Cubs’ Shining Hour Still Shot in the Dark : Hartnett’s ’38 Homer in Gloamin’ Brought Rare Light to Wrigley

It was almost dark at Wrigley Field in Chicago, and the Cubs were in trouble.

One more out would leave them with only a tie in a crucial pennant-drive game against the Pittsburgh Pirates, and their worn-out pitching staff probably couldn’t have handled a doubleheader the next day.

No problem. Gabby Hartnett, the Cub catcher and manager, worked the count to 0-2 against Pirate relief ace Mace Brown, then swung at what he hoped was the baseball and hit it out of sight. Literally.

It happened 50 years ago today, and now that the Cubs and put in lights, there is no way it can happen again.

Not that a rerun of the Cubs’ biggest moment ever would be likely, anyway. This was the legendary “homer in the gloamin,’ ” a classic in baseball annals. In any compendium of baseball’s greatest moments, its greatest games--even its greatest pennant races--Hartnett’s shot in the dark occupies a prominent place.

Of the thousands of homers that have been hit in the major leagues, probably only one can top Hartnett’s for drama: Bobby Thomson’s “shot heard ‘round the world” for the New York Giants in the pennant playoff against the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1951.

To grasp the significance of what transpired on Sept. 28, 1938, it may be helpful to back up a bit and set the stage.

Hartnett, who died in 1972 on his 72nd birthday, had succeeded Charlie Grimm as the Cubs’ manager on July 26. At the time, the Cubs were in third place, 5 1/2 games behind the Pirates and 4 behind the Giants, who were seeking their third straight pennant. By Labor Day, the Cubs trailed by 7 games, and the Pirates looked like a lock.

Suddenly, though, the Cubs got hot, and by the time the Pirates arrived in Chicago for a 3-game series beginning Sept. 27, the margin had melted to 1 1/2 games. The Cubs went into the series with a 7-game winning streak.

The key to the Cubs’ surge was excellent pitching by their only two consistent starters, Bill Lee and Clay Bryant. Lee pitched 9 shutouts, including 4 in a row, and scored the 21st of his 22nd victories against the St. Louis Cardinals the day before the Pirates came to town. Bryant won 19 games.

With no other regular pitcher he could depend on, Hartnett took a flyer on sore-armed Dizzy Dean in the series opener against Pittsburgh’s Jim Tobin.

Dean’s fastball was gone, he pitched only occasionally and he hadn’t started since Aug. 20, but he thrived on big games. The Pirates couldn’t do anything until the ninth inning, and then Lee bailed out Dean for a 2-1 Cub victory.

Now the Pittsburgh lead was down to a half-game, and on a dreary Wednesday afternoon, Hartnett sent Bryant to the mound against rookie Bob Klinger. The weather looked so ominous that attendance fell to 34,465 from Tuesday’s overflow figure of 42,238.

The score was 3-3 after 7 innings, 5-5 after 8. At that point, the umpires peered into the gloom, conferred with Hartnett and Pirate Manager Pie Traynor and decreed that the ninth inning would be the last.

Even under clear skies, it would have been difficult to play much longer. Games didn’t start until 3 p.m. in those days, and it was approaching 5:30. Since Daylight Saving Time had ended the previous Sunday, sunset was drawing close.

“I thought they were going to call it at the end of the eighth,” said Brown, 79, in an interview with the Cubs’ program magazine. “Unfortunately for us, they decided to let us play another inning.”

Brown was one of baseball’s first relief specialists, and he was outstanding, winning 15 games. It was surprising that Traynor didn’t call on him in the eighth until the Cubs had tied the score with a run each off Klinger and Bill Swift. When he did come in, he quickly retired the side by throwing a double-play ball to Frank Demaree.

In the ninth, Brown easily disposed of Phil Cavarretta and Carl Reynolds before Hartnett went to the plate in the ninth.

Hartnett, 37 then and nearing the end of a career that was to take him to the Baseball Hall of Fame, didn’t have a clue on Brown’s first two pitches. He swung at a curveball and missed, then weakly fouled off another. How could a guy hit what he could barely see?

With Hartnett set up for the kill, a 9-inning tie seemed inevitable.

Brown tried to finish the job with a third straight curve, but this one just hung over the plate. Hartnett swung again, and the ball disappeared somewhere in the left-field bleachers. The Cubs were 6-5 winners, in first place for keeps, and Wrigley went up for grabs.

Fans spilled out of the stands, and before Hartnett had reached first base, they joined jubilant Cub players and even ushers in escorting him home. They created such a mob scene that Hartnett had all he could do to find the plate.

When Hartnett got to third base, field announcer Pat Pieper ran out to meet him. They went the rest of the way side by side.

“Touch that plate,” shouted Pieper.

“I will, I will,” said Hartnett.

Describing the magic moment, Hartnett said: “I swung with everything I had, and then I got that feeling--the kind of feeling you get when the blood rushes to your head and you get dizzy.

“A lot of people have told me they didn’t know the ball was in the bleachers. Well, I did. I knew it the moment I hit it.

“When I got to second, I couldn’t see third for all the players and fans there. I don’t think I walked to the plate. I was carried in. When I got there, I saw (umpire) George Barr taking a good look. He was going to make sure I touched that platter.”

And the devastated Brown?

“When Gabby hit it, I just turned and walked off the mound,” Brown said. “I knew it was gone, and I didn’t want to see the celebrating.

“It was just a bad pitch. I tried to keep the ball away from him, and I didn’t.”

Brown was asked if the bitter experience still bothered him.

“Not anymore,” he said. “Like a fella once said to me, ‘If it hadn’t been for Hartnett, nobody would have remembered you.’ He was right.”

In the series finale, Leepitched for the fourth day in a row and breezed to a 10-1 victory. The pennant belonged to the Cubs.

“We could have beaten nine Babe Ruths that day,” said Billy Herman, now 79, the Cubs’ Hall of Fame second baseman.