 The Gashouse District was a
section of the lower East Side of Manhattan, an area that once had housed
several large gas tanks. Historians have described the general area
there as a rough neighborhood, with writer Frank Moss saying,
"Perhaps the most unique of all vicious drinking places is a 'dead
house' on 18th Street in what is called the 'gashouse district,' a hangout
for vagrants and bums of New York, Brooklyn and New Jersey."
The neighborhood came to be known best for its wandering group of
particularly cruel thugs: the Gashouse Gang.
The best-known Cardinals might have perhaps
been their own Gashouse Gang, as well.
Hard to tell exactly how the 1934 Cardinals
came to be called after the Gashousers and forever in baseball lore linked
to that nickname. Perhaps the true story is the one about the day in
the 1934 season when the Cards arrived in New York to play the Giants
after playing the Boston Braves in a rain-soaked game. Being the
passionate, ever-sliding bunch that they were, the Cardinals' uniforms
carried the dark color of grime. And they didn't have the luxury of
extra uniforms or the ability to wash the ones they had after each
game. When they first appeared at the Polo Grounds, one New York
sportswriter noted that they looked like "the gang from around the
gashouse."
Or maybe the truth began in a conversation
between writer Frank Graham of the New York Sun and a member of
that Cardinals team. Graham said the Cardinals might even be good
enough to play in the American League. The player, probably either
Leo Durocher or Pepper Martin, responded: "They wouldn't let us
play in the American League. They'd say we were just a bunch of
gashouse players." Graham made liberal use of the nickname
after that.
Durocher, in his autobiography, recalled
the team wearing the dirty uniforms to the Big Apple and "the next
day, I saw a cartoon in the World-Telegram. It showed two big
gas tanks on the wrong side of the railroad track, and some ballplayers
crossing over to the good part of town carrying clubs over their shoulders
instead of bats. And the title read: 'the Gashouse Gang.' "
Though perhaps the best-known of the
Cardinals' teams, they probably weren't the most athletically
talented. They certainly didn't look the part. They wore
stained, dirty uniforms that didn't fit right and were patched up in
several places. Many didn't shave before games. Most chewed
tobacco, spit out the sides of their mouths, rubbed the backs of their
hands across their mouths, and then wiped the backs of their hands across
their shirts.
Thick-necked, knotty-muscled, cussin' and
fightin' - with enemy ballplayers, fans, umpires, club owners, league
officials, even commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis.
Somehow, through all that, they captured
the imagination of baseball fans everywhere in 1934 and the respect of
everyone by winning the World Championship.
The Gashouse Gang page
has had 
visitors.
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