On a sweltering summer afternoon on July 1, 1910, the ballpark that would one day be known as Comiskey Park hosted its first official game. At the time, the ballpark was known as White Sox Park. The Chicago White Sox would play 6,247 major-league games there before it closed on September 30, 1990.

Charles Comiskey, the White Sox owner, was hailed by I.E. Sanborn of the Chicago Tribune as the “noblest Roman of them all” and as the architect of the “greatest baseball plant in the world” which “combines every perfection of its predecessors in other cities and in which no expense has been spared to remove all imperfections of other plants of similar nature.”1 Officially, 24,900 paid spectators came to see this opening extravaganza, but two Chicago newspapers agreed that the number was in reality closer to 30,000 than 25,000, with the entire musical accompaniment. And it probably seemed as if the entire city had been there that day, yet the mammoth ballpark still appeared to have room for more as the “great stands smilingly held out their bunting clad arms and gathered them all into their capricious laps without crowding anywhere,” wrote Sanborn.2

The stadium was a remarkable feat, considering that it was assembled in just four months, minus the five weeks of stalled labor because of a steelworkers strike. The huge electrical scoreboard was still being completed just days before the game, and painters were still busy right up to game time. “Electricians have already have strung their wires from the press stand to the working devices on the board,” the Tribune reported.3 That new press box was located in the front of the second deck behind home plate. Home plate was new, but the flagpole from South Side Park was unearthed and placed in the northwest corner of the field.4

The grandstand and pavilion entrances were at 35th and Shields Avenue, where you could pass through one of the 14 turnstiles on your way to your 50-cent, 75-cent, or $1 seat. The 25-cent seats had an entrance on 34th and Shields, and the 50-cent seats in the third- and first-base pavilions had separate entrances. Reserved seating in the upper deck and box seats were 75 cents.5 If you were one of the few fans with an automobile, you entered at 33rd and Shields. At 1 P.M. on July 1, 1910, the gates of the sparkling new ballpark were opened for the first time, and more than 1,000 eager fans rushed in to be the first to experience the new structure. As they dashed in, they passed departing construction workers who had been working right up to the last minute.6

The inaugural crowd was treated to the playing of “My Country ’Tis of Thee,” “Has Anybody Here Seen Kelly?” and “Cheer! Cheer! The Gang’s All Here” by five different bands. The Chicago Automobile Club led a parade of streamer- and banner-bedecked automobiles that made their way to the park.7 A floral display of bats and a ball were placed on the field with white socks hanging beneath.

At 3 P.M. Comiskey marched to home plate to thunderous applause and Mayor Fred A. Busse presented him with a purple banner that read, “The City of Chicago Congratulates Comiskey.” American League President Ban Johnson and August “Garry” Herrmann, owner of the Cincinnati Reds and chairman of the National Commission, were also present at home plate. The American flag was raised, and the band played “The Star Spangled Banner.” “Out across the mighty field in the great grand stand and in the pavilions and in the sun bleachers the 30,000 devotees of the national sport roared and shouted and screamed and sang in unison with that piece the band was playing,” wrote Harry Daniel of Chicago’s Inter-Ocean.8

The temperature at game time was officially 92 degrees, but the unofficial thermometers on the street hit 96. Ten people died of heat-related causes in Chicago that day.9

The White Sox emerged in new uniforms of dazzling white and blue trim. Chicago had on the mound Big Ed Walsh, one of the Deadball Era’s greatest pitchers and a future Hall of Famer. (His 1.82 career ERA still ranks number one all-time.10) Going into the 1910 season, Walsh was 110-63 with a 1.68 ERA, and in 1908 he led the league in many pitching categories. Billy Sullivan made his first start of the season as catcher. The veteran Sullivan had been recovering after stepping on a rusty nail in spring training and nearly losing his leg when a quack physician recommended that he receive a nearly lethal dose of turpentine. The “grand little backstop” received tremendous ovations throughout the day.11

The Browns sent veteran Barney Pelty to the mound. Pelty, who would spend nine years of his 10-year major-league career with the Browns, was 11-11 with a 2.30 ERA in 1909. Tommy Connolly umpired behind the plate while Bill Dinneen handled the field.

