At the end of July, one week after the death of popular first baseman Alex McKinnon and in the midst of shortstop Bill Kuehne’s divorce intrigue,1 Pittsburgh held a dismal 28-42 record. It placed the Alleghenys ahead of only Indianapolis in the standings. As summer progressed, local newspapers hinted at a plethora of likely reasons for the club’s poor play, including distrust of the management,2 trust issues within management,3 a spate of injuries,4 and the carousing tendencies of a number of the men.5

Meanwhile, the Boston Beaneaters were in the early stages of their King Kelly era. Kelly had been purchased from Chicago during the prior offseason, and the “Ten Thousand Dollar Beauty”6 helped the team improve in both wins and in ticket sales. Boston was 10 games over .500 at the beginning of August, which was more than 10 wins better than their status the previous year. In addition, the team’s ownership saw a large jump in attendance figures, emphatically highlighted when the number reached 10,000 patrons for the club’s first few home games.7

The pitching staff consisted of a stable of youngsters, including Dick Conway, Bill Stemmyer, and the 19-year-old rookie Kid Madden. Even with all of those young arms, famed veteran Old Hoss Radbourn was the main workhorse of the rotation. He remained a serviceable big-league pitcher in 1887, appearing in the most innings of any of the club’s hurlers. However, recent rule changes and years of wear on his pitching arm meant that his abilities were far removed from those of that masterful 1884 season.

Pittsburgh’s month of August started no better than July ended. In the midst of a 16-game homestand, the team lost two of three games against New York, then lost three in a row to the almost-as-lowly Washington club. The Beaneaters arrived in town for the first of three games on August 9. Two thousand fans showed up at Recreation Park in Allegheny City for the series opener and, given the recent losing ways of their team, were in for quite a surprise.

Conway was originally scheduled to pitch the opening matchup for Boston, but as he “was not in as good trim as might be desired,”8 Kelly chose Radbourn to pitch for a third straight game.9 From the very outset, Old Hoss found himself in a world of trouble. Fielding miscues by his teammates and wild pitching (and fielding) on his own part allowed six runs to score in the top of the first. His pitching opponent that day, Ed Morris, gave up four singles that led to two runs in the bottom half of the inning. Both pitchers kept their respective opponents off the scoresheet in the second and third, but in the fourth, Pittsburgh’s offense strung together a group of singles and brought home three more runs. Radbourn and his teammates struggled through another disastrous half-inning in the sixth, when poor pitching and a multitude of errors led to six additional runs. Heading into the seventh, Pittsburgh held a 15-2 lead.

Already down by so many runs, right fielder Kelly switched positions with the embattled Radbourn and took over the pitching duties in the seventh inning.10 If there was any hope that Pittsburgh’s offensive success would be mitigated by the change, it was quickly stamped out, as two more runs scored against Kelly’s tosses. Boston procured one more run in the bottom half of the inning. In the eighth, Pittsburgh pushed five more runs across the plate, aided in part by a Carroll double that hit off the top of the left-field fence, as well as a bevy of mistakes by the Boston fielders. The number of errors escalated to the point of comedy: After misplaying one pop fly, the consummate showman Kelly doffed his cap to the fans’ delight.11

In the ninth inning Billy Nash prepared for another Carroll at-bat by positioning himself directly under the spot where the eighth-inning double bounced off the wall. He motioned to Kelly, as if to caution him about how to pitch. Carroll stepped to the plate and swatted one of Kelly’s deliveries over the fence, directly above Nash and the spot where the double had ricocheted in the eighth. Boston’s prescient left fielder “lay down in the grass and laughed.”12

Carroll’s solo home run was the final tally of a 23-3 drubbing. The 23 runs were the most Pittsburgh had scored in a game in six years of existence in the American Association and NL, and the 20-run margin of victory was also its biggest. As for Boston, the Beaneaters had given up more runs on a few previous occasions back through their beginning in the National Association (including a 24-5 loss to Providence during an otherwise sparkling 1878 season), but they never previously lost by 20 or more.

While Pittsburgh’s work in the field was exemplary, the visitors’ was not: Eight Boston players made a total of 12 errors. The lone faultless fielder, first baseman John Morrill, said of his team, “They were too tired to play, and ‘Rad(bourn)’ was weary before he went into the box.”13  Pittsburgh swept the series, but Boston would have some slight revenge a few weeks later. The day after a set of fines were levied on numerous Beaneaters because of their own carousing lifestyles, the club soundly defeated Pittsburgh by the score of 28-14.14

Sources

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

Notes

1 “A Ball Player’s Trouble,” Pittsburgh Post, July 26, 1887: 6.   

2 “Proposed Sale of Carroll,” Pittsburgh Chronicle Telegraph, August 9, 1887.     

3 “About Manager Phillips,” Pittsburgh Post, July 16, 1887,

4 “The Hustler’s Record,” Pittsburgh Post, July 15, 1887: 6.

5 “Tom Brown’s Release,” The Post, August 9, 1887.

6 mlb.com/cut4/happy-birthday-king-kelly/c-105264922.

7 sabr.org/bioproj/person/ffc40dac.

8 W.I. Harris, “Slaughtered,” Boston Globe, August 10, 1887: 3.

9 “Base Ball Gossip,” Pittsburgh Chronicle Telegraph, August 10, 1887.  

10 Harris.

11 “Boston Massacred,” Pittsburgh Commercial Gazette, August 10, 1887: 8.  

12 “Boston Massacred.”

13 “Captain Morrill’s Opinion,” Pittsburgh Post, August 10, 1887.

14 Dr. Rob Bauer, Outside the Lines of Gilded Age Baseball: Alcohol, Fitness, and Cheating in 1880s Baseball (Rob Bauer Books, 2018), 60.  

The Pirates and Browns (who changed their name to the more familiar Cardinals in 1900) were heading in opposite directions when they met for a twin bill on a warm summer Tuesday afternoon at Sportsman’s Park, the newly constructed wooden ballpark at the intersection of Vandeventer and Natural Bridge Avenues on the north side of the Gateway City.

Skipper Al Buckenberger’s third-place Pirates squad (46-33) was completing a 15-day “Western” road swing and had won 20 of its last 26 games to pull within seven games of the NL-leading Boston Beaneaters. (The NL had 12 teams in 1893.)

Scheduled to start the opener of the doubleheader was their ace, Smoky City native southpaw Frank Killen, one of the best pitchers in the league. Acquired in the offseason from the Washington Senators, the stout 6-foot-1, 200-pound hard thrower was en route to a career campaign, and finished with a league-high 36 victories; however, there had been some concerns about Killen’s effectiveness when the season commenced. A major rule change affecting pitchers took place in 1893. The pitcher’s box (a 5½-by-4-foot rectangle whose rear line was 55½ feet from the center of home plate) was replaced with a pitcher’s rubber, located 60 feet 6 inches from home plate.3 (Pitchers still threw from a flat surface; gradually elevated mounds were introduced and regulated by 1904.)

Unlike their opponents, manager Bill Watkins’ seventh-place team (37-41) was in shambles, despite having played 33 of its last 38 contests at home. Scheduled to start was 26-year-old right-hander Dad Clarkson, in his first full season in the majors, during which he eventually finished with a 12-9 slate as the team’s fourth starter. Clarkson was returning to the club after a two-week suspension for violating team rules, a euphemism for drinking, and promised to be in “condition” for the game. However, it was payday for the Browns and the combative pitcher demanded that he receive back pay for the 15 days he had missed. The Browns’ eccentric German-born owner-huckster, Chris von der Ahe, objected.

A confrontation between pitcher and owner ensued and Clarkson was suspended on the spot. Well and fine, but that left Watkins’ club in a pickle because the team’s three primary starters were unavailable: Ted Breitenstein had pitched the previous game; Kid Gleason had cut the thumb on his throwing hand; and Pink Hawley was scheduled for the second game. Watkins tabbed a 23-year-old, 5-foot-5 rookie Jimmy Bannon. The Daily Post noted that “Bannon has been touted as a ‘phenom,’” however, he was an outfielder and by all accounts was making his first professional appearance as a hurler.4

New Sportsman’s Park (which was later called Robison Field) was robustly packed on a Tuesday afternoon, but “the ‘curtain raiser’ served to disgust” the spectators almost as soon as the game began, opined the Post.5 As was customary at the time, the home team had the option to bat first, which the Browns exercised. After each team tallied a run in the opening frame, the wheels flew off for the Browns.  “It would be useless to repeat the game in detail,” opined the Pittsburgh Commercial Gazette.6 Though Pittsburgh and St. Louis papers published game summaries, they did not include play-by-play reports.

