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How Browns triggered terrible tantrum from Lefty Grove

Posted in Games, Opponents, Pitchers, Records on May 11, 2026| 12 Comments »

Late in life, Lefty Grove would look back at 1931, the year he won 31 games, including 16 in a row, and two more in the World Series, and what he would remember most was a loss.

The sting of that defeat, at St. Louis against the Browns, never left Lefty. In losing 1-0 at Sportsman’s Park, the run scoring when a reserve outfielder misplayed a fly ball, Grove was deprived of setting an American League record for consecutive wins in a season.

A loss always put Grove in a foul mood and usually prompted a temper tantrum, but that one in St. Louis set off “the greatest of his towering rages,” Arthur Daley of the New York Times wrote.

Grove went berserk, smashing up the locker room.

“I wanted the record but I also wanted the victory,” Grove said to The Sporting News. “I just couldn’t stand to lose.”

Smoke signals

Robert Moses Grove was one of eight children from a miner’s family in Lonaconing, an iron and coal town in western Maryland. At 16, he worked in a mine for two weeks, filling in for a brother. Afterward, Grove told his father he never wanted to go underground again, according to the Baltimore Sun.

Grove instead worked as an apprentice glass blower and also got a job in a railroad shop. He played baseball for a town team and turned pro when he was 20. The 6-foot-3 left-hander overpowered batters for five seasons in the minors, mostly with Baltimore of the International League, before his contract was sold to the Philadelphia Athletics for $100,600.

Grove’s Baltimore roommate, pitcher Tommy Thomas, said to the Boston Globe, “He was so fast that even his low fastballs would rise.”

The nickname, “Lefty,” came naturally, but his A’s teammates usually called him “Mose,” and manager Connie Mack called him “Robert,” though he often mispronounced the last name “Groves.”

Lefty loved to smoke black cigars “the size of fungo sticks,” humorist and writer Will Rogers observed. The mail-order stogies were “made out of oolong weeds (Chinese tea leaves) and a wrapper of oak leaves dipped in tar,” Rogers said. According to Victor O. Jones of the Boston Globe, Grove “was a chain smoker, lighting one cigar from the butt of the other.”

Those dark cigars often reflected his mood. As United Press International noted, Grove had a “smoking fastball, with temper to match.” After a loss, he’d stomp off the field, kick a water bucket, snap at teammates. “Nobody hated to lose more than Lefty Grove,” Red Sox outfielder Dom DiMaggio recalled to the Globe.

A friend, journalist J. Suter Kegg of the Cumberland Evening Times in Maryland, wrote, “The man was unbearable to be around when he lost and even preferred to be alone when he won.”

Grove won a lot. His only losing season during 17 years in the majors was as a rookie in 1925. His career mark of 300-141 gave Grove a .680 winning percentage, still the highest of any of baseball’s 300-game winners.

In a six-year span (1928-33), Grove won 79 percent of his decisions (152-40).

Detroit’s Charlie Gehringer, a left-handed batter who hit .320 but 50 points less against Grove, told author Donald Honig, “It’s hard to believe anyone could throw harder than Lefty Grove … I always could pull Bob Feller but I could never pull Grove until the tail end of his career. I’d go up there telling myself I was going to swing the minute he’d let it go. I’d still hit a ground ball to the third baseman.”

Grove’s best season was 1931. After beating Chicago on Aug. 19 for his 16th consecutive win, Grove was 25-2. He tied Walter Johnson (1912 Senators) and Smoky Joe Wood (1912 Red Sox) for most American League wins in a row.

Grove aimed to break the AL mark and take another step toward the big-league record of 19 in a row (held by Rube Marquard of the 1912 National League Giants) when he faced the St. Louis Browns on Aug. 23.

Blinded by the light

As Arthur Daley noted, “It had seemed a lead-pipe cinch” for Grove to get a 17th consecutive win. The A’s were 84-32; the Browns, 49-68.

Connie Mack chose Grove to start the opener of a Sunday doubleheader at St. Louis. A crowd of 22,000, the Browns’ largest of the season at home, came out to see Grove try for the American League record.

Grove cruised through the first two innings and struck out the first two batters in the third. Then Fred Schulte singled to center and Oscar Melillo, a .300 hitter that season, came to the plate.

Melillo lined the ball to left. Jimmy Moore, filling in for regular left fielder Al Simmons, who was home in Milwaukee receiving treatment for an ankle ailment, peered into the sun as he tried to track the ball. “All the players had difficulty judging balls raised against a cloudless sky and in front of a brilliant sun,” the St. Louis Globe-Democrat noted.

Moore recalled to Harold Kaese of the Boston Globe, “If I’d have stood still, I’d have caught it. If I’d been sitting in a chair, I’d have caught it, but … I moved in two steps. The ball was hit harder than I thought.”

Moore turned around and reached for the ball _ “It just nipped off the end of my glove,” he told the Globe _ but it soared over his head. Melillo was credited with a double, though it was clear to most that Moore had misplayed the ball.

Fred Schulte raced from first to home and slid safely into the plate ahead of the relay throw from shortstop Dib Williams. “Grove slapped his leg in disgust,” the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

“I should have tackled that St. Louis runner (Schulte) rounding third and nailed his butt to the bag,” Grove told John Flynn of the Inquirer.

That was the only run of the game. St. Louis starter Dick Coffman, who’d lost nine of his first 11 decisions that season, shut out the mighty A’s on three hits, all singles. “That made Grove as mad as anything,” Moore said to the Globe. Boxscore

Raging bull

In Grove’s view, his pitching was worthy of a 17th consecutive win. The Browns don’t score if Moore makes the catch. Even still, he wins if the A’s score twice against an ordinary pitcher. The perceived injustice of it all brought Grove’s anger to a dangerous boil.

The losing pitcher stormed into the locker room, picked up a chair “and smashed it to smithereens,” Arthur Daley reported. “Then he attempted to take the room apart, locker by locker.”

According to the Inquirer, “He shattered lockers, tried to tear doors off hinges, and tore off his uniform and jumped up and down on it.”

The Sporting News reported, “He tore out lockers and smashed benches against the wall. While his silent teammates watched, Grove proceeded to tear up his uniform and glove, rip his shoes and demolish everything in sight.”

In the book “Baseball When The Grass Was Real,” Grove told Donald Honig he “wrecked the place. Tore those steel lockers off the wall and everything else. Ripped my uniform up. Threw everything I could get my hands on _ bats, balls, shoes, gloves, water bucket; whatever was handy.”