The Browns’ George Stone, known for his small crouch at the plate, led off with a double to left, the first hit in Comiskey Park history, and Roy Hartzell sacrificed him to third. Bobby Wallace grounded to second baseman Rollie Zeider, who threw home. Stone was tagged out in a rundown. During the rundown, Wallace took off for second but was beaten by a strong throw by Sullivan.

The clubs remained scoreless until St. Louis scored both of its runs in the third inning. Frank Truesdale reached when third baseman Billy Purtell could only deflect his scorching grounder. Purtell had to decide to “let it go by or lose a hand. Billy decided to keep the hand,” Harry Daniel wrote.12 Truesdale stole second and made his way to third on a groundout. Stone smashed Walsh’s first pitch for a single along the left-field line, scoring Truesdale with the first run in the park’s history. The new turf was troublesome for Patsy Doherty in left, as he “slipped and slid around like a man who is afraid to go home in the dark,” wrote Daniel. Doherty finally threw the ball in as Stone dug for second. He slid hard, spiking Zeider’s hand, knocking the ball free and forcing the rookie second baseman to leave the game, replaced by Charlie French. (Zeider would miss a couple of weeks.) Hartzell walked and Stone scored when Sullivan attempted to pick off Hartzell but threw “over Chick] Gandil’s upstretched anatomy.”13 Hartzell tried for third on the play but was thrown out by Shano Collins.

The Browns tried to tack on more runs in the fourth against Walsh. Bobby Wallace singled to right and scampered to third on Pat Newnam’s hit. Walsh came back, striking out Al Schweitzer and Danny Hoffman. Wallace was nabbed at the plate in an attempted double steal with Newnam, and an opportunity was wasted.

Chicago had more problems with the new turf as Sullivan “fell headlong over some new laid sod” that snagged his spikes while he was attempting to corral a foul popup.14 The tough-luck catcher avoided serious injury, but the same couldn’t be said for the battered sod, which the Chicago Examiner said was the size of a washtub.15

In the fifth, Chicago’s George Brown brought the crowd to its feet with a spectacular diving catch. “It is too bad for Browne that high dives do not figure in the percentage column,” wrote Daniel.16 He was a century too early, it seems.

Pelty had allowed Chicago only two singles through six innings, both by rookie Lena “Bearcat” Blackburne, the first two Chicago hits in the history of Comiskey Park. The crowd finally had something to cheer about when Doherty slammed a triple to deep right. But Gandil was retired on a roller in front of the plate and the eager Doherty was thrown out at the plate when he tried to score on a “skimpy infield hit” by Purtell. “That was about as dangerous as those White Sox ever got on the first day in their new park,” Daniel commented.17

Stone led off with a triple to right in the ninth, but Hartzell flied to Browne, and Stone had to hold at third. Wallace struck out, and when Stone tried to sneak home on a passed ball, he was thrown out, ending the game.

Pelty finished the game for the Browns, striking out three of his total five in the last two innings, scattering only five hits as he spoiled the White Sox’ new home opener, 2-0. Walsh struck out six and allowed seven hits, with Stone (single, double, and triple, run, RBI) being the hitting star of the game.

Comiskey invited several of the out-of-town guests already mentioned, as well as Chicago baseball legends Cap Anson and Frank Isbell, to a banquet at the Chicago Automobile Club that evening.

“The game was distinctly not the thing yesterday,” quipped the Tribune. As Sanborn appropriately wrote, it was “Charles A. Comiskey’s big housewarming party.”18

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted the following:

Baseball-reference.com.

Dryden, Charles. “Sox Open New Park With 2-0 Defeat by Browns Before 30,000,” Chicago Examiner, July 2, 1910: 10.

