Boston Red Sox manager Ed Barrow scoffed at the very idea. Turn Babe Ruth, one of baseball’s top pitchers, into an everyday player? Just to let him hit some home runs and revel in the glory? Barrow imagined the wisecracks that would certainly follow. “I’d be the laughingstock of baseball if I changed the best lefthander in the game into an outfielder,” Barrow said early in the 1918 campaign.1

No one doubted that Ruth could handle his duties on the mound. He won 24 games in 1917 and led the American League with 35 complete games in 38 starts. One year earlier, the left-hander had won 23 times and topped the circuit in ERA (1.75) and shutouts (nine).

He also pummeled baseballs when he stepped into the batter’s box. In his rookie campaign of 1915, Ruth – besides posting an 18-8 won-lost record – knocked four home runs in just 92 at-bats. Braggo Roth topped the AL with seven homers. Roth, who split time with the Chicago White Sox and Cleveland Indians, went to bat 384 times. Babe hit three home runs in 1916 and two in 1917 over a combined 259 at-bats.

Barrow put Ruth at first base and right field during some spring-training games in 1918. Babe hit two home runs in one game against the Brooklyn Dodgers. He blasted five over the fence during batting practice when the same two teams met a few days later at Camp Pike, an Army post in Arkansas. The soldiers on hand enjoyed the show; Barrow did not. Baseballs cost money, and the Babe was losing them. Writers and fans came to expect these dynamic clouts. “Babe Ruth was not able to make any home runs,” a sportswriter noted after one game.2

The Red Sox began the regular season on April 15 at home against the Philadelphia Athletics. Ruth drew the Opening Day assignment and knocked a two-run single as Boston won, 7-1. He occasionally pinch-hit in the early going but did not play in the field except as a pitcher. Ruth hit his first home run of the campaign on May 4 in a 5-4 loss to the Yankees at the Polo Grounds. Ruth gave up all five runs. Even so, “Had all of Ruth’s mates played with the same vigor in all departments, especially hitting, that he did, the Sox would have triumphed. Babe’s hitting was really the feature of the game. He walloped a homer into upper tier of the grandstand in the seventh inning when (Everett) Scott was roosting on first.”3

Two days later, on May 6, 1918, again against the Yankees, Barrow penciled in Ruth’s name at first base. The regular at that position for Boston, Dick Hoblitzell, had fallen into a dreadful slump and injured a finger. Barrow, at least for now, could forget all that “laughingstock” business.

Babe had never started a regular-season game at any position except pitcher. Barrow put him in the sixth spot in the batting order. The Red Sox’ record stood at 12-5 going into the contest; the Yankees’ at 8-8. Boston’s submarine-style right-hander Carl Mays faced New York lefty George Mogridge.

Boston broke out on top with three runs in the fourth. Wally Schang led off with a double but was thrown out at third after Stuffy McInnis laid down a “pretty bunt, leaving practically no opportunity for a play at first.”4 That brought up Ruth, “the sensational hitting pitcher for the Bostons,”5 who blasted a two-run homer into the right-field stands. W.C. Macbeth in the New York Tribune, wrote that Ruth “lined one into the upper right tier some fifty feet fair, that shot on a line like a rifle bullet sand knocked the back out of the seat.”6 Yankees owner Jake Ruppert and Red Sox owner Harry Frazee were seated together at the game. Ruppert offered $150,000 for Ruth just moments after the round-tripper sailed over the fence. It was a joke, and the two men laughed.7 Scott followed Ruth by rattling a double off the left-field wall. He raced home on Sam Agnew’s single to make the score 3-0.

New York tied the game in the bottom half of the frame “because of a lot of bush league errors that completely unnerved Carl Mays.”8 Home Run Baker (acquired from Philadelphia before the 1916 season) led off with a base hit, and Pratt drew a walk. Wally Pipp’s single loaded the bases. Ping Bodie “whistled”9 a hit to left that scored Baker, while Schang uncorked a wild throw that brought home Pratt. An error by Agnew allowed Pipp to score. 

The Yankees added three more runs in the fifth. Roger Peckinpaugh singled, and then Harry Hooper muffed a flyball off the bat of Baker. Pipp reached base on a wild pitch that scored Peckinpaugh. Bodie singled to bring home Baker and Pipp. That ended the day for Mays, who gave up six runs. Just two were earned. Sad Sam Jones entered the game and got the final two outs of the inning.

Following a scoreless sixth, New York put up another three-spot in the seventh. Baker and Truck Hannah singled. Pipp and Bodie followed with doubles. The Yankees added a solo run in the eighth to make the final score 10-3. Pipp, Bodie, and Baker each had three hits in the game. Bodie drove in five runs.

Mogridge, meanwhile, gave up only the three runs in the fourth. He scattered 10 hits and improved his won-lost record to 4-1, while Mays fell to 3-2. Besides hitting a home run, Ruth added a single and went 2-for-4. He raised his batting average to a robust .450. Already, some newspaper writers were suggesting that pitchers surrender to Ruth’s powerful swing. “The best way to keep Babe Ruth from breaking up a ball game is to walk him and take a chance on the next batsman,” wrote the Paterson (New Jersey)  Morning Call.10 Another writer put it this way: “As a rule, a pitcher at bat holds little interest for the fans, but when Babe Ruth steps to the plate the crowd is disappointed if the Red Sox twirler doesn’t hit the ball a mile.”11

The next day, in a 7-2 loss to the Washington Senators, first baseman Ruth hit another homer, his third in three games. A Boston Globe writer acknowledged that “Ruth’s big ambition is to be an everyday member of the ball club.”12 Even so, while the Red Sox could use Babe’s bat, “it’s not likely that Barrow will use Ruth except as an emergency regular, but the Babe’s work yesterday suggests that the future holds much in store for him.”13 Barrow still envisioned Ruth as a pitcher. He and his phenom went ’round and ’round. Sometimes, Ruth begged off his mound duties. He complained that his wrist hurt too much to pitch. Barrow didn’t believe him. All the while, Ruth insisted “I like to pitch.”14

“My main objection is that pitching keeps you out of so many games,” Ruth continued. “I like to be in there every day.” Given a choice, Ruth wanted to play only first base. No one gave him that choice. “I don’t think a man can pitch in his regular turn, and play some other positions and keep the pace year after year,” he said. “I can do it this season all right. I’m young and strong and don’t mind the work, but I wouldn’t guarantee to do it for many seasons.”15

Ruth excelled while doing double duty in 1918, a season cut short due to America’s entry into World War I. He appeared in 95 games, 20 of them as a pitcher. The 23-year-old finished with a 13-7 won-lost record and a 2.22 ERA. In the other contests, he pinch-hit, played first base, or saw action in the outfield. Babe hit 11 home runs, “despite the soggy ball,”16 and tied for the league lead with the Athletics’ Tillie Walker. The Red Sox won the World Series against the Chicago Cubs. Ruth hit just .200 (1-for-5) and failed to go deep. On the mound, he went 2-0 in two starts with a 1.06 ERA.

After the season columnist W.G. Evans asked, “Who was the sensation of 1918 in major league circles?” This was a year when Ty Cobb batted .382 and Walter Johnson posted a 1.27 ERA. “My answer without hesitation,” Evans wrote, “would be ‘Babe’ Ruth of the Boson Red Sox.”  Ruth was, according to Evans, “a great pitcher,” but – maybe – an even more talented batsman. “He always was dangerous at the bat in season’s [sic] past,” Evans wrote, “but not until 1918 did Babe Ruth realize that he was a great slugger.”17

Notes

1 Robert Creamer, Babe: The Legend Comes to Life (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1974), 152.

2 Creamer, 151.

3 “Babe’s Hitting All Right, but Yanks Bunch on Him,” Boston Globe, May 5, 1918: 15.

