Joe Medwick
Joe Medwick, born on November 24, 1911, in Carteret, New Jersey, was a prominent baseball player known for his exceptional skills as an outfielder. Immigrants from Hungary were his parents, and he demonstrated athletic prowess in multiple sports during his high school years. Medwick began his professional baseball career in 1930 when the St. Louis Cardinals encouraged him to skip college to join their organization. He quickly established himself in the minor leagues before making his major league debut in 1932, where he became a standout player, known for his keen eye and powerful hitting.
Throughout the 1930s, Medwick was a crucial member of the Cardinals, contributing to their success during the era known as the "Gashouse Gang." He achieved significant milestones, including winning the Triple Crown in 1937 and being named the National League Most Valuable Player. Despite facing challenges, including a serious head injury that impacted his performance, Medwick maintained a solid career, ultimately earning a .324 batting average and amassing 540 doubles over 17 seasons. He was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1958, leaving a lasting legacy in the sport before passing away on March 21, 1975.
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Subject Terms
Joe Medwick
Athletic Coach
- Born: November 24, 1911
- Birthplace: Carteret, New Jersey
- Died: March 21, 1975
- Place of death: St. Petersburg, Florida
Sport: Baseball
Early Life
Joseph Michael Medwick was born on November 24, 1911, in Carteret, New Jersey, a small town that is part of the New York metropolitan area. His parents were immigrants from Hungary. Although not a large boy, Joe grew muscular and strong. He was aggressive, loved action, and starred in four sports—track, football, basketball, and baseball—in high school. His dream in those days was to go to the University of Notre Dame and play football.
The Road to Excellence
In 1930, the year of his graduation, the St. Louis Cardinals organization convinced Joe to forgo college in favor of a career as an outfielder in professional baseball. Sent to a minor-league team for the balance of that season, Joe demonstrated power, speed, and instinctive ability in the field. He completely overmatched the Middle Atlantic League pitchers; in only seventy-five games, he batted .419 with 100 RBI.
Promoted to Houston the next year, he tore into Texas League pitchers also. In 1931, he led the league in RBI, and in 1932, he batted .349 and led the league’s outfielders in fielding percentage. At Houston, he acquired his nickname. There are two or three versions of the story. According to the most likely one, a young woman in the stands decided that he walked like a duck and called him her “Ducky Wucky.” The nickname—usually abbreviated Ducky—stuck. However, Joe preferred to be called Mickey, and, later, Muscles.
Joe’s great strength and aggressiveness, advantageous attributes as a hitter, also proved to be a weakness; his combative nature and chip-on-the-shoulder attitude often got him into trouble. No one doubted, however, that Ducky Medwick was ready to play Major League Baseball (MLB), and late in the 1932 season, the twenty-year-old outfielder was promoted to the Cardinals.
The Emerging Champion
From the start, Joe hit major-league pitching as solidly as he had hit every previous variety. In 1932, he batted .349 in twenty-six games and became a fixture in left field for the Cardinals. Joe had amazingly keen eyes. Whereas most batters simply follow the path of a pitched ball, he could see the rotation and gauge instantly and recognize what sort of pitch it was. Then his powerful arm muscles whipped the bat around in a split second.
In his first full season, he batted .306 and knocked in 98 runs. Like his teammate Pepper Martin, Joe slid into every base and went after every ball in the field as though his life depended on it. It became clear that the Cardinals, winners of four pennants from 1926 to 1931, were assembling another championship team.
Everything came together in 1934: The Cardinal pitching ace Dizzy Dean won thirty games, Martin led the league in stolen bases, and Joe had 76 extra-base hits, including a league-leading 18 triples. Frank Frisch’s Cardinals advanced to meet the Detroit Tigers in the World Series.
Joe lashed out eleven hits in the seven-game series, but in the seventh inning of the final game in Detroit, he caused one of the most unusual incidents in series history. It started when he slid hard, spikes flying, into third baseman Marv Owen in the seventh inning. The Cardinals were leading 9-0 behind Dean, and the Tiger fans were frustrated. As Joe took his position in left field in the bottom of the seventh inning, the fans in the seats behind him began to hurl fruit, bottles, and other debris at him. When the groundskeepers could not clear the field, MLB Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis, from his box seat, decided to restore order by removing Joe from the game. Had the score been close, Joe and the Cardinals would no doubt have protested vigorously, but as things stood, they complied, the game resumed, and the Cardinals reigned as world champions.
Continuing the Story
Over the next few seasons, Joe continued his heavy hitting for the Gashouse Gang, as the Cardinals of that era were called. From 1935 through 1939, he batted .353, .351, .374, .322, and .332, with at least 117 RBI each year. For three consecutive years, he led the league in doubles, with his 64 in 1936 setting a National League (NL) record that remains unbroken.
In 1936, he amassed a stupendous 95 extra-base hits, only to top that total with 97 the following year. In 1937, he won the triple crown and was chosen the NL most valuable player. He never curbed his fighting instincts entirely, but he learned to be agreeable to the young fans who clamored for his autograph.
Between 1935 and 1940, the Cardinals won no pennants, and in June of the latter year, they traded Joe and pitcher Curt Davis to the Brooklyn Dodgers for four players and $125,000. A few days later, a pitch from one of his old Cardinal teammates struck Joe in the head.
Although he continued to be a feared hitter for several more years, Joe never reached the batting heights again after that beaning. He played with two other teams and in 1947, returned to St. Louis as a part-time player. The following year he was back in the Texas League with Houston.
Joe loved baseball too much to quit, so he became a playing manager for several minor-league teams from 1949 to 1952. Later, he served as a batting instructor in the Cardinals’ farm system and did some coaching at St. Louis University. In 1958, Joe was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. He was at work at the Cardinals’ St. Petersburg, Florida, training camp when he died on March 21, 1975, at the age of sixty-three.
Summary
Joe Medwick’s competitive spirit made him a key ingredient of the Cardinals’ Gashouse Gang in the 1930’s. He was an individual star who always recognized the importance of team success. Had he not been hit in the head at the age of twenty-eight, he undoubtedly would have posted some amazing career batting marks. Despite the decline in the second half of his career, he finished with a .324 average and 540 doubles for seventeen seasons. For a half dozen seasons, he was one of the game’s greatest right-handed hitters.
Bibliography
Barthel, Thomas. The Fierce Fun of Ducky Medwick. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2003.
Heidenry, John. The Gashouse Gang: How Dizzy Dean, Leo Durocher, Branch Rickey, Pepper Martin, and Their Colorful, Come-from-Behind Ball Club Won the World Series and America’s Heart During the Great Depression. New York: Public Affairs, 2007.