May 14, 1904: After embracing spitball, Jack Chesbro kicks off impressive streak of 14 successive wins

His manager did not initially approve of it. His catcher didn’t care for catching it. But the spitball transformed Jack Chesbro’s season in 1904, and New York Highlanders manager Clark Griffith eventually had to admit that Chesbro’s early-season embrace of the deceptive pitch made all the difference between his 4-3 won-lost record in the first month and the rest of his historic 41-win campaign.1

“While we all use the spitball occasionally,” said Griffith, who made 11 starts from the mound in 1904 as New York’s 34-year-old player-manager, “Jack Chesbro is the only man who has thoroughly mastered it, and his record [in 1904] is evidence of its effectiveness. … When a pitcher has it under perfect control, no batter can hit it successfully, and if he does line one out, it will be purely accidental.”2

Prior to adopting the then-legal spitball, the 29-year-old Chesbro had allowed 54 hits in his first 62 innings of the season, including a season-worst 13-hit thumping by the Cleveland Naps on May 12. Unabashed, Chesbro, in his second campaign with the Highlanders after four seasons with the National League’s Pittsburgh Pirates, returned to the mound to face the Naps again two days later at Hilltop Park in Upper Manhattan.

With his spitball in tow, Chesbro allowed a single unearned run while his offense tallied 17 hits in a 10-1 victory on May 14. The win became the first in a line of 14 successive victories for “Happy Jack,” who did not lose again until the Boston Americans beat him 2-1 on July 7.

The New York Times noted that Chesbro was “wild at times” against the Naps ­– reflecting his spitball use – but at no point “were the visitors dangerous.”3 Chesbro easily “pricked the Cleveland slugging bubble”4 as he snapped the fortunes of a club that had won six of nine games after a 4-7 start to the campaign. The Saturday afternoon game drew 10,123 fans to the ballpark, the largest home crowd for New York since the Opening Day assembly of 15,842.5

After beating Chesbro and the Highlanders 7-0 two days earlier, Cleveland’s hitters were likely eager to face him for the second time in the four-game series – and continue the offensive momentum built from their seven extra-base hits the day before.6 Chesbro instead “made the Clevelanders look like an undeveloped team of village amateurs”7 and pitched the Highlanders to their third victory in the four-game series.

The Naps nearly took an early lead in the second inning. Nap Lajoie drew a leadoff walk and advanced on Elmer Flick’s sacrifice and Bill Schwartz’s groundout. Lajoie would have scored had right fielder Willie Keeler not dashed in from his position to make an off-balance shoestring catch on Terry Turner’s sinking liner to end the inning. The marvelous defensive play sent the crowd’s hats into the air during a rousing ovation.8

Keeler’s play alone quashed any early momentum Cleveland had built, but when standout third baseman Bill Bradley left the game in the third inning after getting hit on the wrist by a pitch, the Naps “seemed to lose heart,”9 according to the New York Sun – especially after leaving the bases loaded. Bradley entered the game sporting a five-game hitting streak and a .325 batting average. His replacement in the lineup, Charlie Hickman, went 0-for-2, and Schwartz, the first baseman, moved to third for the remainder of the game and committed an error as New York’s batters dropped a flurry of bunts. (Bradley did not miss further time, returning to the lineup two days later for Cleveland’s next game, the opener of a series in Boston.)10

In the bottom of the third inning, Chesbro started a rally against Cleveland starter Bob “Dusty” Rhoads with a single to right. Keeler and Dave Fultz followed with bunt singles that loaded the bases, and Kid Elberfeld drove in a pair of runs on a sharp single up the middle. Fultz tagged and scored on Jimmy Williams’s fly to right for a 3-0 lead.

Cleveland got a run back in the top of the fourth when Flick led off with a single, took third on an error by John Anderson, and scored when Turner sent a one-out single over first base.

Fultz, Elberfeld, and Williams used a trio of singles to load the bases for the Highlanders in the fifth, and Fultz scored when Anderson drew a walk. New York added another run in the sixth when Elberfeld drove in Keeler for a 5-1 lead.

Five runs scored with two outs in the eighth as the Highlanders batted around, and the Cleveland Plain Dealer likened the rally to the bombardment of Port Arthur, the first attack in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05. Chesbro opened the inning with a single, moved to second on Keeler’s sacrifice, and scored on Elberfeld’s fourth hit of the game, a two-out single.11 Williams followed with a single, and Anderson – a 10-year major-league veteran playing in his first season with New York – polished off one of his best games with the Highlanders by smacking a two-run triple to center, his first three-bagger of the season.

John Ganzel continued the onslaught with an RBI single, and Jack Thoney reached on a bunt. Ganzel stole third and later scampered home on a double steal as Thoney swiped second. Altogether, the Highlanders stole six bases against Cleveland catcher Harry Bemis, who threw with a “laborious effort”12 as New York matched its franchise record for steals in a game.13 Chesbro sent the Naps down in order in the top of the ninth to drop Cleveland to 10-11,14 while polishing off his fifth victory of the season and keeping his club tied for second in the AL – the position where the Highlanders resided for much of the season15 – with a 13-8 record.

