When the Cubs and Yankees played each other in Game 3 of the 1932 World Series, two VIPs were sitting in the front row; Mayor Anton Cermak of Chicago and Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt of New York.
Roosevelt was the Democratic nominee for the Presidency and was campaigning in the Midwest. The paraplegic Roosevelt leaned against his son as he threw out the first pitch. He was the guest of Cermak, who was poised to deliver Chicago's vote to the Presidential challenger. Cermak was the creator and founder of Chicago's Democratic Machine, and was extremely powerful despite only having been the Mayor since 1931.
History hasn't noted what these two men discussed that day, but it has mythologized the game itself. It was the game that Babe Ruth supposedly called his shot. (Read all about that game here.)
The Cubs were a powerhouse during Mayor Cermak's time in office, and he happily got on the bandwagon. (Video: Parade saluting the pennant winning 1932 Cubs. Cermak is seen toward the end of clip, swinging a bat). Unfortunately for him, he never went to another Cubs game after that World Series loss to the Yankees.
On December 19, 1932, just a few short months after the series ended, Cermak made a miscalculation that may have ended his life. Cermak sent two tough police detectives to Frank Nitti’s office (Al Capone's successor). Nitti had no gun, but Cermak's detectives shot him three times, twice in the back, and once in the neck. It appears that Cermak, who had been voted in on a pledge of cleaning up crime, was doing so not to actually clean up crime, but to get his own bootleggers more control.
Cermak (on the right in this photo), a Bohemian immigrant called "Tough Tony," was not a crime crusader, particularly when it came to alcohol. In fact, while he was still chairman of the Cook County Board of Commissioners, Tough Tony held huge forest preserve picnics for his supporters—for which he was given 100 free barrels of beer from north side bootlegger Roger Touhy. He sold the beer for a buck a mug. This was during Prohibition.
A little over a month after Nitti's attack, when it became obvious that he wouldn’t die, Cermak hi-tailed it out of town to Miami. His stated purpose was to have an audience with his Cubs game mate, Franklin D. Roosevelt. It was a fateful audience.
Roosevelt emerged from a yacht in Miami on February 15, 1933 after a fishing trip in the Bahamas, and a small crowd was there to greet him. Chicago Mayor Anton J. Cermak was in the crowd, and so was Giuseppe Zangara.
After a short speech, Roosevelt motioned Cermak to his side in the back seat of a convertible. They were talking to each other when Zangara (photo) raised a handgun and began shooting. He claimed to be aiming for Roosevelt, but he hit Cermak and four others. The crowd collapsed on Zangara, and wrestled him to the ground, as Cermak was rushed to the hospital in Roosevelt's car. During that ride, with Roosevelt at his side, Cermak supposed said: "I am glad it was me instead of you."
Did he really say that? Those who knew both men say it was highly unlikely. Their relationship was strained because Cermak hadn't supported Roosevelt for his nomination, and though they had made up, "Tough Tony" the Bohemian immigrant, wasn't exactly a huge fan of the aristocratic Roosevelt.
The real question is: was the assassin trying to hit Roosevelt or Cermak? Everyone assumed the intended victim was Roosevelt, but the triggerman Giuseppe Zangara was Sicilian, and it’s very possible he was sent by the Chicago Outfit to retaliate for the move on Nitti. We'll never know for sure. Zangara was executed only a few weeks after Cermak died.
After Cermak's death on March 6, 1933, 22nd Street was renamed "Cermak".
A few weeks later on Opening Day at Wrigley Field, the Chicago Cubs had a moment of silence in honor of their fallen mayor.
They finished in third place that season, six games behind the New York Giants.
(Photo Credits: Roosevelt at Wrigley/Bettman-Corbis, Tough Tony/Czechs in America, Giuseppe Zangara/Chicago Herald American)
