October 8, 1907: Cubs, Tigers open World Series with hard-fought draw

Just getting to the World Series is never a walk in the park, but for the talented Chicago Cubs of 1907, it was the next thing to a summer stroll. The defending National League champions were dominant in earning 107 victories and besting the runner-up Pittsburgh Pirates by 17 games. The Cubs clinched the pennant on September 23, with two weeks remaining in the season.1

By contrast, the Detroit Tigers had to battle to the very end to take the American League title over the Philadelphia Athletics. The Tigers and A’s went toe-to-toe for much of the summer, with the Cleveland Naps and Chicago White Sox only two games off the pace in early September. It was perhaps the most exciting race in the seven-year-old AL. The tense battle climaxed on Monday, September 30, when the Tigers and A’s fought to a controversial 9-9 tie in 17 innings – a result that elated Detroit and deflated Philadelphia.2 Leaving Philadelphia with a narrow lead, the Tigers clinched the pennant on October 5.3

The Cubs were focused on showing that their 1906 World Series loss to the crosstown White Sox – which had followed a record-setting 116-win season4 – was a fluke. Chicago relied heavily on its pitching staff led by Orval Overall, Three-Finger Brown, Ed Reulbach, Jack Pfiester, and Carl Lundgren. Pfiester led the NL with a 1.15 ERA, followed closely by Lundgren at 1.17. As of 2025, no major-league team since the 1893 adoption of the 60-foot, 6-inch pitching distance had topped the Cubs’ 1.73 team ERA.

Chicago’s pitchers faced a Detroit club that led the majors with 697 runs scored. The Tigers featured veterans like pitchers Wild Bill Donovan and Ed Killian, both 25-game winners, along with center fielder Sam Crawford and the emergent offensive force of Ty Cobb.

Cobb, in his second full major-league season with the Tigers and not yet 21, had led the AL in batting average – his first of nine straight batting crowns – hits, steals, RBIs, and slugging percentage.5

October 8 was cool and clear in Chicago for the opening game of the Series, but not too cool – “only just about the proper combination to make both teams play the snappiest sort of game without suffering from the low temperatures,” observed one newspaper account.6 Set to test the weatherman’s predictions were a pair of right-handers, Detroit’s Donovan and Chicago’s Overall, who had tied Christy Mathewson for the NL’s shutout lead with eight.

Not only were the teams ready, but large numbers of enthusiastic fans converged on the West Side Grounds. The Chicago Inter Ocean reported that the crowd “was the largest that has ever viewed a baseball game in Chicago and next to the record crowd of organized baseball,” listing the total of paid admissions as 24,377.7 It was noted that “field seats were erected all around the field, with the exception of a space in front of the right field bleachers.” 8 Cubs player-manager Frank Chance had directed this arrangement to leave room for right fielder Frank “Wildfire” Schulte to track down anticipated drives off the bats of Crawford and Cobb.9

Leading off the game for Detroit, left fielder Davy Jones drew a walk but was forced out at second when second baseman Germany Schaefer grounded to third. Crawford was out on a deep fly to center, and – with Cobb batting – Schaefer was cut down by catcher Johnny Kling trying to steal second.

Donovan stranded Cubs on third in the first two innings. Left fielder Jimmy Sheckard drove a single into left with one out in the first. One out later, he stole second and continued to third on an errant throw by catcher Charles “Boss” Schmidt.10 But Cubs third baseman Harry Steinfeldt grounded to Donovan for the third out. A walk, sacrifice, and groundout put Kling 90 feet from home in the second before shortstop Joe Tinker’s strikeout left him there.

In the third inning, Detroit got its first two hits, singles from Schmidt and Jones, but was unable to put a run on the board. The scoreless battle continued as the Cubs went quietly in the bottom of the third, and the Tigers wasted an opportunity in the top of the fourth due to what the Inter Ocean called “foolish base running.” Crawford singled and moved to second on Cobb’s groundout. Following a walk to first baseman Claude Rossman, third baseman Bill Coughlin “lifted an almost sure Texas leaguer back of second” and Crawford took off for home at full speed. But Cub second sacker Johnny Evers made a difficult catch and easily doubled Crawford off second.11

Chicago opened the scoring in the bottom of the fourth when Chance walked, moved to second on Steinfeldt’s bunt, and scored on Kling’s single to center.

