(Updated Nov. 27, 2021)
Facing a collection of arms ranging from a 15-year-old making his big-league debut to a 36-year-old batting practice pitcher, the 1944 Cardinals became the first team in the majors to achieve two shutout wins by margins of 16 runs or more in the same month.
On June 10, 1944, the Cardinals beat the Reds, 18-0. Two weeks later, on June 24, the Cardinals beat the Pirates, 16-0.
Both of the lopsided June shutout victories by the 1944 Cardinals occurred on Saturday afternoons and in road games _ at Cincinnati and at Pittsburgh.
The Cardinals had a total of 43 hits _ one home run _ in the two games.
Stan Musial contributed seven hits in nine at-bats with four walks.
Mort Cooper pitched the shutouts: a five-hitter and a three-hitter.
Reaching base
The Cardinals’ game against the Reds took place at Crosley Field four days after the Allies launched the D-Day invasion in France. The game attracted 3,510 cash customers, 318 servicemen and 1,641 youths from the Knothole baseball program.
Though the Cardinals had 21 hits and received 14 walks, the game was completed in a relatively brisk 2:23.
Musial had three singles, three walks, three RBI and scored four times.
The Cardinals had 19 singles and two extra-base hits. Eighth-place batter George Fallon and leadoff man Johnny Hopp each doubled.
St. Louis stranded 18 base runners, tying a major-league record.
The 18-0 score was the most lopsided shutout win in the National League since 1906 when the Cubs beat the Giants, 19-0, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
Hey, Joe
With the Cardinals ahead, 13-0, Reds manager Bill McKechnie had Joe Nuxhall, 15, make his major-league debut in the ninth inning.
With their pitching staff depleted because of military service, the Reds had signed Nuxhall that year. His parents agreed to let him join the club for home games. Because he wasn’t old enough to drive, Nuxhall took a 30-minute bus ride from his home in Hamilton, Ohio, to Crosley Field for the games, according to the Washington Post.
Nuxhall, in the dugout while the Reds prepared to bat in their half of the eighth inning, heard McKechnie call out, “Joe!”
“I said to myself, ‘He can’t be talking to me,’ ” Nuxhall told Cincinnati TV station WCET in 2005. “We had a couple of Joes on the ball club. And he says ‘Joe!’ a little louder. I looked and he said, ‘Go warm up.’ ”
Nuxhall, wearing borrowed cleats, grabbed a glove and started up the dugout steps to head to the bullpen.
“I was scared to death,” Nuxhall recalled in a 1994 interview with the Associated Press. “I got all shook up and tripped over the top step and fell flat on my face in the dirt. It was embarrassing.”
After the Reds batted in the eighth, Nuxhall took the mound to pitch the ninth, becoming the youngest player to appear in a major-league game.
“I was kind of in awe of these guys, the way they were hitting line drives,” Nuxhall said of the Cardinals.
Cardinals shortstop Marty Marion told journalist Bob Fulton, “We didn’t know he was 15 years old. Didn’t hear it mentioned even.”
Wild thing
Nuxhall threw wildly but was managing his way through the inning. Of the first four batters he faced, Nuxhall walked two and retired two on infield outs.
Runners were on first and second when Musial stepped to the plate.
“Probably two weeks prior to that, I was pitching against seventh-, eighth- and ninth-graders, kids 13 and 14 years old,” Nuxhall said. “All of a sudden, I look up and there’s Stan Musial … It was a very scary situation.
“By that time, I was all over the place (with my pitches). It wasn’t two inches outside. It was high and inside, high and outside, bouncing pitches. When (Musial) walked up there, I guess he thought I was a needle threader. My first pitch, he just lined to right. Hit it hard.”
Musial’s single loaded the bases.
Unnerved, Nuxhall walked the next three batters, leading to three runs, and yielded a two-run single to Emil Verban.
McKechnie went to the mound _ “I believe he said, ‘Joe, that’s enough,’ ” Nuxhall recalled _ and took him out of the game after he yielded five runs in the inning. Boxscore
“What the cash customers saw in the ninth didn’t exactly meet with their hearty approval,” the Cincinnati Enquirer wrote of Nuxhall’s debut.
Said Nuxhall: “Those people that were at Crosley Field that afternoon probably said, ‘Well, that’s the last we’ll see of that kid.’ ”
After his debut, Nuxhall wouldn’t pitch in the big leagues again until 1952 at age 23. He went on to play 16 seasons in the majors, earning 135 wins, and later became a beloved broadcaster for the Reds.
Hit parade
Two weeks after their trouncing of the Reds, the Cardinals were at Forbes Field against the Pirates, and Ray Sanders led the attack with a single, double, home run and two walks. He drove in three and scored twice.
Musial had four hits _ three singles and a double _ and a walk. He scored twice and had a RBI.
The Cardinals used 22 hits and seven walks for their 16 runs. They stranded 14. The game was completed in a snappy 2:02 before 4,899 paying spectators. Cooper limited the Pirates to three singles.
Xavier Rescigno, who relieved Pirates starter Fritz Ostermueller with none out in the second, gave up 17 hits and 10 runs in seven innings.
With the score 15-0, “it finally reached such a stage that (Pirates) manager Frankie Frisch sent Joe Vitelli, his batting practice pitcher, to the mound to hurl the ninth,” the Post-Dispatch reported.
Vitelli, 36, yielded back-to-back doubles to pinch-hitter Pepper Martin, 40, and Sanders for the final run. Boxscore
Previously: How Giants beat John Tudor, Cardinals, 21-2
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