Who, You Ask, is Tiny Bonham?

While watching last night’s game in which the Red Sox copped their second World Series title in four years, Fox flashed a graphic on the screen that showed that Red Sox rookie Jon Lester was only the third pitcher in history to win the clinching game in his first postseason start, the others being W. Ford and T. Bonham. I immediately recognized both hurlers as Whitey Ford and Tiny Bonham and though I know plenty about Ford I’m only vaguely familiar with Bonham and only because he pitched in the Seamheads.com Diamond Kings Historical Fantasy League. So out of curiosity I thought I’d look into his career and his lone start, which came in Game 5 of the 1941 World Series between the Yankees and Dodgers.

Bonham, a native of Ione, California, began his career in 1935 and kicked around with a handful of teams, winning 14 games in 1936 with Akron, before landing in Oakland of the Pacific Coast League in 1937. The right hander became the team’s ace, winning 17 games and striking out 190 batters and tossing a seven-inning no-hitter against Seattle on July 4. He almost duplicated the feat a month later when he allowed only one hit, an eighth-inning single, to the Los Angeles Angels on August 3. He pitched for the Newark Bears and Kansas City Blues in 1938, going a combined 11-6. It was in Kansas City that the 6’2″, 215 lb. hurler affectionately known as “Tiny” learned his trademark forkball.

Bonham’s contract was purchased by the Yankees in September, 1939 and he went to Spring Training with the Bronx Bombers, but he was released back to Kansas City in late March, 1940. He pitched well for the Blues, earning a spot on the American Association All-Star team, before being recalled by the Yankees in early August to “bolster a crippled Yankee pitching staff,” according to James Dawson of the New York Times . Lefty Gomez was battling a sore arm and Red Ruffing, though still effective at 15-12, was 35 years old and in his 17th year at the big league level.

The Yankees had won four straight World Series titles from 1936-1939, but when Bonham arrived on August 2 New York was 7 1/2 games behind the front-running Detroit Tigers and were in need of pitching help.

Bonham lost his first start to the Boston Red Sox on August 5 but he fared well. Dawson wrote of Bonham’s performance, “Ernie Bonham…made his debut with the tottering champions at Fenway Park today without discredit to himself…It was the unfortunate lot of the Blues’ graduate to make his bow on a day when the Yankees weren’t hitting the size of their neckbands…”

He lost two of his first three decisions, falling both times to the Red Sox, before reeling off five straight wins, one of which was over Bob Feller and the Indians. He lost to the St. Louis Browns by a 2-1 score on September 15, but finished the season strong with three straight wins, including an 11-inning victory over the Senators on the season’s final day. With the rookie’s help, the Yankees closed Detroit’s gap, but they finished in third place, two games behind the Tigers and a game behind Cleveland. Bonham was stellar in his 12 starts, winning nine of them against only three defeats and posting a microscopic 1.90 ERA, and he walked only 13 batters in 99 1/3 innings.

The Los Angeles Times averred that Bonham and Marius Russo, a mid-20s star-in-the-making who debuted with the Yankees in June, 1939 and went 22-11 in his first two seasons, would form the nucleus of the Yankees pitching staff starting in 1941. Bob Ray of the aforementioned Times thought Bonham deserved a “prominent spot in plans for rebuilding of the Yankees…”

Russo indeed anchored the Yankees staff in ’41, leading the team with 27 starts and going 14-10 with a 3.09 ERA, Gomez returned to form, going 15-5, and Ruffing continued to defy his age, winning 15 games as well. But Bonham made only 14 starts, going 9-6 and pacing the rotation with a 2.98 ERA in 126 2/3 innings. In fact, the Yankees used 10 different starting pitchers that season and seemingly relied on a seven-man rotation that also included Spud Chandler, Atley Donald, and Marv Breuer. Bonham’s absence had less to do with the Yankees’ wealth of pitching talent and more to do with a balky back that had been giving him trouble since he labored in a California lumber camp prior to beginning his baseball career.

The injury kept him on the shelf from mid-May to late June and forced Yankee manager Joe McCarthy to give his ailing starter as much rest between starts as he could get. Bonham also wore a back brace while he pitched. But the rest of the staff picked up the slack and paced the junior circuit in fewest runs allowed per game, while finishing second to the White Sox in ERA. The hitters also stepped up, led by a trio of 30-homer sluggers—Joe DiMaggio, Charlie Keller, and Tommy Henrich—and the Yankees reclaimed their place atop the American League with a 101-53 record, finishing 17 games ahead of the runner-up Boston Red Sox.

