Partly this came from his on-field accomplishments. At age 19, just before the 1914 season, he joined the International League Baltimore Orioles, signed by owner-manager Jack Dunn after Dunn saw him throw a no-hitter in a 1913 semipro game in Baltimore.2 Ruth showed up eager for training camp, reportedly one of the first two to arrive,3 and was spectacular, especially in exhibitions against major-league clubs, showing himself “a sterling southpaw who (was) a terror to the big league clubs.”4

On March 25 against the Philadelphia Athletics, who’d win the 1914 AL pennant, he pitched “brilliantly” in a complete-game 6-2 victory against a lineup including Eddie Collins and Frank “Home Run” Baker.5 He also pitched well against the Dodgers, Braves, and Phillies, and continued his effectiveness into the season, shutting out Buffalo 6-0 in his April 22 regular-season debut.6

By June, partly because Ruth had a stretch of nine consecutive victories, several major-league teams expressed interest in acquiring him, including at least one from the Federal League.7 On July 9 Dunn sold him to the Boston Red Sox, along with Ernie Shore and Ben Egan, for a reported $30,000.8

The deal garnered significant attention, some of which furthered the idea of Ruth as legend. The Baltimore Sun, profiling him, emphasized his difficult childhood during which his parents had declared him incorrigible and deposited him at St. Mary’s Industrial school for delinquents; there, the Sun declared, Ruth blossomed into someone “heralded from one end of the country to the other as a wonderful man (whose) whole heart was put into baseball.”9 Announcing the deal, the Boston Globe dubbed him “the next (Rube) Waddell.”10

The team Ruth joined was in sixth place at 39-38 after losing its last five. Its woes stemmed partly from injury and illness. Among others, Joe Wood, who’d won 34 games in 1912, had a sore arm; Heinie Wagner, the team’s 1913 shortstop, would miss the season because of rheumatism; an infielder Boston acquired from Detroit, Del Gainer, injured himself almost immediately after arriving; pitcher Rube Foster hurt his knee; and the Red Sox’ best hitter, Tris Speaker, was “badly bunged up, though … sticking it out.”11 Announcing the deal, owner Joseph Lannin said he’d “let no expense stand in the way of putting the Red Sox in the American League race and keeping them there.”12

Because of the tattered pitching staff, Ruth did not have to wait long to see action, as manager Bill Carrigan started him the day he arrived, a Saturday afternoon contest against the Cleveland Naps, who at 26-49 were the worst team in the majors. Managed by Joe Birmingham, Cleveland featured outfielder Shoeless Joe Jackson (then hitting .333), and shortstop Ray Chapman, who was just beginning to find his way after starting the season late after breaking his leg in the spring.

Opposing Ruth was Willie Mitchell, 24 and in his sixth major-league season, with a 4-9 record and a 3.93 ERA. Mitchell was erratic. Although he would finish second in the league that year in strikeouts with 179, he’d also finish second in walks with 124.

Game day was pleasant; the Cleveland Plain Dealer described it as “an ideal summer afternoon (with) an east wind from Boston harbor tempering the heat.”13 The combination of weather and the chance to see Ruth drew 11,087 in paid attendance.14

Ruth’s day began oddly. He gave up a single to  Jack Graney leading off, and a groundout by Terry Turner moved him to second before Jackson singled, but Graney attempted to score on Jackson’s hit, was caught in a rundown, and was out at the plate.15 On that play, Jackson tried for second, but was also thrown out. The Red Sox took the lead in the bottom of the inning. After Olaf Henriksen struck out leading off, Everett Scott singled. He was forced at second by Speaker’s grounder. Speaker then stole second, and scored on a triple by Larry Gardner.

Neither team did anything of consequence in the second and third innings, but the second featured Ruth’s first major-league at-bat, in which he struck out, though the Globe noted that he “received a perfect ovation when he went to the bat, and shaped up like a good batsman.”16

Cleveland tied it in the top of the fourth: Graney hit a long drive to deep center field that Speaker went after and got his glove on but could not corral, allowing Graney to reach second. The scorer ruled it an error but, the Plain Dealer reported, he “was a bit hard on Speaker. … (He) just reached it after a long run and most everybody in the press box regarded it as awfully close to a two-base hit.”17 Turner sacrificed Graney to third, and he scored on Jackson’s second single of the day.

Boston went back on top with a pair of two-out runs in the bottom of the inning. Gardner singled leading off and advanced to third on a sacrifice by Hal Janvrin and a groundout by Wally Rehg. Steve Yerkes walked and stole second. When catcher Steve O’Neill’s throw sailed into center field, Gardner scored. Carrigan (who was also the team’s starting catcher) followed with a double, driving in Yerkes, before Ruth ended the inning by flying out to Jackson in right.

The lead held until the seventh, when Cleveland tied the score on three singles: Jay Kirke led off with one and moved to second on another by Chapman. Nemo Leibold sacrificed, moving both to second and third, respectively, and they scored on a single by O’Neill. Ruth got out of the inning when Mitchell grounded to short for a double play.

That was the end of Ruth’s day. Duffy Lewis pinch-hit for him leading off the bottom of the seventh and grounded a roller to Kirke at first. When Kirke threw to Mitchell covering, the ball eluded the pitcher, letting Lewis reach second. After Henriksen flied out, Scott bounced back to Mitchell, who, instead of throwing to first for the out, went after Lewis, who was caught between second and third. Lewis managed to stay in a rundown long enough for Scott to advance to second. He came in on Speaker’s single. The inning ended with Speaker being caught trying to steal.

To relieve Ruth, Carrigan brought in Dutch Leonard, who was having the best year of his career (he would lead the league with a microscopic 0.96 ERA while going 19-5). He set down the last six Naps in order, striking out four, picking up his first save on the season, and giving Ruth his first major-league victory. Ruth’s final line: seven innings, eight hits, three runs (two earned), no walks, and one strikeout. Despite his faltering in the seventh and although noting that he could improve, the Globe praised him: “(He) proved a natural ballplayer and went through his act like a veteran of many wars. He has a natural delivery, fine control and a curve ball that bothers the batsmen.”18 Mitchell, the losing hurler, pitched at least as well as Ruth, going the distance and surrendering four runs (three earned) on eight hits and two walks, while striking out five.

Five days later, Ruth got his second start, this time against Detroit. He lasted three innings, allowing two earned runs on three hits and a walk, striking out one, and taking the loss. After he spent the next month on the bench without getting into a game, Boston sent him to the minors on August 18.

While his arrival was ballyhooed by long, laudatory newspaper articles, his departure was noted by almost a journalistic whisper, a single sentence on the bottom of the page in the August 18 edition of the Globe: “‘Babe’ Ruth, the ‘Southpaw’ pitcher who came to Boston from Baltimore, has been released to the Providence club of the International League.”19

He may have arrived in the majors described as a legend, but it would take some time before he would actually be one.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author also relied on Baseball Reference for statistics, as well as the Society for American Baseball Research’s Biography Project for background information.

Notes

1 See, for example, C. Starr Matthews, “The Rise of Babe Ruth,” Baltimore Sun, July 10, 1914: 5, and J.C. O’Leary, “Three New Men for the Red Sox,” Boston Globe, July 10, 1914: 1.

2 O’Leary.

3 “Orioles to Leave for Camp Tonight,” Baltimore Evening Sun, March 2, 1914: 8.

4 “Giants in the Final Exhibition Game,” Baltimore Evening Sun, April 13, 1914: 2.

5 Jesse A. Linthicum, “Birds Beat Athletics,” Baltimore Sun, March 26, 1914: 5.

6 “Ruth Scores Shutout,” Baltimore Sun, April 23, 1914: 11.

7 “Federal League After Babe Ruth,” Baltimore Evening Sun, June 5, 1914: 8.

8 O’Leary.

9 Matthews.

10 O’Leary.

11 O’Leary.

12 Ibid.

13 “Red Sox Hits and Naps’ Errors Give Boston Game,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 12, 1914: II-1.