Needless to say, it was a slaughter. The Pirates tallied seven runs in the second, seven more in the third, and three in the fourth to lead 18-2 after four innings. “The Pittsburghs hammered Bannon’s delivery worse than Pat Gilmore’s band used to hammer the anvil chorus,” gushed the Commercial Gazette humorously, evoking the bandleader who composed “When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again” while serving in the Union Army during the Civil War.7

In those four innings Bannon yielded 10 hits, walked five, and plunked two batters; 10 of the 18 runs were earned. (It should be noted that the St. Louis and Pittsburgh papers, as well as Sporting Life, reported that Bannon left after the third inning; consequently, there may be a scoring error regarding Bannon’s statistics.)8 Perhaps the highlight of his stint was a home run by Killen that the Gazette declared was “probably the longest hit ever made, and is the only instance in which a batter has been able to ‘knock the ball out of the lot’ at new Sportsman’s Park.”9 Killen, who clubbed four homers in 1893, was a bruising hitter who many claimed could become one of the game’s best sluggers should his right wing ever fail.

Bannon, for his part, never pitched another game for the Browns or started another one in the big leagues, though he did pitch twice in relief for the Boston Beaneaters, with whom he signed the following season and emerged as a good hitter, batting .336 and .347 in 1894 and 1895, respectively, as the starting right fielder.

The game took a bizarre turn around this time. With the Pirates holding a commanding lead and the outcome essentially decided, Buckenberger approached Watkins about calling the game so that the teams could begin and complete the second game early enough to allow the Pirates to catch their train to Pittsburgh that evening. In an egregious breach of protocol, von der Ahe burst suddenly onto the field and began arguing with both skippers, who seemingly had come to a conclusion to end the laugher. According to the Post-Dispatch, von der Ahe “announced that the farce must go on” and made his manager “look like a monkey.”10 The St. Louis daily furthermore opined that the only reason von der Ahe demanded that the teams complete the game was to “save the Browns another defeat.”

The game went on, but not with Killen. Buckenberger pulled him some time after the fourth inning so he could start the second game of the doubleheader; however, he was credited with the victory. Tom Colcolough, a 22-year-old rookie, was his replacement.

Bannon gave way to 26-year-old Frank Pears, described by newspapers as a local man who had occasionally pitched and played center field in his thus far brief professional career. Making what proved to be his only mound appearance of season, and his last of four in the majors, Pears was easily peeled. “The manner in which both these alleged pitchers were pounded was most disgusting to the 4500 spectators,” opined the Post-Dispatch in a bellicose and frustrated game report.11 Pears was clubbed for nine hits and seven runs (six earned), walked two and hit a batter. Five tallies came in the fifth to give the Pirates a 23-2 lead; the final two came in the eighth.

The game was completed in 2 hours and 20 minutes.12 The Pirates’ 23-run margin of victory was, as of 2018, the most lopsided victory in franchise history. Only three of their 19 hits went for extra bases, Killen’s home run and triples by Jake Beckley and Denny Lyons (both of whom recorded 16 that season); Beckley had a team-high four safeties while Jack Glasscock tallied a team-best four runs; 53 batters went to the plate in eight innings (the Pirates did not bat in the ninth). “The browns [sic] had ‘that tired feeling’ when the game was over, from chasing the ball,” declared the Gazette.13 The Browns managed just eight hits.

If the Browns pitching and batting weren’t bad enough, the Post-Dispatch had choice words about the club’s fielding, opining that the game “gave several of the Browns an opportunity to show what unreliable fielders they are.”14 The team committed seven errors, including two each by third baseman Jack Crooks and shortstop Frank Shugart. Those two infielders, along with second sacker Joe Quinn and outfielder Tommy Dowd, “were all guilty of the most slovenly and inexcusably bad ball playing,” proclaimed the paper.15 Even the Gazette chimed in, noting, “The field support given both [Browns pitchers] was simply frightful.”16

It didn’t get much better for the Browns in the next game. Killen went the distance, yielding nine hits, to win, 6-1. Hawley was charged with the loss, surrendering 11 safeties, including Lyons’ three-bagger in a four-run seventh, though only of his six runs was earned.

The Browns were undoubtedly happy to get out of the Mound City for a while, but probably few looked forward to a grueling five-week, 34-game road trip. They won only 10 of those contests and eventually finished with a 57-75 slate and in 10th place. The Pirates continued playing well, winning 33 of their last 48 games to finish with an 81-48 record, five games behind the champion Beaneaters.

Sources

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

Notes

1 “Western Trip Finished,” Pittsburgh Daily Post, August 2, 1893: 6.

2 “Yesterday’s Double Attraction Turned Out to Be a Farce – Diamond Clips,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 2, 1893: 8.

3 Eric Miklich, “The Pitcher’s Area,” 19C Base Ball, 19cbaseball.com/field-8.html.

4 “Western Trip Finished,” Pittsburgh Daily Post.

5 “Western Trip Finished.”

6 “Our Awful Revenge,” Pittsburgh Commercial Gazette, August 2, 1893: 6.

7 “Our Awful Revenge.”

8 “Base Ball,” Sporting Life, August 5, 1893: 5.

9 “Our Awful Revenge.”

10 “Yesterday’s Double Attraction Turned Out to Be a Farce – Diamond Clips.”

11 “Yesterday’s Double Attraction Turned Out to Be a Farce – Diamond Clips.”

12 “Base Ball.”

13 “Our Awful Revenge.”

14 “Yesterday’s Double Attraction Turned Out to Be a Farce – Diamond Clips.”

15 “Yesterday’s Double Attraction Turned Out to Be a Farce – Diamond Clips.”

16 “Our Awful Revenge.”

Lajoie’s epochal 1901 season helped the new Athletics draw nearly as many as the Phillies; the Phils led the 1900 NL in attendance (with 301,913) but slipped to fourth the next season.1 Minus Lajoie, second base remained an issue for the team and Joe Dolan was released on May 3 after starting the season 3-for-37.2

The Phillies lost nine of 13 on a road trip in early June. “The Phillies, after playing ball that was strictly gilt-edged before starting on their Western trip, began to fall back steadily on the trip, and so far they have failed to show anything like the form expected at home,” the Inquirer lamented as they began a homestand. “There has been an unexpected slump in their hitting, and their fielding at times has been something weird.”3

To the surprise of many, the Phillies purchased future Hall of Famer Hugh Jennings from Brooklyn on June 20 for $3,000.4 Jennings had refused to report to the Superbas that spring while studying law at Cornell. While he had indicated he wanted to return to Baltimore playing for John McGraw’s new AL team, his acquisition by the Phillies led local sportswriters to conclude that the deal had been arranged in advance.

On June 24, with the mercury hitting 88 degrees at 3:30 P.M., a reported 5,000 fans went to National League Park for a doubleheader against Cincinnati. The Phils had little trouble dispatching the Reds in the first game, with Ed Delahanty leading the offensive assault with a two-run homer in the fourth inning (over the right-field fence). Bill Duggleby scattered 10 hits in the 8-0 shutout, with the Public Ledger praising his speed and command “which, together, pulled him out of a number of nasty places.”5

The Phillies displayed even more dominance at bat and on the mound in the nightcap, thrashing Cincinnati 19-1 in what was their largest margin of victory since September 1894 (when they defeated the St. Louis Browns, 21-1). The Reds helped matters by committing nine errors in the game — “the whole crowd fell down back of Phillips in the second game,” according to the Inquirer6 — while the Phillies played errorlessly. Reds outfielder Sam Crawford was charged with three miscues. “Better wake up, ‘Wahoo,’” chided the Cincinnati Enquirer.7

A later Phillies history would note, “‘Doc’ White was destined for a career of stardom, but alas for Philadelphia fans, most of it was with the Chicago White Sox.”8 However, White had a moment in the spotlight for the Phils in that second game. “White must have been jealous of Del’s home run,” the Bulletin quipped,9 as the pitcher slammed his first career home run off Bill Phillips in the second game.10