A’s center fielder Doc Cramer told Honig that Grove tore his jersey so angrily that the buttons whizzed by him, three lockers away.

According to Arthur Daley, Grove roared, “(Al) Simmons could have caught that ball in his back pocket. What did he have to go to Milwaukee for?”

When Jimmy Moore entered the locker room, Grove “was in the showers, raising hell about (Al) Simmons,” Moore recalled to Harold Kaese. “He was mad (Simmons) wasn’t there … Grove didn’t say anything to me. I didn’t say anything to him. I was just a $7,000 player. He was getting $35,000.”

Adding insult to Grove’s ire, the A’s won Game 2 of the doubleheader, 10-0, belting 17 hits against three Browns pitchers in support of Waite Hoyt. Boxscore

Topping 30

Grove won his next six decisions. Moore scored the winning run in two of those games, including win No. 30. Boxscore and Boxscore

Grove finished the season with a 31-4 record. Only one pitcher, Denny McLain with the 1968 Tigers, has matched that win total since. Moore told Harold Kaese, “Except for me, Grove’s record would have been 32-3, not 31-4.”

The left-hander was 4-1 with an 0.92 ERA versus the 1931 Browns. His career record against the Browns was 42-17.

In the 1931 World Series, Grove was 2-1 against the Cardinals, who prevailed in seven games. Grove won Games 1 and 6. Burleigh Grimes beat George Earnshaw in Game 7.

Grove is the only pitcher with four World Series wins against the Cardinals _ two in 1930 and two in 1931.

Just win, baby

Schoolboy Rowe of the 1934 Tigers won 16 in a row, tying the American League record of Grove, Johnson and Wood.

After his pitching days, Grove operated “Lefty’s Place,” a combination bowling alley and pool room in Lonaconing. When not at work, he liked to hang out at the Republican Club next door.

According to local journalist J. Suter Kegg, “He often left orders with bartenders at the Lonaconing Republican Club to tell out-of-town writers who tried to contact him by telephone that he wasn’t there.”

Recalling the first time he was sent with a photographer to interview Grove, Kegg said, “I was shaking in my shoes and my voice may even have been quivering (but) to my delightful surprise the great portsider was extremely cordial. He broke out a bottle of Canadian whiskey and asked us to join him in a drink.”

In 1972, when Steve Carlton won 15 in a row for the last-place Phillies, Grove said to the Philadelphia Inquirer, “God, that ain’t bad. He’s the franchise.”

For Grove, nothing topped getting a win. As he told James H. Bready of the Baltimore Sun, “The best of it all was the feeling in you after the game went right and you came back in the locker room and got undressed. I used to take my shower and swallow an ounce of whiskey slow and get a rubdown and I’d go off to sleep right there on the table. It was very damn good.”

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Visionary: Tom Sunkel saw way to overcome handicap

Posted in Games, Pitchers, Prospects on April 24, 2026| 14 Comments »

Nothing was wrong with the left arm of Cardinals pitcher Tom Sunkel. He threw pitches with blinding speed. The problem was an eye. He was blind in the left one.

Though his vision was impaired, Sunkel spent the 1939 season with the Cardinals, and what he did showed he had plenty of heart, too. Sunkel pitched a two-hit shutout against the Giants. He won four decisions in a row as a starter. Plus, he swung a potent bat, hitting .321 for the season.

The Giants wanted him and arranged a 1941 trade. In his second game for them, Sunkel spun another two-hit shutout, against the Phillies.

Boyhood accident

Tom Sunkel grew up on a farm in Paris _ Illinois, that is _ about 20 miles northwest of Terre Haute, Ind. Incorporated in 1849, Paris, Ill., likely got its name from the word “Paris” carved into a tree in the center of the village.

When Sunkel was 4, a playmate loaded a popgun with a stick, aimed it and fired. Sunkel put up a hand for protection but the stick streaked between his fingers and pierced his left eye, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported.

A doctor saved the eye but a traumatic cataract developed, cutting Sunkel’s sight to a little better than half normal, according to the Associated Press.

Despite the restricted vision, Sunkel became a standout amateur baseball player. At 21, he was pitching for a local church team when the Cardinals signed him for their farm system in 1934.

On his path through the minors, Sunkel took a step backward in 1936 when he posted a 6-26 record for a Class B Asheville (N.C.) club managed by Billy Southworth. As other pitching prospects advanced, Sunkel stayed at Class B in 1937, with Decatur (Ill.). It turned out well for him, though. His fastball and curve stymied batters from clubs such as the Moline Plow Boys and Terre Haute Tots. Sunkel totaled 227 strikeouts in 192 innings.

No rescue for Redbirds

Cardinals general manager Branch Rickey visited Decatur in August 1937 to scout Sunkel. The Cardinals were contending with the Cubs and Giants for the National League pennant but they needed starting pitching help. Dizzy Dean hurt his toe in the All-Star Game, altered his pitching delivery and damaged his arm. His brother, Paul Dean, underwent shoulder surgery. Jesse Haines was 44 years old.

St. Louis players were hoping Rickey would acquire proven pitching for the pennant push, but instead he called up Sunkel, 25, from Decatur to fill the void.

Sunkel’s arrival “became a big joke with the other players,” Sid Keener of the St. Louis Star-Times noted. “A pitcher from Decatur was Rickey’s idea of trying to win the 1937 pennant.”

(The Cardinals finished fourth, 15 games behind the champion Giants.)

The rookie was timid _ “I sure was a busher,” he admitted to the Star-Times _ and manager Frankie Frisch used him mostly in relief. Though he didn’t allow a run in six of eight relief appearances for the 1937 Cardinals, including a seven-inning stint versus the Pirates, Sunkel didn’t show enough to stick with the club in 1938. Boxscore

“Just when I figured I had made the grade (with St. Louis), the bottom fell out of everything,” Sunkel said to the Star-Times.

Rickey arranged for Sunkel to pitch for the 1938 Atlanta Crackers, which wasn’t a Cardinals farm club, but retained an option to recall him to St. Louis at any time.

Seeing the light

Sunkel was a success on the mound for Atlanta but it was a troubling season. He had a kink in his left arm the first part of the year. After that, he had a bout of neuritis, an inflammation of the nerves. One night, he was pitching a home game when a burglar broke into his apartment, “leaving the Sunkel family practically flat broke,” the Star-Times reported.

Then the vision in his left eye got dimmer and dimmer.