The Tigers threatened to tie the game in the fifth but more carelessness on the bases cost them again. Schmidt slapped a single to left, moved to second on a groundout, and went to third on Jones’s two-out infield single. On an attempted double steal, Schmidt “was caught napping off his base”12 as catcher Kling fired to third; Steinfeldt applied the tag to retire the side. Detroit muffed a double steal again in the sixth when, with Schaefer on third and Rossman on first, Schaefer was tagged out in a rundown between third and home.

The Cubs still led 1-0 when the Tigers’ bats finally woke up in the eighth, with three Cubs errors aiding the comeback. Jones collected his third single of the game and then stole second for his second theft of the game. Schaefer was safe on a fielding error by shortstop Tinker.

With Jones on third and Schaefer on second after a steal, Crawford drove in both runners on a single to right and took third on Schulte’s bad throw to the plate.13 Crawford attempted to score on Cobb’s grounder back to Overall, but the Cubs pitcher threw home. Retreating to third, Crawford was safe on Kling’s throwing error, and Cobb moved to second. Rossman brought Crawford home with Detroit’s third run on a fly to center.14

Clinging to a 3-1 lead with Donovan still on the mound in the bottom of the ninth, the Tigers were three outs from the victory. Chance led off with a single to right, Steinfeldt was hit by a pitch and, after a groundout, Coughlin’s error on Evers’ grounder loaded the bases. Schulte’s groundout scored Chance and moved the other runners up a base.

The Cubs were down to their final out, and Chance sent up left-handed-swinging Del Howard to bat for Tinker.15 Donovan struck out Howard swinging – but Schmidt couldn’t handle the third strike, allowing Steinfeldt to score the tying run and Howard to reach first. Another Cub, Pat Moran, was announced as hitting for Overall but was left standing at the plate when Evers was the third out in a desperate attempt to steal home.16

With daylight fading, the clubs faced the prospect of a tie game if neither could score quickly. Reulbach took over pitching duties from Overall in the 10th and held the Tigers hitless for the next three innings. The only baserunner for Detroit was Schmidt, who reached on an error by Evers in the 11th.

Twice in extra innings, Chicago nearly claimed the victory. In the 10th, center fielder Jimmy Slagle attempted to manufacture a run after his infield hit. He stole second, stole third on the front end of a double steal with Chance, and nearly stole home. Donovan’s throw to Schmidt to catch Slagle went into the crowd behind home plate as batter Steinfeldt stepped in front of the catcher. Though Slagle crossed home plate, umpire Hank O’Day ruled him out for Steinfeldt’s interference. The outfield crowd, which had poured onto the field, returned to their seats, and the game moved on.17

The Cubs again threatened in the 11th, loading the bases on three infield hits with only one out. But Donovan’s timely strikeout of rookie Heinie Zimmerman – who had entered the game at second base after the Cubs pinch-hit for Tinker, with Evers moving to shortstop – and a force out ended the game’s last scoring opportunity.

Both sides were retired quickly in the 12th, and the game was called immediately after the Tigers turned a double play when Schaefer caught Chance’s hard liner and doubled Sheckard off first. “It was a miraculous play and it was some seconds before the vast crowd could realize that the great struggle was at an end,” reported the Inter Ocean. It was nearly sunset, 5:20 in the afternoon.18

Pitching and sloppy play – the teams combined for eight errors and four runners caught stealing – kept the game close and seemed to leave the crowd happy despite the inconclusive result. Donovan’s 12 strikeouts tied the World Series single-game mark set by Ed Walsh of the White Sox a season earlier.19 Cobb went 0-for-5 in his World Series debut. Chicago went on to win the Series, taking the next four games to partly ease the pain of their loss to the White Sox in 1906.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Kurt Blumenau and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Wild Bill Donovan, Trading Card Database.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted BaseballReference.com and Retrosheet.org for pertinent information, including box-score and play-by-play information.

