The Cardinals returned to Home Sweet Home Sportsman's Park June 30 to start a whopping 22-game homestand with four tilts against the Pirates.

• Pittsburgh ended Mort Cooper's string of 32 scoreless innings in the first but he won his eleventh straight, 4-2. 3B Jimmy Brown poled his first HR of the season.
• Ernie White started July with a six-hit shutout, 4-0. One of the Cards' lefty nemeses, Ken Heintzleman, suffered the defeat.
• The good pitching continued the next evening with Johnny Beazley twirling a 5-hitter, 3-1. What was becoming a Redbird trademark, opportunistic baserunning, plated the cllinching runs in the eighth. With CF Terry Moore on second and LF Stan Musial on first, C Ken O'Dea whacked a sharp single to RF. Moore didn't hesitate around third and scored easily when the throw went wide. Musial, seeing P Dutch Dietz chasing the ball, roared home and crashed into C Babe Phelps just as the relay arrived, knocking the ball away.
• The Bucs salvaged the finale, building a 5-1 lead into the bottom of the eighth and holding on 5-4. O'Dea went 3-for-3 as the Cards outhit the visitors 13-10. Starter Lon Warneke took the loss.

Next to visit the Mound City were the Cubs with back-to-back doubleheaders on Saturday, July 4, and Sunday.

• Cooper finally had a bad outing in the Independence Day opener. Chicago erupted for five in the fifth to chase him from the mound and then held on for a 6-5 victory. Recently-acquired AL veteran Jimmie Foxx had three RBIs, two of them on a ringing HR into the LF stands.
• The Redbirds romped in the nightcap 9-3. RF Enos Slaughter went 4-for-5 with two doubles. Young Howie Pollet continued to struggle, giving up all three Cub runs in 2/3 of an inning before Murry Dickson shut the door.
• St. Louis swept the Sunday twinbill, 5-3 behind Harry Gumbert's complete game and 11-6 with Beazley getting an easy victory by pitching just 1/3 inning of relief just before his mates exploded for 6 in the bottom of the fifth to break the 5-5 tie.

All clubs took three days off for the All-Star Game at the Polo Grounds. Five Cardinals and six Dodgers provided almost half the NL roster.

• Jimmy Brown started at 2B. The Cooper brothers provided the opening battery.
• Mort gave up three in the first on two homers, one by leadoff man Lou Boudreau of Cleveland and a two-run shot by Detroit's Rudy York, before pitching two scoreless innings.
• Slaughter took over in RF and Moore in CF in the seventh. Walker Cooper and Slaughter each had a single in two ABs while Brown was 0-for-2 and Moore 0-for-1.
• The AL won 3-1.

The day after the All-Star classic, the Cardinals sold Warneke to the Cubs.

• Owner Sam Breadon explained the waiver deal this way:

You can't have a pitcher of Warneke's class and salary around if you can't work him regularly, and we believe the younger men are more valuable to us, particularly for next year.

• The press pounced on those last three words to claim that the Cards were conceding the '42 pennant.
• Another twist given to Breadon's announcement was that the team was jettisoning his $12,500 salary to help balance the budget after allegedly losing $60,000 when most of the recent home series against the Dodgers was rained out. Breadon vigorously denied both allegations.

The schedule resumed on Thursday the 9th with the four Eastern teams heading west. The Giants were first up in St. Louis.

• Warneke's replacement in the rotation, Beazley, fired a 6-hit shutout. Six in the sixth broke open the game as Slaughter clouted a HR and a triple and Moore added a four-bagger. Johnny also clouted a three-bagger.
• The Cards extended their winning streak to five the next day with a thrilling 3-1 victory in ten innings. Bob Carpenter dazzled the Redbirds with his off-speed pitches and led 2-0 with two outs and none on in the ninth. He had Whitey Kurowski down 0-2 in the count, but the third-sacker singled. Pinch-hitter Walker Cooper belted a double to left. Manager Mel Ott called on Ace Adams to get the final out. But another PH, Coaker Triplett, hit the first pitch into LF to tie the game. After Dickson shut down NY in the top of the tenth, Moore and Slaughter led with singles. Then Adams fielded Musial's bunt, whirled, and threw to 3B without noticing that no one was covering the bag. So Moore sprinted home with the winning run.
• Southworth tried Pollet in the finale, but Howie didn't get out of the first inning again, giving up 3 as the Giants won 8-3. Carl Hubbell scattered nine hits in a route-going performance.