4 W.J. Macbeth, “Ping Bodie Brings Glory to Yankee Escutcheon,” New York Tribune, May 7, 1918.

5 Frederick G. Lieb, “Murderers’ Row Batters Red Sox,” New York Herald, May 7, 1918: 13.

6 Macbeth.

7 Leigh Montville, The Big Bam: The Life and Times of Babe Ruth (New York: Doubleday, 2006), 69.

8 Macbeth.

9 Ibid.

10 “Baseball Gossip from Major Leagues,” Paterson (New Jersey) Morning Call, May 7, 1918: 3.

11 “Baseball Gossip,” Wichita Daily Eagle, May 7, 1918: 7.

12 “Live Tips and Topics.” Boston Globe, May 7, 1918: 3.

13 Ibid.

14 Montville, 74.

15 Ibid.

16 Babe Ruth and Bob Considine, The Babe Ruth Story (New York: Signet, 1992), 51.

17 W.G. Evans, “Babe Ruth Is Great Sensation of Year in Major Leagues,” Lincoln (Nebraska) Star, November 17, 1918: 7.

The 1918 Red Sox season was remarkable in that more than one-third of the team’s wins came in games in which the opposition never scored – a majors-best 26 of the team’s 75 wins were shutouts. Seven shutouts were by 25-year-old right-hander Bullet Joe Bush, ranking second only to Carl Mays’ eight.

Joe Bush had broken into the big leagues in 1912. He pitched for the Philadelphia Athletics through 1917, a tenure that included a World Series championship in 1913, a second AL pennant in 1914, and – after manager Connie Mack traded, sold, or released most of the team’s more talented players – three straight last-place finishes. He’d come to the Red Sox as part of a big six-player trade in December 1917, one sweetened by $60,000 in cash going to the Athletics.

Bush’s 1918 season had been going well, as had that of the team. Going into a July 22 doubleheader with the Detroit Tigers at Fenway Park, the Red Sox were in first place, 5½ games ahead of the second-place Cleveland Indians.

It was a lead the team had built on a long July homestand. They were a half-game behind Cleveland when the homestand began on July 5. Twelve wins in 15 games over the Indians, the defending World Series champion Chicago White Sox, the St. Louis Browns, and the Tigers had boosted the Red Sox into first.

Boston’s pitchers had thrown shutouts in seven of those games and limited the opposition to a single run in three others. Sad Sam Jones and Bush both won 1-0 games against Cleveland in extra innings, and spot starter Lore “King” Bader blanked the Indians in a rain-shortened game. Mays had bested White Sox mainstay Ed Cicotte, 4-0, on July 11.

On July 17 Boston had swept a doubleheader with Bush and Babe Ruth shutting out the Browns, 7-0 and 4-0. Bush helped himself with four RBIs; Ruth drove in two runs in the nightcap.

Mays shut out the Tigers, 5-0, in the first game of a four-game series on July 19, and Jones limited Detroit to a single run in the next day’s game.

Sunday baseball was prohibited in Boston, so July 21 was an offday. The Red Sox and Tigers resumed play with a homestand-concluding doubleheader on Monday. The Tigers were 15½ games behind the Red Sox, in seventh place and only a half-game ahead of the last-place Athletics.

Bush started the opener. He entered with a record of 11-9 and a 2.09 ERA. Four of his wins had been by 1-0 scores: April 23 against the New York Yankees; May 28 in a one-hitter against the White Sox; June 10 in a two-hitter against the White Sox; and July 9 in 12 innings against Cleveland.

The two July 22 games – held on what was said to have been the hottest day of the year to date (91 degrees Fahrenheit) began at 1:45 P.M. and drew 10,592. Most knew the season would be curtailed due to the war, but there had as yet been no definitive end declared so the teams played on.

Pitching for Detroit was right-hander Bill James. He’d broken in with Cleveland back in 1911. His best year had been just the year before – 1917 – his third year with Detroit, with an ERA of 2.09 and a record of 13-10 for the fourth-place Tigers.2

Both Bush and James threw exceptionally well. Neither gave up a run for the first nine innings.

Detroit center fielder Ty Cobb singled with two outs in the first inning but was picked off first base by Bush.3

The closest the Tigers came to scoring was in the top of the seventh. First baseman Oscar Stanage singled. Right fielder Frank Walker hit into a force play, erasing Stanage, but Walker went first to third on a single by second baseman Jack Coffey. Catcher Tubby Spencer grounded to shortstop Everett Scott, who threw to the plate, catcher Sam Agnew applying the tag on a close play.

Bush allowed only three other hits in the game, one of them the single by Cobb. James held Babe Ruth hitless and allowed just six scattered hits.4 Hooper was 3-for-3.

Twice James struggled with his control. The first time was in the bottom of the fifth, when a Scott single and two bases on balls loaded the bases with Red Sox. There were two outs, however, and Tigers shortstop Donie Bush fielded Dave Shean’s grounder and made a “quick snap throw to first” to retire the side.5

James had struggled a bit more with control. He had walked five through the first nine, while Bush had walked two. In the bottom of the 10th, it was the sixth base on balls James doled out that scored the run that made the difference. And it was Bush who drew the walk, not swinging at any one of James’s first four pitches.

Next up was right fielder Harry Hooper. He “bounced a single” over the head of Stanage, Bush running from first to third on the play – and then scored when right fielder Walker “made a wild and nonsensical throw to Donie Bush. The ball went wild and was finally recovered by [left fielder Bobby] Veach after the Boston pitcher had scored on the error.”6 It was the only error charged to Detroit.

Burt Whitman of the Boston Herald asked rhetorically “Did Joe touch that plate? He did a clog dance on it.”7 Bush had beaten the White Sox, 1-0, on May 28 by driving in the game’s only run. This time, he had won it by scoring the sole tally.

In the nightcap, Carl Mays followed Bush’s shutout with one of his own, holding Hughie Jennings’ Tigers to four hits in a 3-0 win. It was Mays’ 17th win of the season. The Red Sox finished a very successful homestand, winning 14 of the 17 games played.

Bush lost six of his last seven decisions. The one win was a 2-0 shutout of the White Sox on August 16. Boston was shut out in three of those six losses and scored only one run for Bush in two of the other four. Bush finished the season with the best earned-run average among Red Sox starting pitchers (2.11), but a won-lost record of only 15-15.

Among Boston’s starters, Bush’s 26 complete games were second to Mays’ 30. Of the 126 games the Red Sox played in 1918, 105 were complete games.

The Red Sox also were World Series champions in 2018, exactly 100 years later. In that season, the pitching staff threw all of two complete games.8 Pitching strategies were dramatically different in 1918 than 100 years later.

Still, savvy use of relief pitching could also make a difference in 1918. In that year’s World Series, Boston’s starters finished five of the six games against the Cubs. Red Sox manager Ed Barrow went to his bullpen only once, in Game Four.

With Boston leading two games to one, Babe Ruth took a 3-2 lead to the top of the ninth. He put the first two runners on base, and Barrow called in Bush, who had lost Game Two to Lefty Tyler. A bunt groundout was followed by a 6-4-3 double play, putting Boston just one win from clinching.

Baseball’s record books retroactively credit Bush with the save, only the second in Red Sox World Series history.9 Two days later, on September 11, Boston closed out the World Series by winning Game Six.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Ray Danner and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Bullet Joe Bush, Trading Card Database.

Sources

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

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS191807221.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1918/B07221BOS1918.htm

Notes

1 The Boston Americans won the first World Series ever played, in 1903. There was no Series played in 1904. The Red Sox had dominated the “teens,” winning in 1912, 1915, 1916, and 1918. They did not lose a World Series until 1946, and famously did not win one for 86 years, from 1918 until 2004. The Cubs suffered a longer drought, winning back-to-back Series in 1907 and 1908 but then not again until 2016 – 108 years. They had been eliminated 14 times in postseason play during that long drought.

2 The Tigers’ James was not the Bill James who won 26 games for the 1914 “Miracle Braves.”

3 Edward F. Martin, “Double Shutout Is Handed to Tigers,” Boston Globe, July 23, 1918: 4.

4 Ruth was also hitless in the second game, 0-for-4.

5 Burt Whitman, “Hose Twice Daub Poor Tige with Kalsomine,” Boston Herald, July 23, 1918: 4. The three fifth-inning walks were noted in the Boston Globe account.