Retrosheet.org.

Notes

1 I.E. Sanborn, “Commy to Greet Sox Fans Today,” Chicago Tribune, July 1, 1910: 12.

2 I.E. Sanborn, “Big Army of Fans Greets ‘Commy,’” Chicago Tribune, July 2, 1910: 10.

3 “New Park Awaits Fans’ Onslaught,” Chicago Tribune, June 30, 1910: 12.

4 Ibid.

5 “Commy to Greet.”

6 “Big Army of Fans.”

7 Ibid.

8 Harry Daniel, “30,000 Hail Sox in Modern Arena; Browns Win, 2-0,” Chicago Inter-Ocean, July 2, 1910: 13.

9 “Ten Die of Heat as City as City Sizzles,” Chicago Tribune, July 2, 1910: 1.

10 With a minimum of 1,000 innings pitched.

11 Trey Strecker, “Billy Sullivan Sr.,” SABR BioProject. https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/d0d341b0 Retrieved November 22, 2017.

12 Daniel.

13 Ibid.

14 Ibid.

15 “Notes of the Sox,” Chicago Examiner, July 2, 1910: 10.

16 Daniel.

17 Ibid.

18 “Big Army of Fans.”

Skipper Hugh Duffy’s Pale Hose squad was reeling as they prepared to conclude a four-game series with the AL-leading A’s as part of a five-team, 20-game homestand in White Sox Park, inaugurated just five weeks earlier, on July 1, and immediately advertised as the Base Ball Palace of the World. The White Sox had lost 23 of their last 29 games to fall to 36-57 and land in seventh place, 26 games off the A’s pace. Connie Mack, the owner-skipper of the A’s, was none too pleased about his club’s recent performance despite its first-place position (62-31) and 5½-game lead over the Boston Red Sox. The A’s had won only seven of their last 15 games, with one tie.

Toeing the rubber for the White Sox was Ed Walsh, a 29-year-old right-hander and one of the most durable and best hurlers in baseball. Two years earlier, he had won a big-league-most 40 games, entered the season with a 110-63 slate, and had thrice paced the circuit in shutouts, which accounted for his minuscule 1.68 career ERA. Big Ed’s 11-15 slate thus far in ’10 reflected the sorry state of his team, not his pitching, as he went on to lead the majors with a 1.27 ERA despite 20 losses. Mack countered with Coombs, a 27-year-old righty who was emerging as the most dominant pitcher in baseball, at least for one season, and was making his 12th start in the last 35 days. Colby Jack (so named for his pitching success at Colby College in Maine) was one of the reasons the Mackmen were in first place. On the heels of a mediocre 35-35 slate in his first four seasons, Coombs boasted a 17-6 record and had registered shutouts in four of his last seven starts.

On a warm Thursday afternoon, 5,100 spectators settled in White Sox Park, located at the intersection of 35th Street and Shields Avenue on Chicago’s South Side, for a 3:30 start time. [The ballpark was renamed Comiskey Park, after the owner Charles Comiskey, for the start of the 1913 season.] Their first chance to cheer probably occurred when Patsy Dougherty led off the second with a double. It was the White Sox’ first hit — and last until the 12th inning. Possessing what Hewitt described as a “deceiving selection of baseball curveatures,” Coombs whiffed two of the next three batters and had six punchouts through three innings.4

The White Sox’ best scoring chance for the game came when Coombs walked Freddy Parent and hit Paul Meloan to begin the fourth. After fanning Dougherty, Coombs uncorked a wild pitch, enabling both runners to advance. Lee Tannehill hit a hard grounder to second baseman Eddie Collins, who threw home to catcher Paddy Livingston. In a costly baserunning blunder, the runners had already committed; as Parent raced back to third, he met Meloan. Livingston, meanwhile, had thrown to Home Run Baker, who tagged both runners; Meloan was ruled out. The inning ended a few moments later when Tannehill was thrown out at second on a delayed double steal.

