Regular Season
On opening day, Babe Ruth was part of all of the Braves' runs in a 4-2 win over the New York Giants. However, Ruth was only a shadow of his former self, as years of high living had made a shambles of his conditioning. He couldn't run, and his fielding was so terrible that three of the Braves' pitchers threatened to go on strike if Ruth were in the lineup. A month into the season, Ruth stopped hitting as well. It soon became obvious that Ruth's titles as vice president and assistant manager were mere window dressing, and that he was only on the team due to the attention he commanded. He also discovered that rather than give him a share of the Braves' profits, Fuchs expected him to invest some of his money in the team.
Seeing a team in utter collapse and realizing he was finished as a player, Ruth retired on June 1, six days after he had had what remains one of the most memorable afternoons in baseball history. He clouted what turned out to be the last three home runs of his career in a game at Forbes Field while playing the Pittsburgh Pirates. He'd wanted to quit as early as May 12, but Fuchs wanted him to hang on so he could play in every National League park. Fuchs lost control of the team soon afterward.
Despite fielding essentially the same team that finished fourth a year earlier, the 1935 season quickly turned into a debacle. In fact, their Opening Day win was the only time they were over .500 all year. The Braves finished 38-115, the worst season in franchise history. Their .248 winning percentage is the third-worst in baseball history (behind only the 1899 Cleveland Spiders and 1916 Philadelphia Athletics) and the second-worst in modern baseball history. During the season, Braves pitcher Ben Cantwell would be the last pitcher in the 20th century to lose at least 25 games in one season.
Read more about this topic: 1935 Boston Braves Season
Famous quotes containing the words regular and/or season:
“He hung out of the window a long while looking up and down the street. The world’s second metropolis. In the brick houses and the dingy lamplight and the voices of a group of boys kidding and quarreling on the steps of a house opposite, in the regular firm tread of a policeman, he felt a marching like soldiers, like a sidewheeler going up the Hudson under the Palisades, like an election parade, through long streets towards something tall white full of colonnades and stately. Metropolis.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“To me a book is a message from the gods to mankind; or, if not, should never be published at all.... A message from the gods should be delivered at once. It is damnably blasphemous to talk about the autumn season and so on. How dare the author or publisher demand a price for doing his duty, the highest and most honourable to which a man can be called?”
—Aleister Crowley (1875–1947)