6 “James’ Hurling Wasted on Sox,” Detroit News, July 23, 1918: 14.

7 Whitman.

8 Neither was a shutout. There were no Red Sox shutouts in 2018. There was just one in 2019, by Chris Sale on June 5. There were none at all in 2020 or 2021.

9 Mays was retroactively credited with a save in Game One of the 1916 World Series, a 6-5 win over the Brooklyn Robins.

For the Red Sox, Joe Bush had been warming up to take the mound, but Boston skipper Ed Barrow surprised the Cubs as “the Baltimore mauler [Babe Ruth] was named for the task.”5 The Cubs countered with their ace, Hippo Vaughn. In a battle of southpaws, “these two giants fought it out all the way”6 in a classic pitchers’ duel.

Chicago threatened in the opening frame, “with victory within their grasp.”7 With two outs, Les Mann singled and motored to third when Dode Paskert hit a Texas leaguer to left field (Paskert advanced to second on the throw to third). Ruth then walked Fred Merkle to load the bases. With the game possibly depending “on his next offering, Ruth served up a low fastball to [Charlie] Pick, at the same time waving his outfielders back toward the bleachers.”8 Pick lifted the ball high into left, but George Whiteman made the catch to end the inning.

They may have taken Ruth’s pitching for granted, but the Cubs feared Ruth’s bat. When he hit the first ball in batting practice “into the right field bleachers, the crowd roared with appreciation.”9 And as the Babe strode to the plate in the top of the third inning, “Max Flack simply turned about and marched about forty paces toward the right wall,”10 while the crowd cheered, expecting some action. Ruth sent a deep line drive to right-center, and “the Cubs rooters groaned the moment their tympanums registered the sound of the bat and ball contact. It seemed a potential home run, but, as was the case throughout the afternoon with both sides, the high wind blowing directly against the batter, held back the swat and dropped it right into the mitt of the center fielder” Paskert, who had stumbled at first, recovered quickly, and ran down the ball for a long out. In his two other at-bats, Ruth fanned and “struck out in such a manner that the crowd tee-heed audibly.”11 Throughout the game, the Cubs “successfully stifled the perilous home-run bat of Ruth, but they overlooked the menace of his pitching arm.”12

Boston “did all of its stick execution in the first four innings, getting one hit in each of the first three, then grouping two for the winning tally in the fourth.”13 In the fourth, Vaughn allowed a leadoff walk to Dave Shean. Amos Strunk tried to bunt Shean to second but popped the ball up and Vaughn caught it. Whiteman did advance Shean to second, when he looped a single over short, bringing up Stuffy McInnis, “a notorious left-field hitter.”14 McInnis took Vaughn’s first offering for a ball, “but the second pitch came across to suit him and he dropped a rather indifferent rap into left field along the foul line. Proper preliminary coaching would have placed [Cubs left fielder] Mann directly in line for an easy catch on this ball and a resulting out, with no score.”15 Instead, this proved to be the game-winner. The New York Times reported that the “one lone run grew larger as the pitchers battled along, both displaying an impenetrable mysticism of curves.”16

The Cubs presented another opportunity in the sixth inning. With one down, “Paskert stung a hit to centre and Merkle slapped one to the same bailiwick, and Ruth was becoming plainly worried.”17 Boston’s Barrow waved to the bullpen and Bush started warming up again. Pick rolled a sacrifice down the first-base line and both runners advanced. When Ruth got Charlie Deal to fly out to left, the threat ended.

And then something happened during the seventh-inning stretch that was “far different from any incident that has ever occurred in the history of baseball. As the crowd … stood up to take their afternoon yawn,”18 a band from the Navy training station just north of Chicago began to play “The Star Spangled Banner.” This was the first time the song was played at a World Series game. “The yawns were checked and heads were bared as the ball players turned quickly and faced the music.”19 A few in the crowd began singing, then more joined in, until “a great volume of melody rolled across the field.”20 The crowd then “exploded into thunderous applause,”21 and the beginning of a new tradition was being witnessed. “Certainly the outpouring of sentiment, enthusiasm, and patriotism at the 1918 World Series went a long way to making the (song) the national anthem,” wrote John Thorn, the official historian of Major League Baseball.22 It would be another 13 years before President Herbert Hoover officially designated the song as America’s national anthem.23 From the New York Times: “If the greatest reason for playing this world’s series this year was to give the boys overseas something to talk about besides war, this game today will serve the purpose.”24

The Cubs made one last attempt in the bottom of the ninth. With two outs, Deal dragged a bunt down the third-base line and beat the throw from Thomas for a single. Bill McCabe came on as a pinch-runner. Then Bill Killefer “took one last grand slam at the ball and shot a high ballooner between right and centre fields,” but Hooper raced to the ball for the final out of the game. The Red Sox, behind Ruth’s pitching, had won, 1-0.

Several accounts of the game mentioned how few occasions there were for the fans to cheer. The Chicago Tribune commented, “From the ball player’s standpoint it was a great game, because of its proximity to perfection. From the rooter’s view point it was tame and monotonous because there were so few tense moments.”25 Further, “[T]he crowd present sat through the entire game, all primed to burst forth when the proper time came. But it never came, because Ruth never allowed an attack to go far enough to do damage.”26 Ruth allowed six hits and one walk in the win, striking out four. Vaughn yielded only five hits, all singles. He struck out six and walked three. Neither team made an error, and perhaps the difference came down to the Red Sox getting one hit with men in scoring position (1-for-7) while the Cubs were 0-for-5.

Sources

In addition to the sources mentioned in the notes, the author consulted baseball-reference.com and retrosheet.org.

Notes

1 “Red Sox Beat Cubs in Initial Battle of World’s Series,” New York Times, September 6, 1918: 14.

2 Ibid.

3 Don Babwin (Associated Press), “1918 World Series Key in US Love Affair with National Anthem,” found online at https://bostonglobe.com/sports/redsox/2017/07/03/world-series-key-love-affair-with-national-anthem/J4XmvKVNXp69P4EQEU8piK/story.html. Accessed September 2017. Weeghman Park was the home of the Federal League’s Chicago Whales in 1914 and Chicago Chi-Feds in 1915. The Cubs started playing there in 1916 and have stayed. The name was changed to Cubs Park in 1920 and then to Wrigley Field in 1926.

4 John E. Wray, “Vaughn’s Defeat in World Series Opener Puts Bruins on Defensive in Pitching,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, September 6, 1918: 20.

5 New York Times.

6 “Sox Take First Game at Chicago,” Burlington (Vermont) Free Press, September 6, 1918: 1.

7 New York Times.

8 Burlington Free Press.

9 Edward F. Martin, “McInnis’ Smash Beats Cubs, 1-0,” Boston Globe, September 6, 1918: 4.

10 James Crusinberry, “All Primed to Yell, But Precise Hurling Gives Fan No Chance,” Chicago Tribune, September 6, 1918: 9.

11 Wray.

12 New York Times.

13 I.E. Sanborn, “Red Sox Grab First World’s Series Battle From Cubs, 1-0,” Chicago Tribune, September 6, 1918: 9.

14 “Crowd Present Seemed to Take Little Interest in Work of Rival Athletes,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, September 6, 1918: 20.

15 Ibid.

16 New York Times.

17 Ibid.

18 Ibid.

19 Ibid.

20 Ibid.

21 Ibid.

22 Babwin.

23 Ibid.

24 New York Times.

25 Sanborn.

26 Crusinberry.

With war raging across Europe, the escalating international conflict cast a dark shadow over the 1918 season. Major-league club owners debated whether the regular season should end in early September .1 Ban Johnson, the president of the American League, contemplated opening dialogue with President Woodrow Wilson’s administration for guidance about baseball’s role.2 Ultimately, the issue was decided by Secretary of War Newton Diehl Baker Jr., who ruled in late July that major-league players were officially exempt from the government’s “work or fight” mandate until September 1. The season would end then and be followed immediately by the World Series.3 In the shortened season, the Cubs won the National League pennant with a record of 84-45 with 2 ties after 131 games, 10½ games ahead of John McGraw’s New York Giants (71-53).4

Winning four World Series in four chances (1903, 1912, 1915, and 1916), the Red Sox owned more championships than any other major-league team. The Cubs were looking for their third World Series title after securing the franchise’s fifth pennant. The Cubs had earned both previous championships more than a decade earlier (1907 and 1908).