Nine games behind the Dodgers, the Cards needed to feast on the 7th-place Boston Braves.

• Gumbert threw a two-hitter to start the series with a 5-1 win in the opener of the Sunday doubleheader. In the second game, the Cards fell behind 3-0 before putting a 6 on the board in the fourth on their way to a 9-3 romp. Walker Cooper went 3-for-4 with a HR and double to jump his average over the magic .300 mark by three points. Howie Krist won his fourth game with five innings of scoreless relief.
• Monday's open date affected the ballclub when Moore tore the nail off the little finger of his throwing hand while trying to disentangle the bumpers of two cars. Terry said nothing to his skipper the next night, but Southworth knew immediately something was wrong during his first at-bat. So he benched him for what turned out to be four games.
• The Braves made the Cards' task tough, jumping to a 5-0 lead going into the sixth. Mort's woes continued as he allowed eight hits in five innings. But three in the sixth and Whitey's two run HR in the eighth sent the game into extra innings. In the bottom of the eleventh, Musial poled a two-run HR onto the RF Pavilion for his fourth hit of the game. He led the team with a .318 average.

St. Louis had gained all of one game on Brooklyn. The Birds needed another sweep of the last-place Phillies.

Continued below...

Eight games behind the Dodgers, the Cardinals continued their homestand on July 15 with a four-game set with the Phillies.

• The series began with a doubleheader on the annual Tuberculosis Day with military bands, a drum and bugle corps, and a Navy unit marching around the field along with 52 recruits being sworn in on the spot.
• Johnny Beazley, esconced in the starting rotation, scattered nine hits to win the opener 7-3.
• The Redbirds won the nightcap with equal ease, 9-4, Murry Dickson pitching the seven-hitter and Harry Walker, replacing Captain Terry Moore and his torn fingernail in CF, going 3-for-4.
• Philadelphia won the next day, 4-3 in ten innings, to break the Cards' five-game winning streak. RHP Tommy Hughes, who had beaten the Birds in 15 innings in Philly, went the distance. Manager Billy Southworth brought in his ace, Mort Cooper, to try to get out of Whitey Moore's jam in the tenth but without success. The Cards' bugaboo, men left on, struck again to the tune of twelve runners stranded.
• Howie Krist started his first game of the season, coasting 10-1 to run his record to 6-1. RF Enos Slaughter had three hits, including a triple and a double.

Unfortunately, the Cardinals remained eight behind but would have a chance to do something about it as Brooklyn came to town for back-to-back doubleheaders on Saturday and Sunday.

• The Dodgers had won twelve of sixteen on their road trip. As usual, they caused controversy at every stop. For example, Manager Leo Durocher threw a wet towel at an umpire in Pittsburgh, and a beanball war erupted in Chicago.
• Writers in both cities proclaimed the four-game series in St. Louis as the Redbirds' "last shot" at the high-flying Bums.
• The crowd of 19,395 for the Saturday twinbill would seem to be disappointing until you compare it to the 2,984 that showed up seven days earlier for a game against the Giants.
• The first game pitted two southpaws, Ernie White for the Cards and Larry French for the visitors. The Dodgers took leads of 3-0 and 4-1, but White shut the door thereafter and St. Louis plated two in the 5th and three in the 6th to forge a 7-4 victory, outhitting Brooklyn 16-9. Durocher's club suffered a loss in the 6th when Stan Musial lined a ball off relief P Hugh Casey's pitching hand, ripped the nail off the little finger. White's complete game was just what the doctor ordered for the first of four games in two days.
• The Dodgers again jumped in front in the second game, 4-0, against Max Lanier, then survived a three-run 7th featuring a RBI triple by C Walker Cooper followed by a HR by Whitey Kurowski. Then Curt Davis in relief retired the last eight Cards. The 4-3 Brooklyn victory meant the Cardinals would have to sweep the Sunday DH to gain any ground

And that's exactly what the Birds did before the season's largest crowd, 34,896.

• Despite wartime gas shortages, a tour of the parking lots showed vehicles with license plates from Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, and Oklahoma.
• The home team went right to work on 10-2 Whitlow Wyatt in Game One, driving him from the box in the five-run third to make it 7-0. That lead looked safe with Cooper on the hill. After all, he hadn't allowed a run to Brooklyn all season. But the Bums scored the next five to make it 7-5 into the bottom of the 8th. An insurance run made the final 8-5 with Lanier getting the last four outs after Coop's ailing elbow became too inflamed to continue. The Dodgers went to the beanball again, hitting Kurowski twice and throwing at several other batters.
• As on Saturday, the Cards could not let the Dodgers leave town with a split. After spotting Brooklyn two in the first, the Cards scored one in the second on Kurowski's third round-tripper of the series and again put up a 5-spot in the third to take a 6-2 lead. But the visitors drove Beazley from the mound with four in the fifth. The game stayed tied until the bottom of the 11th with almost all the fans still present after five and a half hours of baseball.