“To describe the run-getting of the Phillies would be tiresome,” wrote the Philadelphia Times.11 Opined the Inquirer, “Hit followed hit with such regularity that any other kind of a play was welcomed as a change.”12 The Phillies confined their scoring to just five innings, including a six-run fourth and a five-run seventh. Reporters preferred to describe the Reds’ lone score of the afternoon, in the fifth inning, rather than any of the Phillies’ innings. “[W]ith (Bill) Bergen on first and (Charlie) Irwin on third with two men out,” the Cincinnati Enquirer recounted, “(Klondike) Douglass threw to (Monte) Cross off Bergen’s steal, with the idea of enticing Irwin home, so that he could be caught at the plate. Cross was fooled by Irwin’s stopping half way, and in trying to stop the flying Bergen turned too late to head off the too foxy Irwin before he had reached the plate.”13

The Press quipped that after the game, Phillips “strolled out Chestnut Street (…) with a pipe between his teeth. There was tobacco in the briar, but the plug cut was unlit. ‘Bill’ wanted to smoke but he didn’t have the energy to strike a lucifer.”14

Curiously, the only Phillies player to not get at least two hits in the second game was Hughie Jennings. While his early play did not draw praise (Sporting Life wrote, “Hugh Jennings’ batting eye is not quite as bright as it should be for a ‘$6,000 beaut’”15), his addition to the Phillies coincided with their rise in the National League standings. Philadelphia, 24-24 when Jennings joined the club, went 59-33 the remainder of the season to finish in second place, only 7½  games behind the pennant-winning Pirates; it was their closest finish to first place since 1887, and the Phillies would not exceed their .593 winning percentage until 1916. More relevantly, they outperformed the upstart Athletics (who finished 74-62).

The Reds, in contrast, were in decline. “The Cincinnati Club deserves a better fate,” Sporting Life mourned. “The palace of the fans [sic] is nearing completion, but unless there is a brace in the team’s play the cranks wouldn’t go out and sit in diamond encrusted chairs unless the management provided them with picks to pry out the jewels.”16

Notes

1 In 1901, the Phillies drew 234,937 and the Athletics 206,329.

2 Joe Dolan entry in Baseball-Reference: baseball-reference.com/players/d/dolanjo02.shtml.

3 “The Man Behind the Plate,” Philadelphia Inquirer, June 24, 1901: 7.

4 Jack Smiles, Ee-Yah: The Life and Times of Hughie Jennings, Baseball Hall of Famer (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Co., 2005), 99.

5 “The Phillies Take Two Games from Cincinnati,” Philadelphia Public Ledger, June 25, 1901: 14.

6 “Phillies’ Double Stunt Brings Two Victories,” Philadelphia Inquirer, June 25, 1901: 7.

7 “When Will the Agony End?” Cincinnati Enquirer, June 25, 1901: 4.

8 Frederick G. Lieb and Stan Baumgartner, The Philadelphia Phillies (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 2008), 62.

9 “Hits Inside the Diamond,” Philadelphia Bulletin, June 25, 1901: 11.

10 While the SABR Home Run Encyclopedia lists White’s home run as occurring in the seventh inning, the Bulletin game notes state that it took place in the fourth inning.

11 “Phillies Twice Down the Reds,” Philadelphia Times, June 25, 1901: 10.

12 Philadelphia Inquirer, June 25, 1901.

13  “When Will the Agony End?”

14 “Phillies Hit the Ball Hard,” Philadelphia Press, June 25, 1901: 9.

15 “News and Comments,” Sporting Life, July 6, 1901: 3

16 Ren Mulford Jr., “Reds Are Weak,” Sporting Life, July 6, 1901: 4.

The blame for the Blues’ miserable season rested on both their hitting and their pitching. Although the team had three .300 hitters among its regulars that year — first baseman Candy LaChance (.303) and outfielders Ollie Pickering (.309) and Jack McCarthy (.321) — it was the second worst offensive team in the American League, then in its first year as a major league: the Blues’ 666 total runs were better only than league-worst Milwaukee and were 69 runs fewer than the league average.

Their pitching was even worse: Although right-handed starter Earl Moore ranked seventh in ERA (2.90) and sixth in pitching WAR (4.9), Blues pitchers allowed more runs than any other AL team, 831 (the league average was 735), and ranked dead last in ERA at 4.12, more than a run worse than league-leading Chicago’s 2.98.

In the September 15 game in Detroit, both of those failings would contribute to bringing the team the ignominy of succumbing to what still stands as one of the most lopsided shutout losses in the modern era of the major leagues.1

Their opponents that day, the Tigers, were in third place, where they’d finish the season. While they featured only one .300 hitter among the regulars, shortstop Kid Elberfeld (.308), collectively the Tigers ranked third in the league in hitting that season and were just above the league average in runs scored with 742. Collectively, Tigers pitchers ranked third in fewest runs allowed (696) and ERA (3.30). Their mound corps was led by Roscoe Miller, who finished the season among the top 10 in wins (23), ERA (2.95), and WHIP (1.316), among other categories.

For the September 15 contest, the Tigers’ home finale for the year, the teams met at Burns Park in Springwells Township, outside the Detroit city limits, where the team played its Sunday games as a means of circumventing municipal blue laws that prohibited sporting events in Detroit on Sundays. With the weather fair, an estimated 4,100 fans turned out.2

As his starter, Detroit manager George Stallings sent 26-year-old rookie southpaw Ed Siever to the mound. Described by contemporaneous observers as “portly” and as having “terrific speed and deadly control,” Siever was in his third professional season, and had been a member of the Tigers in 1900, when the American League was still considered a minor league.3 Siever finished 1901 at 18-14 with a 3.24 ERA, with 85 strikeouts and 65 walks in 288⅔ innings. Coming into the September 15 contest against the Blues, he had already faced Cleveland five times, winning four.4

For their part, the Blues sent 20-year-old rookie right-hander Jack Bracken to the hill. Then in his first professional season, Bracken had joined the Blues in early August after manager Jimmy McAleer saw him pitch for an amateur team based in Kent, Oho, where he reportedly won 12 of his 17 starts.5 He had made his major-league and professional debut at home against Milwaukee on August 7, gaining a 5-4 victory when he slugged a two-out, two-run double down the left-field line that reportedly hit the chalk, barely fair.6

After Bracken also won his second start, defeating the Chicago White Sox 4-3, his early success was enough that one Ohio sportswriter was moved to compose a poem celebrating him and portending greatness, reading, in part:

“Who was it who mowed Milwaukee down?

Who crazed the fans of Cleveland town?

Who gave to Kent such great renown?

Jack Bracken.”7

But Bracken’s performance in the September 15 meeting with the Tigers made clear that the writer’s early enthusiasm was premature.

While existing play-by-play accounts of the game are spare, the game story in the Detroit Free Press said that the Tigers got to Bracken quickly, jumping out to a 2-0 lead by the Tigers’ fourth batter in the first: Bracken walked leadoff batter Jimmy Barrett and then gave up a double to Ducky Holmes; both came in on a single by cleanup hitter Kid Gleason.8 The Tigers ended up scoring in every inning but the second, plating two more in the third, four in the fourth, three in the fifth, six in the sixth, and four in the seventh.9 Reportedly Bracken was so disgusted by his performance that he tried to walk off the mound in the middle of the six-run sixth inning but Blues captain LaChance “made him take his medicine and stick until the umpire finally relieved him by calling the game” in the seventh inning because the score was so lopsided.10 By that point, he had given up 21 runs on 23 hits and three walks, while striking out none.11 The score could have been even worse except that in that horrendous sixth the Tigers’ Kid Elberfeld was thrown out trying to stretch a single into a double.12 The Cleveland Plain Dealer summarized Bracken’s effort succinctly: “The least said about the Detroit scoring, the better.”13

Meanwhile, Siever was dispatching the Blues with relative efficiency, scattering only five singles, while walking one and striking out three.

