Carl Hubbell

Professional career

Hubbell began his professional baseball career in the Oklahoma State League in 1923. After a 17–13 season in 1925 with the Oklahoma City Indians of the Western League, he was signed by the Detroit Tigers and invited to spring training in 1926. Pitching coach George McBride and player-manager Ty Cobb, fearing injury, ordered him to abandon his trademark screwball. Without it, Hubbell was ineffective and was sent to the Toronto Maple Leafs of the International League, where he went 7–7 while forbidden to throw the pitch.

He was demoted to the Decatur Commodores of the Illinois–Indiana–Iowa League after spring training 1927, and despite a 14–7 record, the Tigers did not invite him back for 1928, instead sending him to the Beaumont Exporters of the Texas League. Frustrated, Hubbell told Beaumont manager Claude Robinson he would retire and enter the oil business unless sold to another organization by season's end; he later called being released by the Tigers the best thing that ever happened to him.

His break came in June 1928 when Giants scout Dick Kinsella, in Houston for the Democratic National Convention, watched Hubbell pitch against the Houston Buffs and was impressed. Kinsella contacted Giants manager John McGraw, who noted that Christy Mathewson had thrown a screwball (then called a fadeaway) without arm trouble. After following Hubbell for a month, Kinsella remained impressed. Hubbell went 10–6 in his first major league season and spent his entire big-league career with the Giants.

New York Giants (1928–1943)

Using a slow delivery of his screwball, he recorded five consecutive 20-win seasons from 1933 to 1937, helping the Giants to three National League pennants and the 1933 World Series title. In that Series, he won two complete games, including an 11-inning 2–1 victory in Game Four (the run was unearned). Over six career World Series starts, he was 4–2 with 32 strikeouts and a 1.79 earned run average.

Personal life

Hubbell married Lucille "Sue" Harrington in 1930; they remained married until her death in 1967. The couple had two sons, Carl Jr. (born 1936) and James. Carl Jr. played briefly in the lower minor leagues and later became a career officer in the United States Marine Corps.

On November 19, 1988, Hubbell suffered a stroke while driving near his home in Mesa, Arizona, causing him to crash into a lamppost. He died of blunt force injuries two days later at a hospital in Scottsdale and is interred at Meeker-Newhope Cemetery in Meeker, Oklahoma. His death came exactly 30 years after that of his teammate Mel Ott, who also died from injuries sustained in an automobile accident.

Baseball honors

Carl Hubbell earned All-Star honors nine times, being chosen every year from 1933 through 1938 and again from 1940 to 1942. He entered the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1947. In 1999, The Sporting News ranked him 45th on its list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, and he was also a finalist for the Major League Baseball All-Century Team.

Hubbell was the first National League player to have his uniform number retired; his number 11 is displayed on the upper deck facing in left field at Oracle Park. He received the American Academy of Achievement’s Golden Plate Award in 1981. Hubbell played himself in the film Big Leaguer and was featured in Ogden Nash’s poem “Line-Up for Yesterday.”

Did You Know?

• Hubbell was born in Carthage, Missouri, to Margaret Dell (née Upp) and George Owen Hubbell, one of seven children, and was raised in Meeker, Oklahoma, where he attended Meeker High School.
• After high school, he worked for an oil company and played for their baseball team, which encouraged him to play professionally.
• At the 1984 All-Star Game in San Francisco's Candlestick Park, the 50th anniversary of his legendary 1934 performance, Hubbell threw out the first pitch, which was a screwball.