By James G. Robinson
Talk about hard-luck pitching. Seventy-two years ago today, Boston Braves
starter Charlie Robertson locked heads with the Chicago Cubs'
Guy Bush
for over 17 innings -- and lost. Even worse, Robertson's workhorse outing
didn't even set a team record. Both the major-league and team marks were
(and still are) held by Joe Oeschger, who had battled Brooklyn's Leon
Cadore in an incredible 26-inning marathon seven years earlier.
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Hack Wilson (AP)
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Robertson's stage was Boston's Braves Field, the
home of the best fried clams in baseball. On paper, his
team was hopelessly overmatched. The Braves' home
run leader, Jack Fournier, would finish the season with
just 10 round-trippers, while Chicago's Hack Wilson led
the league with 30. Only a late-season collapse would
keep the Cubs from their first first-place finish in nine
years; the Braves, on the other hand, ended the year
with a 60-94 record, 34 games behind the
pennant-winning Pirates.
But the Braves kept pace with the Cubs, inning by
inning, behind a most unlikely savior. Since hurling a
perfect game in his third major-league start in 1922, the
31-year-old Robertson had repeatedly failed to
distinguish himself after falling victim to a sore arm. For
a man who never enjoyed a winning season, 1927 was
perhaps his worst. Robertson won just seven games
against 17 losses, and allowed opposing batters to hit at a healthy .308 clip.
But through 17 innings of this remarkable game, the native Texan allowed
just two runs on nine hits.
Robertson's opponent had never hurled a perfect game, but Guy Bush's
resume would turn out to be considerably more impressive. Known as "The
Mississippi Mudcat", the 25-year-old right-hander would win no fewer than
15 games in each of the next seven years, playing a key role on Chicago's
pennant-winners in 1929 and 1932.
For 17 innings, the two pitchers matched each other out for out and run for
run. The Cubs scored a run off Robertson in the top of the 11th, but the
Braves answered back in the bottom of the inning on an Andy High triple
that brought home outfielder Jack Smith.
With High on third and just one out, Boston had a golden opportunity to end
the game. But Chicago manager Joe McCarthy used a daring move to foil
the Braves' comeback. Bush was ordered to walk both Dick Burrus and
Eddie Brown to get to light-hitting second baseman Dave Gautreau, who
promptly flied out. Braves catcher Zack Taylor then lined a ball into third
baseman Clyde Beck's glove to end the rally.
Six more scoreless innings would pass before Robertson's arm finally gave
out. Three singles by Beck, Sparky Adams and Jimmy Cooney in the top of
the 18th gave Chicago a one-run lead; an Earl Webb double scored another
and knocked Robertson out of the box. Robertson's replacement, Foster
Edwards, allowed the Cubs to add three runs on an intentional walk, a wild
pitch, and a single by Riggs Stephenson. The five-run lead would be too
much for the exhausted Braves to overcome in the bottom of the inning; the
3-hour, 42-minute game ended as a 7-2 Cubs victory.
It was a battle of two teams -- and two pitchers -- heading in different
directions. Even the Braves weren't desperate enough to hold on to
Robertson, whose pitching continued to deteriorate. His short career came
to an end after a pitiful 2-5 campaign for Boston in 1928.
Bush, on the other hand, developed into one of the most reliable starters in
the National League. Perhaps his biggest moment came in Game Three of
the 1932 World Series, when Babe Ruth came up to bat with one out in the
fifth inning. Bush wasn't on the mound -- he was in the dugout, taunting Ruth
mercilessly. In the process, he provoked Ruth's legendary "called shot".
As Cubs manager Charlie Grimm remembered in Peter Golenbock's
Wrigleyville, "One of the nicknames [Babe] didn't like was 'Big Monkey,' and
I'm sure Guy included it. Even before [Cubs pitcher Charlie] Root got over
his first of two pitches for strikes, Babe pointed straight away and turned
toward our dugout -- no doubt for Bush's benefit. Those who saw Ruth's
pointing finger chose to believe, when he drove the ball over the center field
bleachers, that he was calling his shot."
In response to Ruth's homer, Bush extracted a measure of revenge by
plunking the Babe the next day in the first inning of Game Four.
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