The traumatic cataract from his childhood injury had worsened considerably. On Aug. 3, 1938, Sunkel told Guy Butler of the Atlanta Journal that the condition of his left eye had deteriorated so much that “I can’t see out of it, but it’s been that way for a month, getting a little worse right along.”

Team trainer Dick Niehaus, a former Cardinals left-handed pitcher, said to the Journal, “I was standing right in front of him. I asked him to close his right eye and look at me. He said he couldn’t see me at all.”

With the club’s permission, Sunkel opted to keep playing. “It’s pretty tough that Tom must pitch under this handicap,” Atlanta catcher-manager Paul Richards said to the Journal. “I don’t want you folks to expect too much of him.”

Sunkel, though, adapted. “I have to guess where the plate is when I throw,” he told the Associated Press.

The results were amazing. Sunkel achieved a 21-5 record, winning his last 13 decisions in a row. For his 20th win, he pitched a one-hitter against Memphis. (Pitcher Hugh Casey got the hit on an infield roller in the third inning.) Sunkel posted a 2.33 ERA in 243 innings and also batted .255 (with 26 hits).

In the Southern Association playoffs, Sunkel won twice, helping Atlanta take the championship. Then he shut out Texas League champion Beaumont in the Dixie Series, winning a duel with Schoolboy Rowe.

Job well done

The Cardinals exercised their option and brought Sunkel to spring training in 1939. They had him examined by eye specialists, who agreed his condition couldn’t be corrected by surgery. “Sunkel calmly accepted the verdict that he would have to battle his way upward with only half the sight of other pitchers,” the Associated Press noted.

Sunkel made the team, but Cardinals manager Ray Blades didn’t use him much in the first part of the season. Then, in July, Sunkel was given some starts. He beat the Phillies for his first big-league win, limiting them to two runs in six innings. He also produced two hits and a sacrifice bunt. Boxscore

“He has developed a new pitching and batting stance, cocking the head slightly to one side so as to take in everything with his one good eye that he would normally see with two,” Ray Gillespie wrote in the Star-Times.

Sunkel told the newspaper, “As long as I’ve got one good eye … I’ll win a lot of games for the Cardinals … I’m big and strong enough to pitch and I’m not afraid of opposing batters. So how’s a little trouble in one eye going to stop me?”

Sunkel’s next win brought him national attention. On a humid afternoon at St. Louis, he held the Giants hitless until Tom Hafey (cousin of ex-Cardinals standout Chick Hafey) singled to right with one out in the eighth. The only other Giants hit was a two-out Billy Jurges single in the ninth. Sunkel produced as many hits as he allowed (two) and also had a walk and a RBI. Boxscore

Wins against the Dodgers and Pirates followed. Boxscore and Boxscore

In 20 games, including 11 starts, for the 1939 Cardinals, Sunkel was 4-4 with a 4.22 ERA. He also totaled nine hits in 28 at-bats.

Keep on going

His was a feel-good story, but results were valued more than sentiment in baseball. Sunkel, 27, gave up nine runs in his last 10 innings with the 1939 Cardinals. They determined he needed more time in the minors.

Sunkel spent 1940 with Columbus and 1941 with Syracuse. In September 1941, the Cardinals dealt Sunkel to the Giants for Jumbo Brown (a 295-pound pitcher) and Rae Blaemire.

Two weeks later, in his second start for the Giants, Sunkel held the Phillies hitless until Johnny Rizzo cracked a single with two outs in the eighth. Sunkel finished with a two-hit shutout, striking out 12. He also had a hit and scored a run. Boxscore

Sunkel was 3-6 for the 1942 Giants. A highlight was pitching 10 innings to beat the Dodgers. Boxscore

He spent most of 1943 in the minors. Then Branch Rickey, who had left the Cardinals, acquired Sunkel for the Dodgers. He pitched his last big-league games for them in 1944.

Sunkel continued to pitch in the minors until 1948. In an American Association playoff game for St. Paul in 1946, he pitched a no-hitter at Louisville. In describing the performance, Tommy Fitzgerald of the Louisville Courier-Journal called Sunkel “the Eiffel Tower of Paris, Ill.”

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Strikeout story: Grover Cleveland Alexander, Tony Lazzeri

Posted in Games, Hitters, Opponents, Pitchers on April 10, 2026| 12 Comments »

There are more versions of the story of Grover Cleveland Alexander striking out Tony Lazzeri than there were teams in a Branch Rickey farm system.

First, the undisputed facts:

With the Cardinals ahead, 3-2, in the seventh inning of Game 7 in the 1926 World Series, the Yankees had the bases loaded and Lazzeri at the plate. Cardinals manager Rogers Hornsby called for Alexander to relieve Jesse Haines, who had developed a blister on his pitching hand. Alexander, 39, had pitched a complete game the day before in the Cardinals’ Game 6 victory.

Lazzeri, a rookie, had 18 home runs and 114 RBI that season. Alexander struck him out. Then he shut down the Yankees in the eighth and ninth, earning a save to go with two World Series wins.

Alexander retired the side in the eighth and the first two batters in the ninth. Then Babe Ruth drew a walk, but was thrown out attempting to steal. Boxscore

In winning their first World Series championship, the Cardinals transformed from a perennial also-ran into an elite franchise in the National League.

The two people most qualified to know the full story of Alexander’s Game 7 heroics were catcher Bob O’Farrell and Alexander himself. Alexander gave his account to Francis J. Powers for the book “My Greatest Day in Baseball.” O’Farrell related his version to Lawrence Ritter in “The Glory of Their Times.”

Alexander: “There are stories that I celebrated (after Game 6) and had a hangover when Rogers Hornsby called me from the bullpen to pitch to Lazzeri.  That isn’t the truth.”

O’Farrell: “When he struck out Lazzeri, he’d been out on a drunk the night before and was feeling the effects.”

Alexander: “In the clubhouse after (Game 6), Hornsby came over to me and said, ‘Alex, if you want to celebrate tonight, I wouldn’t blame you, but go easy for I may need you tomorrow.’ I said, ‘OK, Rog’ … Hell, I wanted to win that Series and get the big end of the money as much as anyone.”

O’Farrell: “After the sixth game was over, Rogers Hornsby told Alex that if Jesse Haines got in any trouble the next day he would be the relief man. So he should take care of himself. Well, Alex didn’t really intend to take a drink that night, but some of his friends got hold of him and thought they were doing him a favor by buying him a drink. Well, you weren’t doing Alex any favor by buying him a drink because he just couldn’t stop.”