Then occurred a play that had the biggest impact on the pennant race of any that season.

• Leadoff batter Slaughter laced a Johnny Allen pitch to the deepest part of the park, just to the right of straightaway CF. Pete Reiser knew he had to catch it to prevent a triple. He raced back, leaped high, and got his glove on the ball just as his head and arm collided with the concrete wall. He staggered to his feet and returned the ball to the cutoff man, but the throw to the plate was too late to prevent the inside-the-park homer.
• So the Cards trimmed the lead to six games but, more importantly, the league's leading hitter at .350 had collapsed again. "It was like a hand grenade had gone off inside my head," Pete later said. Meanwhile, hundreds of jubilant fans ran around the field, bombarding each other and the Dodgers with seat cushions. After a few minutes, Reiser got up and was helped to the bench, where he collapsed again.
• After showering, he rode an ambulance to the hospital, where the Cardinals' physician diagnosed the condidtion as a severe concussion and fractured skull and recommended Pete not play any more that season. When GM Larry McPhail received the news, he snorted that the doctor just wanted to keep the Dodger star out of the lineup.
• Pete spent a few days at his parents' home in St. Louis before returning to action six days later. He went 2-for-4, and all seemed well. But that was not the case at all.

After going 17-5 on the homestand and gaining three games on the Dodgers, the Cardinals embarked on their third Eastern swing of the season.

• They began by taking two of three in the City of Brotherly Love, the highlight being Beazley's 7-0 shutout for his 11th victory.
• Four games in Boston produced three victories with Lanier twirling an 8-0 whitewash.
• Next stop was Brooklyn.

Continued below ...

The Cardinals continued their road trip with two games in Cincinnati August 4-5.

• They faced one of their southpaw nemeses, Johnny Vander Meer, in the opener. Howie Krist and Harry Gumbert gave up four in the first three innings and the "Dutch Master," with help from Joe Beggs (who got his seventh save as retroactively calculated), survived a 3-run Cardinal seventh, the inning ending when CF Eric Tipton, former Duke triple-threat TB, ran down Stan Musial's long drive to CF with the bases loaded. The Cards fell a whopping 10 games behind Brooklyn.
• Johnny Beazley, who had struggled in recent outings, authored a masterful 3-hit shutout the next day and his teammates made the most of seven hits for a 5-0 victory.

The Redbirds had a day off to travel to Pittsburgh for a four-game weekend series.

• Frankie Frisch's Pirates chased Hal Lanier with an 8-run 2nd and cruised to a 13-6 win.
• The Saturday contest produced a team's worst nightmare, a 16-inning marathon that ended in a tie, forcing the visitors to lay over until Monday to replay the game. The situation was produced by baseball's stupid rule that prohibited the lights from being turned on to finish a game. Ace Mort Cooper did nothing to allay the fears about his arm when he gave up five runs in 2 1/3 innings. But Krist, Gumbert, and Murry Dickson shut out the Bucs the rest of the way, allowing the Cards to tie it in the top of the eighth on a PH double by Terry Moore before their bats went silent the rest of the way.
• In the first game of the Sunday DH, St. Louis struck for 3 in the first, the big blow being a two-run triple by Musial, playing before family and friends from nearby Donora PA. Beazley continued his shutout string until the sixth, when Pittsburgh put up a 3-spot of its own. But Musial struck again in the eighth, doubling home the run that gave the victory to Dickson.
• The nightcap was another low-scoring one-run affair. Single runs in the first and second by the Cardinals were enough to top the Pirates' lone tally in the second. Musial's double drove in the first run. Krist got his ninth victory with 6 2/3 innings of scoreless relief after Ernie White was literally knocked out of the box by a line drive that ricocheted off his groin (ouch!). The game was called after the eighth inning because Pennsylvania "blue laws" forbade play after 7 pm on Sundays.
• The Buccos won the replay game on Monday 6-4 as Cooper again was ineffective.

The Redbirds left Pittsburgh nine behind the Dodgers, who were just 3-4 in their last seven games. No one could have conceived that St. Louis would now embark on the most astounding stretch run in baseball history, winning 41 of their last 48!