Through nine innings, Coombs had fanned 12, marking the first time in his career he had reached double-digit strikeouts in a game, and he was far from finished.

While Coombs mowed down the White Sox, Walsh’s spitter was “working to perfection,” gushed Hewitt, mesmerizing the Mackmen.5 Two defensive miscues put pressure on Big Ed in the seventh. After second baseman Charlie French juggled Eddie Collins’s grounder, Walsh threw Baker’s bunt attempt into center field. Harry Davis moved both runners a station on a sacrifice bunt. Danny Murphy followed with a single to right field which “[p]robably would have settled it if Ed Collins had known it was going to fall safe,” reported the Tribune.6 Meloan fielded the ball on one hop and his throw held Collins at third. Walsh, keeping “infernally busy” (according to the Inter Ocean), retired to the next two batters.7

The crowd got a laugh in the 11th when a dog jumped from the grandstand and delayed the game for five minutes until “heroic work by Donahue finally resulted in his banishment,” reported the Tribune.8 For the second time in three innings, the A’s Home Run Baker reached second base, where he was stranded.

After holding the White Sox hitless for 10⅓ innings, Coombs yielded a one-out single to Meloan in the 12th. The robust 6-foot, 190-pound hurler “seemed to be groggy,” opined the Tribune, “and was walking around out there as if he knew not what was expected of him.”9 After Dougherty’s single, Baker scooped up Tannehill’s grounder at third to initiate an inning-ending twin killing.

While the Tribune lamented that the “pressbox supply of cigarettes ran out” in the 13th inning, both hurlers traded punches like heavyweight boxers Jack Johnson and James L. Jeffries in their championship bout a month earlier in Reno, Nevada.10 As overpowering as Coombs was, the A’s defensive wizardry was the unsung key of the game. In the 13th, Eddie Collins saved his hurler when he snared Billy Sullivan’s sharp liner and doubled Billy Purtell off second to end the frame. Collins had a repeat performance two innings later with Meloan and Tannehill on base via Coombs’ fifth and sixth free passes of the game. Collins caught Purtell’s liner and doubled Tannehill off first to end the inning.

Remarkably durable, Walsh was back on the mound to start the 16th. It was the seventh time in 25 starts thus far in ’10 that Big Ed had hurled at least 10 innings, including two 15-inning and one 14-inning victories. With dusk arriving, Walsh led off the fateful last frame with his third and final walk, to Rube Oldring. Collins followed with what seemed to be a routine double-play grounder, but Walsh’s throw sailed into second base, putting runners on the corners with no outs. The future Hall of Famer extracted himself by inducing two infield foul outs and a grounder.

As Jimmy Dygert warmed up in the bullpen, Coombs was back on the mound in the 16th, just the fourth time in his career that he had pitched at least 10 innings in a game. It was “so dark that hitting was more or less a matter of guess work,” opined the Tribune, as home-plate umpire Bill Dinneen announced that the game would be over after this frame no matter what. Catching a second wind, Coombs unleashed a torrent of fastballs, which the Tribune claimed looked like “polka dots in the [catcher’s] glove”11 and, according to the Inquirer, “fast breaking curves, balls which whistled through the gloaming at tantalizing speed.”12 In overpowering fashion, Coombs whiffed Charlie Mullen, Sullivan, and Walsh in succession to end the game in a 0-0 tie after 3 hours and 28 minutes to the disbelief of the few remaining spectators.

In their remarkable pitchers’ duel, Coombs and Walsh pitched arguably the best games of their careers, and certainly the longest. Walsh faced 60 batters, surrendered just six hits, and fanned 10. In his three-hitter while facing 54 batters, Coombs set a major-league record with 18 strikeouts, including French and Walsh four times each.

