The Reds thought they beat the Cardinals on a home run that didn’t count. The Cardinals thought they won on a home run that did count. The unsatisfying result was that neither team won. A tie score was declared and a makeup game was scheduled.
The adventure began on a Saturday afternoon, May 14, 1938, when the Reds and Cardinals played at Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis.
In the sixth inning, the Reds led, 3-1, and had runners on first (Billy Myers) and third (Lonny Frey), two outs, when Dusty Cooke hit a deep drive to right-center against Cardinals rookie starter Max Macon.
“The ball soared on and on,” The Sporting News reported, and still was rising as it carried over the outfield wall and the bleacher seats. It struck an iron girder just below the roof “at a point where the pavilion is not protected by screen,” the St. Louis Post-Dispatch observed, and caromed back into the playing field.
Lee Ballanfant, the umpire with the closest view, ruled the ball was in play. Center fielder Enos Slaughter retrieved it and threw to third baseman Joe Stripp. Cooke, sliding, arrived just ahead of the ball.
Cooke was credited with a two-run triple, extending the Reds’ lead to 5-1, but the Reds argued that he hit a three-run home run, making it a 6-1 score.
According to the Associated Press, Sportsman’s Park had no ground rule for a ball striking a beam underneath the pavilion roof and falling back into the playing field.
Ballanfant, backed by the other two umpires, Bill Klem and Ziggy Sears, determined it was a judgment call.
Reds manager Bill McKechnie disagreed and filed a protest, saying the umpires deprived Cooke of a home run. The Reds contended it was a home run because the ball cleared the outfield wall and would have landed on the pavilion roof or in the seats if it hadn’t struck the girder.
Diamond drama
Trailing 5-1, the Cardinals rallied for four runs in the bottom of the ninth. If Cooke had been allowed a home run instead of a triple, the Reds would have held on for a 6-5 victory. Instead, the score was 5-5 and the game went to an extra inning.
In the 10th, Frank McCormick’s two-out single scored Lonny Frey from second, giving the Reds a 6-5 lead.
Joe Stripp led off the bottom of the inning with a single against Ray Benge. Gene Schott relieved and fell behind in the count, 3-and-1, to Enos Slaughter.
Given the sign to swing away, Slaughter crushed a home run above the pavilion roof in right, turning “an impending defeat into a glorious Cardinals victory,” the Post-Dispatch reported. Cardinals rushed onto the field and “mauled and hauled Slaughter from the plate to the dugout” in celebration of the 7-6 comeback triumph. Boxscore
According to the Sporting News, McKechnie called National League president Ford Frick at his New York office and was assured a hearing would be held.
“Even officials of the St. Louis team anticipate Frick will allow the protest,” The Cincinnati Post reported.
Play it again
Frick decided to visit Sportsman’s Park and see for himself the spot where Cooke’s drive struck the beam near the pavilion roof.
On June 3, two days after he made his inspection, Frick ruled Cooke’s hit was a home run, but instead of awarding the Reds a 6-5 victory, Frick declared the outcome a 7-7 tie. He ruled that all statistics from the game counted in the record book, but the outcome did not. He ordered the game replayed in its entirety.
The Reds had hoped Frick either would award them a win, or rule for play to resume in the sixth, with the Reds batting, two outs, and a 6-1 lead.
“If that was a home run, the Reds won the game, and it must be difficult for manager McKechnie to understand Frick’s ruling to replay,” J. Roy Stockton wrote in the Post-Dispatch.
McKechnie, a former Cardinals manager who led them to the 1928 National League pennant, told The Cincinnati Post, “Frick’s decision that we must replay the entire game is unjust.”
“Frick showed a distinct lack of courage,” McKechnie said to the Cincinnati Enquirer.
Frick told the Associated Press that awarding the Reds a win, or resuming the game in the sixth inning, would penalize the Cardinals “for an error which was in no part its own and concerning which they had no responsibility.”
The Cardinals, though, were unhappy, too. They thought Frick should have upheld the decision of the umpires and validated the 7-6 victory.
Just peachy
The makeup was scheduled as the second game of a Saturday doubleheader on Aug. 20 at Sportsman’s Park.
The Cardinals scored four in the first, knocking out Reds starter Peaches Davis.
