April 12, 1906: Boston’s Johnny Bates becomes first twentieth-century player to homer in first career at-bat

A very enthusiastic Brooklyn crowd of 12,000 turned out to Washington Park for Opening Day 1906, to witness their Superbas take on the Boston Beaneaters.1 The home fans were hopeful that their team, under new manager Patsy Donovan, would fare better than the 1905 squad, which had won 48 games but lost 104.2 Not since 1900 had the Brooklyn team finished atop the National League standings. Boston fans were also looking forward to a better performance from their team; it had placed seventh in the 1905 final standings (51-103), just two games above the Superbas. The Beaneaters’ pennant drought lasted two years longer than Brooklyn’s; they last won the NL title in 1898.

Fans began cheering when the two teams paraded out from the clubhouse and onto the field. The team members formed two lines in center field – the Superbas on one side, wearing white uniforms, and the Beaneaters on the other, wearing gray. At 2:00 P.M. the two lines of players marched solemnly to the grandstand. Using a long rope that ran through home plate and the pitcher’s box, they unfurled a large new American flag under the roof of the grandstand while the Twenty-Third Regiment Band played “The Star Spangled Banner.”3

The night before the game, National League President Harry Pulliam announced that Boston had signed outfielders Johnny Bates and Gene Good “by acceptance of terms (conditional).”4 Good was from Roxbury, Massachusetts (just south of downtown Boston), while Bates was from Steubenville, Ohio. Bates was described in the Brooklyn Times Union as “a newcomer in the big league with a big bat, which he knows how to wield.”5 Both rookies started in the season opener, with Good leading off and playing center field and Bates batting fifth and playing in left. Pulliam also announced that Brooklyn had signed Elmer Stricklett, but the pitcher was left off the home team’s Opening Day roster.

Taking on the Opening Day mound duties for Brooklyn was second-year right-hander Harry McIntire. He started 35 games in 1905 and completed 29, pitching over 300 innings. He allowed 340 hits and 127 earned runs, and hit 20 batters (all league-leading stats). He also gave up 101 bases on balls, finishing the season with a record of 8-25 and a 3.70 earned-run average.6 According to his SABR biography, “Such was the futility of Brooklyn baseball that 25 losses still earned McIntire the 1906 home opening start.”7

For Boston, Irv “Young Cy” Young got the start. He was a second-year hurler, too, throwing left-handed. He also led the National League in three categories in 1905: most innings pitched (378), games started (42), and complete games (41). He allowed 337 hits and 122 earned runs, almost as many as McIntire in both categories. But Young finished the ’05 season with a 20-21 record and a 2.90 ERA.8

The Beaneaters batted first. Veteran umpire Bob Emslie called, “Play Ball!” and Good settled into the batter’s box.9 The first pitch was a ball, and the 1906 campaign was underway. Good fouled the next one away, then three more pitches from McIntire were all off the plate and Good began the season with a walk. Player-manager Fred Tenney, in his 13th season with Boston and second as skipper, sent a grounder to second baseman John Hummel, who threw to shortstop Phil Lewis for the force out on Good. Tenney was then erased trying to steal second, and McIntyre struck out Cozy Dolan to end the inning.

Young was equally effective pitching to the Superbas, serving up “a rare assortment of curves and slants.”10 With two outs, Harry Lumley drove a pitch down the third-base line for a double. He tried to stretch the hit into a triple and was tagged out by third baseman Dave Brain before he reached third base.

In the top of the second, Boston’s new arrival Johnny Bates accounted for the first run of the game. Batting with one out, he swung at “a high, fast one”11 and sailed it over the right-field fence.12 With that mighty swing, he homered in his very first major-league at-bat. He also became the first player in the twentieth century to accomplish the feat.