In addition to the World Series opening on its earliest date, the best-of-seven format would change to eliminate unnecessary rail travel.5 The Series would open with three games in Chicago and the final four games (if necessary) in Boston. The Cubs’ home since 1916, Weeghman Park, was not capable of accommodating more than 16,000 spectators; all games in Chicago would relocate to the South Side’s American League venue, Comiskey Park. With a seating capacity of 30,000, Charles Comiskey’s ballpark previously hosted three games of the 1917 World Series between the White Sox and Giants.6

On Thursday, September 5, the Red Sox won the World Series opener behind George Herman “Babe” Ruth’s six-hit, 1-0 shutout. The Cubs needed to win Game Two if they wanted to seize a Series lead before games shifted to Fenway Park. Tyler knew that Chicago’s hopes rested on his 28-year-old left arm. During his debut season with the Cubs, Tyler won 19 games and lost 8, and compiled a radiant 2.00 ERA in 269⅓ innings. He wrestled with control issues as a Boston neophyte, but when Mitchell became the Braves’ pitching coach, Tyler blossomed.7 When asked about his rotation, Mitchell said, “The pitching staff is what has carried the Cubs through a successful season, and will, I hope, enable them to still retain the championship of the world in the city of Chicago.”8

At game time, Chicago’s temperatures reached the mid-60s and the ballpark was only two-thirds full. Despite the demand for greater seating capacity, only 20,040 fans passed through Comiskey Park’s turnstiles for the game.

Tyler opened the game by walking Harry Hooper, the Red Sox right fielder, on five pitches. He discovered his groove against Dave Shean and fanned the second baseman. Home-plate umpire George Hildebrand called Shean out for interference with Cubs catcher Bill Killefer, and Killefer doubled off Hooper attempting to swipe second base. Amos Strunk popped up to shortstop Charlie Deal to retire the side.

Bush, despite yielding a leadoff single to right fielder Max Flack, successfully navigated the bottom of the first. Bush nailed Flack advancing to second on a Hollocher groundball back to the mound. Center fielder Strunk intentionally dropped Les Mann’s fly ball and nailed Charlie Hollocher for the second out attempting to advance to second. Center fielder Dode Paskert ended the inning by flying out to left field.

In the second, the Red Sox’s first two batters reached base: George Whiteman walked and when Stuffy McInnis bunted, batterymates Tyler and Killefer collided. Everett Scott’s sacrifice moved both runners to scoring position. Second baseman Charlie Pick fielded Fred Thomas’s groundball and nailed Whiteman racing for home. Tyler escaped the inning with no runs scoring by inducing Sam Agnew to pop out to Flack in foul territory down the right-field line.

Chicago’s first baseman, Fred Merkle, labeled for an absent-minded play 10 years earlier that cost his Giants the pennant, walked to lead off the Cubs’ second.9 Pick beat out a bunt toward third base. With runners on first and second, Deal, the Cubs third baseman, popped out to Shean at second. Killefer slammed Bush’s pitch into right field, plating Merkle to give the Cubs a 1-0 lead and advancing Pick to third.

During his first regular season with the Cubs, Tyler had 21 hits in 100 at-bats with 8 RBIs. In the 1914 World Series, he had three plate appearances against Bush and failed to get a hit. This time, with two runners in scoring position, Tyler singled to center field driving home Pick and Killefer. Strunk’s throw to the plate was too late to nail Killefer, but Agnew’s relay to Shean nabbed Tyler advancing to second. The Cubs led, 3-0. Flack singled with two outs, but Shean ended the rally when he tagged Flack on an attempted steal.

Tempers erupted after the inning. Rather than vent his frustration toward the umpires, Red Sox coach Heinie Wagner, spewed venom at Tyler and Cubs coach Otto Knabe. Knabe, who loved to dispute during his playing days, accepted Wagner’s challenge. As a player, Knabe’s trademark was his trickiness and aggressiveness, and he seemingly could not take the field without wrangling with one of his opponents.10 Words turned to fists as the two coaches approached the Cubs’ dugout.11 Cubs pitcher Claude Hendrix and teammates separated Knabe and Wagner.12 The two teams rapidly doused the skirmish with the sole result being “a badly soiled uniform for Wagner.”13

From the third inning through the eighth, Tyler and Bush hung zeros on the scoreboard. Bush allowed only four baserunners during those innings. Merkle reached base on an error in the fourth and advanced to second, but failed to score. Hollocher started the sixth inning with a triple, but was thrown out at the plate on Paskert’s grounder. Bush walked two in the bottom of the seventh, but kept the Cubs scoreless.

Tyler matched his mound counterpart’s production. He walked Bush in the third, but ended the frame unscathed. Bush again reached first in the fifth, on an infield error, but failed to advance beyond the initial sack. Shean singled and failed to score in the sixth, and Wally Schang and Hooper singled in the eighth. For those six innings, the Cubs hurler did not allow a runner to advance beyond second base.

Needing only three outs to even the Series at a game apiece, Tyler surrendered a leadoff triple to Strunk in the ninth. Boston finally ended the shutout when Whiteman also tripled. Whiteman held at third when McInnis grounded out to Tyler. Tyler walked Scott to place runners on the corners. Red Sox manager Ed Barrow inserted Jean Dubuc as a pinch-hitter for Thomas, but Tyler fanned him for the second out. Schang popped out to shortstop to end the game.

“Today’s game was a tough one to lose, especially as we nearly broke it up in the ninth inning,” said Barrow. “The Cubs had the better of the breaks, I think, and piled up a lead in the second inning too great for us to overcome.”14

Mitchell expressed relief. “We are on even terms with Boston,” he said. “The Cubs certainly recovered their batting eye, and they are confident of retaining it. Tyler pitched a wonderful game, and never was in danger, except in the ninth, when he grooved them over for Strunk and Whiteman. Those two triples saved Boston from a shutout.”15

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author also accessed Retrosheet.org, Baseball-Reference.com, and SABR.org.

Notes

1 “World’s Series Planned,” Boston Post, July 27, 1918.

2 “May Ask President,” Boston Post, July 20, 1918.

3 Peter Golenbock, Wrigleyville: A Magical History Tour of the Chicago Cubs (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996), 172.

4 Chicago Tribune Staff, The Chicago Tribune Book of the Chicago Cubs: A Decade-by-Decade History (Midway: Chicago, 2017), 37.

5 James Crusinberry, “Cubs May Play Red Sox Squad on South Side,” Chicago Tribune, August 25, 1918.

6 “Open Series in Comiskey Park,” Decatur (Illinois) Herald, August 29, 1918.

7 Sean Deveney, The Original Curse: Did the Cubs Throw the 1918 World Series to Babe Ruth’s Red Sox and Incite the Black Sox Scandal? (New York: McGraw Hill, 2010), 64.

8 Fred Mitchell, “The Strength of the Cub Machine: Why I Believe We Are Capable of Making a Powerful Bid for the World’s Championship,” Baseball Magazine, Volume 21, Issue 6, (October 1918): 463.

9 “Fred Merkle has Succeeded in Living Down Famous Boner While With Giants,” Chicago Eagle, August 3, 1918.

10 “Knabe’s Famous Rough Tactics,” Honolulu Star-Advertiser, July 8, 1918.

11 Raymond Phelon, “Free-for-All Fight in World Series Battle,” St. Louis Star and Times, September 7, 1918.

12 “Cubs Check Foe in Second Game of Title Series,” New York Times, September 7, 1918.

13 I.E. Sanborn, “Drumfire Blows by Locals Force Foe to Retreat,” Chicago Tribune, September 7.

14 “Cubs’ Task Now Easier,” New York Times, September 7, 1918.