• Needing a complete game from its starter after five games in the Steel City and another DH looming the next day, the Redbirds got exactly that from Lanier to win 7-2.
• 1B Johnny Hopp drove in 3 and RF Enos Slaughter 2 to spark the 9-4 victory in the opener to give Beazley his 13th win, tying him with Cooper for tops on the staff.
• Gumbert pitched a complete game in the nightcap with great support from the offense, which pounded out 24 hits in the twinbill. The 8-3 win cut the margin to 8 behind the Bums.

The Dodgers were playing mediocre ball, much of the chagrin of their flamboyant GM Larry MacPhail.

• CF Pete Reiser continued to experience dizziness and headaches from the fractured skull suffered in the Dodgers' last game in St. Louis. Without his bat in the middle of the lineup, the team's hitting had declined.
• Larry also stewed over the fact that NL President Ford Frick had fined P Whitlow Wyatt $75 after still another beanball contest August 8, $25 more than the Braves P who retaliated. Furthermore, Frick promised to fine the managers $500 in the future
• After his team beat lowly Philly 1-0, MacPhail summoned his manager, Leo Durocher, and his coaches, and all the players to the press box to berate them in front of the sportswriters for lackadaisical play.
• He began, though, by blasting Frick and the press.

We have a bad press. The rest of th eleague hates us. Do you think Ford Frick wants to see us win the pennant? They're all taking pot shots at us.

• Trying to goad his team to bear down, the GM predicted the Cardinals could and likely would win the pennant if the Dodgers didn't shake out of their doldrums.
• Angry OF Dixie Walker (brother of the Cards' Harry Walker) offered a $100 bet that the Dodgers would win, but Larry declined.

The Redbirds lost the finale in Chicago before returning to St. Louis after three and a half weeks on the road.

• The Cubs collected 13 hits and enjoyed 8 walks in their 13-5 romp, with Dickson taking the loss.
• The Cards would not lose again in over a week.

The three-week homestand began with a five-game sweep of the Reds.

• Mort Cooper, stuck at 13 wins, decided to switch his jersey number from 13 to 14. Whether that did the trick or not, he looked like his old self, twirling a two-hit shutout and adding a double in the 4-0 victory.
• Saturday's rainout was rescheduled for Monday, an off-day for both teams. The Dodgers pulled victory from the jaws of defeat when Dolph Camilli hit a two out, two strike, two run homer in the bottom of the ninth to beat the Braves 4-3.
• The 13,833 who came to Sportsman Park for the Sunday DH liked what they saw. Their Redbirds got double-digit hits in both games to win 10-5 and 6-3. 2B Jimmy Brown, newly returned from injury, and C Walker Cooper banged out three hits each in the opener. In the bottom of the eighth with the score tied at 5, the Reds walked Musial intentionally to fill the bases with two outs. But Cooper foiled the strategy with a solid single which, combined with a throwing error, cleared the bases.
• It's hard to imagine from today's vantage point that any manager would replace Musial against a southpaw, but Billy Southworth inserted Coaker Triplett in LF in the nightcap against Vander Meer, who had beaten the Cards four times, twice via shutouts. But the move paid off as Coaker contributed a 2-run single in the five-run fifth that sent Johnny to the showers.
• Only 1,792 showed up for the rescheduled game on Monday. The Reds outhit the Birds 10-8 but lost 5-2 as Krist went the distance. Slaughter went 2-for-3 to edge a point ahead of Musial's .315 batting average for team high.

Next in town were the Cubs for two games.

• Lanier scattered seven hits in the 5-0 victory in the opener before a nice Tuesday crowd of 10,807.
• About 700 more spectators saw their heroes win 5-1 the next afternoon as Mort, wearing his brother's #15 jersey, also threw a seven-hitter for his 15th win. Walker Cooper as well as Slaughter belted HRs.

St. Louis lay 6.5 games back as they welcomed the Pirates for a weekend series before entertaining the beloved Dodgers.

Continued below ...

The Cardinals continued their 22-game homestand on August 21 with a four-game weekend series against the fifth-place Pirates.