14 Ibid.

15 Play-by-play detail comes from the Boston Globe and Cleveland Plain Dealer accounts of the game.

16 T.H. Murnane, “Ruth Leads Red Sox to Victory, Boston Globe, July 12, 1914: 11.

17 “Features,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 12, 1914: 1B.

18 Murnane.

19 “Ruth Goes to Providence,” Boston Globe, August 18, 1914: 6.

In the midst of a seven-year run that saw Boston win four championships, the Red Sox had the much stronger of the two clubs led by the superstar center fielder Tris Speaker. The Gray Eagle enjoyed a 22-year career in the AL and played a career-high 158 games in 1914, including this contest.

New York, by contrast, lacked boldface names in both the batting order and pitching rotation. Before the season, Yankee fans might have pointed to the Peerless Leader, Frank Chance, as a reason for optimism, but with 20 games to go in the team’s fourth straight nonwinning campaign, Chance resigned. His replacement, the 23-year-old Roger Peckinpaugh, became the youngest skipper in the history of the majors when he took over as player-manager.

To face Boston, Peckinpaugh tapped Carroll Brown, “the best pitcher that ever promenaded the boardwalk at Atlantic City,”1 thus earning him the splendid sobriquet Boardwalk in place of his more pedestrian birth name. Red Sox player-manager Bill Carrigan countered with rookie southpaw George Ruth, who made his third start for Boston after splitting his first two decisions in July.

The game served as a microcosm of the season for the two teams. The Red Sox took a 2-0 lead in the first thanks to a double by Olaf Henriksen, Speaker’s 18th triple of the year,2 and a single by Dick Hoblitzell, who enjoyed a perfect 4-for-4 day at the plate.

Boston extended its lead in the fourth. Catcher Hick Cady singled, Henriksen walked, Hal Janvrin doubled, Duffy Lewis tripled, and Hoblitzell doubled.

Trailing 6-0, the Yankees finally broke through against Ruth in the sixth thanks to an error by first baseman Janvrin, Peckinpaugh’s single, and a two-run double by the former Boston backstop Les Nunamaker.3 Even here, New York played poor baseball. Down by four runs, catcher Nunamaker should have held at second with a two-bagger rather than trying to take an extra base against the excellent outfield arm of Lewis. Lewis’s peg, one of his 22 assists as a left fielder in 1914, cut down Nunamaker, keeping the Red Sox lead at 6-2.

The Yankees would draw no closer. In the bottom of the same frame, Henriksen and Janvrin both walked, and Roy Hartzell’s error on Speaker’s fly loaded the bases. Lewis’s fly ball scored one run and Hoblitzell’s double plated two more. Brown had given up nine runs (eight earned), the most he had yielded since a September 13, 1912, game against Cleveland. Boston now led 9-2.

King Cole replaced Brown. As Brown had pitched for the pennant-winning 1913 A’s and had won 30 games for the Athletics in 1912-1913, Cole had toiled for the pennant-winning 1910 Cubs and captured 38 games in 1910-1911.

Ruth had gone hitless in his two-plus games for the Red Sox before facing Cole in the seventh. The Babe doubled for the first of his career 2,873 hits and 506 doubles. The “smashing two-ply drive”4 preceded a single by Henriksen and a fly by Janvrin, which enabled Ruth to score the first of his 2,174 career runs and put the Red Sox up 10-2. As of 2018, Ruth had still scored the fourth-most runs in major-league history. In a neat coincidence, Hank Aaron also finished his career with 2,174 runs scored.

Cruising along with a big lead and perhaps tired by his labor on the bases, Ruth eased up. New York scored a run in the eighth on two singles, a walk, and a fly ball. Boston got the run back in the bottom half on a walk, an error, and a single to go up 11-3. In the ninth, the speedy Fritz Maisel smacked an inside-the-park homer, one of three such clouts he would hit as a Yankee.5 Doc Cook walked. Down 11-4, he stole second base and third base. Today, an official scorer would deem these two plays defensive indifference, but in 1914 Cook got credit for two meaningless steals.6 Birdie Cree doubled in Cook to make the final score 11-5 and give Ruth the second of his 94 wins on the mound.

The Cole-Ruth confrontation that transformed the game from meaningless to memorable highlighted two hurlers who had more similarities than the casual baseball fan might assume. Superficially, both pitchers with four-letter last names more commonly went by four-letter nicknames rather than their given names (Leonard for Cole and George for Ruth). Both pitched for the Yankees under Hall of Fame managers (Cole for Chance,7 and Ruth for Miller Huggins and Joe McCarthy). Both won 20 games as pitchers with league-leading ERAs under 2 for pennant winners (Cole went 20-4 with a 1.80 ERA for the 1910 Cubs; Ruth went 23-12 with a 1.75 ERA for the 1916 Red Sox).

Both died young, Cole at the age of 29, and Ruth at 53. Deadball Era baseball fans could hardly have imagined that years after his hit off Cole, the Boston rookie hurler Ruth would go on to become the Sultan of Swat for New York.

Ruth hit a then-record 54 homers in his first season with the Yankees in 1920, playing regularly alongside two of the more prominent players in this 1914 game. Duffy Lewis had preceded Ruth by one year, going from Boston to New York in time for the 1919 season.8 Alone among his 1914 New York teammates, Peckinpaugh remained with the Yankees and still held down the shortstop position through 1921.

In the first postseason game in franchise history, that year, Peckinpaugh played shortstop and batted second, one slot in front of Ruth, who played left field. The Yankees have the most storied World Series record of any team, a history that began on October 5, 1921, against the New York Giants with a leadoff single by Elmer Miller, a sacrifice by Peckinpaugh, and an RBI single by Ruth that gave the Yanks a 1-0 lead in a game that would end 3-0. Although the Giants would go on to win the 1921 World Series, the echoes of a double Ruth hit in 1914 would resound for generations of Bronx Bombers.

Notes

1 “Athletics Helpless before Caldwell,” New York Times, April 18, 1914.

2 Speaker finished third in the AL with 18 triples behind his teammate Larry Gardner, who hit 19, and the remarkable Sam Crawford, who, at the age of 34, hit a career-best 26 triples. Crawford holds the all-time record with 309 career triples.

3 Nunamaker averaged fewer than 10 extra-base hits per season, but had at least three of them against Ruth. “On April 25, [1916,] he clobbered Red Sox ace Babe Ruth for a double, a triple, and two singles…” Tony Bunting, “Les Nunamaker,” sabr.org/bioproj/person/790ea82d (accessed May 23, 2018).

4 T.H. Murnane, “Highlanders Out of Running from Start,” Boston Globe, October 3, 1914: 7. A correspondent for a New York paper made a simple reference to “Ruth’s double” rather than describing the hit in any detail. “Red Sox Pound Yankee Pitchers,” New York Times, October 3, 1914.

5 Mitchell S. Soivenski, New York Yankees Home Runs (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2013), 283. Maisel also got his 69th stolen base of the season in this game. His 1914 total of 74 stolen bases remained the Yankee record until Rickey Henderson stole 80 in 1985. Henderson subsequently stole 87 bases for the Yankees in 1986 and 93 in 1988. Maisel’s 1914 total remained fourth best in franchise history at the end of the 2018 season.

6 Cook needed the scoring generosity. He finished the 1914 season with 26 steals, which appears impressive absent the context that he was caught stealing 32 times. Both Cook and Eddie Murphy of the A’s finished with the league-worst mark in this category, but Murphy at least had 10 more stolen bases than Cook did.

7 “Frank Chance always considered Cole a great pitcher, when he was in condition, and when the Peerless Leader came … to manage the Yankees one of his first official acts was to bring Cole back from the minors.” “Pitcher ‘King’ Cole Dead,” New York Times, January 7, 1916.

