Career Stats
Regular Season
| Year | G | GS | W | L | SV | IP | H | ER | K | BB | ERA | WHIP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1942 | 26 | 21 | 15 | 4 | 1 | 187.1 | 165 | 52 | 88 | 72 | 2.50 | 1.27 |
| 1943 | 32 | 27 | 14 | 9 | 0 | 242.0 | 223 | 74 | 126 | 78 | 2.75 | 1.24 |
| 1944 | 35 | 30 | 17 | 12 | 2 | 252.2 | 224 | 74 | 107 | 88 | 2.64 | 1.23 |
| 1945 | 18 | 18 | 10 | 5 | 0 | 132.1 | 107 | 46 | 35 | 58 | 3.13 | 1.25 |
| Career | 111 | 96 | 56 | 30 | 3 | 814.1 | 719 | 246 | 356 | 296 | 2.72 | 1.25 |
Career-best seasons highlighted in gold. Stats via Retrosheet.
Postseason
| Year | G | GS | W | L | SV | IP | H | ER | K | BB | ERA | WHIP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1942 | 1 | -- | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3.0 | -- | -- | -- | -- | 18.00 | -- |
| 1943 | 1 | -- | 1 | 0 | 0 | 8.0 | -- | -- | -- | -- | 2.25 | -- |
| Career | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 11.0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
Hank Borowy was a pitcher who played for the New York Yankees from 1942 to 1945. Career stats: 56-30 record, 2.72 ERA, 356 strikeouts.
July 27, 1945. A Friday. Hank Borowy is 10-5 for a fourth-place Yankees team, an All-Star-caliber arm on a wartime pitching staff running on fumes. By that evening, he's a Chicago Cub. The Yankees just sold their best starter for cash, in the middle of a pennant race, and let him walk out the door unclaimed by a single other American League club. Ten weeks later, Borowy is on the mound for Game 1 of the World Series -- for somebody else.
Borowy pitched for the New York Yankees from 1942 to 1945, going 56-30 with a 2.72 ERA across 814.1 innings, a war-era workhorse who anchored the rotation while DiMaggio, Rizzuto, and half the roster were off in uniform. Then, in one of the most second-guessed transactions in franchise history, the club sold him -- and he spent the rest of that October proving exactly how wrong they were.
From Bloomfield to the Bronx
Henry Ludwig Borowy grew up in Bloomfield, New Jersey, close enough to Yankee Stadium that you could almost throw a ball there. He pitched at Fordham, signed with the Yankees, and spent three seasons working his way up through Newark -- a partial season in 1939, 12-10 in 1940, then a breakout 17-10 in 1941 that finally got the big club's attention. The Yankees' system was so deep in those years that a 17-win minor-league season barely moved the needle (Newark was practically its own major league in that era, stocked with players who'd have started for half the American League). War moved the needle for him instead.
By 1942, half the league's able-bodied pitchers were overseas, and the Yankees needed arms. Borowy got his chance and never looked back -- 15-4 as a rookie, a complete-game workload from the jump, and a spot in a rotation that also had Red Ruffing and Spud Chandler on it. He wasn't just filling a wartime hole. He was outpitching most of the men who weren't at war.
| NYY Record | 56-30 |
| NYY ERA | 2.72 |
| Innings Pitched | 814.1 |
| Strikeouts | 356 |
| Complete Games | 53 |
| World Series Titles (NYY) | 1 (1943) |
| All-Star Selections | 1 (1944) |
The Rotation's Best Arm
Borowy followed his rookie year with 14-9 in 1943, then started -- and won -- Game 3 of the 1943 World Series against St. Louis, 6-2, working eight innings before Joe McCarthy waved in Johnny Murphy to close out the ninth. It's the only World Series decision of his Yankees career that went in the win column. A year earlier, in Game 4 of the 1942 World Series, he'd started against the Cardinals with a 1-0 lead intact into the fourth -- then watched it evaporate as St. Louis strung together six runs' worth of hits and walks off him, Atley Donald coming on in relief of a game the Yankees eventually lost 9-6. No decision, a hard lesson, and a résumé note that didn't come close to telling the whole story.
By 1944, with Chandler in the Army, Borowy carried the staff outright -- 17-12, 2.64 ERA, and a trip to the actual All-Star Game, where he threw three scoreless innings. He was, by any measure, the best pitcher the Yankees had left. That's exactly what made what happened the following summer so hard to explain.
The Sale
The Yankees of 1945 were nobody's idea of a contender -- a roster held together by 4-Fs and retreads while the real talent finished out the war overseas. Borowy was still good. Through July 27, he was 10-5. And on that Friday, new club president Larry MacPhail put him on outright waivers and sold him to the Chicago Cubs for $97,000. Not one American League club claimed him along the way.
MacPhail had an explanation ready, built around stamina rather than results:
This year he pitched four complete games for us after April, none after June 24. Last season he won only five and lost eight after July 15. In short, he has not been, for the Yankees, a pitcher who could be relied upon when pitching class was needed most.