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1907/B10080CHN1907.htm

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CHN/CHN190710080.shtml

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

Notes

1 “Cubs Win Their Second Pennant,” Chicago Tribune, September 24, 1907: 6. The clincher was a rain-shortened 4-1 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies.

2 Joe S. Jackson, “Mad, Record Crowd Sees Tiges Pull a Hopeless Game into a 17-Inning Tie,” Detroit Free Press, October 1, 1907: 1. The interference call that turned the game in Detroit’s favor involved a police officer’s stepping in front of Tigers center fielder Sam Crawford as he attempted to make a catch. It earned the game the moniker “when-a-cop-took-a-stroll-play.” Cait Murphy, Crazy ’08, (New York: HarperCollins, 2008), 3.

3 The Tigers swept four games from the last-place Washington Nationals and secured the flag with a 10-2 victory over the St. Louis Browns. The Athletics faced a tougher season-ending schedule, including three games against the fourth-place Cleveland Naps, and were unable to catch the Tigers.

4 The 2001 Seattle Mariners matched the ’06 Cubs with 116 regular-season wins.

5 Cobb’s .350 average gave him his first of nine straight AL batting titles and 12 career batting crowns. He had 212 hits, 53 steals, 119 RBIs, and a .468 slugging percentage.

6 “Great Game of Base Ball,” Owensboro (Kentucky) Inquirer, October 9, 1907: 5.

7 Frank B. Hutchinson Jr., “Cubs and Tigers Tie in Twelve Innings; 24,581 Fans Cheer,” Chicago Inter Ocean, October 9, 1907: 1. Total attendance exceeded the paid crowd by 204 fans.

8 Hutchinson.

9 Hutchinson.

10 Schmidt had a bad day and “found it almost impossible to locate second sack” as the Cubs swiped seven bags. He added to the misery with two errors and a baserunning blunder. Joe S. Jackson, “Darkness Stops Opening Contest,” Detroit Free Press, October 9, 1907: 1.

11 Hutchinson.

12 Hutchinson.

13 Hutchinson.

14 Hutchinson.

15 Chance made the move as Tinker had hit only .209 against right-handers in 1907, and only .221 overall. What followed was likely the highlight of Howard’s brief major-league career. Howard later told sportswriter Hugh Fullerton that swinging at a pitch well out of the strike zone was “the worst blunder of my life,” though it helped gain the tie. He continued, “I started to walk in a bit to crack the ball, when I saw it coming in low and fast and aimed about at my knees. It looked for an instant as if that ball was going to get tangled among my legs. I took a fine swing – and don’t think I missed the ball more than a foot. Then I heard a howl, while the ball was going back to the stands.” Hugh Fullerton, “My Worst Blunder,” Salt Lake Journal, June 30, 1912: 32.

16 Chance inserted Moran to hit for Overall but then had second thoughts and attempted to keep the hurler in the game. “After Moran had gone to the plate in the inning, and before he had taken a pitch, Chance tried to call him away and to send Overall to the plate, but Umpire O’Day wouldn’t stand for it, ruling that technically, at least, Overall had been removed.” Jackson, “Darkness Stops Opening Contest.”

17 Phil J. Reid, “Story of the Great 12-Inning Battle Told Play by Play,” Detroit Free Press, October 9, 1907: 2.

18 The game started at 2:30 P.M. and the 12 innings took 2 hours and 40 minutes. Sunset in Chicago October 8 was at 5:22 P.M.

19 Walter Johnson tied Walsh and Donovan with 12 strikeouts in Game One of the 1924 World Series. They were topped in 1929 by Howard Ehmke of the Athletics, who struck out 13 Cubs in Game One of the 1929 World Series. As of 2025, Bob Gibson of the St. Louis Cardinals has the World Series record with 17 strikeouts against the Tigers in Game One of the 1968 World Series.