As if somebody had written a clever script, Joe DiMaggio slowly walked to home plate. Bases loaded, nobody out, and the score tied. There were the two rising young stars at a do-or-die moment. The huge crowd roared when Feller eyed the plate, then threw two sizzling fastballs by Joe D. The next pitch was an off-speed curveball that got too much of the plate. Di Maggio swung and hammered the ball way back in left field. Moose Solters raced to the wall but watched helplessly as the drive landed well into the seats for a grand slam home run! Di Maggio had won the battle in spectacular style. Steve O’Neill trotted to the mound to ask his pitcher if he wanted out. Feller refused to leave the rubber, intent on finishing the game. The final score stayed at Yankees 5, Indians 1.
Feller’s last delivery to retire the side gave him an out-of-this-world pitch count of 171. He recorded seven strikeouts, eight walks (yes, that’s right), and one hit batter. Feller held the powerful Yankees in check for eight full innings, something that most pitchers in the American League could not do. Although his record for the season slipped to a surprising 0–4, Feller had served notice that the best was yet to come.
At the beginning of August the Indians were still a few games under .500. Steve O’Neill tried to tighten things up by banning poker games and posting an earlier curfew. The restrictions did not turn the club around, though one player in particular began to heat up. After resting for three weeks, Johnny Allen, fully recovered from his dangerous surgery, received the okay to pitch again. On August 14 he went seven innings in a 4–3 win over Chicago. The win boosted his record to five wins and no losses.
Five days later Allen won again, easily beating St. Louis 9–1. Six wins without a defeat was a nice record, but Allen was setting in motion a remarkable winning streak. No doubt making up for lost time, Allen refused be beaten, lifting his record to 8–0 at the end of the month. He began September by defeating the hopeless Browns, 15–3. Bruce Campbell and Moose Solters each drove in three runs to help Allen to win number nine without a blemish.
The streak rolled on through the month, with Allen topping the Red Sox, Senators, Tigers, and White Sox. His outstanding pitching woke up the ball club, lifting them above .500 and into the first division. On September 21, Allen beat the Senators in a complete-game victory, 6–3. Hal Trosky slammed a bases-loaded home run to seal the win. With two weeks left in the season, Allen was now a lofty 13–0.
The Indians were playing their best ball of the season. Bob Feller had hit his stride, while Mel Harder collected a number of wins. They had no chance to catch the Yankees, but the team proved they could play at a more than competitive level.
On September 26 Cleveland took a doubleheader from Detroit. Allen won his fourteenth without a loss, while Feller struck out ten in a trouble-free second-game victory. On the last day of the month, the two aces pitched the Indians to another doubleheader victory, this time over the White Sox. Allen faltered a bit, giving up an uncharacteristic four runs. Earlier in the season the team would have folded, but three RBIs each from Trosky and Solters led to a 6–4 win. Johnny Allen now had an unbelievable record of 15–0. He would likely get one more start in October against Detroit.
Feller had a terrific outing himself, holding Chicago to one run over nine innings. He had the fastball hopping, striking out eleven batters in the 4–1 victory. Fans all over Cleveland shook their heads and took a deep sigh at what might have been. Cleveland now had the two finest pitchers in the American League. It is not inconceivable to project that barring the injuries, Feller and Allen might have won quite a few more games between them. That conjecture puts the team squarely in the pennant race, just behind the Yankees. The outlook was bright for the 1938 season.
Allen had one more chance to get his sixteenth straight victory and tie the American League single season record held by greats “Smoky” Joe Wood, Walter Johnson, and the still-pitching Lefty Grove. Although the season was closing up for Detroit and Cleveland, 22,000 interested Tiger fans paid to see the game. Allen was paired up against Jake Wade, an erratic pitcher who could be really good or equally bad. In the bottom of the first inning, Pete Fox doubled with one out. Allen got the next hitter, bringing Hank Greenberg to bat. Entering the game, the big first baseman already had a spectacular year with an incredible 182 RBIs. Allen delivered and Greenberg hit a ground ball toward Sammy Hale. It appeared to be a routine play, but somehow Hale could not get his glove down, and the ball slowly rolled into left field. Fox scored with what proved to be the only run of the entire ball game. The up-and-down Wade stopped the Indians on one hit, depriving Johnny Allen of win number sixteen and an undefeated season.
Allen would lead all Major League starting pitchers with an unreal winning percentage of .938. In 173 innings of work, he allowed only four home runs and posted a career-best ERA of 2.55, good for third place in the American League. In two years of pitching for Cleveland, Allen had an impressive record of thirty-five wins and only eleven losses. One can only wonder what might have happened if he had not suffered the two attacks of appendicitis.
Throughout the victory streak, Allen kept his outbursts and combative personality under control. But after losing his final appearance of the season and a chance to tie the American League record, Allen reportedly let it all go. Franklin “Whitey” Lewis, at that time a writer for the Cleveland Press, later claimed that Allen went after Sammy Hale at least twice. Round one occurred in the visitors’ locker room, where the two had words and the fight was on. Several players and Manager O’Neill had to step in and separate the two. In the dining car on the train back to Cleveland, Allen supposedly had more choice words for Hale, initiating round two. Once again O’Neill had to get between the angry ballplayers and stay there until the train reached Cleveland. None of the other Cleveland reporters mentioned the incidents. Either it was a case of what happens in the locker room stays there, or the confrontation may have been exaggerated. In any event, it was an attention-grabbing story and something that fit right into Johnny Allen’s mode of behavior.
The Indians finished the year fourth in the standings, with eighty-three wins versus seventy-one losses. Their inspired play in September, featuring twenty-three wins and thirteen losses, enabled them to remain in the first division. The Yankees swept everybody away, winning 102 games while losing only 52. They would cruise through the World Series, needing only five games to put away their cross-town rival the New York Giants.
Alva Bradley and his group of shareholders had now completed ten seasons running the ball club. In all these years they were never a serious threat to win a pennant. Bradley had gone through three different managers in that time period, each with similar results. With the 1937 season concluded. he had to mull over the status of current manager Steve O’Neill.
In early October the Cleveland newspapers floated rumors that Bill McKechnie might be willing to manage the Indians. The veteran was highly regarded by most Major League owners and front office people. A former player, McKechnie had seventeen years of National League managing experience with Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and recently Boston. While Alva Bradley did not comment on the speculation, the will-he-or won’t-he grew until days later, when McKechnie signed on to pilot the Cincinnati Reds. Bradley then issued a statement saying that O’Neill was staying unless someone decidedly better came along.
On October 20, apparently Bradley did find someone he deemed worthier. He announced that O’Neill had been fired and Oscar Vitt, currently the manager of the Newark Bears, had accepted the job. O’Neill was generously offered a job in the Indians organization as a scout, but the deposed manager rightly asked for and received permission to look for other jobs. Bradley told the papers, “Changing managers is the most unpleasant feature of my job. It’s just one of those things that have to be done. The show must go on.”
The decision to replace O’Neill was a debatable one. It speaks of impatience by Bradley in his efforts to field a top-flight ball club. He seemed to overlook the fact that his two best pitchers had missed large portions of the season. That in itself ruined the Indians’ chances of finishing any higher in the standings. Certainly O’Neill had made some mistakes during