Too Many First Basemen

The American League of the 1930s had a first base problem every other league would have traded anything for. Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, and Hank Greenberg. Three of the most dangerous hitters who ever lived, all at the same position, all in their prime at the same time.

Something had to give, and the early All-Star Games show you what. In 1935, Greenberg reached the break with 103 RBIs, a record that still stands, and wasn't even invited. Foxx, a two-time MVP, spent those midsummer afternoons at third base, a borrowed position that occasionally showed. In 1938 his wild throw on a Leo Durocher bunt helped create one of the strangest plays in All-Star history.

The All-Star Game was still new then, more exhibition than institution, and nobody was keeping track of who got squeezed out. That's how a player like Harlond Clift slips through the cracks. In 1937 he set the record for home runs by a third baseman. The next year he broke it with 34, a mark that held until Eddie Mathews in 1953. Power, patience, and a real glove, all on some truly bad Browns clubs.

The box scores from those early games are full of "did not play." Read them closely and you see just how deep the game ran in the 1930s, and how easy it was for greatness to sit unnoticed at the end of a bench.