If you only get 13 games in the major leagues, make ’em count.
Ducky Detweiler sure did.
Robert Sterling “Ducky” Detweiler, a Trumbauersville native who graduated from Quakertown High in 1938, was a more than fair baseball player. The Philadelphia Athletics signed Detweiler in 1939 and assigned him to their class D affiliate in Federalsburg, Md. The next season, promoted to class B, third baseman Detweiler hit .313 with 38 extra-base hits in just 93 games.
Detweiler must have caught the eye of the Boston Braves, because 1941 found him suiting up for their affiliates. After an outstanding 1942, where he batted .341 and slugged .542 for Boston’s Class B Evansville Bees, the Braves called him up in mid-September to finish the season.
Detweiler debuted on Sept. 12 in Boston for manager Casey Stengel, playing both games of a doubleheader against the Pirates and both games of the next day’s twinbill against the Cubs. He showed he belonged, banging out seven hits in his first 15 at-bats.
The 7,700 odd fans who caught the second Cubs game also witnessed baseball history. Detweiler started at third and collected two singles. But that is not why this game will forever stand out in baseball lore.
Detweiler was not the only farmhand the Braves called up in mid-September. At the same time, the Braves also summoned a devastating young lefty from Buffalo who had been mowing down batters at class A Hartford.
His name was Warren Spahn. And even though rookie Spahn had pitched two relief outings for Boston in April, Sept. 13 marked his first-ever career start.
Spahn didn’t look like an immortal that day – he gave up 10 hits in five innings and was hurt by bad defense. But the first of Spahn’s 665 career starts was in the books.
Over the next 24 seasons, Spahn would lead the National League in wins eight times, strikeouts four times and WHIP four times. His 363 wins are the most of any left-hander in baseball history. Spahn’s 60 career shutouts are sixth all time and his 5,243 innings are eighth all time.
In 1957, Spahn won the Cy Young Award in leading the now-Milwaukee Braves to a World Series victory over Mickey Mantle’s and Yogi Berra’s New York Yankees. The southpaw threw a no-hitter at age 40. Spahn was a no-doubt about it election to Cooperstown in 1973.
Detweiler was not the only Bucks County infielder to start a landmark Braves game. Thirty-two years later a Council Rock graduate – Craig Robinson – played shortstop for the Braves on the day his teammate Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s all-time home run record.
Playing with one baseball immortal enough may have been enough for a week but on Sept. 19, Detweiler went 1-for-5 in Boston’s 7-6 loss to the New York Giants. Earning the win that day – the 248th of the 253 he would pick up in his career – was lefty Carl Hubbell. Hubbell, a three-time ERA champion who famously struck out Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, Al Simmons and Joe Cronin in succession in the 1934 All-Star Game, was another no-brainer election to the Hall of Fame.
Seeing two of baseball’s all-time greatest lefties in a six-day span was not a bad cup of coffee for Detweiler. Unfortunately, the war drums in 1942 grew louder and louder. Spahn fought in the Battle of the Bulge and earned a Purple Heart in Germany. “Our feet were frozen when we went to sleep and they were frozen when we woke up,” he said. “We didn’t have a bath or change of clothes for weeks.”
Neither could Detweiler escape inevitable military service. He hit an excellent .318 over his 46 plate appearances while with the Braves but the war effort was rounding up all able bodied men. Detweiler served in the Army Medical Corps, missing the next three baseball seasons.
On his return to the States, Detweiler played in the minors from 1946 to 1952. He got one more major league game – for Boston on June 1, 1946 – but an older player trying to break through in baseball’s Golden Era was nearly impossible. Perhaps seeing how difficult it was to get back into the big leagues, Detweiler spent four post-war seasons managing, as well as playing, in the Athletics’ system.
Detweiler settled in Federalsburg, on the Eastern Shore near the Delaware state line. He worked as a carrier for the Postal Service and ran a tavern. He was active in his community, serving his local Lutheran church, the Federalsburg Volunteer Fire Company and the American Legion. The Pennridge-Quakertown Hall of Fame inducted him in 1992. When Detweiler passed away in March 2013, his wife of 68 years – Jean – was by his side.
It is a significant accomplishment to make the Major Leagues for even one game; Detweiler did that. It is even more special that the weekend of Detweiler’s cup of coffee will always be notable to baseball history fans.
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