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1939-1942,
1944-1945 |
Lou
Finney was a tough man to strike out. A fast, feisty left-handed hitter
with line-drive power, Finney made contact often enough and was versatile
enough in the field to play an important role first for Connie Mack's
Depression-era Philadelphia Athletics and later for Joe Cronin's World War
II-era Boston Red Sox.
A scrappy, curly-haired Alabaman who spoke with a Southern drawl, Finney
stood 6 feet tall and weighed 180 pounds; batted from the left side; and
threw from the right. He spent 15 years in the major leagues between 1931
and 1947, and fanned just 186 times in 4,631 at-bats, or only once for
every 24.9 official turns, one of the 50 best ratios in major-league
history. A .287 career hitter who hustled whenever he was on the field,
the fiery Finney slugged just 31 big-league home runs, but hit 203 doubles
and 85 triples.
At his best in his natural position, right field, Finney also played first base
for Mack and Cronin. Most often a reserve, Finney still appeared in 100 or more
big-league games in seven seasons. He was highly competitive and loved to needle
opponents.
A fine
all-around athlete "who never has any winter weight to melt," Finney continued
his career as a passionate player-manager in the minors when his major-league
career ended. Later, he returned home to Alabama to run a small business with
his older brother, Hal, a former National League catcher.
Louis Klopsche Finney was born on August 13, 1910. Lou left high school to
follow his brothers to Birmingham Southern, but quit after he fractured both
legs in a football game. He returned home and earned his diploma from Five
Points High, where he starred as a third baseman for the baseball team and
lettered in football and basketball.
Finney played semipro baseball at Akron, Ohio, in 1929, but when the 1930 Census
reached the Five Points Hamburg Region of Chambers County in April, “Lewis” was
back on the family farm and at work at a rubber plant. Legend suggests that he
was seated behind two mules in late June 1930, when a neighbor informed him that
the Carrollton (Georgia) Champs of the Class D Georgia-Alabama League needed an
outfielder. Finney answered the call. Just 19 years old, he launched a barrage
on the league in his first season in organized baseball. He batted .389 with 17
doubles and 7 home runs before Carrollton and Talladega, the league's cellar
dwellers, disbanded on August 14.
By that time, he had been spotted by Ira Thomas, a scout for Connie Mack’s
Athletics. Philadelphia purchased Finney's contract after the 1930 season and
assigned him to the Harrisburg (Pennsylvania) Senators of the Class B New
York-Pennsylvania League for 1931. However, he failed to impress the Harrisburg
manager and was transferred to the York (Pennsylvania) White Roses in the same
league. At York, he resumed his assault on minor-league pitchers. He batted .347
for manager Jack Bentley and earned
The Sporting News’ All-NYP
honors.
Mack purchased the young Alabaman's contract for the season's final weeks. Just
a month past his 21st birthday, Finney made his big-league debut for
the Tall Tactician on September 12, 1931, against the St. Louis Browns. The
Athletics were in the midst of a 19-game home stand, and Finney appeared in nine
games and rapped out nine hits, including a triple, in 24 at-bats. He scored
seven runs and drove in three in his three-week stint.
Finney spent the 1932 season with the Portland Beavers of the highly competitive
Pacific Coast League. Often called the Third Major League, the PCL boasted a
number of future and former major leaguers. Two of the best in 1932 were Finney
and fellow Philadelphia farmhand Michael Franklin "Pinky" Higgins, both of whom
made The
Sporting News’ All-PCL team. One or the other was among the league
leaders in every offensive category to propel Portland to the PCL pennant with a
111-78 record. Finney finished third in the league's Most Valuable Player
voting.
Still 22 years old, Finney rejoined the Athletics and his Portland teammate
Higgins, who was Philadelphia's third baseman in 1933. Finney enjoyed a splendid
spring training and was viewed as a replacement for Al Simmons, one of
baseball's all-time great outfielders, whom Mack had traded to Chicago before
the season. When the regular season started, Finney was hot. But he was nervous
and quickly cooled off, and Mack sold his contract with the right to recall the
outfielder on 24 hours’ notice, to Montreal of the Double A International
League. There, Finney hit .298 with 23 extra-base hits in 65 games. His second
home run for the Royals came on his last at-bat, on August 15, after Mack
notified Montreal to return Finney to Philly. The sudden recall derailed the
Royals’ playoff hopes and created friction between Montreal and Mack. Back in
Philadelphia, Finney continued to hit well.
