Medwick and the Fruit Barrage

The Cardinals were already blowing out the Tigers in Game 7 of the 1934 World Series when Joe Medwick slid hard into third baseman Marv Owen at Navin Field. The date was October 9. Detroit did not appreciate it. When Medwick went back to left field, the crowd pelted him with fruit, bottles, and vegetables. Play stopped.

Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis was in the ballpark. He removed Medwick from the game, not as a punishment entered in a box score but because the left fielder was no longer safe. St. Louis won, 11–0, and the Gashouse Gang had its championship. Medwick's bat was not the story of the afternoon by then. The crowd was.

It is an early, unmistakable case of a ballpark deciding it would rather throw things than watch the rest of a lost game. The commissioner sided with getting his player off the field.