8 “A story Lewis loved telling in later years was about the time he pinch-hit for Babe Ruth. On July 11, 1914, Ruth made his major-league debut, hurling a 4-3 victory over the Cleveland Indians. Lewis hit for Ruth in the seventh inning and singled, helping to give his young teammate the victory.” Mark Armour, “Duffy Lewis,” sabr.org/bioproj/person/5f9f3a44 (accessed May 23, 2018).

According to the Boston Globe, “[T]he Sox defense wobbled sufficiently to give the Yanks a decided advantage in the early innings.”1 The teams combined for six errors, four of them by the visiting Red Sox at critical times in the game. This would affect the outcome, as the Yankees fought the Red Sox “tooth and nail for thirteen innings.”2

Ruth was making his third pitching start (and fourth appearance) of the season for the Red Sox. In his previous outings, he was 1-0 with a 5.02 earned-run average. He had picked up two hits in seven at-bats, good for a .286 batting average. The New York Times affirmed that “the big left-handed pitcher, Babe Ruth, was all that a pitcher is supposed to be, and some more.”3 The Yankees countered with Jack Warhop, a 5-foot-9-inch right-hander also making his third start. Warhop was 0-2 with a 6.19 ERA in the young season. Through May 5, Boston was in fourth place in the American League. New York was second, two games behind the league-leading Detroit Tigers.

The game moved steadily for the first two frames. In the third inning, “Ruth, who impressed the onlookers as being a hitter of the first rank, swatted a low ball into the upper tier of the right-field grandstand and trotted about the bases to slow music.”4 Boston had the lead and Ruth was pitching through the New York lineup, prompting the Boston Globe writer to say, “This run looked as tall as the Woolworth Building.”5

New York tied the score in the fifth without the help of a base hit. Boston infielders Heinie Wagner and Mike McNally each made a fielding error, and a force out off the bat of Luke Boone brought Doc Cook home with the equalizer. Through seven innings and despite allowing the one run, the 20-year-old Ruth had allowed only one hit, a single by Hugh High in the first inning.

Boston regained the lead in the top of the seventh inning. Bill Carrigan stroked a double to left and came around to score on Wagner’s timely “long single to the same territory.”6 Cook and Boone both singled in the Yankees’ half of the seventh, but Boone overran his base and “was caught by a quick throw from [right fielder] Harry Hooper.”7

In Boston’s next at-bat, Duffy Lewis and Everett Scott each doubled to give the Red Sox a 3-1 edge. Again from the Boston Globe: “The Sox seemed to feel that the victory had been padlocked, but they reckoned without Mr. Unexpected Error.”8 Fritz Maisel singled in the New York eighth. When he attempted to steal second, Boston catcher Carrigan threw the ball into center field, allowing Maisel to advance to third. Maisel then scored when Roy Hartzell grounded out to first. Instead of having a comfortable advantage going into the final frame, the Red Sox had struggled, but, according to the New York Times, “The Bostons looked like sure enough winners up to the ninth inning.”9

However, the lead did not last. The New Yorkers managed to tie the game in the bottom of the ninth. Ruth retired Wally Pipp on a grounder to first, but then he hit Cook with a pitch, and the speedy Cook stole second.10  After Roger Peckinpaugh sent a high fly to Dick Hoblitzell in short right field for the second out,Luke “Daniel Boone set off some fireworks with a two-base shot to centre which scored Doc Cook with the tying run,”11  sending the game into extra innings. It was each team’s first extra-inning affair of the season.

Yankees starter Warhop had been replaced in the top of the ninth by Cy Pieh, a right-handed spitballer. Pieh got through that inning and the 10th without incident, but Boston threatened in the 11th, getting runners on second and third with just one out. Pieh came back and struck out the next two batters. New York put two men on with two outs in the bottom of the 11th, but Ruth pitched his way out of it, retiring Les Nunamaker on a fly ball to right.

At the end of 12 rounds, Ruth was still on the mound. He then “weakened a bit in the 13th, yielding two successive singles, which, with a steal, gave the much coveted run to the Yankees.”12  High started it off for the Yankees with a single and stole second. Ruth struck out Pipp, but then “Cook grounded his single to right and High romped home with the game.”13

For the day, Ruth was 3-for-5 at the plate. He had knocked the first home run of his storied career and raised his batting average to .417. Wagner and Lewis each contributed three hits to Boston’s 12-hit attack. Ruth eventually hit four home runs in 42 games in 1915, and his quartet of over-the-wall hits led the Red Sox.14  The Babe’s .315 batting average for the season was second on the Red Sox only to teammate Tris Speaker (.322), but Ruth’s slugging percentage (.576) and retrospective OPS (.952) led the Boston regular players.15

Despite the loss, Boston went on to win 101 games in 1915, edging out the Tigers for the pennant. The Yankees finished fifth, 32½ games back. In absorbing the loss, Ruth had yielded 10 hits and three walks and struck out three. Pieh picked up his first win of the season. While Ruth was just beginning his amazing career as a pitcher and slugger, Warhop and Pieh were gone from the majors after the 1915 season.

Ruth’s first major-league home run came in his 10th major-league game.16  His next round-tripper came on June 2, in a contest against the Yankees, again at the Polo Grounds, and again off Jack Warhop.17 In that game, he pitched another complete game and earned a 7-1 victory. In fact, Ruth belted three of his four home runs in 1915 against the Yankees. For the season, his pitching record against New York was 4-2, with a 1.91 ERA. In his career with the Red Sox, Ruth hit 12 home runs against the Yankees.

Twenty years after this contest, on May 30, 1935, Ruth played his last game. He had hit 714 regular-season home runs, 659 of them for the Yankees and the last three of them just five days earlier, in Pittsburgh, as a member of the Boston Braves. But his first career homer was against them.

Postscript

Ruth’s first home run was immortalized in Lee Allen’s The American League Story, from which the following is excerpted:

“Warhop … ended his days as the caretaker of a Wall Street man’s estate at Islip, Long Island. His employer there was familiar with Jack’s role in the Ruth story. Often, while entertaining friends for cocktails, he would steer the conversation around to Ruth and then say, “Would you like to meet the man off whom Babe hit his first home run?” This question was usually greeted with puzzled assent, and then he would say, “Wait a minute, I’ll call him.” Warhop would then be summoned to make the pitch all over again, just as Grover Alexander spent the last twenty-four years of his life striking out Tony Lazzeri.”18 

Sources

In addition to the sources mentioned in the notes, the author consulted baseball-reference.com, mlb.com, and retrosheet.org. Special thanks for Jack Zerby and Greg Erion for supplying valuable additions to this summary.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYA/NYA191505060.shtml

http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1915/B05060NYA1915.htm

Notes

Ruth improved his won-lost mark in the young season to 5-2. Maybe he was a bit rusty. The Babe had last pitched 10 days earlier, a complete-game 6-2 loss to Cleveland.

Boston entered the game 13-15; the St. Louis Browns were 11-16 and had knocked off the Red Sox, 7-1 and 5-1, in the two previous games. The reigning world champion Red Sox were struggling some in the 1916 campaign.

The game was originally scheduled to start at 3 P.M. but was delayed until 4:09 due to a heavy rain shower. A band concert and a “boy soprano” entertained the 5,232 patrons until groundskeeper Jerome Kelley and his crew were able to put the field into playing shape.1

St. Louis went ahead in the top of the fourth inning. Ruth walked left fielder Burt Shotton and shortstop Ernie Johnson, and both advanced a base on a sacrifice by George Sisler. Ruth got Ward Miller  to hit a grounder that second baseman Jack Barry fielded and fired home to the catcher for an out. Johnson took third on the play. Miller and Johnson then executed a double steal, Johnson scoring. After that, Ruth retired the side. He still hadn’t given up a hit, but the Red Sox were down 1-0.