Between
seasons, there were rumors that Mack would trade the youngster to Boston, but
when the 1934 season opened; he was Philadelphia's fourth outfielder behind
Indian Bob Johnson, Doc Cramer, and Ed Coleman, and sometimes spelled slugger
Jimmie Foxx at first base, roles he reprised the next year. Finney played in 201
games in 1934 and 1935, batted .276, and though he hit just one homer in the two
seasons, he smacked 22 doubles.
The
Alabaman was a valuable stopgap for Mack in those two seasons. When Higgins was
hurt in 1934, Foxx moved to third and Finney held down first, and when rookie
Wally Moses crashed into a fence and was injured in 1935, Finney moved back to
the outfield. In 1935, Mack sent Foxx behind the plate 26 times and played
Finney at first, but a spate of Athletics injuries nixed the experiment.
Mack
continued to feel the effects of the Depression and declining attendance at
Shibe Park, and dealt the powerful Foxx to Boston before the 1936 season for
players and cash. Rookie Alfred “Chubby” Dean (77 games) shared the first-base
duties with Finney, who also played the outfield in 73 games. Despite Finney’s
fine season, he and Dean split the first base duties in 1937. (Dean, a lifetime
.274 hitter, later unwisely moved to the mound and compiled a 30-46 record and a
5.08 ERA as pitcher.) Finney did play 50 games at first in 1937, made the only
appearance of his career at second base, where he recorded an assist, and played
39 games in the outfield. Bouncing around the lineup and battling an ailment he
picked up in Mexico in spring training, a hernia, a chronic sinus infection, and
later, appendicitis, he saw his average slip to .251. He hit another
round-tripper, again inside the park, his sixth home run in six major-league
seasons. With 10 days left in the regular season, Finney, with Mack's consent,
returned home to Alabama and underwent surgery on his sinuses, had a hernia
repaired, had the inflamed appendix that had bothered him for months extracted,
and had his tonsils removed.
Healthy in 1938, the 27-year-old “Alabama Assassin” enjoyed a power surge when
he slugged 10 home runs – with nine of them clearing the fences. In 1939 Siebert
started at first base and Finney batted just .136 in nine games before Mack sold
him to Boston on May 9. The Alabaman enjoyed great success as a pinch-hitter –
he led the AL with 13 pinch hits in 40 at-bats -- then finished the season at
first base after Foxx underwent an appendectomy.
For the Red Sox, Finney flourished under manager Joe Cronin and veteran scout
and hitting instructor Hugh Duffy. He credited Duffy, the legendary New
Englander, for teaching him to snap his wrist. The results were
immediate. Finney batted .325 in 249 at-bats in his 95 games with Boston, with
22 extra-base hits, including a pinch-hit home run at Sportsman’s Park. The next
spring, he praised Duffy to the
Boston
Traveler’s John Drohan, among others: “I was with the Red Sox for a
week or so when Hughie Duffy, who led the National League in batting way back in
1894, asked me if I were willing to take some advice from a 76-year-old man
(Duffy was actually 72 at the time). As I realized I was not going anywhere, I
told him I was more than willing. Consequently, Hughie, who was one of the Red
Sox coaches and batted grounders in the infield practice despite his age,
converted me from a choke hitter into a batsman who grabbed his bat way down at
the end and swung from the hip. He also changed my stance in the batter’s box,
spreading my feet a trifle further apart. He also told me to put more wrist into
my swing like Ted Williams. Well, I was not hitting my weight when I left the
Athletics and I wound up the 1939 season with a mark of .310, the best I ever
had.” The Red Sox posted an 89-62 record and finished second to the Joe
DiMaggio-led Yankees, who methodically captured their fourth straight AL pennant
despite the loss of Lou Gehrig to the illness that would tragically cut short
his life.
In spite of a broken finger in spring training, courtesy of Cincinnati's Johnny
Vander Meer, and a nagging cold, Finney enjoyed another fine season in Boston in
1940. He played in the outfield in place of the injured Dom DiMaggio, and hit so
well that the Red Sox postponed DiMaggio’s return, before Finney himself
suffered a leg injury. When he came back, he moved to first when Foxx injured
his knee in a collision. When Double-X returned, Cronin asked his team captain
to play catcher for the injured Gene Desautels, which allowed the Boston manager
to keep both Finney and DiMaggio in the lineup. In either position, Finney hit
well. He was the first major-league player to record 100 hits that season,
ranked among the league batting leaders through the summer, and finished with a
.320 average, ninth best in the AL. Finney and New York's Charlie "King Kong"
Keller tied for second in the league with 15 triples, four behind league leader
Barney McCosky of Detroit. The 15 triples were a career best for Finney, who
also achieved personal highs with 31 doubles and 73 runs batted in. He scored 73
times and was the AL’s toughest man to strike out, fanning just once per 41.1
at-bats, well ahead of runner-up Charlie Gehringer of Detroit, who struck out
once every 30.2 AB’s
In July,
Finney made his only All-Star Game appearance, and coaxed a walk from Carl
Hubbell in the NL's 4-0 win. On May 11, he hit one of his two career grand
slams, off Marius Russo at Yankee Stadium, to help Boston send New York to a
defeat, the Bronx Bombers’ eighth straight. Though never again an All-Star, he
continued to provide valuable depth for the Red Sox the next two years. In 1941,
Finney banged out 24 more doubles and 4 home runs, and batted .288. In 1942, he
hit .285 in 113 games for the Red Sox at the age of 31. He was particularly
adept in night games, collecting 14 hits in 35 after-dark at-bats between 1939
and 1941 -- a .400 average, even better than the .324 mark Williams posted in 34
at-bats.