He also benefited from some superb defensive play behind him. In the fourth inning Barrett robbed Erve Beck of an extra-base hit when he caught a fly ball at the center-field wall, and in the fifth Holmes, playing right field, “made a fine running catch … coming in at full speed and taking the ball almost at … second [base]. … [He] rolled over after making the catch, but held on.”14 The most spectacular play, however, was by left fielder Kid Nance on “a terrific drive from Beck’s bat in the sixth. The ball seemed to be sailing over Nance’s head, but he leaped into the air and batted the ball down with his glove-protected hand and then caught the ball with his other hand. Tom] Donovan who was on second … had started for home and was easily caught before he got back to the bag.”15 The crowd “almost went wild with enthusiasm” and implored Nance to tip his cap in response to their cheers, but he “would not answer to the request.”16

After that debacle, Bracken did not last much longer in the major leagues: He made his last appearance for the Blues on September 27, a 14-6 loss to the Philadelphia Athletics, who “tore the hits off Mr. Bracken’s delivery”; in giving up the 14 runs, he allowed 16 hits, five for extra bases, including a home run by Nap Lajoie.17 When the Blues did not re-sign him for 1902, Bracken played in an independent league that season and then spent one year, 1904, in the minors before retiring as a player. After that, he worked as a scout for the Cleveland Indians until 1949, when he left baseball for the oil industry as a sales representative in Detroit, where he died in 1954.18 His final line for his brief stay in the major leagues: 4-8 with a 6.21 ERA.

Siever, on the other hand, had a superb season in 1902, leading the American League with a 1.91 ERA, though the year was not without its frustration: Pitching for a poor Tigers team that finished seventh largely because of an anemic offense that finished last in the league in runs scored, Siever ended up with a sub-.500 record, going 8-11. He was later an 18-game winner for the Tigers in their pennant-winning 1907 season, but after a mediocre start to his 1908 season, he wound up in the minor leagues, where he stayed until he retired as a player after 1910. In 1914, when he was working for the Detroit public works department, Siever fell into manhole, breaking a leg in five places. As he had “no means of support,” the Tigers staged a benefit game for him.19 Siever died of a heart attack on February 4, 1920, while he was at work; he was 44.20

Sources

Beyond the sources cited in the endnotes, the writer also consulted Baseball-Reference.com, Retrosheet.org, and the SABR Biography Project.

Notes

1 Baseball Reference’s Play Index, which includes games since 1908, shows three shutouts where the margin equaled or surpassed the 21-0 final score on September 15, 1901: Cleveland Indians 22, New York Yankees 0, August 31, 2004; Pittsburgh Pirates 22, Chicago Cubs 0, September 16, 1975; New York Yankees 21, Philadelphia Athletics 0, August 13, 1939. For scores prior to 1908, the writer relied on a 1976 SABR Baseball Research Journal article, “The Most Lopsided Shutouts” by Ronald C. Liebman, accessed September 20, 2019. That article, which reports scores beginning in 1901, shows no shutout scores prior to 1908 that match or exceed 21-0, save for Detroit-Cleveland on September 15, 1901.

2 “Season Ended in Detroit,” Detroit Free Press, September 16, 1901: 8.

3 McLean Kennedy, “‘Eddie’ Siever Deserves Rank as One of the Great Southpaws,” Detroit Free Press, January 12, 1913: 19.

4 Ibid. The article notes that Siever faced Cleveland six times in 1901, winning five of them; the September 15 game was the last that pitted the teams against each other that season.

5 “New Pitcher May Be Signed,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, August 6, 1901: 6.

6 “Duffy Struck Mannassau,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, August 8, 1901: 3.

7 “Bracken Has Started Well,” Cincinnati Enquirer, August 18, 1901: 31.

8 “Season Ended.”

9 “Season Ended.”

10 “Bad Trouncing by the Tigers,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, September 16, 1901: 3.

11 “Bad Trouncing.”

12 “Season Ended.”

13 “Bad Trouncing.”

14 “Season Ended.”

15 “Season Ended.”

16 “Season Ended.”

17 “Outplayed in Every Department,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, September 28, 1901: 6.

18 “Bracken, Ex-Tribe Scout, Is Dead,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 18, 1954: 3-C.

19 “Stage Benefit for Ed. Siever,” Detroit Free Press, September 21, 1914: 8.

20 “Eddie Siever Dies at Work,” Detroit Free Press, February 5, 1920: 14.

While tragedy was taking place, the Reds set a team record for runs allowed with 25,1 and put another nail in the coffin of their 1901 season. The loss added to a long list of failures against the Superbas over the past two seasons, which saw the Reds drop 29 of 39 games they played.2

The “swatting festival”3 included three home runs, four doubles, and a total of 39 bases. Two of the home runs were grand slams and in one inning the Superbas got 12 hits. Brooklyn was still hanging on to a thin hope of catching Pittsburgh for the National League pennant, while the Reds were languishing in the cellar with no chance but to wait till next year.

Leading the barrage at the plate for the Superbas was mustachioed Tom Daly, who went 5-for-6. Daly finished the season with a .315 batting average and led the National League with 38 doubles. Jay Hughes, the third man in Brooklyn’s rotation, racked up four singles. While Joe Kelley, the former “Kingpin of the Orioles,”4 and one-quarter of the “Big Four” (the others being John McGraw, Willie Keeler, and Hughie Jennings) of the spectacular Baltimore teams of the mid-1890s, hit two home runs and a single. Rounding out the attack was Jimmy Sheckard with a grand slam and a safety squeeze. Sheckard was having a career year and wound up leading the National League in slugging (.534) and triples (19). He finished third in the league in batting average (.354), second in home runs (11) and total bases (296), third in hits (196), and third (tied) in runs batted in (104). On top of this hypothetical MVP year – the award didn’t exist at the time –he became the first player of the twentieth century to hit two grand slams in a season. This game’s grand slam was his first, and he hit his second the next day against the Reds.

The Superbas broke the game wide open in the fifth inning, with 16 batters facing Archie Stimmel, the starting pitcher for the Reds. Of the 16 batters, 11 scored, and after giving up 18 runs in the first five innings, Stimmel was pulled for Jack Sutthoff. Sunny Jack, as he was known for his pleasant disposition, was having a disappointing season with the Reds, eventually winding up with a 1-6 record in 10 starts and a 5.50 ERA. He didn’t fare much better than Stimmel, allowing seven runs in the next two innings before finally settling into a groove and setting the Superbas down in order in the eighth and ninth.

On the hill for the Superbas, Jimmy Hughes had a rough beginning to the day, giving up “two runs on three bunts” and a throwing error by Hughes when first baseman Joe Kelley failed to cover the base.5 After the first inning, Hughes settled down until the eighth. Starting in that inning, “Hughes stood in the box … and informed the batters … the exact style of the ball he intended to deliver.”6 If not for the information offered to the Cincinnati batters, Hughes might have finished the contest giving up only two earned runs.

Even with the 34 hits and four walks in the game, it was played in an even two hours. The attendance was reported as 900.7

The Cincinnati Enquirer’s report on the game ran under the one-word headline “Carnage.” The reporter suggested that few “could look at the slaughter without a shudder.”8 The Dayton Daily News likened to scene to “a slaughter pen, with Red blood strewn all over the field.” The paper suggested that Brooklyn “got so awful tired of slugging the ball that they were compelled to stop from sheer exhaustion of wielding the bat and running around the bases.”9

The Reds committed five errors to the Superbas’ three.

The Superbas finished the season in third place in the National League behind the Pirates and Phillies. After two consecutive National League championships this was a disappointing finish, which might be blamed on losing some players to the newly formed American League. The Reds finished the season in last place (eighth), and continued their string of bad seasons. Bad Bill Dahlen, Brooklyn’s shortstop, had a theory as to why the Reds were so ghastly. According to SABR author Lyle Spatz, “He blamed it on their home park, League Park, which had an all-dirt infield. Not only was the all-dirt infield hard on the eyes, said Bill, but it reflected the heat in the summer, thereby tiring out the Reds players.”10 Whether it was because of League Park, or because of the Superbas clinging to a hope of catching the Pirates, this game was truly a “swatting festival” of the highest order.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com, the SABR Biography Project, and the following:

Russo, Frank. The Cooperstown Chronicles (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2011).

Thanks to SABR members Stephen S. Eberly and Jim Farmer for assistance providing Ohio newspapers.

Notes

1 Mike Shannon, The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly (Chicago: Triumph Books, 2008), 48.

2 Lyle Spatz, Bad Bill Dahlen (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2004), 97.

3 “Reds Buried Under Avalanche of Runs,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, September 24, 1901: 15.