Alexander: “Early in (Game 7), Hornsby said to me, ‘Alex, go down into the bullpen and keep your eye on (Bill) Sherdel and (Herman) Bell. Keep them warmed up and if I need help I’ll depend on you to tell me which one looks best.”

O’Farrell: “In the seventh inning of the seventh game, Alex is tight asleep in the bullpen, sleeping off the night before … The Yankees get the bases loaded with two outs, and the next batter up is Lazzeri. Hornsby and I gather around Haines at the pitching mound. Jesse’s fingers are a mass of blisters from throwing so many knuckleballs, and so Hornsby decides to call in old Alex, even though we know he’d just pitched the day before and had been up most of the night.”

Alexander: “The bullpen in the Yankee Stadium is under the bleachers and when you’re down there you can’t tell what’s going on out in the field … When the bench wants to get in touch with the bullpen, there’s a telephone. It’s the only real fancy modern bullpen in baseball. Well, I was sitting around down there, not doing much throwing, when the phone rang and an excited voice said, ‘Send in Alexander.’ … I take a few hurried throws and then start for the box.”

O’Farrell: “In he comes, shuffling slowly from the bullpen to the pitching mound.”

Alexander: “When I come out from under the bleachers, I see the bases filled and Lazzeri standing at the box. Tony is up there all alone, with everyone in that Sunday crowd watching him. So I just said to myself, ‘Take your time. Lazzeri isn’t feeling any too good up there and let him stew.’ ”

O’Farrell: “Hornsby asks, ‘Can you do it?’ Alex says, ‘I can try.’ We agree that Alex should pitch Lazzeri low and away, nothing up high.”

Alexander: “I get to the box and Bob O’Farrell, our catcher, comes out to meet me. ‘Let’s start where we left off yesterday,’ Bob said. Yesterday (in Game 6) Lazzeri was up four times against me without getting anything that looked like a hit. He got one off me in the second game of the Series, but with one out of seven I wasn’t much worried about him … I said OK to O’Farrell. We’ll curve him.”

O’Farrell: “The first pitch is a perfect low curve for strike one.”

Alexander: “My first pitch was a curve and Tony missed. Holding the ball in his hand, O’Farrell came out to the box again. ‘Alex,’ he began, ‘this guy will be looking for that curve next time. We curved him all the time yesterday. Let’s give him a fast one.’ I agreed.”

O’Farrell: “The second one comes in high, and Tony smacks a vicious line drive that lands in the left field stands but just foul. Oh, it’s foul by maybe 10 feet.”

Alexander: “I poured one in, right under his chin. There was a crack and I knew the ball was hit hard … I spun around … and all the Yankees on base were on their way, but the drive had a tail-end fade and landed foul by eight to 10 feet in the left field bleachers. I said to myself, ‘No more of that for you, my lad.’ ”

O’Farrell: “So I run out to Alex. ‘I thought we were going to pitch him low and outside?’ Alex says, ‘He’ll never get another one like that.’ ”

Alexander: Bob signed for another curve and I gave him one. Lazzeri swung where that curve started but not where it finished. The ball got a hunk of the corner and then finished outside.”

O’Farrell: “A low outside curve and Tony Lazzeri struck out.”

In the bottom of the ninth, with two outs, Babe Ruth took off from first base on Alexander’s first pitch to Bob Meusel.

Alexander: “I caught the blur of Ruth starting for second as I pitched, and then came the whistle of the ball as O’Farrell rifled it to second. I wheeled around and there was one of the grandest sights of my life. Hornsby, his foot anchored on the bag and his gloved hand outstretched, was waiting for Ruth to come in.”

O’Farrell: “I wondered why Ruth tried to steal. A year or two later I went on a barnstorming trip with the Babe and I asked him. Ruth said he thought Alex had forgotten he was there. Also that the way Alex was pitching they’d never get two hits in a row off him, so he better get in position to score if they got one. Maybe that was good thinking. Maybe not. In any case, I had him out a mile at second.”

 

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Bill Hallahan experienced wild times with Cardinals

Posted in Games, Pitchers on April 3, 2026| 8 Comments »

Growing up in Binghamton, N.Y., Bill Hallahan learned to play baseball on a sandlot near State Hospital Hill. His boyhood idol was big-league pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander.

Hallahan was 8 when Alexander won 28 in his rookie season for the 1911 Phillies. Fifteen years later, Hallahan, 23, was a left-handed pitcher for the Cardinals when they acquired Alexander, 39, in 1926. Known to teammates as Alex, the old master made a lasting impression on Hallahan.

Easy does it

“I’ll never forget the first time he pitched for us,” Hallahan recalled to Donald Honig in the 1979 book “October Heroes.”

“I was sitting on the bench with another young pitcher and naturally we glued our eyes on Alex when he went out to warm up. He flipped a few into the catcher, then stopped, put his glove under his arm, took out a piece of gum, very casually took the paper off, put the gum in his mouth, looked around through the stands, then put his glove back on and started throwing again.

“He threw just a few more pitches, very easily, with no effort. Then he was through. He came back to the bench, put on his sweater _ we wore those big, red-knit sweaters on the Cardinals _ and sat down.

“I looked at this other fellow and said, ‘This is going to be murder. He isn’t throwing anything.’ Well, Alex went out that day and stood the other team on its ear. (Alexander limited the Cubs to four hits in 10 innings for the win.) Control, that’s how he did it. Absolute, total control. He had this little screwball that he could turn over on the corners all day long. Amazing fellow. Born to be a pitcher.”

Wild Bill

After finishing his schooling, Bill Hallahan worked as a clerk at the Corona Typewriter Company factory in Groton, N.Y. A left-hander, he pitched for the factory baseball team. He turned pro at 21 in 1924 and reached the majors with the 1925 Cardinals. Hallahan made six relief appearances for St. Louis before being returned to the minors. He rejoined the Cardinals in 1926 as a reliever on a staff with starters Jesse Haines, Flint Rhem, Bill Sherdel and then Alexander.

Described by writer Bob Broeg as “short, stocky, round-faced and pug-nosed, head cocked almost shyly to one side even when he pitched,” Hallahan threw hard but lacked command, earning him the nickname “Wild Bill.”

Hallahan was “the wildest man alive,” according to the Brooklyn Eagle. “He has so much stuff that it can’t be controlled.”