In the National League the Dodgers squeaked past the Cardinals, who were in first place as late as September 1, and finished with a two game edge over St. Louis on the strength of a 100-54 mark.

The Christian Science Monitor predicted the 1941 World Series “promises to be the most fascinating in many years” and that “it has excited the entire country.” The paper also gave the Yankees the edge over Brooklyn because of the relative ease with which the Bronx Bombers took the A.L. pennant. “They are coming up to this series…relaxed and ready…Their invalids have had time to get well and their weary have had time to rest…this month-long release from strain might very well be decisive.”

James J. Carroll, the betting commissioner of St. Louis, set the odds at 2 to 5 that the Yankees would win while the Dodgers were 2 to 1 underdogs. Paul Zimmerman of the Los Angeles Times picked the Yankees to win in six games. Few disagreed. New Yorkers were so sure the Yankees would easily dispatch of the Dodgers that R. Parfitt Eaton wrote a letter to the New York Times facetiously suggesting that Major League Baseball should cancel the World Series as an act of kindness towards the Dodgers. “Incidentally,” he wrote, “the body behind this movement might designate itself as the S.P.C.N.L.P.W., which, translated, reads Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to National League Pennant Winners.”

The Yankees jumped out to a one-game lead, defeating the Dodgers 3-2 in Game 1 behind the pitching of Red Ruffing and the batting of Joe Gordon and Bill Dickey, who accounted for two-thirds of New York’s hits and all of its runs batted in. The Dodgers evened the series at a game apiece with an identical 3-2 victory in Game 2 as Whit Wyatt outdueled Chandler despite allowing nine hits and five walks. But Wyatt escaped several jams as the Yankees left 10 men on base.

Russo and Freddie Fitzsimmons locked horns in Game 3, trading goose eggs for the first seven frames, before the Yankees plated two in the top of the eighth on singles by Red Rolfe, Henrich, DiMaggio, and Keller to take a 2-0 lead and literally knocked Fitzsimmons out of the game. Russo lined a ball off Fitzsimmons’ leg and, though Pee Wee Reese was able to field the carom and throw Russo out at first for the final out of the inning, the blow broke Fitzsimmons’ kneecap. The Dodgers reached Russo for a run in the bottom of the frame, but that was all they could muster and the Yankees took the contest, 2-1.

Game 4 pitted Donald against Kirby Higbe and neither lasted more than four innings as the Yankees jumped out to a 3-2 lead through the fourth. The Dodgers took the lead in the bottom of the fifth, scoring two runs to go up 4-3, but they couldn’t hold on as the Yankees staged a ninth-inning rally that plated four runs in an eventual 7-4 victory. It’s this game that will live in infamy thanks to Brooklyn catcher Mickey Owens’ passed ball on what should have been the final out of a Dodgers’ 4-3 win. But with new life, the Yankees strung three hits and two walks together off Brooklyn reliever Hugh Casey to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

With a commanding 3-1 lead in games, McCarthy turned to a healthy and well-rested Bonham in Game 5 and he slammed the door on the Dodgers to help the Yankees cop their fifth championship in six years. He held the Dodgers to one run on four hits and two walks and fanned two in the complete game 3-1 victory and retired 18 of the last 20 batters he faced, allowing only a walk and a single over the final six innings.

Irving Vaughan of the Chicago Tribune called Bonham “invincible” and lauded the hurler’s stellar performance. “The Dodgers attack was melted down to almost nothing by Ernie Bonham,” wrote Vaughan. “Real trouble caught up with the young and burly Yankee right hander only in one spot—the third inning—when a pair of hits accounted for the National Leaguers’ only run. From this point to the finish he was a master.”

Bonham’s success continued in 1942 when he was finally able to pitch a full season for the first time. He went 21-5 for the Yankees with a 2.27 ERA and finished fifth in MVP voting, but he lost his only World Series start to the Cardinals, who beat him 4-3 in Game 2. 1942 would prove to be the apex of his career, however. He continued to enjoy immediate success,winning 15 games in 1943 and posting another 2.27 ERA, before losing to the Cardinals in the Fall Classic again. But from 1944 to 1949, he went 49-50 while pitching for the Yankees and Pirates and he was only able to reach 200 innings in a season once due to the chronic back pain that plagued him throughout his career.

He was planning on retiring after the 1949 season, but he succumbed to abdominal pain in late August and was admitted to Pittsburgh Presbyterian Hospital on September 8 for an emergency appendectomy. While performing surgery doctors discovered that he had intestinal cancer. Only a week later, on September 15, Bonham died at the age of 36.

He finished his 10-year career with a record of 103-72 and a 3.06 ERA.