Neither pitcher slowed down after their epic match. Three days later, Walsh tossed a two-hit shutout against the Washington Senators and fanned 10. On August 11, he blanked the Boston Red Sox on three hits and tied his career high with 15 punchouts. He finished the season with a misleading 18-20 record and led the AL in losses.

Combs was in one of the best stretches in baseball history. Three days later he blanked the St. Louis Browns on five hits at Sportsman’s Park. From July 1 through the end of the season, he went 24-5, including 10 straight wins, completed 25 of 27 starts, and tossed 12 shutouts, including four straight in September as part of a then-record 53 consecutive scoreless innings. He capped off his 31-9 season by tossing three consecutive complete-game victories against the Chicago Cubs in the World Series, giving Connie Mack his first of five championships.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author also accessed Retrosheet.org, Baseball-Reference.com, SABR.org, and The Sporting News archive via Paper of Record.

Notes

1 “Coombs Hurls Wonderful Ball Against White Sox,” Philadelphia Inquirer, August 5, 1910: 10.

2 “Sox Tie Macks in 16 Innings, 0 to 0,” Chicago Tribune, August 5, 1910: 8.

3 Fred J. Hewitt, “Sox and Athletics Go Sixteen Innings and Nary a Score,” (Chicago) Inter Ocean, August 5, 1910: 5.

4 Hewitt.

5 Ibid.

6 “Sox Tie Macks in 16 Innings, 0 to 0.”

7 Hewitt.

8 “Sox Tie Macks in 16 Innings, 0 to 0.” Hewitt in the Inter Ocean reported that the incident happened in the ninth inning.

9 “Sox Tie Macks in 16 Innings, 0 to 0.”

10 Ibid.

11 Ibid.

12 “Coombs Hurls Wonderful Ball Against White Sox.”

Big Ed had accomplished almost everything on the diamond when he took the mound at White Sox Park on the last Saturday afternoon in August 1911. [The ballpark was renamed Comiskey Park, after the team’s owner and founder, Charles Comiskey, for the 1913 season]. Sportswriter Fred J. Hewitt of the Inter Ocean declared that Walsh “is one of those carefully developed instruments that has been good for years and never loses class.”3 Few could disagree. Considered among the best and most durable hurlers of his generation, the 30-year-old Pennsylvanian boasted a 23-14 record, which pushed his career slate to 151-97 in parts of eight seasons. Three years earlier, Walsh had won 40 games (the last big leaguer to win that many) while completing 42 starts, tossing 11 shutouts, and logging a staggering 464 innings. Among baseball’s hardest throwers, he also led that majors that season with 269 strikeouts, and had twice punched out 15 batters in his career. He had three one-hitters to his credit, the last of which came just 12 days before his fateful start against the Red Sox, when he added the final notch in his eventual Hall of Fame résumé: his first and only no-hitter.

The “Base Ball Palace of the World” drew a robust crowd of 18,000 fans to the intersection of 35th Street and Shields Avenue on Chicago’s South Side for the first contest of a three-game series between the White Sox and Red Sox. Skipper Hugh Duffy’s fifth-place Pale Hose (59-59) were in the midst of a six-team, 21-game homestand that the former Boston Braves outfielder hoped would catapult his club into the first division. Pilot Patsy Donovan’s Red Sox (61-56) were in third place, trailing the front-running Philadelphia Athletics by 15½ games.