• The Redbirds had to resist the temptation to look ahead to the next series against the Brooklyn Dodgers, whom they trailed by 7 games.
• An afternoon crowd of 2,010 saw no signs of that as a four-run fifth broke open a 1-1 game. Johnny Beazley went the distance for the 10-2 victory, his 15th against five losses. LF Stan Musial hit his 9th homer and C Walker Cooper his 7th to account for five RBIs between them.
• The Saturday game was more of a nail-biter. The Cards scored 7 in the first four innings and held on, 7-6. Max Lanier, normally a starter, got the victory with three innings of scoreless, one-hit relief. Southworth actually brought back Beazley in the fifth for an inning and a third. 2B Jimmy Brown and RF Enos Slaughter provided three hits each, more than half the 11-hit attack.
• The eight-game winning streak ended in Sunday's opener, 5-3. Ken Heintzelman continued the pattern of southpaws cooling the Bird bats as he won for the third time over St. Louis. 3B Whitey Kurowski's HR was one of only seven hits for the home team.
• Southworth needed a fine pitching performance in the nightcap, and he got it from little righty Murry Dickson, a complete game four-hitter, 5-2. Again showing how you never knew which Cardinal would spark the offense, CF Terry Moore, the captain-coach, rapped out a double and two singles.
• But back in Brooklyn, the Dodgers swept four games from the Giants to increase their lead to 7.5 as they embarked on their last Western swing.
• New York bookies were quoting 5-to-1 odds against the Cardinals winning the pennant.

The Redbirds would have a chance to decrease those odds in the next series.

• Tommy Holmes wrote in the Brooklyn Eagle en route to St. Louis: Railroad wheels rolled jingle, jangle, jingle as our guys rode merrily along. It was a laughing, boisterous gang of Dodgers that Leo Durocher led toward the old fur trading post on the west back of the Mississippi River.
• The trip was historic - the first time a team played one day on the East Coast and the next in the league's westernmost city. The 22-hour ride put the Dodgers in St. Louis mid-afternoon for that evening's game.
• Leo felt especially good because his strategy of resting his starting pitchers against the Giants had not backfired. So he had his best lined up: Larry French, Whitlow Wyatt, Max Macon, and Curt Davis.
• Southworth announced that Lanier would start the opener but wouldn't commit beyond that. Hal was an obvious choice because of his success against the Dodgers. (He would go 5-2 against them for the season.) He attributed his mastery to Durocher's shouting at him all the time. "He thought it was going to upset me, but the madder I got, the better I could pitch."
• The Cardinals had developed a way of lessening the tension of the pennant race. Trainer Doc Weaver played the popular tune "Pass the Biscuits, Mirandy" on the clubhouse phonograph. Harry Walker took a liking to the rendition by Spike Jones' band and reformed the Mudcat Band from the Gashouse Gang days of the 1930s. Musial played harmonica, Lanier the slide-whistle, and Walker the coat-hanger drumsticks. As the wins kept coming, the record got more and more worn.

The series would prove to be the turning point of the pennant race.

• Whether it was the shouting or Dodger fatigue from the long trip, Lanier limited the best-hitting team in the league to four hits, the Birds knocking out 12 in a 7-1 breeze that delighted the 25,588 in attendance. The run in the eighth broke Hal's streak of 20 1/3 scoreless innings. The Cards had three doubles and a triple as well as three stolen bases. Moore led the onslaught with three hits, four runs, and two RBIs.
• Former Redbird Joe Medwick had a particularly unpleasant evening in LF. The bleacherites subjected him to verbal harassment, and the entire crowd booed him every time he came to the dish. The fact that Medwick, like Durocher and Reiser, lived in St. Louis - and that Joey had not asked to be traded to Brooklyn - made no difference to the fans.

A record throng of 33,527 turned out the following evening.

• Mort Cooper continued his superstition, wearing jersey number 16 as he tried for victory #16. Wyatt matched Mort goose egg for goose egg for 12 innings until the visitors, minus their manager after he was ejected for arguing balls and strikes the previous inning, broke through with a run in the 13th on C Mickey Owen's single, a sacrifice, and a two-out single by 3B Lou Riggs.
• But with one out in the bottom half, Slaughter walked, and Musial singled Enos to second. Walker Cooper lined a single to CF that sent home the tying run standing up. Holmes wrote: "The roar of the jam-packed St. Louis stand must have awakened the long-dead Indians in their mound cemeteries" across the Mississippi in Illinois. When play resumed after seat cushions and straw hats were removed from the field, French relieved and got a double play started by 2B Billy Herman's brilliant backhand grab.
• After Cooper set down the Bums in order, Kurowski led off with a bunt single, and, after Les Webber replaced French, SS Marty Marion laid down another bunt that 1B Dolph Camilli fired to second too late. Mort Cooper, hitting for himself after 14 innings of work, also bunted but this time Webber fired a strike to 3B to cut down the lead runner. The Dodgers then negated Webber's fine play by walking Brown intentionally to load the bases. With the clock approaching midnight (no blackout rules for an inland city), Moore hit a grounder between 3B and SS. Riggs lunged, grabbed the ball, whirled and threw to the plate to Owen, stretching like a 1B. But Marion beat the peg by a split second to send the crowd into delirium.