15 Ibid.

Even when Vaughn warmed up alongside Hendrix before Game Three, it was “supposed that the appearance of the port sider was only a bit of camouflage to scare the Red Sox.”2 However, Mitchell surprised everyone when he sent his ace back out on only one day’s rest. Boston countered with Carl Mays, whose submarine delivery had helped him to a 21-13 record and a 2.21 ERA, as well as a league-leading 30 complete games and eight shutouts.

As Vaughn took the Comiskey Park mound, there were reminders throughout the ballpark that the country was at war.3 Thousands of uniformed soldiers and sailors filled the stands. A sign in the outfield asked fans to “Buy War Savings Stamps and Do It Now.” Throughout the game, airplanes “soared about” and “entertained the fans with a mock battle 10,000 feet, more or less, in the air and finished the exhibition with a tail spin.”4

The game remained scoreless through the first three innings. To begin the fourth, Vaughn struck out Amos Strunk looking, “driving over a third strike with the speed of a cannon ball,” but hit the next batter, George Whiteman.5 This brought Stuffy McInnis to the plate.6 Vaughn later recounted what he believed was a pivotal moment in the game, saying, “I got the first two past McInnis for strikes and had all the best of it, but wanted to drive him back from the plate, so intended to shoot the next one close to his bean. My control was bad, and I got it almost over the plate, just where he likes ’em, and he hit to left field for a single.”7

With runners on first and second, Wally Schang singled home Whiteman to give Boston the first run of the game and send McInnis to third base. Everett Scott laid down a squeeze bunt up the first-base line. As the Boston Globe told it, Vaughn “came in for the tap and the agate just scooted up his sleeve like trained mice. This prevented him from getting ‘Stuffy’ from going into the plate, but when he turned to make a play at first Fred Merkle was out somewhere in No Man’s Land. …” All hands were safe on the botched fielding play.

Fred Thomas then hit a sharp single to right. As Wally Schang headed home, right fielder Max Flack fired the ball to catcher Bill Killefer, “who tagged Schang out as non-chalantes as he would have bitten off a chew.”8 Carl Mays lined out to center to end the rally, but the damage had been done, and the Red Sox led, 2-0.

Carl Mays dominated the early innings, as his “eccentric delivery” puzzled Chicago batters.9 The Sporting News wrote: “For the first four innings, the Cubs were completely mystified by the slants of Mays. Carl deliberate and cool ducked his hand almost to mother earth just before letting loose of each pitch. …”10 The Cubs didn’t get a hit off Mays until the fourth, when Les Mann doubled on a ball just fair down the right-field line. Dode Paskert then launched a fly to deep left. The New York Sun wrote that “Whiteman, at the crack of the bat, turned and started to run like a hungry greyhound. He didn’t seem to pay attention to the ball, he just lengthened his stride and flew. Just before crashing into the low fence he suddenly shot up his gloved mitt, grabbed the ball out of the air and hung on to it.”11 Fred Merkle grounded to short to end the inning.

Charlie Pick led off the Cubs half of the fifth with a groundball that shortstop Everett Scott couldn’t handle. The Chicago Tribune opined, “It was the ground’s fault, not his, as the ball skittered under his hands hugging the dirt.” The ball rolled into left-center field and Pick wound up at second base. He scored two batters later on Bill Killefer’s single, cutting the lead to 2-1.

The Cubs entered the bottom of the ninth still trailing by a run. Mays easily retired the first two batters, bringing Charlie Pick to the plate with Chicago facing a Series deficit of two games to one. Pick hit a groundball that second baseman Dave Shean knocked down, but Pick beat it out for a hit. Left-hand-hitting Turner Barber pinch-hit for Charlie Deal. With a ball and two strikes on Barber, Pick stole second, beating Wally Schang’s throw.

Then, a pitch “filtered through Schang’s mitt a couple of yards behind the plate,” and Pick raced toward third.12 Schang recovered the ball and fired it to third, where, according to the New York Times, “Ball and runner arrived at about the same time, and in the mélee at the cushion the ball trickled from (Fred) Thomas’s hands and rolled away toward the Chicago bench.”13 Cubs fans held their breath as Pick raced home with the potential tying run and Thomas fired the ball to the plate. “Straight and true and as swift as a bullet the ball went from Thomas’s hand and into the waiting mitt of Schang. … As Pick came tumbling into the final bag, stretching his left foot far out so as to hook the corner of the rubber platter, the ball clapped against the catcher’s glove, and Schang tagged the runner with the ball.”14 As umpire Bill Klem’s out call echoed through the ballpark, the Cubs’ hopes of taking the lead in the Series died with it.

The Chicago Tribune noted that “Boston’s victory was won by a considerably smaller margin than one run, for the Cubs came within a long step of tying the count in the last half of the ninth.”

After struggling in the fourth, Hippo Vaughn dominated the final five innings of the game, allowing only a walk and a single. Despite his stellar performance on just one day’s rest, Vaughn took responsibility for the loss, stating: “It was my fault. They gave me one run, and that one should have been enough to win for us.”15 Vaughn may have been hard on himself in his assessment, as he’d been given almost no run support in either of his World Series starts. As the Boston Globe wrote, in recognition of Vaughn, “[E]verybody should doff their kellys, for he has pitched two sweet ball games and is deserving of considerable sympathy when a view of the vital statistics reveal that the Cubs have pushed only one run over the pan for him in 18 frames.”16

Sources

In addition to the sources mentioned in the notes, the author consulted baseball-reference.com and retrosheet.org.

Notes

1 Vaughn led the league in wins (22), ERA (1.74), strikeouts (148), games started (33), innings pitched (290⅓), and shutouts (8).

2 “Finish One of the Most Dramatic Yet Seen in Baseball Classic,” New York Sun, September 8, 1918: 4.

3 The season had ended early due to World War I’s “Work or Fight” order and the Cubs chose to play their World Series home games at the larger Comiskey Park, rather than their home ballpark, Weeghman Park (later known as Wrigley Field.)

4 “Red Sox Earn Edge in Series,” New York Sun, September 8, 1918: 4.

5 “Red Sox Earn Edge in Series.”

6 McInnis’s RBI single off Vaughn in the fourth inning of Game One had provided the only run of that contest.

7 “Jim Vaughn Blames Himself for Defeat; Poor Control Cause,” Chicago Tribune, September 8, 1918: A5.

8 “Red Sox Earn Edge in Series.”

9 I.E. Sanborn, “Crisp Onslaught in Fourth Beats Vaughn, Cub Ace,” Chicago Tribune, September 8, 1918: A5.

10 “Carl Mays Takes His Turn in Baffling Cubs in Third Game,” The Sporting News, September 12, 1918: 2.

11 “Finish One of the Most Dramatic Yet Seen in Baseball Classic,” New York Sun, September 8, 1918: 4.

12 I.E. Sanborn, “Crisp Onslaught in Fourth Beats Vaughn, Cub Ace.”

13 “Red Sox Check Rally in Ninth and Take the Game,” New York Times, September 8, 1918: 32. Even Red Sox third baseman Fred Thomas was a reminder of the war. Thomas hadn’t played a major-league game after joining the Navy in June, but was granted a two-week furlough from the Great Lakes Naval Training School in order to play in the World Series.

14 “Red Sox Check Rally in Ninth.”

15 “Jim Vaughn Blames Himself.”

16 “Red Sox Big Fourth Undoing of Vaughn,” Boston Globe, September 8, 1918: 1.

Game One winner Babe Ruth, although working with an “iodine-painted finger” on his throwing hand thanks to an injury incurred during the train ride, was manager Ed Barrow’s choice to start Game Four for the Red Sox.2 He’d thrown a 1-0 shutout in that first game. Lefty Tyler, who had won Game Two for the Cubs, was manager Fred Mitchell’s choice.

