Background
Thomas Jefferson Davis Bridges was born on December 28, 1906 in Gordonsville, Tennessee, the son of Joseph G. Bridges, a country doctor, and Flossie Davis.
Thomas Jefferson Davis Bridges was born on December 28, 1906 in Gordonsville, Tennessee, the son of Joseph G. Bridges, a country doctor, and Flossie Davis.
Thomas Bridges attended elementary school at New Middleton, Tennessee, and graduated from the Gordonsville high school. At the age of ten he was playing baseball and could throw a sinking curveball, the pitch that became the key to his professional success.
He entered the University of Tennessee in 1925, and although he remained four academic years, he left in 1929 without a degree. A right-handed thrower and batter, Bridges was a star pitcher for the varsity baseball team and its captain during the 1928 and 1929 seasons. Bridges' family wanted him to be a physician.
However, Billy Doyle, a scout for the Detroit Tigers, saw Bridges pitch at Tennessee and signed him to a contract with Wheeling, West Virginia, in the Middle Atlantic League. Bridges reported to Wheeling in June 1929 and during the season won ten games and lost three, striking out 106 batters in 129 innings.
In 1930 he moved to Evansville, Indiana, a Tiger farm team in the Three-I League. He won seven games and lost eight at Evansville before joining the Tigers toward the end of the season on the recommendation of the Tiger scout Wish Egan. He won three games and lost two during the partial season at Detroit.
Bridges spent his entire sixteen-year major-league career with the Tigers. He won 194 games, including 33 shutouts, and lost 138. His career earned-run average was 3. 57. His tendency to wildness hindered him somewhat early in his career. In a game against the St. Louis Browns on August 25, 1930, he walked twelve players. Bucky Harris worked with him patiently, and Bridges gained control and confidence. He continued to be a bit wild, but this often worked to his advantage by making batters uneasy at the plate.
The sharp-breaking curve became his forte, but despite his size (155 pounds; five feet, ten inches) he had a very good fastball. Cochrane, Detroit's catcher at the peak of Bridges' career, claimed he won most of his games with his fastball. And Bridges agreed that "a curve isn't worth a hoot unless the batter respects your fast ball. "
During his second full season with the Tigers, Bridges, in a game with the Washington Senators on August 5, 1932, pitched until two were out in the ninth inning without allowing a man to reach first base. With the score 13-0, the Washington manager Walter Johnson, a former pitching great, sent the outfielder Dave Harris up as a pinch hitter. Harris, one of the league's best curveball hitters, rapped a single to left field and broke up Bridges' perfect game. Johnson was criticized in some quarters for putting in a skilled curveball hitter under the circumstances. But Bridges would have none of it. "I don't want credit for a perfect game unless I honestly earn it. I wouldn't get any satisfaction if someone deliberately laid down on his job to hand it to me. " On May 24, 1933, again against the Senators, the first baseman Joe Kuhel hit a home run off Bridges in the ninth inning and broke up a no-hitter. It was not until 1947, after Bridges had returned to the minor leagues, that he pitched his only no-hitter, for the Portland Beavers in the Pacific Coast League. Opposing players, after a swinging third strike, sometimes accused Bridges of throwing a spitball, banned since 1920, but he was never officially charged with it. "Have you ever watched a ball roll across a table, then fall to the floor?" one player asked. "If so, then you have seen Bridges' curve. " Some credibility is lent to the batters' complaints by an unauthenticated story that has it that Cochrane one day rolled the ball back to Bridges on the ground after a pitch. Spike Briggs, Jr. , the Tigers' owner, the story goes, asked Cochrane after the game why he did it. "Well, " the catcher said, "I had to do something to get the chewing gum off the ball. " In the 1934, 1935, and 1936 seasons Bridges won a total of sixty-six games. He led the American League in strikeouts in 1935 (163), and in 1936 in both strikeouts (175) and victories (23). He pitched in four World Series--in 1934, when the Tigers lost to the St. Louis Cardinals; in 1935, when the Tigers defeated the Chicago Cubs; in 1940, when the Tigers lost to the Cincinnati Reds; and in 1945, when the Tigers again bested the Cubs.
In World Series competition Bridges won four games and lost one.
He lost to Paul Dean in the third game of the 1934 series, 4-1, but beat Dizzy Dean, 3-1, in game five. In 1935 he won the second game, 8-3, against Charlie Root, and the sixth and deciding game, 4-3, against Larry French.
In the 1940 series he won the third game against Jim Turner, 7-4. Bridges pitched less than two innings in the 1945 series. His World Series earned-run average was 3. 52.
After his release from the Tigers in 1946, Bridges pitched three seasons for Portland, compiling a 33-25 record.
In 1950 he pitched in a total of eleven games for Seattle and San Francisco in the Pacific Coast League. In 1951 he worked as a coach for the Toledo Mud Hens.
He retired to Lakeland, Florida, to work as a salesman for a Detroit tire firm and as a scout for the Tigers (1958 - 1960) and the New York Mets (1963 - 1968). Later, he instructed young pitchers at the Tiger spring training camp at Lakeland.
Bridges died in Nashville, Tennessee in 1968 at age 61.
He was a dependable, hardworking player, unwilling to speak unkindly of anyone. He had a drinking problem, but it usually did not affect his ability to function.
Quotes from others about the person
After the game, manager Mickey Cochrane said the following of Bridge's gutsy performance:
“A hundred and fifty pounds of courage. If there ever is a payoff on courage, this little 150 pound pitcher is the greatest World Series hero. "
On March 21, 1930, Bridges married Carolyn Jellicose. The marriage ended in a divorce; they had one child. On May 17, 1950, he married Iona Veda Kidwell; they had no children.