The Chicagoans wasted little time taking their whacks against 24-year-old southpaw Ray Collins, who, according to Hewitt, did not appear to be the intended starter.4 Smoky Joe Wood, the brilliant 21-year-old phenom who had won his 20th game in a start against the St. Louis Browns three days earlier, had been warming up in the bullpen. He was replaced shortly before the 3 P.M. start time by Collins (9-9), a trusty hurler in his own right, coming off a season in which he posted a minuscule 1.62 ERA. Perhaps Collins was not yet adequately loose and lathered up, because the White Sox “pounded him hard enough to have driven any one [sic] else to the woods,” opined Sanborn in the Tribune.5 Matty McIntyre led off with a triple and scored two batters later when former pitcher and two-time 20-game winner-turned-outfielder Nixey Callahan, playing in his first game in 10 days after a severe case of the boils,6 caught everyone off guard with a bunt. All infielders charged and first baseman Clyde Engle fielded the ball cleanly, but no one covered first, reported the Tribune.7 After Ping Bodie singled, Amby McConnell cracked a double to right field, scoring Callahan. While Bodie stopped on third, McConnell overran second, but when shortstop Steve Yerkes muffed the relay throw, Bodie scampered home for the third run, according to the Tribune.8 [No error was given on this play.

A serious outfield collision interrupted the game for several minutes in the bottom of the third and sent the crowd into a collective gasp. With two outs, Lee Tannehill smacked a fly to deep right-center field. As Tris Speaker caught the ball, Danish-born rookie Olaf Henriksen, making just his 12th start in right field, barreled into him. A “terrific impact jarred the ball out of Speaker’s hands,” reported the Tribune, as both players crashed violently to the ground.9 Second baseman Heinie Wagner sprinted to the orb and heaved it back to the infield and time was quickly called. As both Speaker and Henriksen lay momentarily unconscious, players from both benches rushed to them. The Boston Globe suggested that the impact was so vicious, it appeared to be fatal for Henriksen, who was carried off the field.10 Both players were replaced. [Henriksen was ultimately diagnosed with a wrenched shoulder and bruised stomach and missed a week; Speaker was back in action the next day.] The Red Sox were gifted an out when the next batter, Charlie Mullen, hit a screaming grounder off third baseman Larry Gardner’s arm into Yerkes’s mitt for an easier throw to first.11

The Pale Hose tacked on two more late-game runs. Bodie’s single plated Walsh in the seventh while Bruno Block’s single drove in Lee Tannehill, who had led off the eighth with a double. Collins went the distance, serving up 11 safeties.

Given a first-inning lead, Walsh toyed with the Red Sox all afternoon. The Donovans batted .275 as a team in 1911 (fourth best in the AL), but had no answer for Big Ed’s spitter, heater, and occasional curve. Walsh’s only blemish was a fourth-inning walk to Engle.

The outfield scoreboard tracked only the score, not hits, and word gradually spread around the ballpark that Walsh was working on a no-hitter. By the eighth inning, reported the Tribune, the White Sox faithful were “rooting for [Walsh] madly as if a world’s pennant depended on his right arm.”12 After Walsh fanned Gardner, Bill Carrigan “almost broke up the party,” opined Sanborn, when his grounder sped over the pitcher’s mound.13 In the defensive highlight of the game, shortstop Tannehill scooped up the ball behind second base and in one motion threw it to Mullen at first, beating the runner by “half an inch.”14 Mullen ended the frame by fielding Wagner’s weak roller.

As the crowd stood for every pitch, Walsh began the ninth by retiring Yerkes on a meek grounder, then punched out rookie Les Nunamaker, pinch-hitting for Collins. Joe Riggert, who had replaced Henriksen in right field, hit an infield chopper that “looked a hit for sure,” asserted Sanborn, perhaps with some dramatic exaggeration.15 McConnell fielded it easily on the hop and fired to Mullen to end the game in 1 hour and 50 minutes. Walsh “seemed to do it with so little effort,” declared scribe Henry David, noting the hurler needed only five pitches (three spitters) to retire the side in the ninth.16

As teammates rushed to congratulate Walsh for his no-hitter, hundreds of fans poured onto the field. The Inter Ocean reported that a throng of 1,000 fans greeted Walsh, then in street clothes, after the game.17

Walsh struck out eight and faced 28 batters en route to tossing the first no-hitter in Comiskey Park, and the fourth in franchise history. Nixey Callahan tossed the first, in 1902, at South Side Park, where the White Sox played from their inaugural season in 1901 through June 27, 1910. Frank Smith authored a pair, the first in Detroit’s Bennett Park in 1905 and the latter in South Side Park in 1908. By the time Comiskey Park closed after the 1990 season, five more Pale Hose hurlers had added their names to the list of no-hit-game hurlers: Joe Benz (1914), Vern Kennedy (1935), Bill Dietrich (1937), Bob Keegan (1957), and Joe Horlen (1967).

