In 1945 World Series, Cubs had Milwaukee accent

The Chicago Cubs are in their first World Series in 71 years, no thanks to Milwaukee.

That wasn't true the last time the team made it to the Fall Classic.

The roster for the 2016 Cubs is, in this age of player mobility, oddly ex-Brewer-free: Only two of the team's coaches, pitching coach Chris Bosio and quality assurance coach Henry Blanco, put in any substantive time in a Milwaukee uniform.

The 1945 Cubs, on the other hand, had a thick Milwaukee accent, with a half-dozen former Brewers playing key roles and the team's manager, Charlie Grimm, a former pennant winner with the Milwaukee minor league team that called Borchert Field home.

"Those guys won't let me forget the Brewers," Grimm shouted to Milwaukee Journal sportswriter Sam Levy after the Cubs beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 6-5, on Sept. 25, 1945. The team won the pennant four days later.

"Those guys" were Cubs centerfielder Andy Pafko and second baseman Don Johnson. Pafko, from Boyceville, Wis., was the Cubs' breakout star in the 1945 season, driving in 110 runs and hitting .298, and establishing himself as one of the game's premier defensive outfielders.

Pafko, who Levy called "the thumping farmer boy from Boyceville," was signed by Brewers owner Bill Veeck in 1941, but he never actually played in Milwaukee. Veeck sold him to the Cubs, who brought him up to the majors at the end of the 1943 season.

"That guy down there," Grimm, referring to Pafko, told Levy in a column published in The Journal Sept. 30, "has been my life-saver this season. I don't know what we would have done without him. … I owe a lot to my old buddy, Bill Veeck, for having sent Andy to the Cubs. Of course, I didn't dream then that I would be managing Chicago and that Pafko would be with me."

(Grimm and Pafko would both return to Milwaukee a few years later with the Braves, but that is another story.)

Grimm was the Brewers' manager until he left early in the 1944 season to take the job with the Cubs. But he maintained his connection with the Milwaukee team and its owner, Veeck, who returned in 1945 after serving with the Marines in the Pacific.

Talking with Levy, Grimm credited the Cubs' 1945 success to his old Milwaukee ties.

Johnson, the team's second baseman who Grimm said was "sensational" when he played for him with the Brewers in 1943, was "much better today." First baseman Heinz Becker, who had been with the Brewers before joining the Cubs briefly in 1943, played his only full major-league season in 1945, batting .286 despite foot and ankle injuries.

"Becker hits the ball just as hard as he used to when he was with the Brewers," Grimm told Levy, noting that Becker would be having surgery after the season. "Heinz should not be in uniform now because of his ankle and foot injury, but he insists on being on hand to help out in a pinch. I admire his spirit."

Other former Milwaukee Brewers Grimm relied on during the 1945 season included pitchers Hy Vandenberg and Paul (Big Abner) Erickson, outfielder Frank Secory, and coach Red Smith.

He also had his old boss in his corner.

Journal sports editor Russell Lynch, in his Sept. 30 column, asked Brewers owner Veeck to "do the experting for this column on the forthcoming World Series." Veeck, whose Brewers had won three consecutive American Association titles only to lose the Junior World Series each time, predicted the Milwaukee-fueled Cubs would win the Series in six games.

"From where I'm sitting (the expert's seat), it looks for once as if the Brewers finally would win a postseason playoff. It's true that this one will be entitled World Series and will be played in Briggs Stadium (the Detroit Tigers' home ballpark) and Wrigley Field rather than at Borchert Field, but just the same, it's Milwaukee that is going to win."

In a story on Oct. 3, 1945, the day of the Series' Game 1, the Milwaukee Sentinel's baseball writer, Red Thisted, also predicted a Cubs win — in five games, unless they lost Game 1, then in six games.

The Cubs won Game 1 handily, 9-0, but it was a battle with the Tigers after that. Detroit toughed it out to win Game 7, and the Series, on Oct. 10, 1945 — until this week, the last time the Cubs had played a World Series game.