After that, the game turned out to be a classic pitchers’ duel. McIntire blanked the visitors during the next six innings. Young matched him, allowing just the one hit in the first to Lumley. Only four Brooklyn batters reached during the game, and only one of them made it safely past second. In the third inning, Young hit Billy Maloney with a pitch. Maloney stole second and advanced to third on a wild throw from Boston catcher Tom Needham. Of the other two baserunners, Doc Gessler reached on an error by Boston second baseman Allie Strobel and Jack McCarthy reached on a fielding miscue by Young.13 After eight innings of play, the score remained 1-0 in favor of the visitors.

In the top of the ninth, Boston added an insurance run. Brain worked a base on balls, then Bates singled to left, advancing Brain to second. Al Bridwell bunted a pitch that McIntire fielded. But the pitcher threw it away, allowing Brain to gallop home.

The Beaneaters prevailed, 2-0, and Bates’s debut solo shot in the second was praised in all of the newspapers (both in Brooklyn and in Boston). In fact, the Boston Globe stated that “the first time [Bates] ever faced a league pitcher he nearly tore the trademark off the ball.”14

McIntire, for his part, pitched well enough to win. His error in the ninth resulted in a second run, but Bates’s home run was the only real damage of the game. The Brooklyn newspapers seemed to think that as the game progressed, perhaps Bates’s long ball was just lucky. McIntire struck out 10 Boston batters. Every player on the Boston side except Good and Brain fell victim to a strikeout. In particular, Young struck out three times. McIntyre had limited the Beaneaters to just six hits and two walks, and with his homer and single, Bates had two of the hits.15

Brooklyn manager Donovan was optimistic about his club, saying after the game, “I am perfectly satisfied that [our] team is a good one. We were up against the hardest pitching any club will face at any time.” He added, “Our team will be winning our share of the games in time.”16 The New York Times told its readers that “Young’s pitching was undoubtedly the principal cause of the Brooklyn defeat.”17

The Brooklyn club’s president, Charlie Ebbets, echoed his manager’s words: “I am sure that the team is a big improvement over that of last year, so much so that I am willing to put myself on record to the effect that we will land much higher than a great many predict.”18

According to MLB.com,19 Bates became the third major leaguer to hit a home run in his first official at-bat. His accomplishment followed those of Boston Beaneaters second baseman Joe Harrington (September 10, 1895) and Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Bill Duggleby (April 21, 1898 – which was a grand slam). After Bates, fans had to wait another 15 seasons before the next major leaguer (St. Louis Browns second baseman Luke Stuart) accomplished the rare feat of homering in his first at-bat.20

After starting in left field in his first game, Bates played 140 more games in his inaugural season, almost all (133) as Boston’s center fielder. He set a career high in home runs (6) in his rookie season.21 His second round-tripper of the season did not come until June 8, his 47th career game. He played nine seasons in the majors, for five different teams, with a total of 25 home runs and a career .278 batting average.

In his sophomore season (1907), Bates accomplished another rare feat. On April 26, 1907, playing for the Boston Doves,22 Bates hit for the cycle, and did so against the Brooklyn Superbas. Only three other major-league players have since accomplished hitting a home run in his first major-league at-bat and then hitting for the cycle later in his career. Bates was the first.23

Sources

In addition to the sources mentioned in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com, MLB.com, Retrosheet.org, and SABR.org.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BRO/BRO190604120.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1906/B04120BRO1906.htm

Photo credit: Johnny Bates, Trading Card Database.

Notes

1 The Boston Red Stockings squad was one of the original eight teams when the National League formed in 1876. (The other seven teams were the Chicago White Stockings, the Hartford Dark Blues, the St. Louis Brown Stockings, the Louisville Grays, the New York Mutuals, the Philadelphia Athletics, and the Cincinnati Reds.) For more information on the original Beaneaters, see Bob LeMoine and Bill Nowlin, eds., The Glorious Beaneaters of the 1890s (Phoenix: SABR, 2019). The New York Times reported a crowd of 10,000, while all other accounts listed 12,000. See “Boston Beats Brooklyn,” New York Times, April 13, 1906: 9.

2 Brooklyn also had three tie games, giving the team a 1905 record of 48-104-3 (.316).

3 “Brooklyn Begins Badly,” New York Tribune, April 13, 1906: 10.