The Dodgers could still salvage a split.

• 13,815 turned out for the Wednesday twilight game to see Beazley battle southpaw Macon. Durocher juggled his lineup to put a spark into his offense, but the ploy didn't work.
• Each hurler was on his game. The Cardinals scored a run in the second and lost a great opportunity to add more as Macon got a strikeout and a DP to wiggle out of a bases-loaded-none-out jam. The visitors tied the game the next inning when SS Arky Vaughan hit a high bouncer beind the mound that Beazley, blinded by the late-afternoon sun coming through the grandstand, let drop. Arky later scored.
• Johnny had to work out of more jams than Max but held Brooklyn at bay into the ninth when the Dodgers tried some psychological warfare on the young hurler. With one out, Owens and Macon rapped singles to put runners at first and third. Durocher then strolled to the plate to speak with the umpire. After Leo returned to the bench, Owen called time to tie his shoelaces. In the meantime, Macon had left first and gone into the dugout. When everyone was finally ready to resume play, Beazley decided to tie his shoelaces, giving the Bums a taste of their own medicine. Riggs sliced a ball to shallow left where Coaker Triplett caught it just inside the foul line and fired a quick throw home to hold Owen. Then Vaughn sent the LF in the opposite direction to haul in his long drive.
• For the second night in a row, the teams battled into extra innings. With one out in the bottom of the tenth, Brown walked. Moore followed with a single to left to move Jimmy to second. Slaughter swung hard and topped the ball down the 3B line, where Macon fielded it and fired him out at first - the equivalent of a sacrifice. Triplett repeated what Enos had done, dribbling a grounder down the 3B line. With two out, Brown raced down the line. Macon rushed over to field the ball but, having no play at first, scooped it toward Owen. Jimmy crashed into the C, knocking the ball out of his hands to score the winning run.

Now Brooklyn had to win to avoid a sweep.

• Southworth gambled and brought Lanier back with only two days rest to face side-arming "Coonskin" Davis. Max started fine with four shutout innings, but the Dodgers got to him for a four-spot in the fifth thanks to a change in strategy and some rare lapses in the Cards' D.
• Instead of taking pitches, the Dodgers started swinging at first-pitch strikes. With one out, Owen looped a single off Brown's glove. Vaughan hit a grounder between first and second that looked like a DP but Brown and 1B Johnny Hopp did the Alphonse & Gaston act to let the ball go into RF. Owen lumbered toward third, but Slaughter's throw sailed wide, allowing Arky to head to second.
• With the infield drawn in, Davis punched a single to CF to drive in both runners. SS Pee Wee Reese also singled as did Herman to score Davis. Lefty Ernie White came in from the bullpen to face Reiser, who fouled out. But Medwick got some satisfaction after three miserable days by singling home Reese.
• That ended the scoring for the Dodgers, but the Cards could add no more to the run they plated in the third to allow the visitors to leave St. Louis with a 5 1/2 game lead.
• To read the St. Louis writers the next day, you'd think the loss had killed their heroes' pennant hopes. Bruce Bohle, who wrote the day before that the Cards had "out-hustled and outplayed the cocky Dodgers," now said: "Brooklyn's Dodgers are gone and so, it seems, are the Cardinals chances for winning their first pennant since 1934."
• The problem was that the Cards had only two contests left with the Bums as well as more games left with the stronger Western teams than did the Dodgers.

The Cardinals still had three series at home against the weaker Eastern teams, starting with the Phillies.

