Spurgeon “Spud” Chandler was born on September 12, 1907, in Commerce, Georgia. He attended the University of Georgia where he was a four-year baseball and three-year football varsity athlete, pitching and playing halfback.
Chandler signed with the New York Yankees in 1932, and played with Springfield and Binghamton his rookie year. Working his way through the Yanks’ farm system, he had stops at Newark, Minneapolis, Syracuse, Oakland and Portland before making it to the major league club at the age of 29 in 1937.
Chandler was 7-4 in 12 appearances that year, and was 14-5 in 1938. But through relentlessly pushing himself on every pitch he suffered a sore arm and made only eleven appearances the following year, all in relief. He then made a steady comeback winning eight games in 1940, 10 in 1941, 16 in 1942 and then having a career-year in 1943 with an exceptional 20-4 record to earn the MVP Award. His 1.64 ERA established a modern major league record, the best in the game since Walter Johnson’s 1.49 mark in 1919.
“With any kind of luck,” Chandler said, “I could have been 24-0. I pitched five shutouts and nine one-run games and the most runs they ever scored on me was three earned runs; and hell with the hitter we had . . .”
Chandler pitched just one game in 1944 before he was called to military service with the Army. He was 37 years old and classified 1-AL, restricting him from active duty, due to limitation of movement in his right arm. Initially based at the Fort McPherson Reception Center in Georgia, Private Chandler was soon assigned to the Headquarters Company of the 65th Infantry Division at Camp Shelby, Georgia.
On June 10, 1944, Chandler was given an emergency furlough from Camp Shelby to visit his wife in St. Petersburg, Florida, following the tragic death of their newborn son. The child had survived only a few hours following a Caesarean operation.
While in the service Chandler hoped he would get the opportunity to play baseball on a daily basis. “But the Army isn’t run that way,” he told The Sporting News in September 1944. “If they’d wanted me to be a pitcher, they would have had me stay with the Yankees. I’m proud now that I was assigned to an infantry unit as a soldier, because I now realize the importance of my job. And it’s a hard job, too. I’ve had to learn to fire more types of weapons than I ever knew existed.”
Chandler did, however, find time to pitch a few games for the Special Troops team in the Camp Shelby League.
On September 9, 1944, a presentation was made by Major General Stanley E. Reinhart at Camp Shelby in recognition of Chandler’s selection by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America as the American League’s Most Valuable Player of 1943. General Reinhart presented Private Chandler with an engraved watch.
Private Chandler receives an engraved watch from Major General Stanley E. Reinhart
Chandler was based at Moore General Hospital in Asheville, North Carolina in 1945, where he had an opportunity to pitch for the hospital ball team. On August 3, 1945, for example, he defeated the Appalachian League all-star team.
Spud Chandler was discharged in September 1945, and was back in Yankee pinstripes within days. On September 9, an astonishing crowd of 72,152, turned out to watch Chandler against Bob Feller in the first game of a Sunday double-header. Feller was in fine form, winning 10-3, while Chandler was a long way from being ready but the New York crowd was happy to have their MVP hurler back.
Chandler came back in style in 1946 despite being 38 years old. He was 20-8 with a 2.10 ERA and was selected to the American League all-star team for the third time. Arm problems hampered him throughout the following year and he dropped to 9-5 in 17 games. He underwent surgery to remove bone chips from his elbow at the end of the 1947 season but the magic had gone and the Yankees gave him his unconditional release after spring training in 1948.
In a major league career that spanned 11 seasons, Chandler won 109 games and lost only 43 for a .717 winning percentage, the best winning percentage for any pitcher since Al Spalding in the 1870s.
Chandler continued to work for the Yankees organization as a scout and then a minor league manager. In later years he scouted for Kansas City, Cleveland and Minnesota, before retiring to St. Petersburg, Florida in 1985.
Spud Chandler was in good health until a fall in September 1989, when he suffered a fractured shoulder. Complications set in and he died of heart failure, aged 82, at South Pasadena, Florida, on January 9, 1990.
You can contact me at gary@baseballinwartime.com
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