4 “Bates and Good on List,” Boston Globe, April 13, 1906: 5.

5 “Brooklyn team gives proof it’s improved,” Brooklyn Times Union, April 13, 1906: 7.

6 Only one Brooklyn pitcher won more than nine games in 1905, Doc Scanlon, with 14.

7 John Struth, “Harry McIntire,” SABR Biography Project.

8 Second-best in wins on the 1905 Boston club was Chick Fraser (14). Four Beaneaters pitchers lost at least 20 games.

9 Good had been signed as a free agent on April 11, the day before Opening Day, but he played only one season (1906) in the majors, and his season consisted of just 34 games. He batted .151 with 18 hits (all singles) in 119 at-bats. Therefore, his slugging percentage equaled his batting average.

10 “Superbas Make a Favorable Impression, Although Shut Out in the Opening Game,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 13, 1906: 14.

11 “In Time of Defeat,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 13, 1906: 14.

12 The fence was approximately 295 feet down the right-field line and 298 feet to right-center from home plate. See Philip J. Lowry, ed., Green Cathedrals: The Ultimate Celebration of All Major League and Negro League Ballparks, Fifth Edition (Phoenix: SABR, 2019), 55.

13 The newspaper accounts tell us who made the errors, but provide no details as to the innings in which they were made.

14 “Pirates, Giants and Colts Begin Season With Victories,” Boston Globe, April 13, 1906: 1.

15 The actual number of hits varies with the newspaper accounts. The Brooklyn Times Union and the New York Times give Boston credit for five hits, while the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, the New York Tribune, the Boston Globe, and the Fall River (Massachusetts) Evening Herald each reported six hits by the visitors. Both Baseball-Reference and Retrosheet list six hits by Boston. The extra hit in question was by Bridwell, presumably his ninth-inning bunt that McIntire fielded.

16 “Superbas Make a Favorable Impression, Although Shut Out in the Opening Game.”  

17 “Boston Beats Brooklyn.”  

18 “Superbas Make a Favorable Impression, Although Shut Out in the Opening Game.” Ebbets might have been prophetic. Brooklyn won 66 games in 1906 (against 86 losses and a tie). The Superbas finished in fifth place in 1905, 50 games behind the pennant-winning Chicago Cubs. Meanwhile, the Beaneaters landed in last place, losing 102 games. (This marked the third straight season that the Beaneaters had lost at least 98 games.)

19 Ed Eagle, “Players with home run in first at-bat,” MLB.com, accessed February 2024. Through the end of the 2023 season, 136 players have hit a home run in their first at-bat. The first player to hit a home run in his very first major-league at-bat was Joe Harrington, an infielder for the Beaneaters. He homered on September 10, 1895, in a game against the St. Louis Browns. It was a solo home run in the bottom of the second inning. He also singled twice in the game.

20 Luke Stuart, playing for the St. Louis Browns, hit a home run in his first at-bat on August 8, 1921, the fourth batter in major-league history to do so. Stuart only played in parts of three games in the majors. He appeared as a late-inning (eighth inning) replacement in his debut game on July 28, 1921, but he did not bat. On August 8, 1921, he also entered late in the game (seventh inning), and this time, he batted in the top of the ninth and homered off future Hall of Famer Walter Johnson. That undoubtedly earned him a start on August 9, but he was replaced by Marty McManus in the fifth frame after going 0-for-2. Stuart finished his major-league experience as a “one-hit wonder,” with one hit (the solo home run) in three career at-bats.

21 Bates tied his career best by slugging six home runs in 1913, while playing for the Cincinnati Reds.

22 In 1883 Boston changed its nickname from the Red Stockings to the Beaneaters, and in 1907 changed it once more to the Doves. In 1912 the team became known as the Boston Braves.

23 After Bates, the only other players to accomplish both rare events were Earl Averill (first homer on April 16, 1929; cycle on August 17, 1933), Bill White (first homer on May 7, 1956; cycle on August 14, 1960), and Eddie Rosario (first homer on May 6, 2015; cycle on September 19, 2021).