Show speaking pea ing of sports its 1 1727 for gabby veteran cub backstop by ROBERT BIc SHANE WHEN HEN charles leo hartnett chicago cub catcher manager strapped on his protective armor to catch his game he established a record which is expected to stand for decades to come if not forever the new mark was made with gabby cabby catching bill lee in the second wrigley field series with the runner up st louis cardinals though a cub victory would have open been in order the cards had no sense of the fitness of things in general era and whipped the pulls 4 to 2 the previous day the situation had h ad been reversed with the cubs on t the be long end of an 11 to 3 count thus was relegated to the ash heap the longstanding long standing 1726 mark set by ray schalk with the white sox from 1912 through 1928 1721 games and with the giants in 1929 five games no other catcher in the two major leagues has ever approached these marks and it will be a long time if ever that another one does sim ilc 1 14 t charles leo hartnett pie ale mathematics proves that it will be at least half a decade before another challenger will stand a chance to better the marks bill dickey yankee catcher has the best chance he stands closest to hartnett with more than 1300 big league contests behind him dickey is only 32 and may in 1943 catch up to the 1727 record on a basis of game seasons however gabby is confident that he will have the record well up in the at least dispute settled the actual number of games caught by hartnett during the past 18 seasons settled until recently the national league through its baseball service bureau was doing its outstanding backstop an injustice the red book listed gabby at 1650 games throughout 1938 whereas the american league through its official statisticians uncovered a game hartnett caught in 1929 and listed his total at 1651 games gabrys record year tear Games Year games 1922 1923 1924 1925 1926 38 1935 1927 1936 1928 1137 naz 1929 1930 75 the one game gabby caught in 1929 caused the mix up that was the game which had been lost a game played in chicago against the new york giants on september 22 it was the only game gabby worked behind the plate in that season of the great sore arm a baffling ailment that came and went with neither rhyme nor reason but which kept him inactive through all the year save that almost forgotten afternoon merriwell finish according to gabby his greatest moment in almost 20 years of big league ball came last year when he hit a pennant turning home run during a dark ninth inning against the pittsburgh pirates thousands of fans were just as thrilled as the great gabby at the great frank merriwell nish anish gabby nearing his thirty hirty ninth birthday joined the cubs in 1922 when he was a 22 year old rookie he has a lifetime batting average of an even and perhaps is most admired by cub fans as a batter in 1930 he brought in runs in 1937 he put on the longest bittina hitting streak of the season when he be clicked in 26 straight games leo the lion hearted lays claim to no greatest single game the no hit charm has always eluded him but he says ive had the pleasure of working with a lot of great pitchers and a lot of pitchers have had the pleasure of working with a great catcher |