By 1942, World War II was changing the face of baseball. Players began to leave
the game to enter the military or to work in industries vital to the war. After
the season, Williams entered the Navy, where he served as a fighter
pilot. Finney, who had applied for a chief specialist rating in the Navy at one
point, returned home to the 171-acre cotton farm near White Plains, Alabama,
that he and his wife, the former Margie Griffin, owned in Chambers
County. Finney, who was 32 years old and had no children, had received his draft
notice, and had to choose between entering military service and staying on his
farm to grow food, an occupation deemed critical to the war effort. On January
11, 1943, the
New York
World
Telegram reported, “Lou Finney, Red Sox outfielder, was told by his
Alabama draft board to remain on his farm or be inducted.” He voluntarily
retired from the game and sat out the entire 1943 season and the first months of
the 1944 campaign. In June, two weeks after the Allies invaded France on D-Day,
Finney left Alabama and returned to baseball and Boston, though
The
Sporting
News noted he weighed a hefty 225 pounds when he reported. After a
week of conditioning, Finney was activated on June 25, and batted a respectable
.287 in 68 games. At the end of the season, his teammates voted him a full
share, $241.87, of their fourth-place money.
However, his Alabama draft board tracked Finney to Boston in August, and
delivered notice that he had been called to active duty and was required to
report for a medical examination. Again Finney returned to his farm. While
Finney farmed through the first half of the 1945 season, the Allied nations
subdued Germany in May, and moved closer to victory in the Pacific over
Japan. Once again, Finney journeyed north to rejoin the Red Sox.
Cronin,
who broke a leg on April 19 and hadn’t played since, inactivated himself to open
a roster spot for Finney on July 15, but used the Alabaman just twice, both
times as a pinch hitter, before the Red Sox sold his contract to the defending
American League champion St. Louis Browns on July 27, 1945.
At 35, he returned to the Browns at the start of the 1946 season. But the war
had ended the previous year, and many of the veterans had started to return to
organized baseball. And though Finney collected nine singles in 30 at-bats, a
.300 average, the Browns released him on May 29.
That summer, Finney returned to his roots and played 45 games at first base and
in the outfield for the last place Opelika Owls and later the second-place
Valley Rebels, who represented the tri-city area of Valley and Lanett, Alabama,
and West Point, Georgia, in the Georgia-Alabama League. He batted .299 and
clubbed six home runs for the two teams.
Finney took one more shot at the brass ring when he pinch-hit unsuccessfully
four times for the Philadelphia Phillies, his only at-bats in the National
League, before the Phillies released him on May 13, 1947, at the age of 36.
Less than a week later, with his major-league career done, Finney returned to
the minors, this time with St. Petersburg in the Class C Florida International
League. With the Saints floundering in last place and 17 games behind in the
standings, his old teammate Jimmie Foxx was fired on May 17. Finney took over a
few days later as a player-manager and guided St. Pete to a 71-80 record, good
for fifth in the eight-team league.
Lou ran
the family firm for the remainder of his life with Hal. Like Lou, Hal broke into
the major leagues in 1931. That year he played 10 games; six at catcher and four
as a pinch-hitter, for the Pirates. He played 31 games the next year, and 56 in
1933, when he hit his lone homer and drove in 18 runs. He played in five games
in 1934, spent the rest of that season in the minors with the Albany (New York)
Senators in the International League, missed the 1935 season because of a
fractured skull and an eye injury suffered in a tractor accident and started the
1936 season without a hit in 35 at-bats before the Pirates released him. The
brothers worked together in Chambers County until April 22, 1966, when Lou, at
the age of 55, suffered a coronary thrombosis, a blockage of a coronary artery,
and died at the Chambers County Hospital in La Fayette.
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