Ruth’s injury “bothered him constantly, causing the ball to shine and sail,” and may have been reflected in the six walks and seven base hits off Ruth during the course of the game.3 The St. Louis Post-Dispatch agreed: “The cut bothered him considerably.”4

Max Flack led off the game, singling to right field for Chicago. Charlie Hollocher lined out to Everett Scott at short. Red Sox catcher Sam Agnew fired the ball to Stuffy McInnis at first and picked off Flack. Les Mann fouled out to first base.

The Cubs got to Ruth for two singles in the second to put two runners on with two outs, but Bill Killefer grounded into a shortstop-to-third force play.

Tyler walked to lead off the third inning, but Flack forced him at second. Hollocher moved Flack to second on a grounder that McInnis handled by himself at first, and then Ruth picked off Flack – who was “caught napping” for the second time in three innings – by wheeling and throwing to Scott.5

Boston’s Dave Shean hit a one-out double to left field in the bottom of the first but was the only Red Sox player to reach base off Tyler in any of the first three innings.

Ruth retired the three batters he faced in the top of the fourth.

Shean led off in the Boston fourth, and Tyler walked him. Amos Strunk couldn’t execute the sacrifice and then flied out. Shean saw an opportunity and stole second base without drawing a throw, as the ball got a bit away from catcher Killefer. George Whiteman walked. McInnis hit back to Tyler, who had time to throw out the lead runner at third.

With two outs, Babe Ruth was up, batting sixth in the order. Ruth had led both leagues in home runs with 11 and batted an even .300. “The Tarzan of the Boston tribe” strode to the plate “swinging his savage looking black bludgeon.”6 But Ruth had accumulated 10 at-bats in three World Series (1915, 1916, and this one) and had yet to hit safely. Rather than walk the bases loaded, Mitchell decided to pitch to him.

Tyler tried to get Ruth to swing at outside pitches and didn’t give him much to hit, missing with the first three pitches. He appeared to walk him on an outside pitch at 3-and-1, but the umpire called it a strike. Knowing what he planned to throw next, Tyler twice tried to reposition Flack deeper in right, but Flack held his position.

On a 3-and-2 count, Ruth drove a fastball into deep right field. It was a triple over Flack’s head and almost to the center-field bleachers, driving in both Whiteman and McInnis. Ruth himself might have scored but for Tyler backing up the wide-of-the-bag throw to third base. Scott flied out to center to close the inning. The Red Sox had a 2-0 lead.

Charlie Pick singled to lead off the Cubs fifth and Tyler walked to lead off the sixth, but Ruth got Killefer to hit into a double play in the fifth and induced three successive grounders in the sixth.7

Tyler retired all six Boston batters.

In the seventh, with one out, Ruth walked Fred Merkle and pinch-hitter Rollie Zeider (batting for Pick), but a second pinch-hitter, Bob O’Farrell, grounded into a 6-4-3 double play.

Stuffy McInnis singled in the Red Sox seventh, and Ruth bunted him to second. Scott reached on a fielder’s choice – but McInnis was out at third – and Fred Thomas popped up to second base.

Ruth seemed to tire in the eighth. He walked Killefer, then allowed pinch-hitter Claude Hendrix to single to left field. Hendrix was a pitcher, but not a bad choice to bat; he’d belted nine extra-base hits (three home runs, three triples, and three doubles) and batted .264 during the regular season. With runners on first and second, Ruth threw a wild pitch and there were two men in scoring position with nobody out. Throughout the game, the Globe noted, Ruth was “ever on the brink of danger.”8

Max Flack was having a tough game and it only got worse when he grounded out to first baseman McInnis, who looked Killefer back to the bag at third while tagging out the oncoming Flack. Mitchell made his fifth substitution of the game after he saw that Hendrix seemed a little shaky on the basepaths (he almost got caught off second base); rookie Bill McCabe ran for Hendrix, who was already primed to pitch. Mitchell had Phil Douglas start warming up; he’d been 10-9 with a 2.13 ERA during the regular season.

Hollocher grounded out to second baseman Shean, whose only play was to first base; Killefer scored. Les Mann singled to left, scoring McCabe from third base. The game was tied, 2-2.

Ruth’s World Series scoreless innings streak was thus snapped at 29⅔. He’d surpassed the previous record (Christy Mathewson, with 28) and established a new record that stood for decades until Whitey Ford upped the ante by pitching 33 consecutive scoreless innings in the 1960, 1961, and 1962 World Series. Dode Paskert grounded out to end the eighth.

In a tied ballgame and facing a right-handed pitcher for the first time in the entire Series (Mitchell brought in the big righty Douglas), the Red Sox countered by having switch-hitter Wally Schang bat left-handed in place of Agnew. Agnew was 0-for-7 and hadn’t gotten on base yet in the three games he’d played. Schang came through with a single to center field – and then took second base when Killefer allowed another ball to get away from him for a passed ball.

Harry Hooper tried to bunt Schang to third base – and more than succeeded. Douglas pounced on the ball but threw it away – “Phil’s fatal fling.”9 Schang scored on the misplay and Hooper wound up on second base. Douglas then retired the next three batters and Hooper stayed on second throughout. But the damage was done. It was Boston 3, Chicago 2.

Schang took over behind the plate for Boston in the ninth. Manager Ed Barrow waited it out while Ruth got in trouble again, as Merkle singled into center field and Zeider walked. Finally he’d seen enough and brought in Bullet Joe Bush to relieve Ruth. Rather than head to the showers, though, Ruth took over for Whiteman in left field.

Chuck Wortman, who’d come into the game to play second for the Cubs in the seventh inning, bunted toward first base – but McInnis had anticipated well and played in daringly close, cutting off the ball before Bush could get to it. His boldness worked and McInnis fired across the diamond to Thomas, who got Merkle at third base. It wasn’t even close.

Turner Barber pinch-hit for Killefer and grounded into a 6-4-3 double play to end the game and secure the win for Ruth and the Red Sox. Boston held a 3-1 lead in the World Series and hoped to wrap things up the next day.

All the newspapers understandably saw Douglas’s throw as the tipping point in the game; the New York Times in particular suggested that his spitball was still wet when he fired an “impetuous, violent” throw toward first base: The “wet, slippery sphere skidded in his hand as he threw and went hopping to the right field stand.”10

The Chicago Tribune said that Mitchell “had been compelled to throw in so many reserves that he weakened his defense and the substitutes were unable to hold what ground had been gained.”11

Ruth hadn’t pitched all that well, with six bases on balls mixed in with seven hits and the wild pitch (and no strikeouts), while the Red Sox had only four hits in the game. But the Red Sox infield defense had been error-free and turned three double plays, including a couple of crucial ones in the seventh and ninth. McInnis was credited for digging at least a couple of tough throws out of the dirt, and Scott handled 11 chances at short without an error.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org, and drew substantially on Bill Nowlin and Jim Prime, The Boston Red Sox World Series Encyclopedia (Burlington, Massachusetts: Rounder Books, 2008).

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS191809090.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1918/B09090BOS1918.htm

Notes

1 The First World War was in progress – the reason the Series was being played in September – and everyone realized that attendance would be down and revenues reduced. But the players had a written agreement and the teams weren’t living up to it. The players talked on the train and demanded a hearing before the National Commission. There was some talk of holding out and not playing. August Herrmann of the National Commission succeeded in deferring the discussion until after Game Four at Fenway Park. See a brief explanation by Allan Wood, “The 1918 World Series; Boston Red Sox – Chicago Cubs,” Bill Nowlin, ed., When Boston Still Had the Babe – The 1918 World Champion Red Sox (Phoenix: SABR, 2018), 211, 212.

2 Edward F. Martin, “Wonderful Support When Base Wobbles,” Boston Globe, September 10, 1918: 1.

3 The injury came from what was apparently some good-natured roughhousing with fellow pitcher Walt Kinney on the train from Chicago. Leigh Montville, The Big Bam (New York: Doubleday, 2009), 77. See Edward F. Martin and other contemporary sources, though the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (not necessarily a contradiction) said that Ruth had “lost his balance while walking down an aisle on the train, Sunday night, and put his hand through a window.” “Ruth Pitched Game with a Bad Hand: Mitchell Napping on Wortman’s Bunt,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, September 10, 1918: 16.

