Larry learned a valuable lesson that summer...keeping a live bear cub isn't as easy as it sounds. After the cub tore up his apartment, French somehow managed to convince his teammate Ripper Collins to take the bear off his hands. Collins learned the same valuable lesson. After a similar unpleasant experience, he donated the cub to a conservation camp in New York.
Larry French also made news on the field that year. He became (and remains) the only pitcher in major league history to lose as many as 19 games (and have a losing record) for a pennant winner. He went 10-19 for the 1938 National League Champion Cubs, personally accounting for nearly 1/3 of the team's losses.