4 Jimmy Keenan, “Joe Kelley,” SABR BioProject, at https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/17b00755

5 Keenan.

6 Keenan.

7 “Bridegrooms Fattened Their Batting Averages at Expense of Remnants,” St. Louis Republic, September 24, 1901: 8.

8 “Carnage,” Cincinnati Enquirer, September 24, 1901.

9 “Reds Gave Up in Despair,” Dayton Daily News, September 24, 1901: 3.

10 Spatz.

But that faith was being tested in 1902, as Cincinnati was coming off its first last-place finish ever in 1901, just 52-87 in the National League, 38 games out of first.

And despite the mediocre results on the diamond – the Reds would finish at 70-70 in fourth place in 1902 – the club unveiled a remodeled park dubbed the Palace of the Fans.

It was unlike any ballpark before or since. The façade of the grandstand was a blend of Roman and Greek styling with 22 hand-carved Corinthian columns. The grandstand sat atop carriage stalls, basically parking spots for horse-drawn wagons, so the well-off could literally drive to the game.1

The 3,000-seat grandstand featured 19 “fashion boxes” along the front railing that could hold a dozen or so fans. These were designed to mimic the extravagant private boxes one would find at a high-end theater or opera house. Beneath the grandstand, at field level, was standing room for 640 more spectators in a loud and raucous section known as Rooters Row.2

The Palace of the Fans opened April 17, 1902, Opening Day, to a crowd estimated at 10,000.

But despite the deep baseball roots and the fancy new ballpark, the team’s performance on the field hurt attendance. Less than a month later, for this mid-May slaughter, only 400 fans were present.

“It had rained a half-hour before play began and only the faithful were there to make up a little family tea party,” said the next day’s Cincinnati Enquirer.3

They saw a record performance from the home team, a 24-2 thrashing of the Philadelphia Phillies. The 24 runs were the most by a Reds team until they scored 26 against Boston on June 4, 1911. The 28 hits still stand as the most by the Reds in a game, although the mark was equaled on May 19, 1999, at Colorado.

After Cincinnati starting pitcher Bill Phillips retired the Phillies in the top of first, the carnage began. After Cincinnati’s leadoff man, William “Dummy” Hoy (so nicknamed because he was deaf), was retired, Harry Bay reached when his short fly fell in front of Philadelphia left fielder George Browne.

Future Hall of Famer Jake Beckley singled and took second when the throw to get Bay at third was late. Another future Hall of Famer, Sam Crawford, singled both runners home. After George “Maggie” Magoon wrangled a walk from Phillies starter Doc White, Crawford stole third. With runners at the corners, Tommy Corcoran bounced to Pete Childs at second, who booted the ball, allowing Crawford to score and make it 3-0. It was the first of seven Philadelphia errors.

Harry Steinfeldt followed with a single scoring Magoon for a 4-0 lead, and Phillies manager Bill Shettsline removed White. Cy Vorhees relieved and fared little better.

Heinie Peitz, the Reds catcher, tripled to right, scoring two more for a 6-0 lead. Phillips, the Reds pitcher, singled to score Peitz. Hoy walked and Bay reached on a bunt single to fill the bases. Beckley also bunted and Vorhees couldn’t handle it, as the eighth run scored on the error.

The Enquirer noted, “Cincinnati scored more runs in that first inning yesterday than they have done in 18 of the games they have played this season.”4

They were just getting warmed up. Sporting Life (a contemporary weekly of The Sporting News) related, “The Cincinnati field is the roughest in the League. Visiting teams say that it is not to be wondered at that the Reds make so many errors.”5 The comment was borne out in this game as the Phillies made seven errors, the Reds three. Despite that, the Sporting Life box score credits 22 of the 24 Cincinnati runs as earned.

The Phillies scratched out two runs in the third, but Vorhees was knocked out in the fourth as Cincinnati scored four times, the big hits being a double by Corcoran and a triple by pitcher Phillips. Harry Felix relieved Vorhees and surrendered three runs in the fifth and two more in the sixth, a 17-2 deficit.

The Reds batted around in the eighth, scoring seven more runs. Beckley singled twice, and the Reds got singles from Hoy and Corcoran, doubles from Magoon and Peitz, a triple from Crawford and a home run to extreme right field by Steinfeldt. It was Steinfeldt’s only homer of the season for a team that hit just 18. The papers noted the time of the game at two hours.

Every Cincinnati player had at least two hits and only Hoy, the leadoff man, didn’t score a run. Pitcher Bill Phillips went the distance, allowing two runs on eight hits with a walk and a strikeout. He himself had four hits, including his triple. This was a bit of redemption for Phillips, as the Phillies had pounded him for all 19 runs in a 19-1 defeat on June 24, 1901.

“Gracious, how they did hit!” said Klondike Bill Douglass [first baseman for the Phillies in the game] last night. “There was no stopping them.”6

Beckley, Corcoran, and Phillips each had four hits. Bay, Crawford, Steinfeldt, and Peitz added three apiece.

The Phillies suffered two casualties. After his first-inning error, Childs “was taken ill and forced to retire in the second.”7 And in the fifth, “Roy Thomas was called out on strikes but objected so noisily that Umpire Powers benched him.”8 The score was 12-2 at the time.

The big victory did not inspire the Reds: They continued to stumble, eventually landing in last place. Manager Bid McPhee, another future Hall of Famer and one of the greatest Reds of the nineteenth century, resigned in mid-July amid rumors that he was about to be replaced by yet another future Hall of Famer, Joe Kelley, then with Baltimore. Kelley eventually did take over, and the Reds showed marked improvement in the season’s second half, finishing fourth with a record of 70-70.

Shettsline’s Phillies went nowhere. He nudged them up to fourth place briefly in June but by the end of July, they were in seventh place, where they remained for the rest of the season.

Notes

1 Philip J. Lowry, Green Cathedrals (Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley, 1992), 137.

2 Lowry, 137.

3 Cincinnati Enquirer, May 14, 1902.

4 Cincinnati Enquirer, May 14, 1902.

5 “National League, Games Played Tuesday, May 13,” Sporting Life, May 24, 1902: 10.

6 Cincinnati Enquirer, May 14, 1902.

7 Sporting Life, May 24, 1902.

8 Philadelphia Times, May 14, 1902.

The Cubs had revenge on their minds. The Giants had taken three out of four in Chicago just a few weeks earlier. Also, the Polo Grounds had not been friendly to the Cubs recently; the Giants won 9 of their 11 home games against the Cubs in 1905.

The Cubs had Monday, June 4, as a travel day and arrived in New York in the midst of a three-game winning streak. The Cubs took the first game of the series, 6-0, and the second game, 11-3, to run their winning streak to five games.

On Thursday, June 7, the Cubs sent Jack Pfiester to the mound against the Giants’ Christy Mathewson.

The game did not begin well for the Mathewson and the Giants. The Cubs’ Jimmy Slagle walked to lead off and Jimmy Sheckard and Frank Schulte both singled, scoring Slagle. Frank Chance grounded to third baseman Art Devlin, who failed in an attempt to force Schulte at second. Henry Steinfeldt singled to left, driving in Sheckard and Schulte. Joe Tinker followed with an RBI double, chasing Mathewson.

Joe “Iron Man” McGinnity came in to pitch for the Giants, but he didn’t do much better. Johnny Evers grounded to shortstop Bill Dahlen, who threw home to get Steinfeldt in a rundown. During the rundown, McGinnity dropped the ball while tagging Steinfeldt, who was standing still in an attempt to allow Tinker to advance to third and Evers to second. Devlin picked up the ball and threw it home, hitting Steinfeldt in the back. Steinfeldt’s run made the score 5-0. Pat Moran singled, driving in Tinker and Evers. Pfiester was retired on a bunt attempt for the Cubs’ first out.

