1940 East-West Game

The 1940 East-West Game was the 8th East-West Game held in Chicago, IL. It took place on August 18. The East knotted the Chicago matches at four games apiece despite having lost three of its best hitters to the Mexican League in Josh Gibson, Willie Wells and Ray Dandridge. Not only did the East win on their opponents' home field, but they did so in the biggest shellacking in East-West Game history, 11-0. The West was so badly outplayed that they had more errors (6) than hits (5).

Henry McHenry, Poppa Ruiz and Ray Brown combined on the shutout, the second one in East-West history, following a 1-0 pitchers' duel in 1934. No West batter had more than one hit and none had an extra-base hit against those three hurlers. On the other hand, Gene Bremer (2 R in 3 IP), Walt Calhoun (6 R, 3 ER in 2 1/3 IP) and Hilton Smith (3 R, 2 ER in 3 IP) could not contain the East - only Connie Johnson (2/3 of an inning) did not give up a run among the Western hurlers.

For the East batters, numerous players had big days. Buck Leonard went 3 for 4 with 2 walks, 2 steals and 3 RBI, Marvin Barker was 3 for 5 with a run and a RBI, Alejandro Crespo had the longest hit of the day (a triple) and reached base in two of three plate appearances. Three other players got multiple hits and ten different players scored for the East, with Dick Seay leading the club with two. Seay, Rabbit Martinez and Howard Easterling played excellent infield defense. Defensively, the West was atrocious, with Leroy Morney making four of their six errors.

Top vote-getters for the contest were Smith (83,773), Leonard (75,578), Donald Reeves (69,968), Bob Bowe (61,180) and Sammy Hughes (61,112). Bowe did not appear as he had left his Chicago club due to frustration over monetary issues.