June 13, 1905: Christy Mathewson throws second no-hitter, wins duel with Three Finger Brown

For the New York Giants and Christy Mathewson, things could not get much better than they were in 1905. Coming off a National League championship the year before, by mid-June the Giants were comfortably in first place with a winning percentage of .725 and a sizable lead over the second-place Philadelphia Phillies.

Mathewson was the key member of a pitching staff that included Iron Man Joe McGinnity, Luther “Dummy” Taylor and Red Ames. Mathewson, McGinnity, Taylor, and Ames accounted for 93 of the Giants’ 106 wins in 1904, and in 1905 they again carried the load with 90 of the team’s 105 victories.

The Deadball Era was dominated by pitching. Among a number of emerging pitching stars in the early 1900s was Mordecai “Three Finger” Brown of the Chicago Cubs. Brown spent his rookie season of 1903 with the St. Louis Cardinals before being traded to the Cubs in the 1903-04 offseason.1 It was during Brown’s only season with the Cardinals that one of the great pitching rivalries of the era was born. On July 9, 1903, Mathewson faced Brown for the first of 25 matchups between the storied hurlers.2 Mathewson and the Giants prevailed over Brown and the Cardinals, 4-2, in St. Louis.

Mathewson and Brown hooked up twice more in 1904. Brown won a contest in New York, and Mathewson came out on top in a game in Chicago. The next time the two faced each other, June 13, 1905, was a classic pitchers’ duel and a landmark for Mathewson.

In early June New York split a four-game series with the Pittsburgh Pirates. The 24-year-old Mathewson collected a win in the first game and a loss in the third game, June 9, setting his season record at 8-3.

Arriving in Chicago June 11, the Giants dropped the first two games of the set as the Cubs extended their winning streak to seven games. Taking the field June 13, the Giants had lost four of their last five games but still had a 36-14 record and a commanding lead of six games over the Phillies.

Both pitchers started strong. Mathewson retired the first 10 Cubs hitters he faced, including center fielder Jimmy Slagle leading off the fourth inning. What followed was Chicago’s only scoring threat of the game, though it came without a hit or a walk. Left fielder Frank “Wildfire” Schulte, a 22-year-old in his first full season, reached first base on an error by shortstop Bill Dahlen. As recounted by the Chicago Tribune, “The youngster stole second easily. Billy] Maloney’s out put him on third, where he was left by Frank] Chance’s loft to Mike] Donlin.”3

Brown nearly matched Matty in the early going. The 28-year-old Brown “held the Giants in the hollow of his three fingered hand until the last round,” the Tribune summarized.4 Over the first eight innings, the Chicago hurler surrendered just two singles. The only danger came in the second inning, when Dahlen “poked a fast one through Joe] Tinker,” stole second, and went to third on a throwing error by Cubs catcher Johnny Kling. The opportunity died when Billy Gilbert grounded out to third to end the inning.

Mathewson continued his domination for the Giants in the fifth and retired Kling to start the sixth. Pitcher Brown reached safely on a fumble by second baseman Gilbert. Chicago leadoff hitter Slagle then hit a fly ball behind first base. Giants right fielder George Browne “came tearing in and caught the ball extended to the limit.” The Chicago Tribune account continued, “It looked as if [Browne] would plunge headlong to the ground after the catch, but he kept his feet and tossed the ball to first baseman Dan] McGann in time to double up Brown, who believed the ball would fall safe until too late to get back.”5

It was a scoreless battle as the game entered the ninth inning. Brown started the final frame by striking out Donlin for the third time – Brown’s only three strikeouts of the game. Right fielder Browne followed his defensive heroics by starting a rally with a single to right. McGann singled through the third baseman’s outstretched hands. Browne, trying to take an extra base, was cut down at third when Tinker chased down the ball and fired to Doc Casey for the second out of the inning.

Left fielder Sam “Sandow” Mertes sent McGann to second on another single. Dahlen then delivered the only run of the game with the fourth consecutive single off Brown. A failed double steal ended any chance for more Giants’ runs.

One run turned out to be enough for the untouchable Mathewson. He retired the Cubs in order over the final three innings. According to the New York Times, “[T]he spectators were obliged to see their idols made to look like animated automata of putty, so completely did Mathewson have them faded.”6

Mathewson faced just 28 batters. Pitching a shutout without a hit or base on balls, Matty “would have tied Cy Young’s record of not permitting an opponent to reach first base” had his support been perfect, the Times noted. Other accounts were equally praiseworthy. “[Mathewson] had everything, including great speed and before him the Chicago bunch went down like ten pins.”7 The no-hitter was the second of Mathewson’s career, following his July 1901 gem in St. Louis.

Mathewson’s 1905 season is nearly unparalleled in baseball history. He had 31 wins and 9 losses along with eight shutouts and 32 complete games. He won the pitching Triple Crown as, in addition to leading the league in wins, his 206 strikeouts and 1.28 ERA were also tops in the NL. Mathewson’s domination helped the Giants to their second consecutive pennant, leaving the second-place Pirates nine games back.

And perhaps the best was yet to come. In a resumption of the World Series after the Giants boycotted the event in 1904, Mathewson was overpowering. Facing the Philadelphia Athletics, he threw three complete-game shutouts over six days and the Giants captured the Series in five games. His 0.00 ERA over 27 innings, with 18 strikeouts and only one walk, was perhaps the most dominating performance in World Series history. Matty himself called it his greatest achievement.8

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Bill Marston and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com, Retrosheet.org, and Total Baseball.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CHN/CHN190506130.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1905/B06130CHN1905.htm

John Thorn, Phil Birnbaum, and Bill Deane, eds., Total Baseball, 8th Edition (Toronto: Sport Media Publishing, 2004).

Photo credit: Christy Mathewson, SABR-Rucker Archive.

Notes

1 While today Brown’s best-known nickname is “Three Finger,” some biographies and contemporary news accounts referred to him as “Three-Fingered.” In fact, Brown’s plaque in the Hall of Fame uses the nicknames Three-Fingered and Miner. (Brown had been a coal miner before starting his baseball career.) See Tom Simon, ed., Deadball Stars of the National League (Cleveland: Society for American Baseball Research, 2004), 103.

2 Ray Robinson, Matty[,] an American Hero (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 178.

3 “Not a Hit or Run Off Mathewson,” Chicago Tribune, June 14, 1905: 6.

4 “Not a Hit or Run Off Mathewson.”

5 “Not a Hit or Run Off Mathewson.”

6 “Mathewson’s Great Pitching Prevents Chicago from Making Run or Hit,” New York Times, June 14, 1905: 7.

7 “Boston Stars in Open Revolt,” Binghamton (New York) Press and Sun-Bulletin, June 14, 1905: 10.

8 Robinson, 77.