• The Redbirds took care of business, sweeping the three games 7-4, 7-5, and 5-2. Cooper won the finale wearing #17.
• With their second DH in three days, the Cards needed some second-line pitchers to step up, and White and Harry Gumbert did so in the Sunday nightcap, combining to beat Boston 3-2 after Beazley breezed 8-3 in the opener. Gumbert also drove in the winning run in the 11th. After a welcome day off, the Birds made in six in a row, sending the Braves on their way, 4-3, for Cooper 18th (wearing #18 of course). Mort, who preferred pitching at night, volunteered to take the hill with only two days rest. The Cards scored the go-ahead run with the help of a phantom squeeze play in the eighth. Hopp singled to open the inning, was sacrified to second by Kurowski, and went to third on an infield hit by Marion. With Mort Cooper at the plate, Hopp broke for home as RHP Al Javery threw. When Cooper bunted toward third, Javery hurried off, fielded the ball with his back to 3B, turned and fired home. However, Hopp had returned to third. So the bases were loaded. Brown followed with a SF.
• The three-week homestand concluded with two games against the Giants, who belted Lanier to win the opener 8-2 before Howie Pollet pitched a four-hit shutout for his first victory since June 7 to even his record at 5-5.
• During this period, the Brooklynites finished their Western swing with a 6-2 mark in Chicago, Pittsburgh, and Cincinnati. As a result, their lead shrunk by a game to 4.5 as Labor Day weekend began.

As the Cardinals faced the Phillies on Monday, September 14, they enjoyed the heady atmosphere of first place in the National League by one game over the Brooklyn Dodgers.

• Having won 30 of their last 37 games, the Redbirds needed to keep the pedal to the metal for the remaining 12 games.
• They took the last two in Philadelphia but not without some anxiety.
  • The Phils led 3-2 heading into the top of the ninth but four hits, including a triple by Harry Walker and a double by Stan Musial, plated four to give the victory to Howie Krist in relief.
  • The Tuesday finale stretched to 14 innings as Mort Cooper dueled with Si Johnson. Coop wore #21 as he tried for that number of victories but the superstition didn't work. Murry Dickson took over in the ninth with the score tied 2-2 and pitched three-hit, no-run ball the rest of the way. The Cards finally broke through when Dickson doubled, and Jimmy Brown singled him home.
  • Since the Dodgers were idle both days, the St. Louis lead stretched to two games. Brooklyn suffered from the ill will the club had engendered throughout the league. For example, GM Larry MacPhail suggested that Cincinnati was not trying as hard against other teams as they did against the Dodgers, leading Reds traveling secretary Gabe Paul to accuse the Bums of having a "persecution complex." He added:

  You know the old saying, something about reaping what you sow, don't you? Well, that's what's happening to the Dodgers right now. All year they've been hollering "teacher" every time something happened they didn't like. Some of them, like coach Chuck Dressen, have said some pretty mean things to rival players, too. They're getting it all back now.

The Redbirds continued their Eastern swing with two games in Boston.

• The Cards took a six-run lead behind Ernie White and coasted to a 6-2 victory. Enos Slaughter and Musial continued their friendly battle to top the club in hitting, with Enos's 2-for-3 including his 13th HR putting him at .315, one point behind Stan, who went 2-for-4 with a 2B. Both trailed Boston's big-nosed C Ernie Lombardi who would go on to win the league title.
• The next day, the Cardinal express came perilously close to defeat. With Johnny Beazley departing after only two innings, the Redbirds trailed 3-1 heading into the ninth against Al Javery. Sometimes rallies start in humble ways. C Walker Cooper beat out a dribbler down the 3B line, and 1B Johnny Hopp drew a walk. 3B Whitey Kurowski tried to sacrifice, but Cooper was thrown out at third. Billy Southworth called backup C Ken O'Dea from the bullpen to pinch hit, but Hopp called time and walked in to urge his skipper to use Ray Sanders instead because Ray, who hadn't had a hit in weeks, smacked the ball hard in batting practice. Sure enough, Sanders, who was Johnny's backup at 1B, lined a single to score his promoter and send Kurowski to third. O'Dea then hit for P Howie Pollet and squeezed home the tying run. Before Bill Donovan could quell the uprising, St. Louis posted three more to win 6-4.
• Braves' manager Casey Stengel praised the Redbirds.

It's one of the few clubs I ever saw that gets its extra base hits out of its ankles. They aren't a ball club, they are a track team. ... This is the fastest ball club I've ever seen in my life; they're a bunch of Cobbs all rolled up into one.

• Meanwhile, the Dodgers, in the midst of a 16-game homestand, split with the Pirates to fall three games behind with with ten to play.

The Cardinals spent Friday traveling to Chicago.

