Sportsman Park, St Louis, MO, April 21, 1923 – Tigers’ Topper Rigney is a tad early sliding home in 16-1 rout of St Louis Browns

Sportsman Park, St Louis, MO, April 21, 1923 – Tigers’ Topper Rigney is a tad early sliding home in 16-1 rout of St Louis Browns



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Remember in the movie “Major Leagues” when Willie Mays Hayes slid into second base only to be about five feet short and we all laughed? Well, this actually happened here to the Tigers’ Topper Rigney as his slide into home plate and was absurdly short as we see in the photo Browns’ rookie catcher Johnny Schulte putting on the tag for the easy out call by umpire Red Ormsby.

But being the Tigers were up 13-0 at this juncture of the game, we bet Rigney’s teammates had quite the laugh at his expense. Maybe even the ornery Ty Cobb. And it probably helped ease Rigney’s mind that he had three hits and four RBIs on the day in the 16-1 romp that he could put this behind him and still enjoy the day.

But on the other side of the field, there was probably very little joy if any at the Browns garbage and ineptitude being displayed on the diamond. Even the reporters covering the game were disgusted prompting one scribe to start his piece with this:

“Wretched pitching, hysterical fielding and an inability to get safe hits when runners were in position to score were some of the things that contributed in making the Browns’ game with Detroit yesterday one of the most discouraging exhibitions the club has been guilty of in the last two years”

Some of the highlights of the Browns effort were five errors, 16 runners left on base and scoring just one run on 14 hits and ten walks from the six Browns hurlers who saw action.

I would say that reporter’s summary was quite accurate.

-Ron A. Bolton

Info Sources – Baseball-Reference.com; St Louis Dispatch (April 22, 1923 edition)

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