Hallahan couldn’t work up the nerve to ask Alexander for pitching tips.

“Alex never said much about anything,” Hallahan told Donald Honig. “When he did talk, it was seldom above a whisper. As a rule, we didn’t see him around after a game. He was a loner. He would go off by himself and do what he did, which I suppose was drink. That was his problem.

“He liked to go out before a game and work in the infield, generally around third base. One day we were taking batting practice and there’s Alex standing at third, crouched over, hands on knees, staring into the plate. A ground ball went by him and he never budged. Just remained there stock still, staring at the batter. Then another grounder buzzed by and same thing _ he never moved a muscle. Then somebody ripped a line drive past his ear and still he didn’t move. That’s when (Rogers) Hornsby noticed him. Rog was managing the club at the time.

“Hornsby let out a howl and said, ‘Where in the hell did he get it?’ ‘Where did he get it,’ he kept yelling. He ordered a search made and they found it, all right. In old Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis there used to be a ladies’ room not far from the corridor going down to the dugout, and that’s where he had stashed it, up in the rafters of the ladies’ room. One of those little square bottles of gin.”

Alexander sobered the spirits of Yankees batters in the 1926 World Series. He pitched a four-hitter to win Game 2. With the Cardinals on the brink of elimination, he pitched another complete-game gem to win Game 6 and then hurled 2.1 scoreless innings of relief, including the famous strikeout of Tony Lazzeri with the bases loaded, to save Game 7.

Curves and speed

Like Alexander, Hallahan pitched masterpieces in the World Series for the Cardinals. First, though, came detours through the minors.

Hallahan spent 1927 with Syracuse (19-11) and 1928 with Houston (23-12). Leading Houston to the championships of the Texas League and Dixie Series, Hallahan became the toast of the Texas oil town.

“Bill Hallahan’s name is a household word in Houston,” wrote Houston Chronicle sports editor Kern Tips in October 1928. “The restaurants serve eggs a la Hallahan; soda fountains can mix you a Hallahan frappe; a girl is the Hallahan if she has curves _ and speed. You go Hallahan in a card game when you run wild through the deck. Never has Houston had a more colorful, a more amiable, a more popular ballplayer.”

Hallahan said Houston player-manager Frank Snyder, a former Cardinals catcher, brought out the best in him. As Hallahan recalled to the St. Louis Star-Times, “I simply lacked confidence and walked everybody in the ballpark, including the soda boys and umpires … Snyder went behind the plate believing in me and I knew what he expected of me … It was the first time anybody had enough confidence in me to give me confidence in myself.”

The Cardinals brought back Hallahan in 1929, but he went winless the first five months of the season. A turnaround came when Grover Cleveland Alexander got turned out. Manager Bill McKechnie was fed up with Alexander’s drinking and in August 1929 the Cardinals told the pitcher to go home. Hallahan moved into the starting rotation and won four of his last five decisions.

Finding his groove

At spring training in 1930, Hallahan, 27, showed he was ready for a big role on the St. Louis staff. “Ever since he joined the Cardinals in the spring of 1924, shrewd baseball observers have been predicting a great future for Hallahan,” Sid Keener of the Star-Times noted. “The youngster fizzled annually, but this spring he has been more impressive than ever before.”

None other than Babe Ruth praised Hallahan’s pitching. In an exhibition game at Bradenton, Fla., the Yankees’ slugger swung late at a Hallahan fastball in the first inning and dribbled a slow roller to third. In his next at-bat, Ruth watched another Hallahan fastball dart across the inside corner for strike three.

According to Sid Keener, Ruth said to Cardinals manager Gabby Street, “You showed me a great young pitcher out there this afternoon. I don’t know when I’ve ever seen a left-hander with such burning speed and a curve that almost completely baffles a batter. Hallahan almost whipped that fastball past me before I could get the bat off my shoulder in the first inning, and when I was expecting a curve from him in the third with two strikes called, he whistled across his fastball and I could not get my bat off my shoulder.”

Hallahan was a prominent starter for the Cardinals between 1930 and 1935. He twice led National League pitchers in strikeouts but also three times issued the most walks and threw the most wild pitches. He was the Cardinals’ wins leader in 1930 (15) and 1931 (19). Hallahan was the National League starter in the first All-Star Game in 1933.

“When he had it, especially when he could put his blazing fastball and jagged overhanded curve over the plate, Hallahan was second probably only to the New York Giants’ Carl Hubbell among National League left-handed pitchers,” Bob Broeg wrote in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Big-game pitcher

Hallahan pitched in seven World Series games for the Cardinals and was 3-1 with a save and a 1.36 ERA.

After Hallahan pitched a shutout against the Athletics in Game 3 of the 1930 World Series, Babe Ruth gushed in his syndicated newspaper column, “I don’t think there’s a ball team in the country that could have beaten him in that game, or even caused him very much trouble.” Boxscore

Hallahan’s World Series save came in Game 7 versus the A’s in 1931. Boxscore

Hallahan won both of his starts in the 1931 World Series _ Games 2 and 5. The Game 2 ending was a dandy.

With the Cardinals ahead, 2-0, in the ninth, the A’s had two on, two outs and pinch-hitter Jimmy Moore at the plate.

“I got two strikes on him,” Hallahan recalled to Donald Honig, “and then broke off a beauty of a curve and he struck out on it. Or so I thought.”

The ball hit the ground before catcher Jimmie Wilson gloved it. Wilson needed to either tag the batter, or throw to first, to complete the out. Instead, he fired the ball to third baseman Jake Flowers, thinking the game was over. Moore was safe at first, loading the bases.

“You don’t like to give a team like the A’s four outs in an inning, but that’s what I had to do,” Hallahan recalled to Donald Honig. “The batter was Max Bishop, a fellow I didn’t like to pitch to. He was a smart little hitter who generally got the bat on the ball … A fellow like Bishop _ they called him ‘Camera Eye’ _ guarded the plate like a hawk and it was hard to get a ball past him.

“I put everything I had on it and Bishop popped one up in foul ground that Jim Bottomley chased down and then dove over the Athletics’ bullpen bench and caught by reaching into the stands. It was a really remarkable play by Jim. That ended the game for real. I always said it was a lucky thing we were playing at home because the fans got out of the way and let Jim make the play. If we had been in Philadelphia, I’m sure they wouldn’t have been so helpful.” Boxscore

 

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A black stain of shame on a St. Louis Brown

Posted in Hitters, Pitchers on March 27, 2026| 13 Comments »

A St. Louis Browns player was part of a mob that lynched a man.