At the risk of repetition, perhaps we can pause and enjoy the Boston Herald’s description of how the Browns scored their run. The writing was exceptionally florid, even by the standards of the day: “After Catcher Thomas had been banished, and Agnew stepped in, George Sisler suicided his pals along. On Miller’s smack to Barry, Shotton was torpedoed at the saucer, Johnson meantime trotting to third. Then the two Browns started a double pilfer. Agnew pegged to Janny [Hal Janvrin], who was so busy chasing Miller that he forgot all about the chap on third, who naturally took advantage and scored.”2

The Red Sox scored twice in the bottom of the fourth. First, they loaded the bases on a single, a walk, and another single. Browns starter Dave Davenport then walked Hal Janvrin on four pitches, forcing in the tying run. Catcher Sam Agnew hit a sacrifice fly to left field that scored Tillie Walker and ended the day for Davenport, one of four pitchers the Browns used during this low-scoring game. Reliever Jim Park prevented any more runs from scoring. In fact, he didn’t allow a hit in his 2⅔ innings of work.

Ruth got through the fifth inning without allowing a hit and had even nicely picked off Sisler in the first inning. He ran into control problems in the sixth. It should be mentioned here that although Ruth doled out seven walks in the game, the Boston Globe suggested that he might not have been completely at fault. Early in the game, the newspaper said, “the big portsider was getting much the worst of it from Umpire Nallin on balls and strikes. Babe thought so and so did ‘Ginger’ Thomas, the latter giving such vent to his disgust that Nallin banished him, but not before the Red Sox catcher had thrown his mask at Nallin’s feet and let loose a little more conversation.”3 Agnew had taken his place. Later in the game, the Red Sox used a third catcher, Hick Cady. The Boston Herald noted that both teams had differences with plate umpire Dick Nallin. By game’s end, there were 17 walks in the game, eight by Browns pitchers and nine by the Red Sox.

Despite the challenging state of the field, the game featured two great catches by Red Sox right fielder Harry Hooper, one saving the Sox in the sixth, and the other in the seventh, quashing another rally.

Ruth gave up three walks to fill the bases with Browns in the top of the sixth. There were two outs when the Babe was “mercifully derricked,”4 still without having given up a hit. Red Sox manager Bill Carrigan brought in Carl Mays to pitch to Del Pratt, who hit a ball deep to right that Hooper hauled in for the final out of the inning. Or, as the Globe put it, “Modest Harry, after a long chase, pulled down Pratt’s drive.”5

In the seventh, the Browns put runners on first and second with one out. Pinch-hitter Babe Borton hit “what looked to be a sure triple” (Globe). Hooper, though, made a spectacular catch and threw to Barry at second base for the third out after both St. Louis baserunners had confidently taken off, looking to give the Browns a 3-2 lead. The Herald described the play: “Through the spike-scarred marshes of right field, Harry Hooper splashed and plashed in the murky gloom. … Skimming over a puddle with the grace of a swallow, Harry stuck up his hands. He snatched the hurtling baseball out of murk. He turned and pegged the baseball in to Jack Barry.”6 Hooper’s catch was, writer Flatley remarked, “one of the greatest he or anybody else ever made.”

The Red Sox held their 2-1 lead before adding one more run in the bottom of the seventh. Agnew walked and Carl Mays singled up the middle. Carrigan had Mike McNally pinch-run for Agnew. Hooper flied out to left. Barry singled over the shortstop, but McNally needed to hold. The bases were loaded with one out. Duffy Lewis hit the ball hard to Johnson at shortstop, and Johnson threw home, nabbing McNally. Tom McCabe, the fourth St. Louis pitcher of the day, walked Dick Hoblitzell, forcing in Mays with the insurance run.

There were the 17 walks in the game, and, ultimately, just two hits for the Browns and six for the Red Sox. The Browns left seven runners on base, and the Red Sox stranded nine. Given the playing conditions, it was remarkable that no team committed an error. The game was played in 2 hours and 16 minutes.

At the plate, Ruth went 0-for-2 and his average in the still-young season was just .071. He finished the campaign with a .272 average and had three home runs, one short of the four he had hit in 1915, to that point his career high.

His pitching record for 1916 was 23-12, with a league-leading 1.75 earned-run average, in part built on nine shutouts, which also led the league. The Red Sox recovered from their slow start and won a second straight World Series championship, this time knocking off the Brooklyn Robins in five games.

Sources

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

Notes

1 “Red Sox Break Spell, Beating Browns 3-1,” Boston Globe, May 21, 1916: 15.

2 N.J. Flatley, “Hooper’s Great Catch Saved Day for the Red Sox,” Boston Herald, May 21, 1916: 22.

3 “Red Sox Break Spell, Beating Browns 3-1.”

4 N.J. Flatley.

⁵ “Red Sox Break Spell, Beating Browns 3-1.”

⁶ N.J. Flatley.

As a rookie in 1915 he won 18 games for the World Series champion Boston Red Sox. He did pretty well at his side job as a hitter, too, finishing in the top 10 in the American League in home runs — in fewer than 100 at-bats. The young man was arguably “the hardest hitting pitcher in captivity,” as one sportswriter put it.1

In slight contrast, Ruth’s 1916 season was off to a nice start but was lacking in supernatural feats. He was pitching well but at the plate he flailed away fruitlessly, as most pitchers do. That is, until a mid-June offensive outburst — capped by a brilliant day against the St. Louis Browns — served notice to baseball that, for Ruth, almost anything was possible.

With the season nearly one-third complete, the standings were all topsy-turvy. The Indians and Yankees, who finished 44½ and 32½ games out respectively in 1915, stood atop the AL while the Red Sox, Tigers, and White Sox — the top three teams from a year earlier — were sandwiched in the middle of pack, hovering around .500. Boston’s trade of a disgruntled Tris Speaker to Cleveland before the start of the season set off some of those seismic shifts. “When Speaker was sold by the Red Sox many cried that Boston had lost the most important cog in its flag winning machine,” wrote J.J. Alcock in the Chicago Tribune in late May. “The season is too young to draw a definite line on the present strength of the Red Sox. But the effect of Speaker’s addition to the Cleveland team is already a known quantity.”2

While the rest of the league was in tumult, it was business as usual for the Browns. They came in 21-26 and appeared to be on their way to their typical 90-loss season. That would change. Manager Fielder Jones, in his first year taking over for Branch Rickey, would turn things around and steer his club to a winning record — the only time that happened for the Browns between 1909 and 1920.

Ruth was the starting pitcher on this partly cloudy, 80-degree afternoon at Sportsman’s Park. He entered the game 8-3 with a 1.90 ERA and shutouts in three of his last five starts. He was building upon the promise he had shown as a rookie and now was maturing into one of the truly premier pitchers in the league.

Taking the ball for St. Louis was Dave Davenport, a foul-tempered, hard-drinking, 6-foot-6 right-hander from the Louisiana bayou. He came to the Browns from the Federal League’s St. Louis Terriers, where he led all major leaguers with 392⅔ innings pitched in 1915. With the exception of Grover Alexander, no other pitcher in baseball came within 50 innings of him. This was his 12th start and 21st appearance as a member of the Browns and thus far it had not gone well. He was 2-5 with a subpar ERA of 3.35 in a time when runs were hard to come by.

Boston got to Davenport quickly. With Mike McNally on second and one away, Duffy Lewis drew a walk as the pitch got past catcher Harry Chapman, allowing McNally to sprint to third. Doc Hoblitzell’s grounder to second forced Lewis, but his aggressive slide prevented a double play and enabled McNally to score the first run of the afternoon.

Ruth cruised through the first two innings before stepping in to lead off the top of the third. Boston’s sluggish season was attributable in small part to Ruth’s own struggles at the plate. He entered June batting .171 with no home runs and just two extra-base hits in 38 plate appearances. However, over the last few games he had begun to crank it up. He went 3-for-3 in a loss to Detroit on June 9, including a majestic home run deep into the bleacher seats at Navin Field. The Detroit Free Press marveled, “There have been a lot of pokes into the 25-cent section since the park was built but none ever [landed] so close to the flagpole.”3 On June 10, in the first game of the Browns series, manager Bill Carrigan called upon Ruth to pinch-hit but, for reasons lost to time, called him back to the dugout with a 1-and-1 count. On June 12 the Babe’s three-run pinch-hit homer was all the offense the Red Sox could muster in a 4-3 loss.