Walsh continued his dominant pitching through the end of the season despite playing for a mediocre fourth-place team (77-74). Big Ed finished with 27 wins (one fewer than Jack Coombs, who hurled for the 101-50, world-champion Athletics), completed more games (33) than anyone in baseball except Walter Johnson, and led all big-league pitchers with 56 appearances (37 starts), innings (368⅔), and strikeouts (255) to finish runner-up to the Detroit Tigers’ Ty Cobb for AL MVP.

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 Henry David, “Wild-Eyed South Side Fans, Overflowing With Happiness at Wondrous Work of Spitball King, Almost Lynch Him on the Spot,” (Chicago) Inter Ocean, August 28, 1911: 5.

2 I.E. Sanborn, “Walsh in No-Hit Victory; Sox Win,” Chicago Tribune, August 28, 1911: 9.

3 Fred J. Hewitt, “Walsh Shuts Out Boston Without a Hit or Run, Sox Winning Game, 5-0,” (Chicago) Inter Ocean, August 28, 1911: 5.

4 Ibid.

5 Sanborn.

6 David.

7 “Sox Sydelights,” Chicago Tribune, August 28, 1911: 9.

8 Sanborn.

9 Ibid.

10 “Red Sox Blanked Without a Hit,” Boston Globe, August 28, 1911: 5.

11 “Sox Sydelights.”

12 Sanborn.

13 Ibid.

14 Ibid.

15 Ibid.

16 David.

17 Ibid.

The White Sox’ struggling offense had scored two runs or less in six of their last seven games, leading the sportswriter I. E. Sanborn of the Tribune to quip that the club was “proving [its] claim to the world’s championship in ‘The Science of How Not to Make Runs.’”1 Callahan hoped his team’s luck would change against the cellar-dwelling Cleveland Naps (13-24), with whom they had split a twin bill the previous day and had traveled by Pullman coach from the metropolis on Lake Erie.

Toeing the rubber for the White Sox was 28-year-old right-hander Joe Benz, whose nicknames “The Butcher” and “Butcher Boy” derived not from his penchant to toss high and inside, but rather from his German immigrant family’s meat-cutting business. A spitballer and occasional knuckler, Benz had an undistinguished 23-29 slate in his first three campaigns, but seemed to emerge from the shadows of teammates Eddie Cicotte, Reb Russell, and Jim Scott, early in the 1914 campaign. His 4-5 record was offset by the league’s third best ERA (1.14). Naps skipper Joe Birmingham sent 21-year-old rookie Abe Bowman to the mound for his first career start and third appearance.

The Second City was the center of big-league baseball on the last Sunday of May. While an estimated 10,000 spectators enjoyed the sun and temperatures in the mid-80s at Comiskey Park, 6,000 were at Weeghman Park (later known as Wrigley Field) for a matchup between the Indianapolis Hoosiers and Chicago Chi-Feds in the inaugural season of the Federal League, while approximately 2,500 spectators were on hand at West Side Grounds, the home park of the Chicago Cubs, as they played the St. Louis Cardinals.2

After Benz cruised through a one-two-three first, barely having to shift gears, “the Callahans hammered Bowman,” gushed Sanborn.3 Gradually emerging from a season-long slump, Buck Weaver whacked Bowman’s first pitch to right field for a single. Hal Chase hit a tailor-made double-play grounder to second baseman Nap Lajoie (the team’s longtime star after whom it derived its moniker), but shortstop Rivington Bisland muffed the throw and both runners were safe. Bowman helped his own cause by fielding Ray Demmitt’s tapper back to the mound and initiating a 1-5-3 twin killing. Shano Collins’s double plated Chase for the game’s first run.