The murder of Allen Brooks occurred March 3, 1910, in Dallas. Brooks, a black man, was in court on charges he attacked a 3-year-old white girl. A mob stormed the courtroom, tied a rope around Brooks’ neck, then pulled and hurled him from a second-story window to a frenzied crowd below. Brooks’ body was dragged several blocks and hung from a telephone pole. Then the rioters marched to the county jail, looking for two black men accused of murders, and used steel rails to force their way inside, but the prisoners had been taken away by officers.

The mob included Dode Criss of the Browns. “Criss was with the crowd when it moved on to the courthouse and jail,” the St. Louis Star-Times reported. “… Dode does not say he led the mob on the jail, but says he saw what transpired and believes the black was given his just desserts.”

Spitter and hitter

Dode Criss was born in Mississippi, near Tupelo, and raised in rural Texas. His farming family settled in Ellis County, near Waxahachie, and he went to school in Rockett. According to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Criss “had an ability to spit and never miss a mark. Around the grocery in the evening, Dode entertained the crowd with his capacity of saliva control, hitting rat holes, striking chalk marks and lambasting dogs in the eye. He was a faultless shot.”

Criss played ball, too. He threw right, batted left, pitched and roamed the outfield. In 1906, at 21, Criss was with a Class D minor-league club in Texas. A teammate was 18-year-old Tris Speaker, a future Baseball Hall of Famer. In his book “Baseball As I Have Known it,” Frederick G. Lieb wrote that Speaker confessed to being a member of the Ku Klux Klan.

After spending another season in the minors, Criss was brought to spring training with the Browns in 1908. The Browns thought he was a pitcher. What he did best, though, was hit. Manager Jimmy McAleer kept the rookie on the club and made him its primary pinch-hitter. Criss hit .341 overall (in 82 at-bats) for the 1908 Browns and .333 as a pinch-hitter.

“He is a player who excels all others as a hitter but is sadly deficient as a pitcher or a fielder,” the St. Louis Post-Dispatch observed.

Billy Murphy of the Star-Times wrote, “He can’t run. He can’t field. He can’t think. There is nothing that he can do but hit and throw (and) his throwing isn’t even accurate … He has to make a hit to the fence to get two bases. Sometimes he has been nearly thrown out at first on hits to the outfield … Criss is valuable for just one thing. That is to hit in a pinch. Then someone has to run for him. Someone has to think for him.”

Foreshadowing the designated hitter rule that was to be adopted by the American League 65 years later, Syd Smith, a teammate of Criss with the 1908 Browns, told the Houston Chronicle, “If a 10th position were to be provided for on a ballclub, I think Dode would come into his own.”

Criss’ second season with the Browns, in 1909, resulted in a .304 batting mark as a pinch-hitter and 1-5 record as a pitcher.

Trouble brewing

In March 1910, Criss and his wife made the 30-mile trek from their home to Dallas so that Mrs. Criss could get a train to Mississippi, where she would visit relatives, he told the Star-Times. Criss had bought a railway ticket to Houston, where the Browns were training for the spring, but had it redeemed so that he could stay in Dallas until after the “fun” was over, the Star-Times reported. The “fun” was joining the mob forming for the court hearing of Allen Brooks.

Acting on a tip he received, Star-Times reporter Brice Hoskins asked Criss upon his arrival at spring training about being part of the Dallas mob responsible for Brooks’ lynching. Criss confirmed he was there.

A nationally syndicated sports feature that was published in newspapers such as the Akron Beacon Journal, Dayton Herald, Milwaukee Daily News and San Francisco Bulletin flippantly reported, “Criss … is the possessor of probably the most unique excuse of any ballplayer for reporting late for the spring workout. He was two days late in showing up at Houston this spring because he stopped in Dallas to participate in a lynching. Dode is a Texan who relishes excitement.”

Volatile mix

According to multiple published reports, Allen Brooks, 58, was arrested on Feb. 23, 1910. Brooks was employed as a laborer at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Henry J. Buvens of Dallas. Police said Brooks took the Buvens’ daughter, Mary Ethel Buvens, to a barn on the property and carried her into the loft. A black housekeeper went looking for the child and found her with Brooks in the barn. The woman took the girl and ran into the house. Police found Brooks hiding in a basement furnace room. The next day, Feb. 24, he was indicted by a Dallas grand jury and charged with criminal assault.

(While in custody, Brooks told officers he was drunk on the day he confronted the child and didn’t know what he was doing, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported.)

The heinousness of the crime Brooks was accused of committing produced an outburst of rage and racism. In the predawn hours of Feb. 25, a mob of about 500 men surrounded the county jail in Dallas and demanded that Brooks be turned over to them, the Waco Times-Herald reported. The mob had a 30-foot steel rail and threatened to batter down the jail doors if Brooks didn’t appear. The county sheriff and city police chief allowed 12 mob members to search the jail and see for themselves Brooks wasn’t there. Brooks had been moved to a secret location.

The mob dispersed. Officials urged the public to trust the legal process. “There is absolutely no need for mob violence,” assistant county attorney B.M. Clark said to the Fort Worth Record-Register. “… Prompt justice will be administered.”

Order in the court

An arraignment was scheduled for March 3 in Dallas. According to police and county officials, early-morning trains into Dallas that day unloaded passengers from Ellis, Hunt and Rockwell counties. Joining men from rural sections of Dallas County, they formed the heart of the mob that went to the courthouse, the Fort Worth Record-Register reported.

The county sheriff and all his men were on duty at the courthouse along with about 15 city police officers. In all, Brooks was guarded by about 50 law enforcement personnel, the St. Louis Globe-Democrat reported.

The arraignment was held in a second-floor courtroom. About 1,000 people crowded into the corridors and stairways of the courthouse, the Record-Register reported. At least another 1,000 more waited outside.

During the morning hearing, Brooks’ attorneys asked Judge R.B. Seay for a continuance in order to construct their case. The judge gave the defense attorneys an hour in which to prepare their motion in writing. Brooks was taken from the courtroom to a jury room to wait.

When word of this procedure filtered out to the simpletons in the hallways, the message got misinterpreted. The crowd thought a change of venue was being considered. That angered them, and a call went out to rise up.

The invaders “swept county officials and policemen aside like chaff before the wind,” the Record-Register reported. The door to the courtroom was battered down and sheriff deputies were overpowered. According to the Fort Worth newspaper, “The officers fought back desperately but refrained from using their pistols … One by one the officers dropped from sheer exhaustion.”