It read like a justification written for people who hadn't seen the record -- 10-5 on a fourth-place team is exactly the kind of pitcher you'd want when pitching class was needed most. The 1945 Yankees finished six and a half games out. They'll never know how much closer they'd have gotten with their best arm still in the rotation.
Revenge, Just Not the Kind Anyone Expected
Borowy didn't slow down in Chicago. He went 11-2 down the stretch with a league-leading 2.13 ERA, giving him a combined 21-7 record across both stops that season -- and the Cubs rode him straight to the National League pennant, edging St. Louis by three games. The Sporting News named him its NL Pitcher of the Year. The writers put him sixth in the MVP voting (a pitcher who couldn't crack the Yankees' plans in July finishing ahead of most of the National League by October). None of it happened in pinstripes.
Then came the 1945 World Series against Detroit, and Borowy turned in one of the strangest workloads in World Series history. He shut out the Tigers on six hits in Game 1, 9-0. He started and lost Game 5, 8-4. The very next day, he came out of the bullpen in Game 6 and held Detroit scoreless over the final four innings of an 8-7, 12-inning Cubs win that forced a Game 7 -- his third appearance of the Series. Manager Charlie Grimm turned right around and started him again on a single day's rest. Borowy was gone before he recorded an out, three straight Tigers singles chasing him in the first inning of a 9-3 loss that ended the Series. Four decisions in one World Series, the most by any pitcher since Red Faber in 1917. He finished 2-2, and it still wasn't enough.
The Yankees didn't see a pitch of any of it. Their former ace beat the American League champion in a Series that belonged to somebody else's league entirely -- proof enough that MacPhail had given away something real, even if the receipt said the Yankees never got to cash it in.
Major League Debut
Borowy debuts for the Yankees, part of a wartime roster overhaul that hands a 25-year-old minor-league veteran his shot at last.
World Series Game 4 Start
Starts against the Cardinals with a 1-0 lead, gets knocked out during a six-run St. Louis fourth. Atley Donald relieves. Cardinals win 9-6, take a 3-1 Series lead.
World Series Game 3 Win
Beats St. Louis 6-2 in the only World Series decision of his Yankees career, working eight innings before Johnny Murphy closes out the ninth. The Yankees win the title in five.
All-Star Season
Goes 17-12 with a 2.64 ERA as the Yankees' best remaining starter and throws three scoreless innings in that year's All-Star Game.
Sold to the Cubs
Larry MacPhail sells Borowy, 10-5 at the time, to Chicago on outright waivers for $97,000. No American League club claims him first.
World Series Game 1 Shutout
Pitching for the Cubs, throws a six-hit, 9-0 shutout over Detroit and Hal Newhouser in his first World Series start since leaving New York.
World Series Game 7 on One Day's Rest
Starts on no real rest after relieving in Game 6 and is chased in the first inning of a 9-3 loss that ends the Cubs' Series.
Life After the Mound
Borowy pitched on for several more seasons -- with the Cubs into 1948, then the Phillies, briefly the Pirates, and finally the Tigers -- before retiring in 1951. He went home to Bloomfield afterward and built a career in real estate, staying in the business into the early 1990s (a much quieter second act than four World Series decisions in one October). He died in 2004 at 88, decades removed from the trade that made him famous, still the answer to a very specific Yankees trivia question: who's the last pitcher to start a World Series Game 1 just ten weeks after his own team sold him off in the middle of a pennant race?
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
What years did Hank Borowy play for the Yankees?
Hank Borowy pitched for the Yankees from 1942 to 1945, going 56-30 with a 2.72 ERA across 814.1 innings. He debuted in April 1942 and was sold to the Chicago Cubs in July 1945.
Why did the Yankees sell Hank Borowy in 1945?
On July 27, 1945, Yankees president Larry MacPhail sold Borowy -- who was 10-5 at the time -- to the Chicago Cubs on outright waivers for $97,000. MacPhail cited a lack of complete games late in the season as justification. No American League club claimed him first. The sale is remembered as one of the most controversial in-season moves in franchise history.
What did Hank Borowy do in the 1945 World Series?
Pitching for the Cubs against Detroit, Borowy threw a 9-0 shutout in Game 1, lost Game 5, pitched four scoreless relief innings in Game 6, then started Game 7 on one day's rest and was chased in the first inning of a 9-3 loss that ended the Series. His four decisions were the most by any World Series pitcher since 1917.
Did Hank Borowy win a World Series with the Yankees?
Yes. He was part of the Yankees' 1943 championship team, starting and winning Game 3 against St. Louis, 6-2. It's the only World Series decision of his Yankees career that went his way -- in 1942 he took a no-decision in a Game 4 start the Yankees lost.
The Yankees moved on fine without him -- DiMaggio and Rizzuto came home from the war, McCarthy's successors rebuilt around them, and the dynasty picked up again within a couple of years. But for one October, the pitcher they gave away for $97,000 took the ball more times than anyone else on either World Series roster. The Yankees just had to read about it in the papers.