Chesbro had also helped his own cause from the batter’s box throughout the first month of the season. His two-hit effort against Cleveland was the fourth in his eight starts, and after going 2-for-4 on May 17, he bumped up his average to .379.16 By the season’s end, Chesbro had 13 multi-hit games, breaking the AL record for such games by a pitcher, and New York found victory in nine of them.17 Five other Highlanders joined Chesbro with multiple hits against Cleveland, marking the third time that had happened in the four-year-old franchise’s history. Ganzel was the only player part of the hit parade each time. On July 14, New York had seven players – including Chesbro – record multiple hits as the Highlanders whipped Cleveland 21-3.18

That lopsided win started another spurt in Chesbro’s season, marking the first victory after his streak of 14 successive victories was snapped. Chesbro’s streak established an American League record that stood until 1912 when Smoky Joe Wood went a perfect 16-for-16 late in the season.19 Chesbro’s 41 wins remain the AL single-season record as of 2023 and are the most recorded by any pitcher outside of the nineteenth century. The workhorse completed 48 of his 51 starts, fired six shutouts, and amassed a stunning 454⅔ innings pitched, an AL record bested by Chicago’s Ed Walsh four years later.20

And most of that was thanks to one wet pitch.

“I think the spitball [is] the greatest ball that was ever discovered,” Chesbro said. “I don’t say it is the greatest ball used, but it is the greatest ball for me, and that is why I use it.”21

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Kevin Larkin and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Trading Card Database.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted the Baseball-Reference.com, Stathead.com, and Retrosheet.org websites for pertinent material and box scores. He also used information obtained from news coverage by the New York Times, the New York Sun, the New York Evening World, and the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYA/NYA190405140.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1904/B05140NYA1904.htm

Notes

1 Wayne McElreavy, “Jack Chesbro,” SABR BioProject, accessed August 18, 2023, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/Jack-Chesbro/.

2 “How Chesbro Discovered the Famous ‘Spit Ball,’” New York World, February 14, 1905: 10.

3 “Greater New Yorks Outplay Cleveland Team in Last Game of Series,” New York Times, May 15, 1904: 8.

4 “Many Hits and Many Runs,” New York Sun, May 15, 1904: 10.

5 The May 14 attendance was the 12th highest among New York’s 75 home games in 1904.

6 New York won that game, 7-6, marking the first time Cleveland had collected at least seven extra-base hits in a game and lost.

7 “‘Dusty’ Rhoades Was a Mark,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, May 15, 1904: 14.

8 “Many Hits and Many Runs.”

9 “Many Hits and Many Runs.”

10 Bradley missed only 1⅓ innings the rest of the season. On August 23, umpire Jack Sheridan ejected him for arguing balls and strikes as the Philadelphia Athletics mounted a comeback in the ninth inning. Cleveland won in extra innings.

11 The game marked Elberfeld’s fourth career four-hit effort, and he added three more before retiring in 1914.

12 “‘Dusty’ Rhoades Was a Mark.”

13 The Highlanders also stole six bases on May 24, 1903, in a 4-1 victory over the St. Louis Browns. On May 24, 1905, New York broke the record with seven steals in a 12-6 loss to the Detroit Tigers. The all-time franchise record, through 2022, was set on September 28, 1911, when New York swiped 15 bases against the Browns.

14 Cleveland improved as the season went along, recording an 86-65 record for the campaign, the best finish in the team’s four-year history.

15 New York periodically took over first place in the standings – spending 30 days atop the AL – but the bulk of the season saw the Highlanders in second place, where they finished with a 92-59 record in only their second year of existence.

16 Chesbro’s average remained .300 as late as July 1, but his season ended with a final tally of .234.

17 Four AL pitchers surpassed Chesbro’s mark: Cleveland’s George Uhle (16 in 1923), Philadelphia’s Jack Coombs (14 in 1911), New York’s Carl Mays (14 in 1921), and Boston’s Wes Ferrell (14 in 1935).

18 Nine New York Yankees recorded multiple hits in a 22-1 thrashing of the Washington Senators on August 12, 1953, to set the franchise record (through the 2022 season).

19 Unlike Chesbro, Wood made three relief appearances during his winning streak, but he won each of his 16 starts between July 8 and September 15. Washington Senators ace Walter Johnson also posted 16 wins in a row in 1912, but four of them came in relief.

20 Despite Chesbro’s historic accomplishments, his season was marred by an unfortunate wild pitch that gave Boston the 1904 AL pennant.

21 “Chesbro Talks of Spitball,” Buffalo Express, November 5, 1904: 10.