August 7, 1918: Pirates win on hottest day in Philadelphia history at 106 degrees

Climate change may someday play havoc with weather milestones. But as of 2026, the record for the hottest day in Philadelphia history had stood for more than a century: 106 degrees, reached on Wednesday, August 7, 1918.1

Connie Mack’s Athletics were on the road that day, playing the St. Louis Browns.2 But manager Pat Moran’s Phillies were stuck at Baker Bowl for a game against their cross-state rivals, the Pittsburgh Pirates. Only 1,000 fans came out on a day on which nine Philadelphians died from the heat, hundreds more suffered heatstroke, and manufacturing plants supporting the World War I effort shut down.3

The sunstruck crowd saw the visitors put three runs on the board in the first inning and hold on from there, adding an extra run in the ninth to nail down a 4-2 win. The Phillies mounted a rally in their half of the ninth, but the game was decided on either a heads-up defensive play by Pittsburgh or a thoughtless mistake by a Philadelphia baserunner, depending on the viewer’s perspective.

The game took place against the unsettled backdrop of the war, which the US had entered in April 1917. About three weeks before the Phillies and Pirates met, US Secretary of War Newton Baker announced that professional ballplayers of draft age would immediately face a “work or fight” requirement to either join the armed forces or get a job in a military industry.4 The ruling—which many feared would shut down the major leagues—was not immediately enforced, but the regular-season schedule was curtailed to September 2, and the six-game World Series between the Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs wrapped up on September 11.

Meanwhile, Philadelphia was suffering through a stifling heat wave, setting a record on August 6 at 103.2 degrees. The Philadelphia Inquirer summarized the day starkly: “Men and beast lay down in their tracks and died.”5 The Pirates and Phillies played the first of a four-game series that day, with Pittsburgh winning 10-2, but Phillies shortstop Dave Bancroft and Pirates catcher Walter Schmidt were forced to leave the game, while time-outs were needed for umpire Hank O’Day and replacement Pirates catcher Red Smith to catch their breath.6 (One account of the August 7 game suggested that the previous day’s matchup had actually been more punishing because of higher humidity.7)

On August 7, Pirates starting pitcher Erskine Mayer came in with a 13-4 record and a score to settle. He’d pitched parts of eight seasons with the Phillies; he twice won 21 games and made two starts for the Phils in the 1915 World Series.8 The Phillies had traded the right-hander to Pittsburgh on July 1 in exchange for pitcher Elmer Jacobs. The game was Mayer’s second against his former team. In his first, he’d pitched a five-hit shutout to beat the Phillies 1-0 in the first game of a doubleheader at Forbes Field on July 20.

Opposing him for the Phillies was 28-year-old righty Milt “Mule” Watson, who entered with a 4-5 record and a 3.63 ERA. Watson was in his third major-league season and his first as a Phillie after being traded from the St. Louis Cardinals in early April.9 News stories noted that Watson pitched with a large bandage or sling on his neck to cover an inflamed boil.10

Watson’s condition quickly became relevant in the top of the first. With one out and the Pirates’ Carson Bigbee on first, speedy Max Carey bunted back to the mound. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that Watson fielded the ball in time to make a play at first but couldn’t turn his stiff neck to make an effective throw. Carey was safe.11

After Billy Southworth popped out, George Cutshaw hit a bouncer over Bancroft’s head and into left field, scoring Bigbee. Carey moved to third and Cutshaw to second on the throw in.12 Fritz Mollwitz capped the rally by plopping a Texas-league single into short right field among three Phillies, giving the Pirates a 3-0 lead.13

The home team didn’t wilt. In the bottom half, leadoff batter Bancroft hit a drive to left that Bigbee dropped after a long run.14 Bancroft reached second on the error. One out later, Milt Stock’s single into left field brought home Bancroft to make the score 3-1.15

Neither team collected another hit until the bottom of the third.16 With one out, Pirates third baseman Bill McKechnie dropped a foul pop hit by Bancroft for an error. Given new life, Bancroft walked. A single by Cy Williams and another walk to Stock loaded the bases for Fred Luderus, the Phillies’ RBI leader that season,17 who grounded to Mollwitz at first. Mollwitz forewent an “easy play at the plate,” in the judgment of the Pittsburgh Gazette Times, and threw to second in an attempt to start an inning-ending double play. But Mollwitz couldn’t get back to the bag to take the return throw, and Bancroft’s run made the score 3-2.18 The Phils then tried a double steal that ended with Williams being tagged out at home.