Now Ruth faced Davenport. St. Louis center fielder Armando Marsans and right fielder Ward Miller were playing back almost against the fence, but it wasn’t deep enough, as Ruth lifted a Davenport offering into the seats for a 2-0 lead. It was Ruth’s third homer in his last five plate appearances and it tied him for second place in the AL in home runs. (In fact, only 12 American Leaguers would hit more than three home runs all year.)

Harry Hooper followed with a walk, went to second on McNally’s sacrifice, crossed over to third on Lewis’s infield single, and then one out later came in to score when Tillie Walker drew a bases on balls and the pitch again eluded poor Chapman, who hurt his hand trying to make the stop. With that, Fielder Jones swapped in a new battery — pitcher Ernie Koob and catcher Hank Severeid.

In the fourth, after Hal Janvrin singled, Ruth slashed a base hit to right field, his sixth hit in his last six at-bats. Janvrin scooted around to third as Miller cut down Ruth trying to stretch it into a double. Hooper’s single plated Janvrin to make it 4-0.

As good a pitcher as Ruth was, he could get a little wild sometimes and control would be his undoing on this day. He walked three men through the first five innings before it all fell apart in the sixth. He opened the inning with walks to Miller and George Sisler. After Del Pratt struck out, Marsans singled to right to load the bases and then Ruth walked Ernie Johnson to force in a run. Carrigan called to the bullpen for Ernie Shore, who retired the next two batters to prevent any further damage. Boston got that run back right away on McNally’s RBI single in the seventh, and the score was 5-1.

Almost exactly a year later Shore would etch his name into baseball lore when he worked nine perfect innings in relief of Ruth, who was ejected for clobbering an umpire after a leadoff walk. Shore was far from perfect against the Browns but he muddled through. Back-to-back walks to lead off the bottom of the seventh turned into two more St. Louis runs. In the ninth Miller rapped a single to lead off but third baseman Larry Gardner made a leaping stab of  Sisler’s sizzling liner and turned it into a double play to put a damper on the home crowd’s hopes. Shore retired Pratt to end the game and sew up a 5-3 victory.

Ruth also was hit by a pitch in this game, meaning he had reached base safely in 11 of his last 12 plate appearances. His OPS stood at .916, which would mark his statistical peak for 1916. These June home runs would be Ruth’s only three of the season and, in fact, 1916 proved to be one of the least impressive offensive years of his career. But he did iron out his wildness to finish 23-12 with a league-best 1.75 ERA as the Red Sox pulled it together and stormed to their second consecutive World Series title.

Sources

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

The author also reviewed the following newspaper articles for play-by-play and other information:

Martin, Edward F. “Scott’s Drive Wins for Red Sox in 10th,” Boston Sunday Globe, June 11, 1916.

Martin, Edward F. “Shore Brings Red Sox to Victory,” Boston Globe, June 14, 1916.

O’Connor, W.J. “Browns’ Attacking Methods Fail With Men On; Lack of Daring Makes Contest Dull,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 14, 1916.

Shannon, Paul H. “Browns Beaten by Red Sox 5-3,” Boston Post, June 14, 1916.

Notes

1 Paul H. Shannon, “Red Sox Divide With the Browns,” Boston Post, August 11, 1915.

2 J.J. Alcock, “Pep of Speaker Pushes Indians Into Top Place,” Chicago Tribune, May 21, 1916.

3 E.A. Batchelor, “Burns Hero of Another Tiger Win,” Detroit Free Press, June 10, 1916.

Griffith especially liked the Boston pitching staff, singling out Ernie Shore, who had gone 10-2 with a 2.00 ERA after being acquired from the Baltimore Orioles of the International League on July 9, 1914. The skipper did not mention another Baltimore pitcher who arrived in the same transaction, Babe Ruth. The lefty had also debuted with Boston in 1914.3

Legendary Boston baseball writer Tim Murnane saw promise in Ruth as the Red Sox trained in Hot Springs, Arkansas, in 1915. Starting on the mound for the backups against the regulars, Ruth went “three splendid innings” before a fourth-inning uprising. In his only at-bat he smashed “a savage wallop” home run off Carl Mays that was “fully enjoyed by the crowd.”4 Ruth, 20, then settled into the Red Sox’ 1915 pitching rotation, going 18-8 in 217⅔ innings. Boston fulfilled Griffith’s prediction by winning 101 games and the American League pennant before dispatching the Philadelphia Phillies in five games in the 1915 World Series.

The Red Sox enjoyed such solid pitching that Ruth appeared in that Series only as a pinch-hitter.5 But his manager, Bill Carrigan, had no doubt about Ruth’s mound ability during spring training in 1916. “Ruth will be one of the very best pitchers in the league this year,” Carrigan said. “He is stronger than ever. He was fit and capable to pitch in the world’s series, but we had three other men all ready and fit.”6

True to prediction, the 21-year-old Ruth rolled off four straight wins to open the 1916 season. By July 18 he was 14-5, but then took losses in four of his next five decisions. His only win in that string was a two-hit shutout at Detroit on July 31. After Ruth was hit hard at St. Louis on August 4, he pinch-hit unsuccessfully once and otherwise sat idle until August 12, when he was Carrigan’s starting pitcher for the opener of a three-game series at Fenway Park with Griffith’s visiting seventh-place Senators. Although Ruth yielded only one run in seven innings and Boston won, 2-1, Dutch Leonard got the win in relief against Walter Johnson, who also appeared in relief.7

That midsummer of 1916 saw the Red Sox in a tight race for their second consecutive AL pennant. The August 12 win left them two games ahead of the Chicago White Sox in a closely bunched top four, but three days later they were only a game and a half in front of the second-place Cleveland Indians.

The Senators were still in town for the final game of the series the following Tuesday, August 15. Ruth once again got the ball,8 this time against Johnson, and if the weekday crowd of 5,4679 sought a classic pitchers’ duel, they got it.

Hometown baseball writers had begun referring to the Red Sox as “the champions,” but Paul Shannon of the Boston Post gave Johnson, 28, his due: “Seldom has Johnson been seen on better advantage, and not once on this long and dubious trip away from home had he pitched such ball.”10

Jack Barry seemed to get Boston off to a good start with a one-out double in the bottom of the first, but advanced only to third base. In the third, right fielder Sam Rice lost Ruth’s fly ball in the sun — it was a two-base error, but like Barry, Ruth only got to third. Meanwhile, Ruth was in a “bad hole” as early as the Washington second inning, when it took “a fine catch off [George] McBride” by Harry Hooper in right field to close out the half-inning with runners on second and third.11 A walk to Duffy Lewis and a sacrifice advanced a runner to second base in the Boston fourth, but Tillie Walker couldn’t deliver; the game remained scoreless.

Johnson failed to help himself in the Washington fifth. Eddie Ainsmith doubled off the scoreboard to open the half-inning, and McBride bunted him to third. With one out and Ainsmith on third, Johnson popped out. Ruth got Ray Morgan to end the threat.

The Senators came right back against Ruth in their half of the sixth. With two outs and Rice on first base, “[Howie] Shanks dropped a Texas leaguer in right. Rice went to third, and when Hooper’s throw got by [third baseman Larry] Gardner, he tried to score.”12 Gardner recovered the ball in foul territory and gunned Rice down at the plate — the Boston Post deemed this “Washington’s most promising chance to score” in the game, featuring the play in the first of four frames of a page-width sports cartoon accompanying its game story.13

Gardner singled for Boston’s third hit off Johnson in the seventh and reached second base on a sacrifice, but nothing further developed. Neither team threatened in the eighth, either. Red Sox catcher Pinch Thomas helped Ruth out of mild trouble in the ninth by nailing Danny Moeller14 on an attempted steal of second base to abruptly end the inning as Shanks struck out.15

Boston roused the home fans in the bottom of the ninth when Gardner tripled to left-center with two outs and Chick Shorten pinch-hit for Everett Scott. Shorten, though, tapped back to Johnson; the game went into extra innings still scoreless.

