades, the Yankees had been a much better team than the Sox. This year might be different. Tom Yawkey had changed his philosophy during the war. Before, he overpaid good players who promptly lost interest in playing hard all of the time. Now, in addition to Ted Williams and some other solid veterans, he had a lot of younger players on the roster, including Johnny Pesky, Dom DiMaggio, and Bobby Doerr who were paid much less but were very productive.
The Sox kept winning in June. That month, Ted Williams hit the longest home run in Fenway Park history. The ball landed in Section 42, Row 37, Seat 21. David Ortiz, a guy who knows a lot about hitting, says that it’s impossible to hit a ball that far. According to the book, there was a very strong wind blowing out, so strong that they almost postponed the game. It seems that the team would not have made up the home run’s distance and installed a special red seat where the ball hit, so Big Papi might be wrong.
The All Star Game was held at Fenway in 1946. As was the case everywhere that year, wounded veterans got the best seats. Ted Williams, who was having a great season, went 4 for 4 with two home runs.
With the season half over, The Kid was leading the league in hitting, runs scored, home runs, and runs batted in. His lifetime batting average after 3,000 plate appearances was .356, the third-best in history – behind Ty Cobb (.366) and Rogers Hornsby (.358). Other teams were getting sick of how well Williams was doing so Cleveland player-manager Lou Boudreau had an idea that is still with us – the shift, which just meant moving defensive players in the direction that the batter tended to get most of his hits.
It worked. Williams’s average over the second half of the season dropped 27 points, down to .327 from .354. His power numbers also fell off. Over the last 30 games of the season, he hit only four home runs. Ted worked himself into a tizzy about the shift, which increased his stress, which hurt his hitting. He was tightly wound to begin with, so the shift really affected him. Boston fans got on him for his hitting dip, and he yelled back, further exacerbating the situation. By August, he was at war with the fans and the press, further reducing his batting prowess.
The rest of the team was feeling the pressure of being expected to win a championship. Infielder Bobby Doerr, outfielder Dom DiMaggio, and catcher Hal Wagner, all experienced huge drop offs in their batting averages (80 to 100 points) during the second half of the season. The three best pitchers on the team who were 23-9 during the first half went 12-11 after the All Star Game. The team was hitting the proverbial wall. The author Connelly believes that some of the drop in performance was related to the trauma they suffered in the war. The players who really fell apart had seen a lot of battlefield action.
As the season wound down, Ted Williams fell out of the competition for various batting titles. Johnny Pesky had passed him in batting average. Pesky also was a great fielder and baserunner, and he was a favorite of his teammates. He made the All Star team and was in the discussion for most valuable player.
Ted was not happy. He thought that Pesky was grandstanding. That was as wrong as wrong can be. Pesky loved baseball and avoided the spotlight. He lived to play ball. Williams insulted Pesky in the locker room, which put off most of the players. Ted also was upset that Bobby Doerr, clearly not as good a player as Ted, was so popular. By the end of the year, Ted figured that he was being a jerk – tons of negative press probably moved him towards that conclusion, and he sort of apologized to the shortstop and was nice to Doerr.
Williams was a loner who really didn’t care what people thought about him. Ignoring the human race probably made Williams a more driven hitter, but it also made his behavior very wrong on many occasions.
In early September, Boston Mayor James Michael Curley announced plans to honor the Red Sox “pending” pennant. The team promptly went into a long losing streak. In an afternoon game on Friday the thirteenth, the Sox beat Cleveland 1-0 on Ted Williams’s only inside-the-park home run of his career. A few hours later, the Yankees beat Detroit 5-3 on a Joe DiMaggio home run, giving the Red Sox the pennant. The team had the obligatory champagne celebration at Fenway. Ted Williams did not attend. The Sox media team put out a fake story that he was visiting wounded veterans. Ted just didn’t like parties – too many people. In 1945, Fenway Park was typically only 20% full.
