RetroSimba

Flint Rhem was a Cardinals pitcher with an addiction to alcohol and a fiction writer’s imagination.

During the National League pennant race in September 1930, Rhem went missing for about 24 hours before his scheduled start for the Cardinals against the Dodgers at Brooklyn.

When he eventually showed up at the team hotel in Manhattan, Rhem told Cardinals manager Gabby Street he’d been kidnapped by two men who didn’t want him to face the Dodgers, held at gunpoint and forced to drink to excess.

Rhem had gone on a binge, all right, but neither the Cardinals nor the newspapers bought his tall tale of a kidnap.

Though he did miss his start against the Dodgers, Rhem recovered to win his next two starts and help the Cardinals clinch the pennant.

Back in business

After splitting a doubleheader with the Braves at Boston on Sept. 14, the 1930 Cardinals were in second place in the National League heading into a three-game series with the first-place Dodgers at Brooklyn.

Rhem was the Cardinals’ choice to start Game 2 of the series. A right-hander, Rhem, 29, had won his last six decisions and was 10-8 for the season.

Rhem’s status as a valued starter represented quite a comeback. A year earlier, Rhem’s career was headed in the wrong direction. Though he was a 20-game winner for the 1926 World Series champion Cardinals and an 11-game winner when the club won another pennant in 1928, Rhem got in trouble with management because of his drinking, the St. Louis Star-Times reported, and was banished to the minors in 1929.

When Gabby Street replaced Bill McKechnie as manager for 1930, Rhem pledged to stay sober and was given a chance for redemption. He appeared to be succeeding until the setback in September.

Flush with cash

Before the Cardinals left Boston and headed to Brooklyn, Rhem won $200 on a horse race, Cardinals players told the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. The windfall might have had something to do with what happened next.

The Cardinals had a day off in New York on Monday, Sept. 15, before opening the series against the Dodgers on Tuesday, Sept. 16.

Rhem failed to show in the Cardinals’ clubhouse at Ebbets Field for the Sept. 16 game, the Star-Times reported. When his room at the Alamac Hotel on Broadway and 71st Street in Manhattan was checked, it was discovered it hadn’t been occupied. No one knew where he went.

The Cardinals won the series opener, 1-0 in 10 innings, behind the shutout pitching of Bill Hallahan and moved into a first-place tie with the Dodgers. Boxscore

That night, Rhem, who was supposed to start the next day, arrived at the hotel “in a condition unbecoming a major-league player,” the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

“He came wandering back, babbling a weird tale of how he had been kidnapped,” the Star-Times reported.

Spinning a yarn

Rhem said he was standing outside the hotel on Sept. 15 when two men approached, thrust revolvers into his ribs and motioned for him to get into a waiting taxi, the Daily Eagle reported.

Rhem said the men told him, “Get in there. We are going to get you drunk so you won’t be able to pitch against our (Dodgers).”

According to the Daily Eagle, Rhem said he was driven to a “log cabin” in the Bronx. The version Rhem told the St. Louis Globe-Democrat was he was taken to a roadhouse.

Rhem said the men forced him to drink straight alcohol all night on Sept. 15 and all day on Sept. 16, the Post-Dispatch reported.

Rhem said the men drove him back to within a few blocks of the hotel when they were satisfied he was too inebriated to pitch the next day.

Asked by the Daily Eagle for his reaction to Rhem’s story, Cardinals executive Branch Rickey replied, “Bunk.”

Forgive us our trespasses

According to the Globe-Democrat, Rhem told manager Gabby Street, “What could I do? They just made me go along with them.”

According to the Star-Times, Street responded, “It isn’t so much that you let me down and let the St. Louis ballclub down, but you let 24 of your pals down. That’s what’s rotten … For heaven’s sake, Flint, straighten up and be a man.”

Admonished, Rhem was sent to bed and the Cardinals instructed the hotel to prohibit telephone calls to and from his room, the Post-Dispatch reported.

Street decided no disciplinary action would be taken because Rhem had stayed out of trouble since Street became manager. “He has been hewing to the line all summer,” Street told the Globe-Democrat.

Red Smith of the Star-Times was less forgiving. He described Rhem as being “coddled and pampered” and concluded, “Rhem, who apparently cares more for the bright lights than he does for the Cardinals’ chances of entering the World Series, will, for the time being, go unpunished for quitting cold on his manager and comrades just when they needed him most.”

Rhem’s antics brought to mind his former Cardinals teammate, Grover Cleveland Alexander, another pitcher whose drinking got him into trouble.

Making amends

With Rhem unavailable, Syl Johnson got the start in the second game of the series on Sept. 17, limited the Dodgers to three runs in seven innings, and enabled the Cardinals to come back for a 5-3 victory. Boxscore

According to the Daily Eagle, Rhem sat glumly in the corner of the locker room and “kept his head down while he dressed.”

The next day, Sept. 18, Rhem pitched batting practice before the series finale, the New York Daily News reported. Behind the pitching of Burleigh Grimes, the Cardinals completed a series sweep with a 4-3 victory and moved two games ahead of the Dodgers with nine to play.

Rhem delivered in the stretch, making two starts against the Phillies and winning both. The wins gave him eight in a row and a record of 12-8.

The Cardinals won seven of their last nine and clinched the pennant. In the World Series against the Athletics, Rhem started Game 2 versus the Athletics and lost.

Rhem pitched in 10 seasons for the Cardinals and was 81-63.