From the fourth inning through the eighth, the Pirates mustered two hits and four walks, while the Phillies assembled three hits and a walk, none of which led to runs.

But the story of the game was more than just heat-induced torpor, as each team turned in noteworthy plays. Phillies right fielder Gavvy Cravath saved two runs in the fourth by reeling in Philadelphia-area native Roy Ellam’s drive at the wall.19 Southworth—hitting .323 since being called to the majors in early July, including a 3-for-5 performance the previous day—laced a powerful double in the fifth and had a drive to the deepest part of center field pulled in by Williams in the eighth. And Watson, 2-for-33 entering the game, smoked a fifth-inning single that “almost knocked Mayer’s left hand off,” the Gazette Times reported.20

As the temperature climbed—the peak of 106.2 degrees was reported at 3:50 PM—the Pirates added to their lead in the ninth.21 Watson hit Schmidt on the arm with a pitch to begin the frame. Mayer sacrificed Schmidt to second, as Watson scooped up his bunt and tagged Mayer for the first out.22 Schmidt, who stole seven bases in 105 games in 1918, swiped third. Ellam, up next, entered the game hitting just .161, but he drove a single into right field for his second and last RBI of the season.23 Ellam subsequently moved to third on Bigbee’s double, but was retired at home on a blown squeeze play.

Mayer, who had limited the Phils to five hits through eight innings, came out to cap the win in the bottom half. Luderus led off with a single; rookie infielder Ed Hemingway ran for him. Meusel flied out to Bigbee in left and Cravath popped to shortstop, putting Pittsburgh one out from victory.

Then rookie second baseman Harry Pearce, a Philadelphia native, singled into left field to put two Phillies on base. Up next, hitting for catcher Bert Adams, was Justin Fitzgerald, a lefty-swinging Californian who had played 16 games with the 1911 New York Yankees and then excelled in the Pacific Coast League before returning to the majors with the 1918 Phillies.24

Accounts differ on what happened next, but all agree that the Phillies stumbled themselves out of the game. As of 2026, Baseball-Reference and Retrosheet game summaries said Fitzgerald drew a bases-loading walk, then was picked off first by catcher Schmidt to end the game.

Contemporary news accounts disagree. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that Fitzgerald was at the plate when “a snappy chuck” by Schmidt caught Pearce off first—a turn of events also described by the Pittsburgh Post. Meanwhile, the Pittsburgh Gazette-Times had pitcher Mayer picking off Pearce during Fitzgerald’s at-bat.25 In any telling, a Phillies runner who could not have stolen the occupied second base wandered too far off first, and his team paid the price.26 The time of the game was given at 2 hours even.

The Pirates and Phillies had been 13 and 20 games, respectively, behind the first-place Cubs when they met on August 7, and by the time the bobtailed season ended, they’d slipped even further back. The Pirates’ 65-60-1 record placed them fourth, 17 games behind the Cubs, while the Phillies closed in sixth at 55-68-2, 26 games back. Perhaps the best news for suffering Phillies fans was that the heat wave finally broke on August 15, when the temperature peaked at a warm but seasonable 85 degrees.27

Acknowledgments

This story was fact-checked by Joseph Wancho and copy-edited by Mike Eisenbath.

Sources and photo credits

In addition to the specific sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for box scores and general player, team, and season data.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/PHI/PHI191808070.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1918/B08070PHI1918.htm

Headline from the Philadelphia Inquirer, August 8, 1918: 1. Image of 1915 Cracker Jack baseball card #172 downloaded from the Trading Card Database.

Notes

1 Delaney Smith, “Some Fast Facts About Philly’s Worst Heat Waves,” BillyPenn.com, July 6, 2024, https://billypenn.com/2024/07/06/heat-wave-philly-history-facts/; “Climate Records for KPHL,” National Weather Service, accessed June 2026, https://www.weather.gov/phi/clirecordsKPHL.

2 The Athletics’ relief was limited, as the temperature was forecast to reach 100 degrees in St. Louis that day. “Partly Cloudy Today and Not Quite So Warm,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, August 7, 1918: 1.