Mob rule

The mob forced its way into the jury room, where Brooks was guarded by two sheriff’s deputies. According to the Record-Register, as one drew a revolver, a mob leader snarled at him, “Shoot, (expletive) you, shoot; you nigger lover.”

Brooks, crouching under a table, was seized. One end of a rope was tied around the neck of the shaking man and the other end was pitched to the crowd below. As Brooks was shoved from behind, a “mighty tug was made on the rope from below,” the Record-Register reported. Brooks tumbled out of a second-story window 30 feet above the ground. As he fell headlong, Brooks spread out his arms and legs. His head struck the pavement.

“Dozens of men jumped on him and his face was kicked into a pulp and he was bruised all over,” the Globe-Democrat reported.

Men grabbed the rope and, with the rest of the mob following, dragged the body several blocks up Main Street through the business district. The number of people in the mob had swelled to between 3,000 and 5,000, according to published estimates. “From the windows in the office buildings along Main Street … faces poked out to take in the horrible sight,” the Record-Register reported.

Brooks’ body was strung up to an iron spike on a telephone pole next to an arch built to honor the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks of the United States of America, a fraternal organization focused on charity, justice and brotherly love.

“Just as the body was swinging upward, men and boys grabbed at the clothing and tore nearly every rag from his body,” the Record-Register reported. “A fight ensued for the torn bits of clothing, as they were wanted as souvenirs.” (Brooks was one of five black men lynched in Texas in 1910, according to D Magazine.)

The bloodlust of the savages wasn’t quenched by their ghastly act. The mob marched to the county jail, seeking two black men, Burrell Oates and Bubber Robinson, charged with murders. The sheriff told the mob the prisoners had been moved. Unconvinced, the mob “started in to demolish the doors and underpinnings with steel rails as battering rams,” the Globe-Democrat reported. “They then got dynamite and threatened to blow up the jail.”

Officers allowed some of the crowd to search the jail. Seeing the cells were empty, the throng dispersed.

American injustice

A Dallas County grand jury was convened to investigate the lynching. On March 20, the Star-Times reported “Secret Service agents are endeavoring to find out what Dode Criss knows of the recent lynching at Dallas.”

The investigations led nowhere. The grand jury didn’t return an indictment. No one was arrested nor charged in the lynching of Brooks.

“The grand jury admitted it was either unable to reach the facts, or that it regarded the lynching of Allen Brooks … as too trivial an occurrence to be worth its notice,” the Record-Register reported.

According to the Fort Worth newspaper, indications were “the grand jury not only never had any intention of investigating the mob, despite the orders to do so by Judge Seay, but preferred to silently endorse the outbreak.” The same grand jury returned 110 felony indictments in other cases but noted it endeavored not “to encumber the court docket with cases of a doubtful or frivolous nature.”

For the record

Dode Criss spent two more seasons (1910-11) in the majors with the Browns before returning to the minors. His departure “will not be mourned by local fans,” the Star-Times declared. “… During the time Criss was with the Browns, three different managers tried to make something out of him and all failed.”

Criss went on to play six seasons with the Houston Buffaloes. After Criss died in 1955, Clark Nealon of the Houston Post wrote that Criss “was more than just a Houston Buff all-time ballplayer. He was and forever will be in Texas League history a legend.” At team reunions, Criss “basked in admiration the likes of which generally is reserved for Ruth and Cobb,” Nealon noted.

In 2021, the Texas Historical Commission recognized the lynching of Allen Brooks with a historical marker at Main and Akard streets in Dallas, D Magazine reported. In 2023, a second state marker was installed at the southwest corner of the courthouse, near the window Brooks was thrown from.

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How baseball went to bat for the people of Finland

Posted in Games, Hitters, Pitchers on March 21, 2026| 9 Comments »

An American son of Russian immigrants, Lou Novikoff was an outfielder who thrilled baseball fans with prodigious hitting and frustrated managers with erratic baserunning and atrocious fielding. He was nicknamed the Mad Russian.

Novikoff grew up near downtown Los Angeles in an area known as Russian Town. He spoke Russian and English, learned to cook Russian specialties such as shashlik (grilled lamb) and married a daughter of Russian immigrants.

His pride in his heritage was as strong as a Siberian bear, yet Novikoff willingly joined several of baseball’s most prominent players in a fundraising effort to provide aid for the people of Finland during their war with the Soviet Union.

World in peril

After Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, igniting World War II, the Russians were concerned the Nazis would come through Finland to attack the Soviet Union. The Russians wanted the Finns to cede border territory to them for security reasons. When Finland refused, the Russians invaded with 500,000 troops in November 1939. The conflict became known as the Winter War.

The Finns fought fiercely to defend their land. More than 126,000 Soviet soldiers were killed. More than 25,000 Finns died, according to Radio Free Europe.

With food and other supplies cut off from them in the frigid Nordic winter, Finnish civilians needed help. Former U.S. President Herbert Hoover was put in charge of a Finnish Relief Fund.

Pitching in

In addition to soliciting private donations, Hoover sought to have high-profile public fundraising events. He convinced baseball officials to get involved.

Two baseball fundraising exhibition games were planned for March 1940.

The first, sponsored by the Los Angeles Times, took place March 10 at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles. It matched players from the four big-league clubs training in California _ Athletics, Cubs, Pirates and White Sox _ against top players from five Pacific Coast League teams: Hollywood, Los Angeles, Portland, Sacramento (a Cardinals farm club) and Seattle.

The second game was played March 17 at Plant Field in Tampa. It matched American Leaguers against National Leaguers from the teams training in Florida. The American League clubs were the Indians, Red Sox, Senators, Tigers and Yankees. (The Browns trained in Texas). Representing the National League were the Braves, Cardinals, Dodgers, Giants, Phillies and Reds.

“In the spirit of sportsmanship and in recognition of the Finns’ heroism, both in the field of sports and in the protection of their homes, baseball … joins in helping to alleviate their sufferings and makes its contribution to a worthy cause,” The Sporting News declared.

Note: Though ice hockey may be the most popular sport in Finland, pesapallo, a Finnish version of baseball, is the country’s official national sport. Video

John Michaelson, who was born in Finland in 1893 and immigrated to Michigan as a youth, is the only native Finn to play big-league baseball. He pitched in two games for the 1921 White Sox.