The Senators ran into another out at home plate in the 10th as Ainsmith tried to score from second base on Johnson’s groundball to Hal Janvrin, who had replaced Scott at shortstop. Janvrin relayed to Barry at second for a force out, and Barry’s throw home completed a snazzy 6-4-2 double play. Boston got runners to second and third with two out in the 11th but Johnson retired Gardner. Ruth “hit a ball almost into the center field seats”16 in the 12th that Clyde Milan ran down; it was deep enough to advance Janvrin to third base with two outs.17 Johnson again prevailed, getting Hooper on a popup.

Sharp defense helped Ruth pitch around an error and his own balk in the Washington 13th as first baseman Dick Hoblitzell snagged Rip Williams’s would-be extra-base hit and threw to Janvrin to double Ray Morgan off second base.

And although it had been Ruth — pitching in and out of trouble and rescued by timely defense —who had looked the most vulnerable as the innings unfolded, it was Johnson who finally yielded. The Big Train gave up only four hits through 12 innings,18 but Barry reached him to open the Boston 13th with an infield single off Johnson’s hand.19 Lewis and Hoblitzell made outs, but Barry hustled to third on a single to center field by Walker. Gardner, who hadn’t been able to deliver in the 11th, then drilled the third single of the half-inning up the middle to score Barry and close out the epic for Ruth, 1-0.20

Ruth bumped his season record to 16-921 with the win and bested Johnson again, 2-1, when the two matched up in Washington on September 9. They were at it yet again just three days later in Washington. But this time Johnson exacted some revenge — Ruth left the game after 8⅔ innings, while Johnson persevered; the Senators got him a 4-2 win in 10 innings over Shore, pitching in relief.

The Red Sox went on to win the American League pennant by two games over the White Sox and met the Brooklyn Robins in the World Series. They once again prevailed, four games to one, for their second consecutive title, amply fulfilling Clark Griffith’s “best ball club” prediction at the end of the 1914 season. And this time Ruth did get a turn on the mound. Showing the same kind of endurance he had on August 15 against Johnson, he gave up a run to Brooklyn in the first inning of Game Two,22 then shut the Robins down for the next 13 innings as the Red Sox won, 2-1, in the bottom of the 14th inning.23

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, I used the Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org websites for their respective box scores of this game as well as player, team, and season pages and batting and pitching logs. All cited newspaper items were accessed at Newspapers.com.

Notes

1 Unattributed wire report, “Red Sox Best Club in Game,” Great Falls (Montana) Tribune, October 3, 1914: 9.

2 Ibid.

3 Ruth, age 19, made his debut with Boston on July 11, 1914. He started against Cleveland at Fenway Park and went seven innings in a 4-3 Red Sox win. Three days later, also against Cleveland at Fenway, Shore pitched a complete-game 2-1 win in his own debut. Ruth started again on July 16 against Detroit, was gone after three innings, and was sent to Providence of the International League until he was recalled for two more appearances in October. Ruth pitched 23 innings for the Red Sox in 1914; Shore pitched 139⅔ in his partial season.

4 T.H. Murnane, “Sox Get Seven in Their Fourth,” Boston Globe, March 24, 1915: 7, 23.

5 Ruth grounded out against Grover Cleveland Alexander in the ninth inning of Game One. The Phillies won, 3-1, taking their only victory in the Series.

6 “Carrigan Expects Much of Babe Ruth This Year,” Baltimore Sun, March 12, 1916: 28. The Red Sox used only Rube Foster, Dutch Leonard, and Shore on the mound in the 1915 Series.

7 Walter Johnson, “The Big Train,” pitched for Washington from 1907 through 1927. A true workhorse even for the era, he pitched 369⅔ innings in 1916 in 48 games, with 38 starts and 36 complete games, posting a 25-20 record for a 76-77 team. He led the American League in innings pitched for four consecutive seasons (1913-16). Johnson was a member of the inaugural Baseball Hall of Fame class selected in 1936 and inducted in 1939.

8 But it wasn’t from Carrigan. The manager was away from the team attending to family duties and “[was] not able to be on deck for a couple of days.” “Bill Carrigan’s Father-in-Law Dead,” Boston Post, August 16, 1916: 10.

9 Washington-Boston AL box score, Boston Post, August 16, 1916: 10.

10 Paul H. Shannon, “Red Sox Beat Out Johnson,” Boston Post, August 16, 1916: 1, 10. The Washington road trip had begun on July 25 in Detroit and moved on through Cleveland, Chicago, and St. Louis before the Senators arrived in Boston. Going into the August 15 game, Johnson had pitched in six games on the trip, with a 2-4 record.

11 Shannon.

12 Ibid.

13 Page-width, four-frame, sports cartoon signed “Scott,” Boston Post, August 16, 1916: 10.

14 Moeller had pinch-hit for Sam Rice and reached base on a force out.

15 Shannon.

16 Ibid.

17 The Milan catch warranted the third frame in the Post’s sports cartoon.

18 “Ruth Outpitches Johnson,” New York Times, August 16, 1916: 8.

19 Ibid.

20 The Boston Post box score that accompanies Paul Shannon’s game story, cited in Note 9, notes “one out when winning run was scored.” Shannon’s game story, which accounts for two outs (by Duffy Lewis and Hoblitzell) between Barry’s single and the single by Walker that moved Barry to third and brought up Gardner, is correct, given the Boston batting order and the fact that Gardner had the only run batted in in the game. The box score printed with the New York Times item cited in Note 18 correctly states that there were two outs when the winning run scored.

21 The 21-year-old Ruth led the 1916 American League in ERA (1.75), games started (40), and shutouts (9).

22 The first-inning run came on an inside-the-park home run by Hy Myers with two outs. Ruth drove in his own tying run in the third inning on a groundout to second base that scored Everett Scott, who had tripled.

23 The Red Sox played their home games in both the 1915 and 1916 World Series at Braves Field rather than Fenway Park, taking advantage of the National League ballpark’s greater seating capacity. Glenn Stout, Fenway 1912: The Birth of a Ballpark (Boston: Mariner Books, 2011), 340. The attendance on a Monday afternoon for Game Two of the 1916 Series at Braves Field was 47,373. As noted, this regular-season Tuesday matchup between Ruth and Johnson had attracted 5,467 to Fenway Park, which, from its opening in 1912 until extensive renovation between the 1933 and 1934 seasons, had a seating capacity of approximately 27,000. (Fenway Park entry, Ballparks of Baseball.com, accessed April 6, 2018).

For the second year in a row, Boston won the pennant in 1916, by just two games over the Chicago White Sox and four over the Detroit Tigers. As in 1915, the Red Sox’ World Series home games were played at Braves Field, but this time Boston faced the Brooklyn Robins (later, Dodgers).

The Red Sox presented a similar but not identical team to that of the previous year. Bill Carrigan remained as manager, but Tris Speaker was traded away, and Smoky Joe Wood was injured. George Herman Ruth emerged as the ace on the pitching staff (23-12, 1.75 ERA), while Dutch Leonard and Carl Mays each won 18 games. All in all, the staff ERA was 2.48, slightly worse than the 2.39 of the previous year. Team batting was off marginally, too – the 1915 team average was .260 (.336 OBP) while in 1916 it dipped to .248 (.317 OBP), decent numbers in the era of the dead ball. Run production dropped from 668 runs to 548. Still, the Red Sox had done what they needed to do; they won the pennant.

This was an over-confident team, and there was talk in the papers about the Sox sweeping Brooklyn.