3 “Mercury at 106.2 High Record Here; War Plants Close,” Philadelphia Inquirer, August 8, 1918: 1. The toll of nine deaths included only heat-related injuries; according to the Inquirer, it excluded the drownings of several people who had sought to cool themselves in the Delaware River. Baseball-Reference gives the 1918 Phillies’ average home attendance as 2,145.

4 “Major Leagues Ready to Sacrifice Everything to Help Win the War,” Madison (Wisconsin) Capital Times, July 20, 1918: 6.

5 “City Swelters in Record Heat; Mercury at 103.2,” Philadelphia Inquirer, August 7, 1918: 1.

6 Jim Nasium (Edgar Wolfe), “Heat and Pirates Swamp Phillies,” Philadelphia Inquirer, August 7, 1918: 12.

7 “Buccaneers Hand Phillies a 4 to 2 Beating,” Pittsburgh Post, August 8, 1918: 8. Contemporary accounts of the August 7 game do not mention any players being removed for heat-related reasons.

8 Mayer pitched a complete-game 2-1 loss in Game Two, then worked 2⅓ innings and took no decision in Game Six as the Boston Red Sox clinched the Series title.

9 Full terms of the deal: Watson to the Phillies; infielder Bert Niehoff and $500 to the Cardinals.

10 Jim Nasium, “ ‘Erk’ Mayer Again Smothers Phils,” Philadelphia Inquirer, August 8, 1918: 12; “Mayer Baffles Phillies; Score 4 to 2,” Pittsburgh Gazette Times, August 8, 1918: 10; “Eastern Trip Closes Today,” Pittsburgh Press, August 8, 1918: 28. A boil is a painful infection of a hair follicle. “Boils,” MedLine Plus (a website of the National Library of Medicine), accessed June 2026, https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/001474.htm.

11 Nasium, “ ‘Erk’ Mayer Again Smothers Phils.”

12 “Mayer Baffles Phillies; Score 4 to 2”; “Buccaneers Hand Phillies a 4 to 2 Beating.”

13 “Mayer Baffles Phillies; Score 4 to 2.”

14 As of June 2026, Baseball-Reference and Retrosheet credited the error to Max Carey. Game stories in the Pittsburgh Post, Pittsburgh Gazette Times, Pittsburgh Press and Philadelphia Inquirer all reported that Bigbee made the error.

15 A lifetime later, Stock served as a coach with the 1951 and 1952 Pirates. As of 2026, Retrosheet also credited Stock with managing a single Pirates game on May 3, 1951, in the absence of Billy Meyer.

16 In the top of the second, a walk and an error put Pirates runners on first and second with two outs. A groundout ended the inning.

17 He had 67.

18 “Mayer Baffles Phillies; Score 4 to 2.”

19 Ellam was one of four players to appear at shortstop for the 1918 Pirates following the retirement of future Hall of Famer Honus Wagner after the 1917 season. The other three were Howdy Caton, Luke Boone, and Tommy Leach.

20 “Mayer Baffles Phillies; Score 4 to 2.”

21 “Mercury at 106.2 High Record Here; War Plants Close.”

22 “Ninth Inning,” Pittsburgh Post, August 8, 1918: 8.

23 It was also the last of six RBIs in Ellam’s major-league career, which spanned 10 games with the 1909 Cincinnati Reds and 26 games with the 1918 Pirates.

24 Between 1914 and 1918, Fitzgerald posted batting averages of .308, .321, .316, and .324 for the PCL’s San Francisco Seals.

25 Nasium, “ ‘Erk’ Mayer Again Smothers Phils”; “Ninth Inning”; “Mayer Baffles Phillies; Score 4 to 2.”

26 The author of this story suspects that Pearce was the Phillie picked off first, for the following reason: Pitcher Watson was due to hit after Fitzgerald. Although Watson had managed a single earlier in the game, he was generally a weak hitter, entering the day with an .061 batting average. If Fitzgerald had completed his at-bat by drawing a walk, there seems a good chance that a pinch-hitter would have been announced for Watson. (The Phillies had used only two bench players to that point in the game.) The absence of a pinch-hitter for Watson in the box score argues that Fitzgerald never completed his at-bat, which would support Pearce being picked off for the final out.

27 “Hot Spell Vanishes; Mercury Stops at 85,” Philadelphia Inquirer, August 16, 1918: 1.