Game one

Batting orders for the Finnish Relief Fund game in Los Angeles were:

Pacific Coast League: Jo-Jo White, center field, Seattle; Bill Cissell, second base, Hollywood; ex-Cardinal Rip Collins, first base, Los Angeles; Lou “The Mad Russian” Novikoff, left field, Los Angeles; Max Marshall, right field, Sacramento; Art Garibaldi, third base, Sacramento; Ed Cihocki, shortstop, Los Angeles; Cliff Dapper, catcher, Hollywood; Bill Thomas, pitcher, Portland.

Major leaguers: Augie Galan, left field, Cubs; Benny McCoy, second base, A’s; Luke Appling, shortstop, White Sox; Gabby Hartnett, catcher, Cubs; Elbie Fletcher, first base, Pirates; Eric McNair, third base, White Sox; Lloyd Waner, center field, Pirates; Paul Waner, right field, Pirates; Ted Lyons, pitcher, White Sox.

Five of the big-league starters _ Appling, Hartnett, Lyons and the Waner brothers _ would be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Three of the reserves, Billy Herman (Cubs), Al Simmons (A’s) and Arky Vaughan (Pirates), also were future Hall of Famers.

The managers were ex-Cardinal and future Hall of Famer Frankie Frisch of the Pirates and Seattle’s Jack Lelivelt. Coaches for the big-league squad were Monty Stratton and Honus Wagner.

Played on a Sunday afternoon under threatening skies, the game attracted 9,753 spectators and netted $7,204.06 for the Finnish Relief Fund, the Los Angeles Times reported. The big-leaguers won, 4-1. Frisch used a different pitcher for each of the nine innings. In addition to starter Ted Lyons, the others were Bill Lee, Claude Passeau, Julio Bonetti, Bob Klinger, George Caster, Thornton Lee, Johnny Gee and Mace Brown.

Lou Novikoff, who’d go on to hit .363 with 41 home runs for Los Angeles (a Cubs farm club) in 1940, rolled to the pitcher and fouled out to the catcher.

Game two

Two days after the game, on March 12, the Winter War ended with the signing of the Moscow Peace Treaty. The agreement became public on March 13 and was ratified on March 21. Finland lost significant territory to the Soviet Union in the deal, according to Wikipedia.

Finns still were in need of food and basic supplies, so the work of the Finnish Relief Fund continued.

On March 17, both Palm Sunday and St. Patrick’s Day, 13,320 people attended the fundraising game between the American Leaguers and National Leaguers in Tampa. It was the largest crowd to attend a baseball game in Florida, according to the Baseball Hall of Fame. “Carpenters were still nailing up new bleacher seats at game time” to accommodate the crowd, the New York Daily News reported. “United States and Finland flags fluttered from alternate poles around the park.”

Ticket sales produced $16,401.50 but additional donations brought the total raised from the game for the Finnish Relief Fund to $19,641.85, The Sporting News reported.

American League batting order: Joe Gordon, second base; Red Rolfe, third base; Charlie “King Kong” Keller, left field; Joe DiMaggio, center field; Jimmie Foxx, first base; Ted Williams, right field; Bill Dickey, catcher; Frank Crosetti, shortstop; and Red Ruffing, pitcher. Foxx and Williams were Red Sox; the rest were Yankees. All except Rolfe, Keller and Crosetti were destined for election to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Future Hall of Famers in reserve for the American League included Bobby Doerr (Red Sox), Bob Feller (Indians), Rick Ferrell (Senators), Hank Greenberg (Tigers).

National League batting order: Morrie Arnovich, left field, Phillies; Cookie Lavagetto, third base, Dodgers; Mel Ott, right field, Giants; Frank McCormick, first base, Reds; Harry Danning, catcher, Giants; Frank Demaree, center field, Giants; Tony Cuccinello, second base, Braves; Billy Jurges, shortstop, Giants; and Paul Derringer, pitcher, Reds. Ott was the lone future Hall of Famer among the starters.

Five Cardinals _ Mort Cooper, Joe Medwick, Johnny Mize, Terry Moore and Enos Slaughter _ were chosen for the National League roster, but Cooper (injury), Medwick (contract holdout) and Mize (illness) were unavailable. Moore and Slaughter (a future Hall of Famer) were reserves.

The game’s managers were Joe McCarthy (Yankees) and ex-Cardinal Bill McKechnie (Reds). Both would be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

The star-studded American League team was considered the heavy favorite, but the score was tied at 1-1 when the National Leaguers went to bat in the bottom of the ninth against Bob Feller.

Tampa native Al Lopez slashed a leadoff single to center. Attempting to sacrifice, Terry Moore bunted to the left of the plate. Described by the Boston Globe as “fast as an antelope,” Moore reached first at the same time as catcher Rollie Hemsley’s throw to Hal Trosky. Bumped by Moore, Trosky dropped the throw. Lopez hustled to third and Moore was safe at first on the error.

(A son of John and Mary Trojovsky of Norway, Iowa, Hal Trosky was no relation to Leon Trotsky, the Russian revolutionary assassinated by an agent of Joseph Stalin in Mexico City in August 1940.)

With the American League infielders playing in for a play at the plate, Pete Coscarart, a Dodgers second baseman, lashed a Feller fastball toward short. The ball skipped past Frank Crosetti for a game-winning single.

“Single, bunt, playing for one run. That’s National League baseball, a brand good enough to beat the American League,” Hy Turkin noted in the Daily News.

John Drebinger of the New York Times called the 2-1 National League triumph “an upset of major proportions in the name of charity.”

John Lardner of the Boston Globe wrote, “Fighting for the lost, but living, cause of Finland, the National League struck a blow for all downtrodden minorities.”

Dark days

Overall, the Finnish Relief Fund raised more than $2.5 million by March 1940. The American Red Cross distributed food and other basics provided from the funds.

The war with the Soviet Union led to Finland making a dark, disturbing decision.

Looking to reverse land losses from the Winter War, Finland joined Operation Barbarossa, Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. Finland called itself a “co-belligerent,” rather than an ally of the Nazis, but Adolf Hitler considered Finland a partner. Finland permitted German troops to operate from its soil.

In 1944, when the Allies were turning back the Nazis, Finland changed course. It reached a peace agreement (the Moscow Armistice) with the Soviet Union. Key terms of the armistice forced the Finns to cede extensive territories to the Soviets, pay them $300 million in reparations, legalize the Communist Party, ban fascist organizations and expel German troops from Finland.

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