DALLAS, TX(AP): Charlie Gehringer homered in the bottom of the 10th to lead the North Dallas 40 to a 6-5 victory in Game 1 of the 1933 World Series. The 40 had been down 5-2 going into the 8th before the comeback victory, climaxed with Gehringer's home run. It was a rough start for the heavily-favored North Dallas nine, as 21-game winner Carl Hubbell was touched for a two-out double to Knights' rookie first-sacker Hank Greenberg, who scored when Chuck Klein singled to denter 2 pitches later. King Carl retired the next 7 batters he faced before facing Greenberg again, who hit a 1-1 pitch into the left-field bleachers, giving the Knights a 2-0 lead.
Knights pitcher Lefty Grove was cruising along until the 5th frame, when second baseman Charlie Gehringer followed a one-out single by Terry with a blast of his own to knot the score at 2.
Hubbell continued to struggle, finding ways out of jams in the 4th and 6th innings without allowing a run. However, the 7th inning, Hubbell retired Carl Reynolds and Grove before rookie Pinky Higgins homered to center, giving the Knights a 3-2 lead. Joe Cronin then singled, stole second, and scored on Greenberg's third double of the game.
In the 8th, Carl Reynolds reached second on a throwing error by third baseman Bill Werber, and scored on a single by Pepper Martin, who was pinch hitting for Grove. Going into the bottom of the 8th, Harlem had a 5-2 lead.
Tom Zachary came in to relieve, and immediately ran into trouble, giving up a lead-off double to Rick Ferrell and a walk to the diminuitive slugger Mel Ott. Babe Ruth, a former Knight on the 1931 championship team, flew out to deep left, allowing Ferrell to advance to third. Fred Lindstrom walked, loading up the bases with only one out. When Zachary struck out Terry, it appeared the Knights might get out of trouble. Unfortunately, Charlie Gehringer had other plans.
Gehringer singled to left, scoring Ferrell, to cut the deficit to one. Werber then atoned for his error in the 7th with a single of his own, scoring both Ott and Lindstrom. Ben Cantwell then grounded out to Buddy Myer to end the inning, but the damage had been done as the score was tied, 5-5.
The ninth inning had it's drama, as Cantwell had two men on with two out before being replaced by Bill Burke, who got Roy Johnson to pop up to end the inning. In the bottom of the ninth, Zachary was still wild as he walked Luke Appling and Ruth before being relieved by Clint Brown, who got out of the inning.
Burke set down the Knights in order in the top of the 10th, and Silas Johnson came in to pitch in the bottom of the 10th. He got Terry to fly out to center before Gehringer homered down the rightfield line, his second of the day, to snatch the victory for North Dallas.
Gehringer and Werber did the damage for North Dallas, going a combined 7-9 with 6 runs batted in. Greenberg went 4-4 with 3 doubles and a home run, and Myer also added three hits. Grove was very effective in his start, whereas Hubbell struggled.
9/24/1933, Har33-NDa33, Polo Grounds
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 R H E LOB DP
1933 Knights 1 0 0 1 0 0 2 1 0 0 5 12 1 10 1
1933 Forty 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 3 0 1 6 11 2 8 0
Knights AB R H BI AVG Forty AB R H BI AVG
Higgins 3b 5 1 1 1 .200 Appling ss 4 0 0 0 .000
Cronin ss 4 1 1 0 .250 Ferrell c 5 1 2 0 .400
Greenberg 1b 4 2 4 2 1.000 Ott rf 4 1 0 0 .000
Hurst ph 1 0 0 0 .000 Ruth lf 4 0 0 0 .000
Klein rf 5 0 1 1 .200 Lindstrom cf 4 1 0 0 .000
Dickey c 4 0 1 0 .250 Terry 1b 5 1 1 0 .200
Johnson cf 5 1 0 0 .000 Gehringer 2b 5 2 4 4 .800
Myer 2b 5 0 3 0 .600 Werber 3b 4 0 3 2 .750
Reynolds lf 5 0 0 0 .000 Hubbell p 2 0 1 0 .500
Grove p 3 0 0 0 .000 Cantwell p 1 0 0 0 .000
Martin ph 1 0 1 1 1.000 Burke p 0 0 0 0 .000
Zachary p 0 0 0 0 .000 38 6 11 6
Brown p 0 0 0 0 .000
Walker ph 1 0 0 0 .000
Johnson p 0 0 0 0 .000
43 5 12 5
Knights INN H R ER BB K PCH STR ERA
Grove 7.0 7 2 2 0 3 90 65 2.57
Zachary BS 1 1.2 3 3 3 4 1 59 30 16.20
Brown 0.1 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0.00
Johnson L 0-1 0.1 1 1 1 0 0 7 5 27.00
9.1 11 6 6 4 4 157 101
Forty INN H R ER BB K PCH STR ERA
Hubbell 7.2 11 5 4 1 5 130 85 4.70
Cantwell 1.0 1 0 0 1 0 19 11 0.00
Burke W 1-0 1.1 0 0 0 0 0 13 8 0.00
10.0 12 5 4 2 5 162 104
Har: Martin batted for Grove in the 8th
Hurst batted for Greenberg in the 9th
Hurst moved to 1b in the 9th
Walker batted for Brown in the 10th
E-Myer, Gehringer, Werber. 2B-Greenberg 3, Ferrell. HR-Higgins(1),
Greenberg(1), Gehringer 2(2). SB-Cronin(1). K-Higgins 2, Klein, Grove 2,
Ruth 2, Terry 2. BB-Cronin, Dickey, Appling, Ott, Ruth, Lindstrom.
SH-Hubbell.
GWRBI: Gehringer
Temperature: 65, Sky: partly cloudy, Wind: none.