• Rain postponed the Saturday game, which was played as part of a Sunday doubleheader that attracted 38,519, the largest crowd of the season at Wrigley Field despite the fact that the Cubs were stuck in fifth place 33 games behind.
• Both games produced shutouts, one for each team. Cooper got his 21st in the opener, twirling a four-hitter to make the fourth-inning run produced by a double steal stand up. The victory was the 100th of the season.
• Claude Passeau won his 19th in the nightcap, scattering five hits to outduel Max Lanier, who gave up all three runs in 2 2/3 innings.
• The Dodgers beat the Phillies on Saturday 5-4 before splitting their twinbill on Sunday to stay 2.5 behind. It was an indication of the despondency in Flatbush that the DH attracted only 15,666. Tommy Holmes wrote in the Brooklyn Eagle that the Dodgers "had all the appearance of fellows attending their own wake."
• The Eagle had sent Harold Parrott west to cover the Cardinals. He was astonished by the antipathy all the cities felt toward the Dodgers because Durocher is a bully, a swaggering menace to baseball. ... Old timers will tell you that never before was so much venom pumped into a 154-game schedule.

St. Louis finally returned home after going an astounding 13-3 on their road trip. They had left four games behind and returned 2.5 ahead. They would finish the season with series against their three West rivals at Sportsman's Park.

• First in were the Pirates for a two-game set. Ernie White outdueled Hank Gornicki 2-1. The first Cardinal run came when SS Marty Marion hustled home from 2B on an infield hit up the midle by Brown.
• The Cards enjoyed a romp in the Tuesday finale, 9-3. Another southpaw, Pollet, started but lasted only 2 2/3 before Gumbert and Dickson shut down the Bucs the rest of the way. Meanwhile, Musial's grand slam topped off a six-run fifth. Eight of St. Louis's nine runs were unearned.
• The Dodgers did what they had to do, beating the Phillies 3-1 on Monday before edging the Giants 9-8 in twelve. Larry MacPhail reappeared at Ebbets Field after ten days incognito to announce that he had accepted a commission in the Army and would no longer be the GM at the end of the season.

Next into the Mound City were the Reds.

• MacPhail lit into veteran Cincinnati manager Bill McKechnie to the press for pitching Johnny VanderMeer, "the best pitcher in the league against the Cardinals," in a "meaningless game" the day before in Chicago. McKechnie took it in stride. That's the first time in all my baseball experience I ever heard of the president of one club trying to tell the manager of another who to pitch.
• As the Cards took the field for the night game, they knew that Brooklyn had beaten Philadelphia 6-0 behind Larry French's one-hitter.
• The Reds jumped on Beazley for two runs, one of which was unearned. But the rookie shut them down the rest of the way, allowing only two hits. In the meantime, the Cards plated three in the third and one more in the seventh for a 4-2 triumph.
• With their Magic Number down to two, the Redbirds rode their horse, Mort Cooper, to a 6-0 triumph to clinch a tie for the pennant. Mort matched Beazley with a two-hitter for his 22nd victory. Musial drove in three runs with three singles.
• The Dodgers didn't cooperate, beating the Braves 5-3 to keep their flickering hopes alive for at least one more day. They also won 6-5 in 11 innings the next day to pull within two with two to play.

The Cards needed to win just one of their two final games against Chicago to clinch their first pennant since 1934.

• A rainout on Saturday opened the door for them to back in should the Dodgers lose in Philadelphia, but Durocher's boys, fighting hard to the end, bopped the Phils 8-3. They could still tie with a win Sunday and a Cubs' DH sweep.
• More than 31,000 showed up on a clear chilly day in Sportsman's Park. Chicago tallied a run off Ernie White in the fourth, but the Cards erupted for four in the fifth off Lon Warneke, who started the season in a St. Louis uniform. Another four-run inning (the 7th) propelled the Cards to the pennant 9-2. Men in the crowd tossed straw hats onto the field in celebration as the Birds carted Southworth and White off the field on their shoulders.
• Even though Southworth played many second stringers in the meaningless nightcap, the Cards won 4-1 for Beazley's 21st victory.
• On the East coast, the Dodgers edged the Phils 4-3 to close out the season with eight straight wins. In a precursor of the 1954 AL season, Brooklyn won 104 games but finished second as the Cards won 12 of their last 13.

St. Louis had staged one of the most incredible stretch runs in baseball history.

• The last time they lost two in a row was August 2 to put them nine games behind.
• From that point to the end of the season, they went an astounding 45-10.
• While many of their fans accused the Dodgers of "blowing it" or "choking," they won 32 and lost 21 from August 3 on. Brooklyn didn't lose the pennant; the Cards took it from them.
• Durocher wired congratulations. We have been beaten by a great ball club, and we'll all be pulling for you in the World Series.

Southworth's young crew now prepared to meet the Yankees, nine game winners in the Junior Circuit.