Game One opened in Boston, with Ernie Shore against Rube Marquard (who’d opposed the Red Sox in the 1912 Series for the Giants, but was now pitching for Brooklyn). The game turned into a 6-5 win when the Red Sox managed to shut down a four-run rally in the top of the ninth before the Robins could tie the game.

Game Two pitted Red Sox ace Ruth against Sherry Smith, both southpaws. Ruth’s 1.75 ERA had led the American League. Smith was 14-10, with a 2.34 ERA. Brooklyn batted first and didn’t wait long to put a run on the board. After Ruth retired the first two Robins, center fielder Hi Myers drove a ball between Tilly Walker in center and Harry Hooper in right, sparking a Keystone Kops moment. Hooper dove but the ball rolled all the way to the fence and Walker fell trying to field the rebound. Myers legged all the way around the bases for an inside-the-park home run.

Brooklyn’s moundsman Smith doubled to right field with one out in the top of the third, and was waved toward third, but Hooper threw the ball to Walker, the cutoff man; the center fielder fired a strike to third and cut down Smith. The score remained 1-0, Brooklyn.

Boston tried to answer in its half of the inning. Everett “Deacon” Scott led off with a triple to the cement wall in right field. He had to hold at third on Pinch Thomas’s grounder to George Cutshaw at second. Ruth grounded to Cutshaw, too, but this time the second baseman bobbled the ball. Though Ruth was thrown out on the play, Scott scored to even things at 1-1. After that, both teams put men into scoring position at times but neither brought them home. In the fifth Brooklyn’s shortstop Ivy Olson was accused of tripping Pinch Thomas as he rounded second and the umpire awarded Thomas third base on interference. But Thomas languished there when Ruth struck out.

In the eighth Brooklyn again feinted. Harry “Mike” Mowrey singled, moved to second on a sacrifice, and moved up when Otto Miller singled. But Walker fired so fast to the plate that Mowrey had to stop at third, Miller taking second on the throw. With runners at second and third, and just one out, the pitcher Smith grounded to short and Scott luckily caught Mowrey in a rundown between third and home, Ruth making the tag. Jimmy Johnston hit a high bounder and Ruth leapt up to grab it, threw to first, and snuffed the threat.

The score remained tied as Boston came to bat in the bottom of the ninth. Hal Janvrin doubled to lead off for a promising start. Jimmy Walsh, pinch-hitting for Walker, managed only a comebacker. Smith fielded the ball and tossed to Mowrey to cut down the lead runner, but Mowrey dropped the ball and Janny was safe. With runners on first and third and no one out, the crowd was on the edge of their seats. Even a fly ball could score Janvrin. Dick Hoblitzell got that fly to center, but Myers’ throw home erased Janvrin, two outs on one play. After an intentional walk to Duffy Lewis, Larry Gardner fouled out to send the game into extra innings, still tied 1-1.

The Red Sox escaped a couple of potential problems in the top of the 10th as a deflected grounder was converted into an out and a walk went for naught, and looked once again to push across that one crucial run. Scott singled to lead off and Thomas moved him up with a sacrifice. Ruth swung hard three times, and missed three times for the second out. Hooper hit a ball down the third-base line; as it went off his glove, Mowrey knew Hooper had it beat but feigned a throw to first. The decoy worked and Scott overran third. Olson scooted over from shortstop and took Mowrey’s throw, nabbing Scott as he tried to get back to the bag. The scorer credited Hooper with a single, but the side was retired.

Neither team had particularly good chances in the 11th or 12th inning, and the sky was growing dark. If the game were called because of darkness, it would go into the scorebook as a tie. Neither team wanted to waste a great pitching performance, but they were running out of time.

So to the 13th. Brooklyn’s first batter, Mowrey, reached base when Gardner’s throw pulled Hoblitzell off the bag. The Robins sacrificed to move Mowrey to second, but Miller popped up to the catcher for out number two. Smith, still pitching for Brooklyn, almost dropped one into short left but Lewis made a “phenomenal” catch and the Sox were out of the 13th. Tim Murnane of the Boston Globe felt sure that Lewis had saved a run: “Tearing along as if it was a case of life or death, he made one final reach while twisting his neck like a seagull and managed to reach and hold the ball.” The game had been characterized throughout by exceptional fielding for both teams. Smith quickly retired all three of Boston’s batters, and the game entered the 14th inning.

Babe Ruth had not given up a hit since the eighth inning. He set Brooklyn down again 1-2-3 in the top of the 14th. The Sox came up in the bottom half and Smith walked Hoblitzell, the fourth time in the game that Hobby had worked a walk. Lewis sacrificed the walking man to second, first-pitch bunting. A hit now could win the game. Larry Gardner was due up, but he was 0-for-5 and Carrigan decided to try something different. He put the speedy Mike McNally in to run for Hobby and sent up “Sheriff” Del Gainer (a .254 hitter in 1916) to pinch-hit for Gardner (.308 in the regular season, and 1-for-4 in Game One, and reached on an error). Despite his overall better numbers, Gardner was 1-for-9 in the Series at this point and had struggled against the left-handed Smith. The switch paid off. Gainer singled, a low liner to left, and Zack Wheat had to play it on one hop and hope the throw home could beat McNally. Not a chance. McNally burned around the bases and crossed the plate. The Red Sox had their second run and the game.

No other World Series game before or after has gone to 14 innings. After Myers’ freak inside-the-park home run back in the first inning, Babe Ruth had held the National League champions scoreless and earned the complete-game victory. 

The Series would be over in five games. Game Three saw Brooklyn take one from the Red Sox 4-3, but the Red Sox handled the Robins by a 6-2 score in Game Four (Larry Gardner’s three-run inside-the-park homer in the second inning being the decisive blow). They won the World Series, their fourth, the second in a row, and the third in five years, with a 4-1 triumph the next day, Ernie Shore allowing just three hits and picking up his second win.

A lengthy Globe editorial rhapsodized about how the Athens of America followed in the Greek tradition of the Olympics being justly proud of the manly prowess of its sons. Carrigan, who had caught Game Four, gone 2-for-3, and managed the club, was dubbed “another Ivanhoe, less brutal and more civilized, less romantic than Scott’s fictional hero, but more skillful.” The confidence the Sox had carried into the Series had been justified.

Acknowledgments

This article appeared in Braves Field: Memorable Moments at Boston’s Lost Diamond (SABR, 2015), edited by Bill Nowlin and Bob Brady. An earlier version of this article was published in The 50 Greatest Red Sox Games by Cecilia Tan and Bill Nowlin, and appears here by permission from Riverdale Avenue Books.

Photo credit: Bain Collection, Library of Congress.

Sources

In addition to the sources mentioned in the Notes, box scores for this game can be seen on baseball-reference.com, and retrosheet.org at:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS191610090.shtml

http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1916/B10090BOS1916.htm

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.

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.

Babe Ruth put on a home-run show in his hometown on April 18, 1919. The Boston Red Sox pitcher-outfielder swatted four round-trippers in four at-bats during a chilly, one-sided exhibition game against the Baltimore Orioles.

The Babe had begun to make his grand transition from top-flight left-handed pitcher to full-time outfielder and slugger. In 1918 he tied Philadelphia Athletics outfielder Tillie Walker for the major-league lead in homers with 11. (Ruth went to bat almost 100 fewer times than Walker.)

It was a hectic time in the baseball world. Because of US involvement in World War I, teams played abbreviated schedules in 1918. The Red Sox defeated the Chicago Cubs in the World Series, which was held in early September. When the war ended two months later, players who were in the military or had taken stateside jobs to support the war effort flocked back to their teams.

Red Sox owner Harry Frazee made several offseason moves while handling contract negotiations with many of his star players who were holding out for more money. Those holdouts included Ruth, who, in addition to his work with the bat, went 13-7 with a 2.22 ERA on the mound in 1918.

