Charlie Devens
“All I wanted to do was play
baseball”
A Harvard graduate and a Major League Baseball player from
1932 to 1934, pitching (throwing the ball) for the New York Yankees, Charlie Devens was the last surviving member of the 1932 World Series. A championship
playoff famed for Babe Ruth’s accurate – though disputed – prediction that he
would hit his last ever home run to centre field (straight ahead of the
batter).
Before we turn our attention to Charlie, here’s a question for you. Which future President of the United States threw the ceremonial first pitch during the third game of the 1932 World Series? Find the answer below the sources.
Although part of the Yankees team in 1932, Charlie Devens
did not have the honour of pitching during the 1932 World Series. Maybe the stress
of not pitching gave him longevity in life, living until the ripe age of 93. In
a 1933 interview, Devens’ himself describes the life of a baseball player “a
lazy man’s existence”:
“You rise at about ten in the
morning, go out to the ball park in the early afternoon, and at 6 o'clock you
are through. The evenings are left to your own discretion.”
In the same interview, Charlie believed that his career as a
pitcher would be determined by his success in the next season. However,
unbeknownst to him at the time, it would be his father-in-law that would demand
his career to be cut short. Despite the decent pay check of a baseball player,
he refused to have a baseball player for a son-in-law. It was a different time.
"I think about it all the
time, it would've been fun to see what happened, but I have no regrets."
Charlie quit baseball for love.
Random Facts
- Devens was awarded a Bronze Star for his time as a Flight Deck Officer on the USS Intrepid when it was attacked by the Japanese in 1944.
- Charlie’s great-uncle, Charles Devens, was a Civil War hero and has a fort named after him in Massachusetts.
- The name Devens appears to be of Irish origin (O Daimhin) derived from the word “ox” or “stag”.
- Devens’ was given a bonus on $5,000 (~$89,000 in 2017) for signing a rookie contract with The Yankees. His salary and half-share in the World Series amounted to $10,000 (~$178,500 in 2017).
Sources
Answer
Franklin D. Roosevelt (Governor of New York in 1932)
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