On This Day in Cubs History: The Homer in the Gloamin'

On Sept. 28, 1938, Hall of Famer Gabby Hartnett hit perhaps the most impactful home run in Chicago Cubs history.

The Chicago Cubs entered September 1938 falling out of the pennant race. Trailing the Pittsburgh Pirates by six and a half games and mired in fourth place, the Cubs were already written off.

But Sept. 3 was the beginning of a 20-3 run and a bid for the pennant. By Sept. 28, the Cubs trailed the Pirates by just half a game for the National League top spot, and with Pittsburgh at Wrigley Field for a three-game showdown, the stakes couldn't be higher.

Nearly 35,000 fans packed into the sardine can that was the Cubs' jewel-box home, and for two and a half hours the two sides battled back and forth. The lead changed four times before the ninth inning, when the umpires announced that the game would be called on account of darkness if a victor was not to be decided by innings' end.

So the stage was set for an anticlimactic draw when Hall of Fame catcher, and player-manager, Gabby Hartnett stepped to the plate with two out and none on. After two strikes on two curveballs from Mace Brown, Hartnett was down but not out. The third curveball from the Pirates' pitcher he crushed through the twilight, deep into the left field bleachers.

John P. Carmichael of the Chicago Daily News described the scene so eloquently just a day later in 1938.

"We surrender to inadequacy. This Cub-Pirate pennant fight has gone far beyond our poor power to picture in words. When you squirm to fashion the proper pinnacle for a “Dizzy” Dean only to find that you need at least its twin, that a Gabby Hartnett may also brush the stars, word-painting becomes a magic art not given to the mine run of mortals to diffuse.

"So let this be, today, a confession of helplessness to treat an afternoon which beggars description; an afternoon in the life of a stout-hearted Irishman who, as darkness almost wrapped him from the sight of 35,000 quaking fans, changed the map of a baseball world with one devastating blow...

"For a second successive night we stood in a clubhouse of crazy men in play suits... We can still see ’em fighting for words, staring at one another with glazed eyes. We can still see ’em pushing Hartnett from wall to wall with the irresistible force of robots gone wild. We can still see Gabby trying vainly to free himself from idolatrous teammates.

"We can still see Billy Herman, standing in the middle of the floor, arms akimbo. When he could talk it was first just a whisper of awe: “Lord God Almighty.” Dawning consciousness of the moment brought it out again, louder, hoarser: “Lord God Almighty.” Then the full realization of the terrific sight he had just watched in the twilight smote him. “Lord God ALMIGHTY;” he suddenly screamed and hurled his glove he knew not where."

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