4 Ruth Pitched Game with a Bad Hand.”

5 “Ruth Helps Red Sox to Drive Within One Victory of World’s Baseball Title,” New York Times, September 10, 1918: 10.

6 “Ruth Helps Red Sox to Drive Within One Victory of World’s Baseball Title.”

7 Shean made a heads-up play in the sixth. With Tyler on base, Flack bounced one to Ruth, who threw badly to second. The ball got away from Scott. Allan Wood tells it well: “Shean, however, was positioned only a few feet behind the base. He was on his knees when he gloved Ruth’s errant toss, then crawled on his stomach in the dirt, tagging the bag with his mitt just ahead of Tyler’s foot.” Allan Wood, “The 1918 World Series; Boston Red Sox – Chicago Cubs.”

8 Edward F. Martin, Boston Globe.

9 Dick Jemison, “Red Sox Need Only One More Win,” Atlanta Constitution, September 10, 1918: 16.

10 “Ruth Helps Red Sox to Drive Within One Victory of World’s Baseball Title.”

11 I.E. Sanborn, “Triple Ruth Makes Good,” Chicago Tribune, September 10, 1918: 10. Mitchell used 16 players in the game.

The players were looking to ensure, among other things, that the loser in the Series would at least take home more money than the second-place teams in each league. It was looking as though gate receipts were going to leave each player with less than half of what they’d expected. With the season ending early, and an end to World War I not clearly in sight, it was possible that the 1919 baseball season would be canceled. The Chicago Tribune likened the squabble to a “wrangle over the pennies on the corpse’s eyes.”1 The corpse, of course, being Organized Baseball.

Before Game Four, Garry Herrmann from the National Commission had asked the discontented player representatives from both teams to play out the game and then come back to them to see about a resolution of the issues regarding player compensation.2

After Game Four, the player representatives went to the hotel to meet the commission but learned that the men had gone to the theater. They met the next morning and were now asked to defer once again. A final decision would be made after Game Five.

Of course, if the Red Sox won, the World Series would be over and any leverage the players had would be moot. As game time approached, the players decided they would not play until the matter was resolved—but a couple of the commission members had imbibed far too much at lunch and were in no condition to meet. The game was delayed for more than an hour as the fans waited in their seats, not knowing the cause for the delay and beginning to become restless.

The frustrated players ultimately capitulated and agreed to play the game. The commission members had nearly prompted a player strike by continually dodging the issue before them but had successfully deferred the decision.3

Red Sox owner Harry Frazee was no fan of baseball’s leading body; the New York Times said he called it the “National Omission.”4

The band struck up the “Star Spangled Banner” and then the game began. Regular playing of the tune before ballgames reportedly began at Fenway Park during this wartime World Series of 1918.

Sam Jones was the starter for the Red Sox. The right-hander was in his fifth year of major-league ball and had recorded a 16-5 (2.25 ERA) season in his first full year of work since 1915, when he pitched for Cleveland.

The game started poorly for Jones. He walked Max Flack on four pitches and then allowed Charlie Hollocher’s single. Les Mann’s bunt put runners at second and third with one out.

George Whiteman then made one of the plays that led many to feature him as one of the more valuable players of the Series. He raced in on Dode Paskert’s drive into left field, caught the ball off his shoestrings, and immediately threw to second base to nab Hollocher for an inning-ending double play—all before Flack crossed home plate.

Jim “Hippo” Vaughn returned to the mound for the Cubs, continuing to alternate starts in a two-man rotation with Lefty Tyler. He’d already lost two games, 1-0 and 2-1, but clearly pitched well enough to have won both. Back for a third crack at a win, he bore down from the beginning. In the first third of the game, he allowed only a leadoff single to Harry Hooper in the first and a one-out base on balls to Sam Jones in the third.

Vaughn found himself with a lead, albeit a thin one, for the first time in the Series, after the Cubs batted in the top of the third. He grounded out to start the inning, and Flack did the same. But then Jones walked Hollocher. The Cubs shortstop took such a long lead off first that he drew a throw behind him from Sam Agnew to first baseman Stuffy McInnis, who whipped his glove down and tagged … nothing at all. Hollocher hadn’t returned to the bag; he’d stolen second.

Mann doubled over third base into left field, driving in Hollocher. Paskert hit the third short-to-first grounder of the inning to end it. Cubs 1, Red Sox 0.

Amos Strunk doubled to right field to lead off the Boston fourth, but Whiteman popped up in the infield and McInnis lined into a double play that caught Strunk off second. After Fred Thomas singled in the fifth, it was Agnew’s turn to hit into a double play that ended the inning.

The Cubs collected another couple of hits in the sixth, bookending a fly out and a walk. Hollocher singled to center, Mann flied out, and Paskert walked. Then Fred Merkle singled to center, but Whiteman earned his second assist of the game by throwing out Hollocher at home plate.5 The runners moved up on the throw—Paskert going to third and Merkle to second—but there they languished as Charlie Pick flied out to center.

With one out, Whiteman singled in the seventh, but McInnis hit into his second double play of the game and the third the Cubs had completed in four innings.

Flack walked again to lead off the eighth. Hollocher reached, bunting for a base hit—his third hit of the game, a slow roller that seemed headed foul but came to a stop in fair territory. Boston manager Ed Barrow started three pitchers warming up—Jean Dubuc, Carl Mays, and Bill Pertica.

After Mann popped up to second, Paskert doubled, with the ball coming to rest against the wall in left-center. It drove in both baserunners, giving the Cubs a 3-0 lead. Barrow left Jones in and he struck out Merkle. Pick singled, but Paskert got caught in an odd rundown that saw first baseman McInnis tag him out at home plate, and the Cubs were retired.

The Red Sox went down in order in the bottom of the eighth. In the top of the ninth, Jones got all three Cubs on a couple of grounders and a strikeout of Vaughn.

The Cubs were three outs from extending the series. Vaughn started the ninth by facing pinch-hitter Hack Miller. Four years later, Miller starred with the Cubs, but now he flied out to left—a little dramatically. It was a solid smash that might well have fallen for two bases, but Les Mann raced up the sloped bank in left-center (still known by fans as Duffy’s Cliff), hit the boards of the wall and then fell, saw the ball drop providentially into his glove, juggled it, and held on.

Hooper popped up to Hollocher at short, who ranged back to steal a single away. Dave Shean kept the game going with a single—an infield hit to short—but Strunk struck out on three pitches, fanning for the fourth time in the game.

Jim Vaughn had himself a five-hit shutout. Only two Red Sox got as far as second base, Vaughn had thrown 27 innings in three starts and now boasted a 1.00 earned-run average—but only a 1-2 record. Nonetheless, the Cubs had recovered. If they could win the next day’s game, the Series would be tied.

Cubs manager Fred Mitchell was pleased. “The men were more like themselves than in any one game of the series and I am confident they will maintain the same pace tomorrow,” he said. A supremely confident Ed Barrow said the Cubs’ victory just postponed the inevitable: “[M]erely prolongs the series. We expected to end it today, but things broke too well for Chicago. We will win tomorrow.”

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org, and drew substantially on Bill Nowlin and Jim Prime, The Boston Red Sox World Series Encyclopedia (Burlington, Massachusetts: Rounder Books, 2008).

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS191809100.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1918/B09100BOS1918.htm

Notes

1 I.E. Sanborn, “Cubs Grab Victory Under Shadow of Dollar Sign, 3 to 0,” Chicago Tribune, September 11, 1918: 11.

2 The principal player representatives were Les Mann of the Cubs and Harry Hooper of the Red Sox. See “Jangle Over Money Retards Game Hour; Means Series’ Knell,” Chicago Tribune, September 11, 1918: 11. Another report said that Mann and Bill Killefer of the Cubs and Hooper and Scott of the Red Sox “offered to give up their share of the spoils to some war charity if the National Commission, the clubs, and the other players would do likewise. There has been no evidence of the spirit of these players becoming general.” See “Cubs Take Fifth Game of Series by 3 to 0 Score,” New York Times, September 11, 1918: 14.

