By James G. Robinson
Long before Joaquin Andujar and Oil Can Boyd were even born, Dolf Luque
was the epitome of nastiness on the mound. Never one to back down from a
fight, Luque was as hard to control as his wicked curveball was to hit.
A native of Havana, Cuba, Luque enjoyed
moderate success in the big leagues, leading
the NL with 27 wins in 1923.
But Luque's success was frequently tempered
by his inability to control his emotions. Early in
his career, one of his teammates made the
mistake of uttering derogatory comments about
Luque's Latin heritage. Enraged, Dolf hurled an
ice-pick in his teammate's direction. Luckily for
his intended target, Luque did not throw a strike.
On May 28, 1921, Luque's fiery disposition once
again got the better of him and this time cost his
Reds a victory. Locked in a pitcher's duel with
Whitey Glazner of the league-leading Pittsburgh
Pirates, Luque found himself in trouble in the bottom of the eighth. The
score was deadlocked at three as the Pirates' Clyde Barnhart stood on
second, representing the go-ahead run.
For some reason, Luque lost his cool and suddenly gunned the ball into his
own team's dugout. A surprised Barnhart broke towards third but was thrown
out. Luque escaped the jam, and the game went to extra innings. In the
tenth, Rube Marquard (who had a temper off his own) scored the winning run
for the Reds off of Bucs' reliever Babe Adams.
But the Pirates refused to go down without a fight. Rightly claiming the ball
should have been called dead when it entered the Reds' dugout, Pirates'
skipper George Gibson successfully protested the loss to NL President
John A. Heydler. The game resumed on June 30 with the score tied at three
in the eighth, and this time the Pirates won, 4-3.
Thanks in large part to Luque's 19 losses that season, the Reds finished the
year a distant sixth, 24 games out of first place. The Pirates, led by the
potent hitting combination of shortstop Rabbit Maranville and second
baseman George Cutshaw and the pitching of 22-game winner Wilbur
Cooper, ended up in second place, four games behind the eventual World
Champion New York Giants.
It was not the last time Luque's volatile temperament cost his team. The
following season, Luque started an all-out brawl between the Reds and
Giants after hearing racial slurs emanating from the Giants' dugout. The
right-hander calmly walked off the mound and socked Giant bench-warmer
Casey Stengel in the mouth -- the only problem was that Bill Cunningham,
seated next to Stengel, was the man responsible for the barrage of insults.
A brawl ensued and Luque was summarily ejected. But even before play
could resume, Luque again found his way into the Giants' dugout, where he
menaced the New York players with a bat. Luque was immediately dragged
from Crosley Field by a team of policemen.
Ironically, Luque's only postseason win came 11 years later as a member of
the Giants. Working in relief of Hal Schumacher, the 42-year-old Luque
hurled 4 1/3 shutout innings against the Washington Senators, earning the
win in the fifth and decisive game of the 1933 World Series.
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