In 1946, ticket demand went crazy, with the city and region adopting the Red Sox who looked like they would win their first pennant in 30 years. Once the Red Sox were in the World Series, ticket demand really went through the roof. Fans had to write a letter including a certified check for $12.50 to get into the lottery for grandstand seats. The team received 500,000 requests for tickets, all of which had to be processed by hand. Winners were notified by certified mail. In the end, 66,000 lucky fans won the lottery; 450,000 fans were sad.
Manager Joe Cronin saw that many of his players were exhausted and injured. He sent Ted Williams, Dom DiMaggio, Johnny Pesky, Bobby Doerr, and pitchers Charlie Wagner and Tex Hughson home to rest in Boston for a week in September. They came back and played the final seven games.
People all over Massachusetts were honoring the winning Sox team. Ted Williams and his wife, Doris, were injured in a traffic accident on their way to an exhibition game and celebration in Western Massachusetts. He had bumps and bruises, but a fan bought him a new car to replace the wrecked one. Before the last game of the season, a helicopter landed in the infield at Fenway, and several attractive models stepped out and gave the Sox players gifts courtesy of Filene's. The store also ran a huge ad in the local papers, congratulating the team on going to the World Series.
The St. Louis Cardinals and Brooklyn Dodgers were tied for first place as the season ended so a three-game playoff would determine the pennant winner. Joe Cronin was not happy with the delay in playing the World Series. His players were listless and bored so he decided to organize a three-game series of his own against a pick-up team of major leaguers including Joe DiMaggio, Hank Greenberg, and many other star players who got to split the take from ticket sales as well as get paid by Tom Yawkey.
The Red Sox won two of the three contests at Fenway, but in the first game, Ted Williams was hit by a pitch on his right elbow. Fans were relieved that it was only a painful bone bruise, but the injury probably did affect Ted’s performance in the Series.
The Cardinals won the playoff series, so the Boston players took a charter train to St. Louis for the first game of the World Series. The team doctor looked after Williams’s ailing elbow but there wasn’t much to be done besides icing it to get the swelling down. The train was delayed a bit when it caught fire in Buffalo, but it did get the players to the World Series.
The Sox were heavily favored to win the championship. St. Louis was a winning franchise that had won 7 of the last 20 National League pennants. This team did have some great players, including Stan Musial, Red Schoendienst, and Enos Slaughter, but their pitching staff was thin due to injuries, and several of their better players were not fully healthy.
However, fans in New England were not confident. Bad things seemed to happen to the Sox, including Ted’s injured elbow. Fans also were aware of the Curse of the Bambino. Adding to the angst was a story in the Boston Record newspaper that Ted Williams was on the trading block because he wanted too much money. It was fake news put out by a writer who hated The Kid, but for a few days, fans worried.
Johnny Pesky was also worried. The games would be played in Sportsman’s Park which was notorious for its rocky infield. It was hot and dry for the games which worsened the situation. The good news was that Ted Williams's elbow had calmed down. He looked good in batting practice.
The 1946 World Series The book goes into excruciating detail about each of the seven World Series games. The teams split the first two games in St. Louis and returned to Fenway for the next three games. Hotel space was at a premium and visiting fans and sports writers ended up in dorm-like situations that were set up in ballrooms.
Boston went nuts for game three at Fenway, with many planes and blimps with advertising banners flying over Kenmore Square and thousands of fans celebrating in the streets. Many local politicians, including John F. Kennedy, were at the game along with many Hollywood stars and prominent athletes, including Joe DiMaggio. The park was decked out with red, white, and blue bunting and huge American flags, and dozens of wounded veterans were honored before the first pitch. The Sox won, 4-0, with Dave Ferris pitching a complete game shutout.
Game 4 was a 12-3 St. Louis blowout. Ted Hughson’s perhaps Boston’s best pitcher, just didn’t have it and the five pitchers who replaced him didn’t get the job done. Second baseman Bobby Doerr suffered an excruciating headache while chasing a pop-up and had to leave the game.