Slagle, batting for the second time in the inning, doubled Moran home, and Sheckard and Schulte walked, loading the bases. McGinnity got Chance to pop out to Billy Gilbert at second, but Steinfeldt drove one to deep center. Roger Bresnahan saved it from going through the ropes for a home run, holding Steinfeldt to a bases-clearing triple that made the score 11-0. Tinker’s groundout to short ended the half-inning.1

After sending 15 batters to the plate in the first inning, the Cubs did not slow down very much. Eight Cubs batted in the second inning2 and the team scored three runs with the help of two Giants’ throwing errors. Cecil Ferguson replaced McGinnity on the mound and got out of the inning with the score 14-0.3

It looked as though the Giants might make it through the third inning unscathed, but the Cubs had other ideas. With two out, Moran, Pfiester, and Slagle all singled with Moran scoring on Slagle’s hit. Sheckard walked to load the bases again and Schulte walked, scoring Pfiester. Chance left the bases loaded by flying out to Bresnahan in left to end the inning with the Cubs up 16-0.4

The New York Tribune correspondent wrote, “Heavy clouds threatened rain in the fourth inning, and the visitors, knowing that they had the game safely won, tried to rush matters so that there would be no danger of the game being called before four and a half innings had been played.”5 Evers singled and stole second, but then walked right into the ball in Dahlen’s hand to be put out and Moran jogged around to third on Pfiester’s single to right and kindly allowed himself to be put out. After four innings, the Cubs had a 17-0 advantage. The crowd began to leave the grounds, while some who remained amused themselves by throwing lemons at the local players.6

In the fifth inning the only run the Cubs could score was on a home run by Schulte to make the score 18-0.

Then, as described by the next day’s Chicago Tribune, “The sixth inning was momentous. It was momentous not because of what was done, but for what was not done. Chicago did not score a run that inning.”7

In the eighth inning, Chance scored the 19th and final run for the Cubs.

The 28-year-old Pfiester, in his first full major-league season, pitched seven innings, surrendering three hits. Ed Reulbach pitched the final two innings, giving up one hit.

The final line was Chicago: 19 runs on 22 hits, New York: no runs on four hits. The Giants made five errors, the Cubs none.

This article from the Washington Post the next morning pretty much summed up the game: “Never have the champions appeared to worse advantage. When a team is not hitting it looks slow. The New Yorks not only did not hit yesterday, but they fielded badly, were listless, disjointed in team play and not alert mentally. Mathewson was batted out of the box in the first inning. He looked pale and not himself. The rooters had not forgotten what he had done, however, and he was applauded generously as he left the box. ‘Never mind, Matty,’ encouraged the crowd. The Chicago artillery was trained on McGinnity and Ferguson with just as deadly effect. At present these Cubs could make base hits if they had to face torpedoes.”8

The Cubs were 34-15 after this day’s game, 3½ games ahead of Pittsburgh, and had stretched their lead to four games over the defending National League champion Giants.

The 1906 Cubs finished the season in first place with a 116-36 record and lost to the Chicago White Sox’ “Hitless Wonders” in six games in the World Series.

The Cubs and Giants on this day had a number of future Hall of Famers, including the first two Giants pitchers (Mathewson and McGinnity), along with Bresnahan and manager John McGraw. The Cubs’ future Hall of Famers on this 1906 team were Tinker, Evers, Mordecai Brown, and player-manager Frank Chance.

Sources

The year 1908 in baseball gave us the invention of the electric scoreboard, the introduction to the public of Take Me Out to the Ball Game and Fred Merkle’s infamous “boner.”

And on Friday, July 17, the game between the Detroit Tigers and Philadelphia Athletics provided four American League record-setting performances. In 2¼ hours’ work, the Tigers registered top team performances of 1908 in hits (27), doubles (9), RBIs (18), and runs (21).

Managed by Hughie Jennings, Detroit entered its 81st contest of the season with a 47-33 record, in first place in the American League. The Athletics, meanwhile, were 39-38 at the start of the game, in fifth place.

“Not since 1899 has a big league baseball club scored a holocaust like that,” wrote Paul H. Bruske for the Detroit Times, calling the Tigers’ 21-2 win over the A’s “a spanking such as has never before been chronicled in the American League archives.”1

The hometown Philadelphia Inquirer likewise labeled the contest a “one-sided swatfest,” and “hades on toast” for the Athletics and their well-wishers. “The Detroiters would have collided with the ball if it had been hurled from the mouth of a Gatling gun,” was another Inquirer description of the Tigers success at the plate.2

Sitting in a half-full Columbia Park in Philly’s Brewerytown section, the 6,185 spectators witnessed an intense show of offensive power by the Tigers on an 84-degree afternoon. “Biff, bang, boom, likewise bingo, also kerplunk, crack and swish! Anything, everything, that occurs to your memory to suggest the sound of the impact of the ball against the bat,” was how the Inquirer portrayed Detroit’s performance.3

The Times’s Bruske ventured a bold prediction derived from the lopsided victory by the Tigers, writing, “It is hardly likely that the baseball world will see its like again, in this day of pitcher ascendancy.”4

Indeed, 1908 was the biggest year for pitching in a decade. “Both leagues batted .239, both record lows. Only one of the 16 major league pitching staffs, the Yankees’, had an ERA over 3.00. Seven pitchers threw no-hitters and seven of the all-time 50 lowest season ERAs came in 1908,” according to The Baseball Chronicle.5 It was the year of individual milestones by pitchers Ed Walsh, Christy Mathewson, Addie Joss, and Cy Young.

Perhaps, then, this midsummer batting display by Detroit was out of character for its time. Bruske, however, suggested that the Tigers’ offensive roar this particular day may have resulted from another motive — an unfulfilled itch to settle a score.

One month earlier, on June 14, Philadelphia had snapped a four-game Detroit win streak by the strong relief pitching of Rube Vickers, who held the Tigers to three hits in 7⅔ innings and “made them look rather bad,” he wrote. Vickers was not used further in that series. “Mr. (Connie) Mack (Philadelphia manager) … left Mr. Vickers in the barn … with “the Tigers frothing at the mouth in their strenuous desire to get at him,” Bruske suggested.6

On July 17 the Tigers clashed with Vickers for the second time of the season, and it didn’t go as well for the Michigan righty. He faced but seven batters in his one-third of an inning on the mound, giving up six hits and four runs to the Tigers before being yanked by A’s manager Connie Mack.

Right-hander Biff Schlitzer replaced Vickers to finish the first inning with no further damage and to pitch the second inning, in which he gave up two more runs to the Tigers on four hits.

Philadelphia, meanwhile, plated one run in the first inning off Detroit hurler Ed Summers but scored no more off him during the remainder of his six innings on the mound.

The Tigers faced the third A’s pitcher of the game in the top of the third inning. Bert Maxwell twirled the final seven innings for Philadelphia, during which Detroit batters crossed home plate 15 more times on 17 hits and seven walks.

Philadelphia crossed home plate for the second time in the seventh inning off Detroit reliever George Suggs.

The dynamic display of Tigers offense was fueled by the ferocious outfield duo who several weeks later would become the American League batting leaders for 1908, Ty Cobb and Sam Crawford. Cobb wore the batting crown with a .324 mark; Crawford finished second at .311.

“As in 1907, Ty Cobb and Sam Crawford (in 1908) led the AL in nearly everything. Cobb won the batting title at .324 and was No. 1 in hits, doubles, triples, total bases, RBIs, and slugging. Crawford led in home runs and was second in runs, RBIs, hits, total bases, batting, and slugging,” states The Baseball Chronicle.7

In this game Cobb secured five hits in six at-bats, including two doubles and a triple, for nine total bases. He crossed the plate three times and knocked in five runs. Crawford also scored three runs and drove in two on four hits, including a double and a triple. Shortstop Germany Schaefer also performed exceptionally for the Tigers, scoring five times and batting in two runs on four hits. Schaefer started as a Detroit infielder in all 153 games of the regular season.

As a team the Tigers hit nine doubles and three triples for 42 total bases. Fifty-nine Detroit batters went to the plate.

Philadelphia’s two runs were scored by left fielder Topsy Hartsel and second baseman Eddie Collins. Each notched three hits, including a triple by Hartsel and a double by Collins. Tigers pitchers Summers and Suggs gave up a total of nine hits to the Athletics. Summers picked up the win for his six innings of work.

Detroit’s fireworks would be the final extravaganza at Columbia Park. In 11 weeks, on October 3, the final big-league game at the park was played, and then stillness settled in. Almost entirely abandoned after the 1908 season, the park was demolished several years later, the only lasting remnant being its sod, which was transplanted to its successor, Shibe Park, after the 1908 season.

Columbia Park, with its tiny, single-deck wooden grandstand, had been built specifically for the Athletics when they joined the newly formed American League in 1901.8 The highlight of its short lifespan came in 1905 when two games of the third World Series were played there in a losing effort to the New York Giants.

