July 6, 2007
I grew up hearing about the Gashouse Gang. It was only natural. My father was from Tennessee, and the nearest professional baseball franchise was the St. Louis Cardinals. Growing up in the 30's and 40's, before the days of television, meant that most people followed and became fans of the team that they could most easily listen to on the radio. In Tennessee that was St. Louis, and so my father, uncle, and cousins were all Cardinal fans. That's how I learned about the Gashouse Gang.
The 1934 Cardinals were, arguably, the most colorful team in the history of baseball. Not only did they beat the powerful Detroit Tigers in the World Series, but their roster contained the names of some of the flashiest players to ever put on the uniform: Leo "the Lip" Durocher, Pepper Martin, "Wild Bill" Hallahan, and the Dean brothers, Dizzy and Daffy. My generation, of course, grew up hearing Dizzy Dean, surely the most colorful baseball announcer ever.
A recent newspaper article in the Dallas Morning News described the team well with this quote from a newly published book: they were "a squad of quarreling, slovenly brilliant misfits...the unique product of a particular time and place." They were, in other words, the perfect American team for the Great Depression of the 30's.
Here is what I learned from that same article: they were brought together by a "nonimbibing Methodist who would not even watch them play on a Sunday because his religious principals forbade it." That man's name was Branch Rickey. Later, with the Brooklyn Dodgers, Branch Rickey would do one of the most courageous things in the history of sports. He broke the color barrier and hired Jackie Robinson, and our lives have never been the same. And can there be any doubt that it was his Methodist "principals" that led him to risk everything, including his reputation, for the sake of justice?
