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As a rookie starting center fielder for the 1935 Cardinals, Terry Moore struggled initially to live up to lofty expectations. What sealed his status as a premier player was a flawless hitting performance.

On Sept. 5, 1935, Moore had six hits _ a double and five singles _ in six at-bats for the Cardinals against the Braves at St. Louis. Moore was the first Cardinals player with six hits in a game since Jim Bottomley did it on Aug. 5, 1931, against the Pirates at Pittsburgh. After Moore, no other Cardinals player got six hits in a game until Skip Schumaker achieved the feat on July 26, 2008, with six singles in seven at-bats in 14 innings against the Mets at New York.

Moore’s six-hit game secured his role as an everyday player for the Cardinals. He played his entire 11-year big-league career with St. Louis, batting .280 with 1,318 hits in 1,298 games. A four-time all-star, Moore served in the military between two stints with the Cardinals (1935-42 and 1946-48). He four times led National League center fielders in assists and twice led in putouts.

Slow start

Moore was training for a career as a printer when he was discovered by a Cardinals scout in 1932.

He had a big season in 1934, batting .326 with 213 hits in 154 minor-league games in the Cardinals’ system.

Manager Frankie Frisch declared Moore the everyday center fielder for the 1935 Cardinals, replacing veteran Ernie Orsatti.

Initially, Moore was a bust. He batted .132 (5-for-38) in April.

“He made mistakes in fielding the ball,” the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. “He threw to the wrong base and seemingly he couldn’t hit big-league pitching.”

The Sporting News opined, “Much was expected of him _ more perhaps than any other lad of recent transition from the minors to the big line. Moore’s trail was marked with such superlatives and so many high hopes that the youngster didn’t quite live up to the blueprints during the early part of the season.”

Frisch has faith

Frisch stuck with the rookie because he “was impressed with his courage, his speed and style in the field,” The Sporting News observed.

Said Frisch to the Post-Dispatch: “What I like about him is that he’s always trying and he’s no alibi artist. When he makes a mistake, he knows it, but he doesn’t make the same mistake twice.”

Moore, who turned 23 in May 1935, entered August with a .251 batting average, got hot and hit .419 (26-for-62) in August. His strong hitting carried into September as the Cardinals battled the Cubs for the pennant.

Battered Braves

On Sept. 5, a Thursday afternoon, Moore batted leadoff for the Cardinals against the last-place Braves before 2,700 spectators at Sportsman’s Park.

Facing ex-Cardinal Fred Frankhouse, Moore singled in the first inning and added a RBI-single in the second. After Frankhouse yielded seven runs in two innings, Huck Betts relieved. Moore reached him for a RBI-double in the third and singles in the sixth, seventh and eighth.

Moore’s final line: 6-for-6 with two RBI and two runs scored.

Betts gave up eight runs in six innings. The Braves committed five errors, three by center fielder Wally Berger. The Cardinals collected 19 hits and four walks, winning 15-3. Boxscore

Good to great

Moore batted .329 (26-for-79) in September and finished his rookie season with a .287 batting average, totaling 131 hits in 119 games.

Said Frisch: “Moore is one of the greatest young ballplayers I have seen … I think you’ll see one of the greatest center fielders in the game within two more years.”

In his book, “Stan Musial: The Man’s Own Story,” Musial, who played in an outfield with Moore and Enos Slaughter after joining the Cardinals in 1941, said, “Terry Moore was a great team leader as well as a great competitor and center fielder … Terry was a timely hitter who’ll be best remembered for his defensive plays, his ham-sized hands, accurate arm and ability to scoop up ground balls like an infielder. I’d like to have seen a defensive outfield of (Willie) Mays, Moore and (Joe) DiMaggio.”

Joe Torre played in 2,209 regular-season games in an 18-year career in the major leagues. Only once did he achieve five hits in a game. It occurred for the Cardinals in a game that began on Aug. 1, 1971, at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia and ended five weeks later on Sept. 7.

On Aug. 1, with the score tied at 3-3, the Cardinals scored three runs in the 12th and had runners on second and third with one out when the game was halted by rain for the second time in the inning.

When the rain stopped, a Zamboni machine began clearing the artificial turf of water. Then, the Zamboni broke down.

“Maybe somebody put sugar in the carburetor of the Zamboni,” wrote Neal Russo in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

The Phillies informed the Cardinals that the Zamboni had quit working because “it was clogged with paper cups that had been thrown onto the field.”

The umpires declared the field unplayable because of the water, reverting the score to 3-3 through 11 innings and ruling the outcome a tie.

“I was told that the Zamboni had broken down and I have no way of disproving that,” said umpire and crew chief Shag Crawford. “I finally called the game because the field was unplayable.”

Cardinals manager Red Schoendienst protested, saying the game should be resumed at the point it was halted because mechanical failure, not the weather, prevented a continuation of play.

Said Cardinals coach Ken Boyer: “I finished a lot of games on fields in worse shape than this one was.”

Chub Feeney, National League president, upheld the protest and ruled it a suspended game. He said it would be resumed at the point of interruption, with St. Louis ahead 6-3, when the Cardinals visited Philadelphia again in September.