3 For a good summary of the issues see Melville E. Webb Jr., “Adjustment Today, Players Demand,” Boston Globe, September 11, 1918: 1.

4 “Cubs Take Fifth Game of Series by 3 to 0 Score.”

5 Wallace Goldsmith’s front-page cartoon portrays this one of Whiteman’s throws. Boston Globe, September 11, 1918: 1.

Game Three winner Carl Mays was given the game ball for the Boston Red Sox. With Lefty Tyler starting a third time for the Chicago Cubs, Boston manager Ed Barrow again had George Whiteman play left field and had Babe Ruth grab some bench.

Only one batter reached first base off Mays in the first three innings—Charlie Pick, who singled to left field but then was picked off first base in the second inning. Mays faced the minimum nine batters.

Amos Strunk singled in the first and Fred Thomas walked in the second, but the Red Sox really didn’t have anything going until the bottom of the third. Mays was quite a good hitter, with a .288 average in 1918, and he drew a four-pitch walk to lead off the inning. Harry Hooper did his job, bunting Mays to second. Dave Shean walked. Strunk grounded out to second but moved up both runners.

Whiteman was up. He hit the ball to Max Flack, who was becoming a bit of a hapless character in this Series when not at the plate. The right fielder let Whiteman’s liner play him—and what should have been a routine catch glanced off his glove. Both Mays and Shean scored on the error for a 2-0 Boston lead.

Perhaps, as the Washington Post’s J.V. Fitz Gerald suggested, Flack had run in too fast.3 Whatever the reason, he dropped the ball. Flack’s .263 average in the World Series was third best among Cubs batters and better than any Red Sox regular save catcher Wally Schang; Flack’s .417 on-base percentage was second best on the Cubs. But he’d dropped a two-out fly ball that should have ended the inning. It was the only time the Red Sox would score. The two runs were unearned, but they were enough to win the game.

The Cubs wasted no time before scoring themselves, and it was Flack who did so. He led off the top of the fourth with a single to center field and took second on Charlie Hollocher’s grounder to second baseman Shean. Mays then hit Les Mann, and the Cubs had runners on first and second.

Mann got careless and was picked off first base on a throw from Schang; it was the fourth time in the Series that a Cubs runner had been picked off base. Dode Paskert walked; without the pickoff, the bases would have been loaded. Flack then stole third base, but Paskert stayed on first. Fred Merkle’s single to left easily scored Flack, but Pick lined out to Hooper. It was Red Sox 2, Cubs 1.

The Red Sox also put men on first and second with one out in their half of the fourth, on Everett Scott’s single and Schang’s walk. Mays bunted safely and loaded the bases, but Hooper’s grounder to first base forced Scott at home plate. Third baseman Charlie Deal gathered in Shean’s grounder and stepped on the bag at third to force Mays. The score stayed as it had been.

After three groundball outs in the fifth, Mays walked Flack to lead off the sixth. But Hollocher forced Flack and then Mann forced Hollocher. And when Mann tried to steal, he was thrown out at second base. To go with their four pickoffs, the Cubs now had been caught stealing five times in the six games of the World Series. The Cubs were hitting the ball with a bit of authority, but the Red Sox fielders—including Mays himself, who had six assists in this game—plugged any holes. After the fourth inning, Chicago never hit safely again.

For that matter, the Red Sox were hitless as well after the fourth, save for a seventh-inning single by Strunk.

Whiteman had one more big play in him. Cubs manager Fred Mitchell turned again to Turner Barber to pinch-hit to lead off the eighth. Barber almost came through, hitting a ball that just got over Scott at shortstop. Seemingly a sure single, representing the tying run, the Cubs were stunned when Whiteman came out of nowhere and “grabbed the sphere below his ankles, and took a clean somersault, the great momentum rolling him up on his feet again.”4 He held onto the ball. It was such a spectacular catch that the thin crowd at Fenway cheered for as long as three full minutes. Whiteman apparently wrenched his neck on the play.

Another pinch-hitter, Bob O’Farrell, batted for Bill Killefer. He hit another ball that also looked sure to fall in, also into short left. Whiteman was still woozy and, in any event, not positioned to be able to get this one, but this time it was Scott who appeared to make a dramatic catch. Barrow prompted the crowd to offer up back-to-back ovations, once as Whiteman ran in to take a seat and again as Babe Ruth ran out to take his place in left. The third pinch-hitter of the inning, Bill McCabe, fouled out; it was shortstop Scott who had run all the way into foul territory to make the catch.

Claude Hendrix was back, this time as the pitcher he was, and he got all three Boston batters to fly out in the bottom of the eighth.

Mays was prepared to close it out in the ninth, facing Flack again in the leadoff slot. He had reached base twice in three plate appearances, but popped up foul to Thomas at third. Hollocher flied out to Ruth in left for the second out. Mann grounded out to Shean, who tossed to Stuffy McInnis at first base (the Boston Globe called him “Stuffy the Stretcher”)—and the Red Sox had won their third World Series in four years, fourth in the last seven seasons, and fifth of the 15 World Series played to this point.

Only one Cub reached second base after the fourth; Mays had thrown a masterful three-hitter. Tyler had allowed only five hits, but as the Globe noted, it was “a pair of walks, a sacrifice and Flack’s muff that developed the runs.”5

It was a surprising World Series. In six games, the Red Sox scored only nine runs—but won the requisite four games. They won with a team batting average of .186. Perhaps more importantly, they’d committed only one error in the entire six-game stretch and made the plays that counted. They had received excellent pitching from Mays (2-0) and Ruth (2-0) in particular. The team ERA was a collective 1.70.

The Cubs’ stats were similar enough: a remarkable ERA of 1.04 but a team batting average of only .210. Fred Mitchell was just being frank when he allowed, “I’d like to play the series over again if such a thing were possible. … I shall always contend that with an even break, we would have won.” He didn’t mean to detract from Boston’s win. “It was a tough series to lose,” he admitted. “All the glory that goes with winning the world championship belongs to Boston. The pitching on both sides was the best in years. … They are a great team and proved it.”6

Numerous columnists agreed that luck played a big role in such a close Series, and that the Red Sox had the better luck.

The Washington Post credited George Whiteman as the most valuable player of the game: he “single handed won the sixth and deciding game of the series. …Whiteman is the hero of the 1918 championship.”7

Boston kept tradition alive — no Boston team had ever lost a World Series. Of the 17 Series played to date, the Braves had won their one in 1914 and the Red Sox had won all five of theirs.

It wasn’t yet mid-September, but there was a war to win.8 Everyone hoped baseball might resume in the springtime.

The Cubs hadn’t won a World Series since 1908. Cubs fans hoped a win in the World Series would follow before too long.9

Boston fans naturally hoped the dominant Red Sox would continue to win world championships in the years to come.10

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author also consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org, and drew substantially on Bill Nowlin and Jim Prime, The Boston Red Sox World Series Encyclopedia (Burlington, Massachusetts: Rounder Books, 2008).

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS191809110.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1918/B09110BOS1918.htm

Notes

1 See the account of Game Five, on September 10, 1918.

2 Games Four and Five at Fenway had averaged 23,438.

3 J.V. Fitz Gerald, “Boston World’s Champion by Defeat of Chicago, 2 to 1,” Washington Post, September 12, 1918: 8.

4 Dick Jemison, “Red Sox Win Straw Hat Title,” Atlanta Constitution, September 12, 1918: 14.

5 Edward F. Martin, “Red Sox Win Sixth Game and the Title,” Boston Globe, September 12, 1918: 1, 8.

6 Edward F. Martin.

7 J.V. Fitz Gerald.

8 At the end of each inning throughout the game, carrier pigeons were released by two men from the Army Signal Corps to carry word on progress of the game back to the troops stationed at Fort Devens, just over 30 miles away. See Edward F. Martin.

9 The Cubs next won the World Series in 2016, after a wait of 108 years.

10 The Red Sox waited 86 years, until 2004, before winning the World Series again. The next time they won a World Series with the clinching game at Fenway Park was in 2018.