On March 18, 1919, Red Sox manager Ed Barrow and 10 of his players boarded the steamer Arapahoe in New York Harbor. When the ship docked at Jacksonville, Florida, Barrow and his party traveled by rail to Tampa for the start of spring training. Another contingent of Red Sox skipped the scenic trip down the Eastern Seaboard and took the train directly to Tampa.

The remaining unsigned men – including the Babe – stayed at home, while shortstop Everett Scott reported to camp without a contract.

On March 22 Frazee and Ruth finally came to an agreement. The national newspapers reported that the Bambino had inked a three-year deal worth $27,000. The other Red Sox holdouts soon followed suit, Scott being the last to sign.

After a few weeks in Florida, including a game in which Ruth blasted what is believed to be the longest home run ever hit in Tampa, the Red Sox headed northward.1 One scheduled stop was at Richmond, where the Red Sox and Baltimore Orioles were slated to play a three-game series at Boulevard Park. From there, both clubs would travel to Baltimore for two more games at Oriole Park. The Richmond promoters belatedly called off the games with Baltimore, choosing instead to showcase local ballclubs against the reigning World Series champs.

When the games in Richmond were canceled, Orioles owner-manager Jack Dunn contacted Harry Frazee about scheduling a third game in Baltimore. Dunn had purchased the Baltimore franchise from owner Ned Hanlon in 1909 for a reported $35,000. Dunn signed George Herman Ruth, a standout pitcher for St. Mary’s Industrial School, to his first professional contract in February of 1914. Later that season, Dunn’s team began losing money because of stiff competition at the box office from Baltimore’s Federal League franchise. To remain fiscally solvent, Dunn began selling off his star players. He sent Ruth to the Red Sox, along with Ben Egan and Ernie Shore.

Frazee and Dunn agreed to play an additional game in Baltimore on April 17, the day before the series was originally scheduled to start. But Frazee didn’t inform anyone from the Boston organization about the change in plans. That afternoon a few hundred people, braving the unseasonably cold weather, showed up at Oriole Park. Regrettably for these diehard fans, the Boston club was not at the ballpark or even in Baltimore for that matter. Regarding the mixup, the Baltimore Sun wrote, “It is believed that Frazee forgot to notify Barrow of the change regarding yesterday which caused the manager to remain in Richmond instead of coming to this city yesterday morning.”2

The Red Sox left Richmond by train on the evening of April 17, arriving at the railway station in Baltimore at 1:30 the next morning. Later that afternoon, Boston and Baltimore took the field at Oriole Park in front of 2,000 wind-chilled fans.

Dunn gave the starting assignment to Allen “Lefty” Herbert, while Barrow went with southpaw Herb Pennock.3

Veteran infielder Jack Barry started off the Boston offense by doubling in the opening inning. Amos Strunk followed with a single, Barry holding at third. Walks to Ruth and Ossie Vitt pushed across a run before Herbert worked his way out of trouble. The Orioles countered with a run in the bottom of the first. Merwin Jacobson lashed an opposite-field single, then advanced to third on a wild pitch and passed ball. Jacobson came home on Johnny Honig’s base hit up the middle.

Neither club scored in the second. In the third, Ruth’s two-run homer, along with Everett Scott‘s sacrifice fly, bumped up the score to 4-1. Left-hander Sam Hersperger replaced Herbert on the mound during this inning.

Baltimore scored two runs in the bottom of the third. Fritz Maisel led off with a single to center. After a passed ball allowed Maisel to advance to second, Jacobson reached first base on an error by Scott at short. Max Bishop followed with a walk to load the bases. After Honig struck out, Joe Boley swatted a single to right that plated two runs.     

Hersperger, who once struck out 21 batters in a game against the Gallaudet College Reserves, began having control issues in the fourth. Dunn replaced him with Harry Frank. In his first at-bat against the new pitcher, Ruth smacked a towering blast over the fence in right-center field. The Baltimore Sun observed, “This was the real drive of the day. It went between two houses fronting on Greenmount Avenue and the rest of its travels were not reported at a late hour last night.”4 When the dust cleared, the Red Sox had padded their lead to the tune of 7-3.

Sam Jones relieved Pennock in the sixth and held the Orioles scoreless for the remainder of the contest. Frank, meanwhile, finished out the game for Baltimore and allowed five more Red Sox runs. Ruth remained locked in, cranking a solo home run over the right-field wall in the seventh and another in the ninth. When the last out was recorded, the scoreboard read Boston 12, Baltimore 3.

Ruth, who patrolled left field and batted fifth, went 4-for-4 with four homers and two walks. In regard to Ruth’s power display, the Baltimore Sun wrote, “Yes, Johnny Honig and Merwin Jacobson practically sat on the wall surrounding Oriole Park yesterday, but four times Babe Ruth, the greatest clouter baseball ever has known, drove the white rocket far over their heads thus equaling the batting record established years ago by big Ed Delahanty.”5

Center fielder Strunk contributed four hits for Boston. Honig, Jacobson, and Sumpter Clarke collected two hits each for Baltimore. The following afternoon, the two teams squared off again at Oriole Park on another raw day in front of 3,000 hardy souls. Ruth pitched the first four innings, at one point retiring 10 consecutive batters before giving up a run. In keeping with his hot hitting from the previous day, the Babe belted homers in his first two plate appearances.

Former Philadelphia Athletics right-hander Rube Parnham was Ruth’s first victim. Babe launched one of Parnham’s offerings high over a candy advertisement sign on the right-field fence. Reporters covering the game noted that Ruth hit a pitch that was at least three inches outside. New York native Bert Lewis relieved Parnham in the fourth and lasted only a third of an inning before being replaced by left-hander Rudy Kneisch.

The Bambino’s second blast of the day came off Kneisch, the ball soaring high over the wall in right field. Kneisch gained some redemption by fanning Ruth in the slugger’s third and final at-bat of the game. Veteran submarine pitcher Carl Mays took over for Ruth in the fifth, allowing one run over the next five frames. The lopsided affair ended with Boston up 16-2. The following day, the Baltimore Sun noted that Ruth had compiled 18 round-trippers since the start of the spring exhibition games.

When asked by a reporter about hitting six home runs in front of his hometown fans, the Babe replied, “I was afraid some of my old neighbors didn’t believe all that they’ve read in the papers about me. This was my chance to show them what I could do.”6

Ruth’s heavy hitting would carry over into the regular season. The future Sultan of Swat ushered in the live ball era with a major-league leading 29 home runs. The Babe’s new mark eclipsed the old record of 27 set by the Chicago White Stockings’ Ed Williamson in 1884.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-reference.com and the Baltimore American, Harrisburg Telegraph, New York Sun, New York Tribune, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Washington Herald, and Washington Post.

Keenan, Jimmy. “Jack Dunn,” SABR BioProject, at https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/e1addacb.

Lowry, Philip. Green Cathedrals (New York: Walker Publishing, 2006).

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

Russo, Frank. The Cooperstown Chronicles: Baseball’s Colorful Characters, Unusual Lives, and Strange Demises (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2014), 98-99. 

Steinberg, Steve, and Lyle Spatz. The Colonel and The Hug: The Partnership that Changed the New York Yankees (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2015).

Thanks to the Enoch Pratt Library of Baltimore.

Notes

1 On the home run in Tampa, see roadsideamerica.com/story/14158. 

2 “To Open Series Today,” Baltimore Sun, April 18, 1919: 9.

3 Herbert had been a standout at Mount St. Joseph High School in Baltimore and St. John’s College in Annapolis before signing with the Orioles. Pennock had started his big-league career with the Philadelphia Athletics in 1912 and was acquired on waivers by Boston in 1915. Pennock rejoined the Red Sox in March of 1919 after his discharge from the Navy.

4 C. Starr Mathews, “Equals World’s Record,” Baltimore Sun, April 19, 1919: 10.

5 Ibid.

6 Allan Wood, Babe Ruth and the 1918 Red Sox (Bloomington, Indiana: iUniverse publishing, 2000), 349.