The Tigers clawed their way through 72 remaining games and claimed the 1908 American League pennant by a razor-thin margin over Cleveland. Detroit’s record of 90-63 and one tie was a half-game and only four one-thousandths of a point better than the Naps’ performance of 90-64 and three ties. It was the smallest margin of victory in American League or National League history.

Detroit lost the World Series to the Chicago Cubs, however, for a second straight year, this time four games to one.

Sources

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

Photo credit: Library of Congress, Bain Collection.

Notes

1 Paul H. Bruske, “Tigers Massacre Poor Athletics by 21 To 2,” Detroit Times, July 18, 1908.

2 “Those Detroiters Play Hob With Us,” Philadelphia Inquirer, July 18, 1908.

3 “Those Detroiters Play Hob With Us.”

4 Bruske.

5 The Baseball Chronicle (Lincolnwood, Ilinois: Publications International, Ltd., 2008), 40.

6 Bruske.

7 The Baseball Chronicle.

8 James Tackach and Joshua B. Stein, The Fields of Summer (New York: Moore & Moore Publishing, 1992), 13.

The Boston Rustlers, later known as the Braves but now named for their owner, William Hepburn Russell, finished 5-10 in April, then dropped 14 in a row and were 11-32 and easily entrenched in last place. Boston sent Cecil Ferguson to the mound. Ferguson, in his fourth season with Boston, had a career 28-43 record and had suffered through a 5-23 season for Boston in 1909. Ferguson felt his 7-7 record in 1910 was worthy of a salary bonus and had held out early in the season, threatening to make his offseason plumbing business his main occupation. He was convinced otherwise, however, and made his first appearance of the season. Unclogging a sink would probably have been a better decision. Buck Herzog, Boston’s shortstop, batting .325 at the time, was unable to play due to injury. He would be dealt to the Giants the following month.

The Cincinnati Reds had played a little under .500 so far this season, coming into this game in sixth place at 19-23. Taking the mound was Frank Smith, who had been acquired from the Rustlers for cash less than a month before. Smith had been shaky for Cincinnati, dropping his first four starts and coming into the game 2-6. Called “piano mover” due to his boasts of carrying baby grands up and down stairs, Smith wouldn’t find this game nearly so strenuous.

Cy Rigler was the home-plate umpire while Bill Finneran umpired at first base. The two teams split the first two games of this four-game series, Boston taking the opener, 8-5, and Cincinnati winning the second, 15-4. A crowd of 7,000 came to the Palace of the Fans on June 4. They could have used other types of fans that day as the sweltering temperature hit 95 degrees.2 Severe storms blew through northern Ohio that day and devastated towns like Norwalk, where members of a local baseball team scattered when winds blew apart the grandstand. When they sought shelter under a tree, one was killed by a lightning strike and Ohioans remembered this storm for decades.3

Boston went quickly and quietly in the first. Then the onslaught began. Bob Beschner led off with a walk and stole second. Dick Egan singled and also stole second, then a walk to Johnny Bates loaded the bases. Dick Hoblitzell grounded to second, where Bill Sweeney made a wild throw to the plate and Bescher scored. Egan streaked for home as Boston catcher Bill Rariden tracked it down, throwing too high for Ferguson to handle, and Egan scored. But there was still more to come on this one play. The ball sailed toward the grandstand (the accounts are uncertain as to whether it was on the first- or third-base side) and no one was backing up the play. By the time the ball was retrieved not only had Bates scored but Hoblitzell himself came all the way around to score on what today would probably be called a Little League grand slam. And still there were no outs.

Mike Mitchell doubled, Tom Downey tripled, and Eddie Grant doubled to push the lead to 6-0. Boston manager Fred Tenney brought in Cliff Curtis from the bullpen. Ferguson retired no one, surrendering four hits and six runs.4 Curtis’s first offering was a wild pitch that Rariden tracked down but Grant was already coming home and scored as he again threw wild. Larry McLean singled but Smith, the pitcher, flied out, and finally there was one out. Bescher singled, but Egan struck out. Bates singled to load the bases. Hoblitzell again grounded to second, but this time Sweeney handled the play and the inning was finally over. Cincinnati led, 7-0.

The second inning was the calm before the next storm as the Reds poured on another five runs in the third. Third baseman Harry Steinfeldt made a two-out error and the Reds followed with four hits and two walks which, combined with two more Boston errors, gave the Reds a 12-0 lead.

In the fourth Tenney turned to Jiggs Parson to mop up Boston’s mess. As if there hadn’t been enough damage done, the Boston Globe sarcastically quipped, “Parson was called upon to show how wild a pitcher really can be.”5 Parson had debuted with Boston in 1910 but this, his 17th appearance, would be his last in the majors. He certainly didn’t go out in style, either. Jiggs allowed three hits and a walk to allow three more runs as the Reds were now up 15-0.

Sensing a great opportunity to rest some regulars, Reds manager Clark Griffith sent in 29-year-old rookie Barney Schreiber. Schreiber had been bouncing around the minor leagues since 1906 and was making his third and final major-league appearance. In his major-league debut, a 21-5 loss to Philadelphia, Schreiber had allowed eight hits and seven runs in three innings. On this day, staked to a 15-0 lead, Schreiber walked one and surrendered hits to Steinfeldt, Rariden, and Parson to let Boston “back in the game,” cutting the lead to 15-2. Cincinnati added single runs in the sixth and seventh innings while Boston added a run in the top of the seventh on an error, a walk, and a groundout. The Reds led 17-3 after seven innings.

Cincinnati could not afford to take any chances, even with the enormous lead. Just four days earlier they led St. Louis 8-0 in the sixth only to watch the Cardinals score 15 from then on and prevail, 15-8. On this day, the Reds sent 12 men to the plate in the eighth with nine of them scoring after two were out. All 12 of those batters reached first base. Hoblitzell was hit by a pitch, stole second, and reached third on yet another bad throw from Rariden. Mitchell then smashed hit number five on the day to score Hoblitzell. Jimmy Esmond, who had replaced Downey at short, drew a walk. Grant then lofted an inside-the-park home run to right field. McLean singled and Schreiber was hit by a pitch. Bescher and Dave Altizer (who had replaced Egan at second) both drew walks, forcing in a run. Fred Beck, who had replaced Bates in center, tripled to clear the bases. Hoblitzell, at bat again, followed with a drive he assumed was enough for a home run, but “Rigler mercifully called him out at the plate” after a lackadaisical rounding of third, according to the Globe. Reds players just wanted to go home at this point. “It might have been worse, however, except for the fact that the Reds played foolishly on the bases toward the end,” the Globe writer said. “It was fearfully hot and nobody seemed to want to stand in the sun on the bases.”6

“His curve ball broke beautifully and his famous spitter had the Rustlers completely fooled,” wrote the Globe about the Rustlers’ former pitcher, Smith.7 Smith went four innings but was awarded the victory. No surprise, Boston finished with the highest ERA (5.08) and most errors (347) in the National League.

The Enquirer cartoonist depicted a Civil War-themed “Tenney’s Retreat,” with the Boston manager on a horse pulling “The Cellar Champs” through Redville” and into the waiting soldiers called “Our boys.”8 At 44-107, the Rustlers not only lost this battle, but also the war of 1911.

Sources

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

“Baseball Notes,” Boston Globe, April 20, 1911: 7.

Bernstein, Sam. “Frank Smith.” SABR Baseball BioProject. https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/bb6d2cab. Retrieved October 2, 2018.

Findley, Jeff. “Cecil Ferguson,” in Bill Nowlin and Emmet R. Nowlin, eds., 20-Game Losers (Phoenix: Society for American Baseball Research, 2017), 108.

Notes

1 Jack Ryder, “Banged,” Cincinnati Enquirer, June 5, 1911: 8.

2 As reported on the front page of the Cincinnati Enquirer, June 5, 1911.

3 “Cloudburst,” Cincinnati Enquirer, June 5, 1911: 1; “June 4, 1911 Wind Storm,” Wayne County Historical Society of Ohio. Retrieved October 6, 2018. https://waynehistoricalohio.org/2013/08/01/june-4-1911-wind-storm/.

4 Retrosheet’s game account does not list which runs were earned. This author concludes three of the first four runs were earned, with only Hoblitzell’s run being unearned. Mitchell, Downey, and Grant all scored earned runs, to bring a total of six earned, seven total.