In the seventh, with the Cardinals ahead, 5-1, Johnny Mize hit a ball that struck near the edge of the pavilion roof atop the screened section in right. Mize stopped at second base, but umpire Dolly Stark incorrectly ruled it a home run. The Reds argued, and plate umpire George Barr overruled Stark, declaring the hit a double.
The Reds scored three in the eighth, but the Cardinals held on for a 5-4 victory. Boxscore
RetroSimba 
In my humble opinion Dusty Cooke should have been awarded a homerun. Just as a note of interest the very next day May 15, the teams picked up where they left off. The Cardinals won a 10 inning slugfest by a score of 12-11.
Thanks, Phillip. I agree. The umps showed a lack of common sense. The Reds got ripped off, but their stock was rising.
The Cardinals finished 71-80 in 1938. They wouldn’t have another losing season until 1954.
The Reds finished 82-68 in 1938, their first winning season since 1928. They won consecutive National League pennants in 1939 and 1940. Bill McKechnie won pennants as manager of the Pirates, Cardinals and Reds.
You prolly already knew this: there were two Dolly Starks, the 1st a former major leaguer and college baseball coach who died in 1923.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolly_Stark
Thanks, Marty. Dolly Stark would make a good name for a film noir character. I didn’t know about Monroe “Dolly” Stark, the former big-league player and college coach, so I did some research. Unfortunately, his death at age 39 also was like a film noir scene.
According to The Memphis Commercial Appeal, Stark got the name Dolly because of his “light blonde hair and florid complexion.” The newspaper also noted, “Stark was of a fiery temperament and his aggressiveness on the ballfield in his early days was carried to an extreme. Had it not been for Dolly’s high-strung nerves he would have been a star for many years in the majors.”
Just after midnight on Dec. 1, 1924, Dolly was shot and killed at a roadhouse he operated, the Cherokee Inn, on the outskirts of Memphis.
According to accounts by The Commercial Appeal and the Associated Press, Dolly and his friend, car salesman Harry Atkinson, got into a drunken argument in the dining room of the roadhouse. Dolly told Harry to go to an upstairs bedroom and sleep it off. Harry was pissed, but went upstairs. He saw on a dresser a pearl-handled .32-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver. Dolly had bought it for his wife of three months as protection. Harry took the pistol and went downstairs. He and Dolly resumed arguing. According to Harry, Dolly grabbed a poker and struck Harry in the nose. They grappled. Harry fired one shot.
According to The Commercial Appeal, Dolly was “shot through the heart _ the bullet as clean and straight as a marksman could have sent it, a trick of drunken fate.”
Harry was charged with first-degree murder. During the jury selection, Harry entered a plea of guilty to involuntary manslaughter. He was sentenced to not more than 5 years, (or 1 to 5 years), in the state penitentiary.
Thanks for taking us back to this game so we can enjoy all the imperfections….no instant replay to solve the dispute…. amazing to see the effects of the homerun or not homerun…consulting the commissioner and replaying the game…. i love all the imperfections, maybe not so efficient, but more life like.
Thanks, Steve. I’m with you. I always thought the games, right or wrong, were to be decided by those on the field, not in a replay booth.
I suspect that the increased use of replay in baseball and football to “get the call right” has nothing to do with the integrity of the games and everything to do with appeasing the growing influence of the sports book gambling operators.
Looking for Sportsman’s Park help! I’m trying to lean on the vast knowledge of this group to remember anything from a Cardinals game at Sportsman’s Park…I was told in 1952 or 1953. A Cards player hit a disallowed homer into the leftfield bleachers due to a fan reaching over the wall to interfere. My cousin was at the game and appeared in the photo the next day in the St. Louis Post Dispatch of the rowdy bleacher fans throwing things on the field as the game was delayed. Thanks in advance for your help! Great site!!
On Aug. 6, 1949, Nippy Jones of the Cardinals lined a two-run home run into the left field seats in the first inning of a game against the Giants at Sportsman’s Park, but the homer was disallowed by third-base umpire Jocko Conlon, who called a balk on pitcher Adrian Zabala before Jones swung the bat. The ruling did cause a lot of commotion and confusion and there is a picture on the sports section cover of the Aug. 7, 1949, Post-Dispatch. The Cardinals lost the game, 3-1. Your local library (thank goodness we still have those) may be able to help you get a printout of the page from the Post-Dispatch archives.