Explaining his decision, Feeney told the Post-Dispatch the umpires agreed the game could have been completed on Aug. 1 if the Zamboni had been functional.

The game forever would be referred to as the Zamboni game.

Redbirds rally

Even without the controversy involving the Zamboni, the game that began on Aug. 1 was a wild affair.

The Phillies led, 3-2, after eight innings. The Cardinals tied the score at 3-3 in the ninth on a RBI-single by pinch-hitter Ted Simmons.

Torre, batting cleanup and playing third base, flied out and struck out in his first two at-bats. In his next five at-bats, he produced five singles.

Torre had singles off starter Woodie Fryman in the sixth and eighth innings. He got his third single of the game off former Cardinals teammate Joe Hoerner in the 10th.

In the 12th, the Cardinals struck for three runs off Bill Wilson. Torre contributed to the uprising with his fourth single of the game before play was halted.

Hard on heart

When the Cardinals returned to Philadelphia in September, they split a Labor Day doubleheader with the Phillies on Sept. 6.

On Sept. 7, the Cardinals and Phillies resumed the suspended game from Aug. 1 before playing a regularly scheduled game.

The Cardinals completed the top of the 12th, stranding the runners on second and third.

In the bottom of the 12th, the Phillies scored three runs, tying the score at 6-6.

In the 13th, Torre got his fifth single of the game, a run-scoring hit off Chris Short, as part of a three-run Cardinals rally. The Phillies got two hits off Stan Williams in the bottom of the 13th but didn’t score, and St. Louis prevailed, 9-6. Boxscore

The five-hit game was the first for Torre at any level of play.

“It took me five weeks to do it, though,” Torre said.

In the regularly scheduled game that followed _ the Cardinals rallied from a two-run deficit, scoring two in the ninth and two in the 10th to win 7-5 _ Torre had three hits, giving him a total of eight in the two games that were completed that night.

“Everything was fine except that my heart is pounding too much after those two games,” Torre said.

Said Phillies manager Frank Lucchesi of pitching to Torre: “You just throw the ball and pray.”

Previously: Cards fans cheered when 1954 game forfeited to Phillies

Previously: Why Cardinals traded popular, productive Joe Torre

(Updated June 27, 2020)

Because he didn’t produce many triples, Joe Torre wasn’t a prime candidate to hit for the cycle. On the night he achieved the feat for the Cardinals, Torre increased the degree of difficulty by nearly removing himself from the game while still in need of a single.

On June 27, 1973, Torre hit for the cycle _ a single, double, triple and home run _ against the Pirates at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh.

Jim Rooker, in his first season with the Pirates after pitching for the Tigers and Royals, got his first National League start that Wednesday night versus the Cardinals.

Torre hit a RBI-double off the wall against Rooker in the first inning and a solo home run over the right-field fence in the third.

In the fourth, facing Bob Johnson, Torre hit a triple to left. It was Torre’s second and last triple of the season.

“I didn’t think I’d ever hit for the cycle because I’m not a triples hitter,” Torre told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Needing a single to complete the cycle, Torre grounded into a double play against Johnson in the fifth inning and a drew a walk from Steve Blass in the eighth.

With the Cardinals ahead, 11-4, and figuring he likely wouldn’t get another at-bat, Torre asked manager Red Schoendienst to remove him from the game. Schoendienst, unwilling to concede the possibility of another at-bat for Torre, declined the request.

“You have to give Red an assist _ I’m glad he ignored me this time,” Torre said.

Torre was scheduled to bat fifth in the ninth inning, meaning at least two Cardinals would need to reach base to give Torre a chance at the single.

When the first two batters, Mike Tyson and Reggie Cleveland, both grounded out, the odds of Torre getting an at-bat seemed stacked against him, but Bernie Carbo and Ted Sizemore each worked a walk against Blass, who entered the game with a 9.44 ERA.

That brought Torre to the plate.

“I was pressing like crazy for the single,” he said.

Torre grounded a pitch that bounced past the mound and into center field for a RBI-single. “It was a 3-and-1 pitch and I sure wasn’t going to take another walk,” Torre told the Pittsburgh Press.

As Torre ran from the batter’s box to first base, he clapped his hands the entire way.

“If I would have hit that last ball off the wall, I would have stopped at first base,” Torre said.

Torre became the first Cardinals batter to hit for the cycle since Ken Boyer in 1964. The only Cardinals to do so since: Lou Brock (1975), Willie McGee (1984), Ray Lankford (1991), John Mabry (1996) and Mark Grudzielanek (2005).

“It’s the first time I’ve ever hit for the cycle,” Torre told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “I’m not exactly a triples man, you know. It would have been a kick, though, if a lousy single had kept me from getting it.”

In producing the cycle and scoring four runs with three RBI, Torre overshadowed the performance of teammate Ted Simmons, who had his first five-RBI game in the big leagues.

“If I could run, I might be a triples hitter like Joe,” Simmons said to the Associated Press. Boxscore