5 “Full Account of the Murder,” Boston Globe, June 5, 1911: 7.

6  “Full Account of the Murder.”

7   “Full Account of the Murder.”

8 “26 To 3 Was Too Much for Grump,” Cincinnati Enquirer, June 5, 1911: 8.

The Pirates’ early-season struggles were reflected in the anemic batting averages of some of their best hitters, including Bobby Byrne (.225), Max Carey (.216), Honus Wagner (.216), Dots Miller (.179), Chief Wilson (.237), and George Gibson (.206). After the shutout loss to Cincinnati, James Jerpe mockingly wrote in the Pittsburgh Gazette Times: “Lost – Somewhere between Hot Springs and Forbes Field, four pairs of batting eyes, Robert Byrne, Max Carey, Hans Wagner and John Miller. Reward if left with Groundkeeper O’Malley at Forbes Field before 3 o’clock this afternoon.”1

Before their next contest with the Reds, the Pirates received a new order of bats. When owner Barney Dreyfuss complained about the cost ($2 per bat), manager Fred Clarke told the Pittsburgh Press, he replied: “… we needed the best and that we intended to use them. He informed me that the way we battled on Thursday, we could do well if we had rolling pins, and I had to agree with him.”2 Clarke continued: “Nevertheless, I told him to wait until we had tried our new sticks which I had imported from Cuba for the especial purpose of striking terror to the hearts of opponents.”3

Cincinnati, on the other hand, was red hot. The Reds were on a four-game winning streak and sitting atop the National League standings with an 8-2 record. To make matters worse for the Pirates, they would have to face right-hander Art Fromme in the second game of the series. Fromme had defeated the Bucs just 12 days earlier, pitching a masterful 11 innings in the Reds’ 3-2 win in Cincinnati. Pittsburgh sent Howie Camnitz, 1-1 with a 3.79 ERA, to the mound.

The Pirates wasted no time breaking out with their new bats. The Cincinnati Enquirer wrote: “The Pirates losing no time in skirmishing, jumped into the battle with all their weapons of warfare and smashed everything (Fromme) sent up. Everybody took a crack at the ball, and they were not gentle about it either.”4 Bobby Byrne and Max Carey started things off in the bottom of the first with a pair of singles, and Tommy Leach walked to load the bases.

Honus Wagner then drove a ball that Johnny Bates tracked down “out among the dandelions in deepest center” that brought home the first run of the game and allowed the other runners to move up a base.5 The Pittsburgh Press observed, “Surely, these were not the same Pirates who couldn’t hit a balloon two days back.”6

And the Bucs bats were only getting started. Dots Miller singled to right, bringing home both runners. Chief Wilson launched a “screaming triple to the flagpole” to plate another run.7 Alex McCarthy singled through Jimmy Esmond’s legs to bring Wilson home. George Gibson continued the onslaught with a run-scoring double, but was thrown out trying to stretch it into a triple. Fromme finally was able to get Camnitz to fly out to center for the third out, but the damage had been done, as six Pirates had crossed the plate in the inning.

Fromme was pulled from the game after his rocky first inning and replaced with Bill Prough, in what would be the one and only major-league appearance of his career. The Pirates continued their assault on the new hurler, exploding for five runs in the fourth inning, highlighted by Honus Wagner’s two-run double. The Pittsburgh Gazette Times noted, “The crack of the bat against ball continued so unceasingly that it sounded as though Barney Dreyfuss had a force of riveters at work building another steel wing to his stadium.”8 The Pirates led after four innings, 11-0.

Perhaps no fan at Forbes Field enjoyed the Pirates’ offensive explosion more than the vice president of the United States, James Sherman. He was at the ballpark with a number of other luminaries, including a pair of congressmen and a senator who were in town for an America’s Club dinner. Sherman, a known fan of the national pastime, made sure the group was seated in the grandstand seats so he could be close to the action. Even though the game ended up being a blowout, the vice president stayed until the end and “clapped his hands in applause while the scoring was being done.”9

After the fourth inning, Reds manager Hank O’Day replaced Prough with 22-year-old right-hander Hanson Horsey. Just like Prough, Horsey had “not yet seen the light in the National League” and made what ended up being his only major-league appearance.10 Unfortunately for Horsey, it was not a good day to make a pitching debut against the Pirates. The Cincinnati Enquirer wrote: “No pitcher could have stopped them today after they once got on their way.”11

Just as they’d done to the two pitchers before him, the Pirates jumped all over Horsey and hit him with “unbridled fury.”12 The Pirates got three hits and a pair of runs in the fifth, on a two-run single by Max Carey. The Reds were able to scratch across a couple of runs in the bottom of the fifth off Camnitz, but the Pirates answered back with two hits and two runs in the bottom of the inning, one of the runs coming on a nifty double steal, when Wagner raced home as McCarthy took second. Through six innings, the rout continued, as Pittsburgh increased its lead to 15-2.

Pittsburgh brought home two more runs in the seventh, with the big hit being a run-scoring triple into the right-field corner by Dots Miller, who was gunned down at the plate while attempting to stretch it into a home run. But the eighth inning was when Hank O’Day must have really felt like waving the white flag. The Pirates batted around with six hits and a walk, and pulled off their second run-scoring double steal of the game, all while scoring six runs, to increase their insurmountable lead, 23-2. “It was simply a case of a team being unbeatable, and the Reds were never in the running for a moment.”13 Poor Hanson Horsey was left in to take the drubbing, allowing 14 hits, 3 walks, and 12 runs (10 of them earned) in four innings of work, to finish his one-game major-league career with a 22.50 ERA.

Meanwhile, Howie Camnitz was cruising on the mound, “allowing but six hits in all, and several of them were flukey. Three of them were made in the ninth inning, after the Pirates were so far ahead that they felt ashamed of themselves for being so greedy.”14 The Pirates had avenged their shutout loss in the previous game with a blowout win, 23-4.

The Pirates finished the game with 27 hits, including five doubles and three triples. They also stole eight bases, including two swipes of home on double steals. Pittsburgh also played an errorless game in the field and “[t]hree fast double plays were made, all by the inimitable trio, McCarthy, Wagner and Miller.”15

The Pirates’ new bats were a resounding success. Big numbers abounded. Bobby Byrne finished the day 5-for-6, with a double, four runs scored, and two driven in. Byrne’s five hits raised his batting average from .225 to .304. Dots Miller went 5-for-6 with a double, a triple, a run scored, and five RBIs, raising his batting average from .179 to .267. Honus Wagner was 4-for-5, with two doubles, a sacrifice fly, three runs scored, and five RBIs, as his average climbed from .216 to .286. Chief Wilson added a pair of triples to the cause. Every Pittsburgh batter had at least one hit, except Camnitz, and “[e]very mother’s son of them took part in the run-scoring,” with every Pirate scoring at least one run.16 The Cincinnati Enquirer noted that the Pirates were “the entire class of the party on this occasion.”17

The bats that Fred Clarke ordered had certainly struck terror in the hearts of the Pirates’ opponents, just as he’d promised they would. They were worth every penny of what Barney Dreyfuss was obliged to pay for them. After the game, a satisfied Clarke reportedly said of his new bats: “Didn’t I tell you so?”18

Sources

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

Notes

1 James Jerpe, “On and Off the Field,” Pittsburgh Gazette Times, April 27, 1912: 10.

2 Ralph S. Davis, “Pirates Give Reds Terrific Beating,” Pittsburgh Press, April 28, 1912: 21.

3 Davis.

4 Jack Ryder, “Walloped,” Cincinnati Enquirer, April 28, 1912: 20.

5 Jerpe, “On and Off the Field,” Pittsburgh Gazette Times, April 28, 1912: 18.

6 Davis.

7 James Jerpe, “Pirates Unsheath Bats and Inflict Slaughter,” Pittsburgh Gazette Times, April 28, 1912: 18.

8 Jerpe.,

9 Davis: 22.

10 Ryder.

11 Ryder.

12 Jerpe.

13 Davis, 22.

14 Davis, 21.

15 Davis, 21-22.

16 Davis, 21.

17 Ryder.

18 Ed F. Balinger, “Buccaneers Bat Reds’ Offerings All Over Field,” Pittsburgh Daily Post, April 28, 1912: 18.