COLUMN: Looking back at Cape Girardeau's role in STL Browns' World Series run

Capaha Field is the jewel of Cape Girardeau sports.

Nestled in the middle of Capaha field, it is home to the oldest amateur baseball team in America, an NCAA Division I baseball team, an exciting collegiate summer baseball team, numerous high school baseball games, and most recently, the Babe Ruth World Series. This old but enduring ballpark is active from mid-February through August.

It was also the starting point of a World Series run 80 years ago, as noted on Tuesday, April 23, when the Southeast Missouri State baseball team pay tribute with custom throwbacks during their game against Southern Illinois.

Due to World War II, MLB teams had to conduct spring training close to their home ballpark. The St. Louis Cardinals went to Cairo, Illinois, while the St. Louis Browns (today's Baltimore Orioles) went to Cape Girardeau from 1943-45.

A quick fun fact about these two teams back then: From 1902-53, St. Louis had two MLB teams (Browns and Cardinals) and they shared Sportsman Park until the Browns left for Baltimore. Another fun fact about the Browns is the one time they played in the World Series, the Cardinals were their opponent. The 1944 World Series, won by the Cardinals in six games, was the third Fall Classic to involve teams who shared a venue. The first two were between the New York Giants and Yankees in the Polo Grounds in 1921-22.

Something to keep in mind about the baseball landscape in the 1940s: Both the National League and American League had eight teams and were actually seen as competing leagues, unlike today where they're just conferences under the same umbrella. Instead of a playoff system, the team that finished the season in first place would represent their respective league in the World Series. Also, at a time that predates the Giants and Dodgers' migration to California, five cities (St. Louis, Chicago, Boston, New York, and Philadelphia) had teams from both leagues.

One more fun fact about the 1944 World Series: While Bill DeWitt Jr. is the current owner of the Cardinals, his father, Bill DeWitt Sr., was the general manager of the Browns who built a team with the only all-4F infield in the big leagues, a designation used when men were deemed unfit for military service. Among those army rejects was their best player, 23-year-old shortstop Vern Stephens. He couldn't serve in the military due to a bad knee but went on to hit 20 home runs and an AL-leading 109 RBI that season.

Baseball fans crowd the old wooden grandstand at Capaha Park during a Toledo Mudhens spring training session, circa 1944-45. Note the wooden shelter used as a dugout. Southeast Missourian archive

Back to Cape Girardeau.

While Capaha Park, then known as Fairground Park, was the spring training site for the Browns and their minor league affiliate, the Toledo Mud Hens, it took much of the city's athletic sites to serve as a proper big league training facility. The team trained at Houck and Field and used Houck Field House as a pitchers' bullpen and locker room. The AC Brase Arena was filled with dirt and converted into an indoor practice facility. The Arena Building played a valuable role in the Browns' training, during an era when indoor facilities didn't come standard.

"I'm getting in good shape under that roof," Browns catcher Frank Mancuso said on March 23, 1944, "along with the calisthenics and the track workout at the stadium." Mancuso drove in the winning run against Toledo in the first spring training game of 1944.

The Browns entered spring training in 1944 with plenty of optimism. The Southeast Missourian caught up with Earl Hillegan, manager of the American League Service Bureau, when he was in town to observe the Browns on March 22. He predicted then that 1944 was to be a wide-open race, and included the Browns (who finished 6th of 8 last year) in the mix.

Three members of the St. Louis Browns baseball team pose in front of the old Fairground Park grandstand in this undated photo. Fairground Park is now called Capaha Park.Southeast Missourian file

"The Browns' roster stacks up favorably with any other in the league," Hillegan told the SE Missourian. "They have good pitching and catching and their infield is as good, if not better, as anyone in our circuit."

He wasn't wrong. Behind their pair of aces in Jack Kramer (2.49 ERA) and Nels Potter (2.83 ERA), the Browns' pitching staff led the AL in strikeouts (581) and had an ERA of 3.17, which was the second-lowest in the league. As for their infield, Stephens and first baseman George McQuinn, the Browns were second in the AL in home runs, runs scored, and runs per game.

The daily spring training updates from the Browns and battles with their minor league counterparts from Toldeo dominated the SE Missourian's sports coverage. Back then, MLB, high school sports, and bowling comprised the coverage of a section that never had a page to itself.

The Browns left Cape Girardeau on April 7, 1944, to return to St. Louis for a series of exhibition games against the Cardinals leading up to opening day. Little did they know back then it was a precursor to the eventual Fall Classic.

According to Frank Nickell, an emeritus faculty member of Southeast Missouri State University, Browns manager Luke Sewell credited Cape Girardeau as a contributing factor to the Browns' success, saying the pitching staff had a quick start due to being well conditioned. It showed as the Browns started the 1944 season 13-4. They swept the New York Yankees in the final series of the season to finish one game ahead of the Detroit Tigers to win the AL Pennant.

"It took Cape Girardeau just two years to do what Florida and California couldn't do in 40 years," then Cape Girardeau mayor Raymond E. Beckman said on Oct. 2, 1944.

K. P. Oldfield, who was the chairman of the baseball committee responsible for bringing the Browns to Cape Girardeau said on on Oct. 2, 1944, "We feel like we, just as much as St. Louis, can claim the pennant."

The Browns came back for their third and final spring training camp with Toledo in 1945. That same spring, Cape Girardeau fans were the very first to see a one-armed outfielder named Pete Gray train. At the conclusion, it was reported by the SE Missourian on April 7, 1945, that the Browns spent $500 per day, which is the equivalent of $8,616.46 in 2024. Sewell mentioned that Cape Girardeau received publicity from virtually every newspaper in America, a point seconded by their traveling secretary, Charles DeWitt.

"After the war, many persons will want to visit Cape Girardeau because this was the war-time training camp of the Browns, the place where they conditioned to win their first American League pennant in history," DeWitt said. "That fact alone is more than a passing event with the St. Louis Browns themselves — it's history for us."