Bobby Doerr couldn't play game 5. It turns out that he had suffered headaches all season but they were getting worse. Doerr had seen bad things in the war and he may well have been suffering from PTSD. Manager Cronin started John Dobson, who had pitched well early in the season but was only 6-6 since the All Star Game. Cronin’s faith in his pitcher was justified as the Sox won 6-3 to go up 3-2 in the series as they headed back to St. Louis for the last two games.
The Red Sox were confident of victory. Several Cardinal players were injured during the first five games and they were running out of pitchers. However, St. Louis shut down the Boston hitters and won 4-1, tying the series.
The Cardinals had a chance to pull off the biggest upset in World Series history. The Sox were 20-7 favorites at the beginning of the post-season and were favored in each game. They now were a game away from losing. The teams were tied 3-3 in the bottom of the 8th inning. Center fielder Dom DiMaggio had hurt his leg running out a hit and was taken out of the game. His replacement, Leon Culberson, wasn’t known for his defense. In the bottom of the 8th inning, the Cardinal’s Enos Slaughter was on first with two outs. Cardinal Harry Walker, who was having a bad season probably because of PTSD, hit a single to center where Culberson took his time getting the ball into the infield. Slaughter decided to try to score from first base on the hit. Boston fans know the rest of the story.
Johnny Pesky caught the relay, not expecting Slaughter to be heading home. Once Johnny realized what was happening, he rushed a throw to the plate which bounced and would probably not have been in time to get Slaughter anyway. The Cardinals won, 4-3.
Pesky took responsibility for the loss, and Ted Williams finally showed some emotion besides anger. He cried in the corner of the locker room, which made headlines in the Boston newspapers the next day.
The Red Sox fell apart at the end of the season. Johnny Pesky and Ted Williams hit a combined .208 with no extra-base hits. During the season, the two averaged well above .300.
The World Series wasn’t the only major event going on in the world in October of 1946. On October 1, 11 Nazis were sentenced to death at the Nuremberg Trials in Germany. On October 15, the date of game 7, Hermann Goring, Hitler’s second-in-command, killed himself with cyanide hours before his scheduled hanging. While Ted Williams was sobbing in St. Louis, the 10 remaining Nazis were hanged. The Boston Herald had a double headline the next day: “Cards Topple Sox, 4-3 Capture Title - Goring Suicide, Other 10 Hang - Daring Dash - Pesky Lapse.” That’s back when headlines were headlines.
Bob’s Take
The author, Michael Connelly, grew up in West Roxbury. His father worked at Fenway Park as a concessionaire, so the young Connelly kids went to a lot of games. After the games while dad counted money, the kids played catch in the first base hallway. The Red Sox and the Connelly family were an item.
As part of his research, Michael Connelly spent months reading Boston newspapers from the period. I did that for my master’s thesis. I spent countless hours in the Massachusetts State House Library reading microfilm from the Globe, Herald, Record American and several other newspapers to figure out what was going on with a major education reform effort of the mid 1960s. It was fun. It was neat to read news stories of major events in the1960s. The ads were great, with really low prices compared to today for food and cars and baseball gloves.
Connelly soft-pedals Tom Yawkey’s racist tendencies. The Red Sox owner was from an upper crust Ohio family which, like most Americans, thought that white people were special and the rest of humanity wasn’t. He rejected Jackie Robinson’s bid to be a Red Sox player in 1942. Despite his race issues, Yawkey, who inherited a fortune when his father died young, did a lot of charity work in Boston. After the Fenway fire he kept paying all of his employees even though they had no place to go to work during the construction of the new park.
In 1946, baseball was the national pastime. The country was wild about the sport and people were ready to celebrate after years of war. A lot of the baseball-related activities were a bit over the top, but that was OK.
Ted Williams had problems. He had anger issues and was really easy to set off, no doubt leading to many fans and sports writers goading him into doing stupid stuff. He was a loner who really didn’t care what people thought about him. Ignoring the human race probably made Williams a more driven hitter, but it also led to bad behavior on many occasions. But, he sure could hit. It was sad that he didn’t show up at the pennant celebration. Pesky pics Ted pics My pic from red seat