The White Sox added two more tallies in the third. With two outs and Chase on second via a walk and stolen base as part of a double steal with Weaver (who was thrown out), Demmitt lined to left, but Jack Graney made an ill-advised throw to home plate. As Chase easily scored, the ball hit him in the back and caromed so far away that Demmitt reached third base. Collins drew a free pass, then attempted a daring delayed double steal. Catcher Steve O’Neill’s throw to Bisland was late, and then Bisland’s return heave flew over O’Neill’s head while Demmit slid across the bag.

Prior to this game, there had been 69 no-hitters in major-league baseball since the founding of the NL in 1876. In 11 of those games, the team that was held hitless scored at least one run. This game increased those totals by one, but Benz was free from blame. Roy Wood led off the fourth with a bounder over Benz’s head; shortstop Buck Weaver scoped up the ball, but threw errantly over Chase, enabling Wood to reach second. Weaver seemingly atoned for his miscue by fielding Bisland’s grounder and firing a strike to third baseman Scotty Alcock to nab a sliding Wood, but Alcock muffed the catch. According to the Tribune, “the whole outfit looked groggy” with defensive lapses; consequently, Callahan sent Russell to the bullpen to warm up quickly before things got out of hand.4

Described by Sanborn as a “dazzling electrical display — code for lightning double play,” keystone sacker Joe Berger fielded Graney’s grounder, tagged Bisland on his way to second, and then fired to Chase, while Wood crossed the plate to put the Naps on the board. But the White Sox were not yet out of the woods. Shoeless Joe Jackson, entering the game in a 7-for-36 slump to drop his average from .379 to .331, hit a routine grounder to Berger, who dropped the ball, then fired wildly to Chase for the White Sox’ third error of the frame.5 Benz dispatched Turner to end the shenanigan-filled inning.

The Calls, as the Tribune called the White Sox, tacked on three more runs in the seventh off right-hander Fred Blanding, who had replaced Bowman to start the fourth. A one-time starter with a 43-43 career record, including 1-6 thus far in ’14, Blanding had lost his spot in the rotation earlier in the month. Chase’s double drove in Weaver, who had singled for the third time; Demmitt’s single plated Chase, and Collins’s infield single made it 6-1. The Pale Hose finished the game with 13 hits, their biggest offensive outburst since they collected the same amount and scored nine runs in a victory over the Washington Senators on May 13 in the nation’s capital.

Since the fateful fourth, Benz had not allowed a baserunner and had not allowed a semblance of a hit. He walked his first batter, Graney to lead off the seventh, but stranded him on first.

Aware of the possible no-hitter, the Comiskey crowd cheered Benz as he took the mound in the ninth. Known for his excellent control (he walked 2.1 batters per 9 innings in 1914), Benz issued his second free pass, to Wood, with one out in the ninth. With spectators on their feet, Benz challenged Bisland, who grounded weakly to Weaver for a 6-4-3 game-ending double play, made possible only when Chase “hooked” Berger’s low and outside throw out of the dirt, according to the Tribune.6

Benz fashioned the fifth no-hitter in White Sox franchise history, and the second in Comiskey Park following Big Ed Walsh, who held the Boston Red Sox hitless on August 27, 1911. Benz fanned three and faced 29 batters, completing the game in 1 hour and 45 minutes.

After settling for a three-hitter in an eight-inning complete-game 1-1 tie with the New York Yankees in his next start, on June 6 at Comiskey Park, Benz came remarkably close to fashioning another no-hitter. In a ferocious pitching duel with Walter Johnson, Benz yielded what the Sanborn of the Tribune called a “scratch” single to Eddie Ainsmith to lead off the ninth and finished with a sparkling one-hit shutout.7

Bill Lamb pointed out in his excellent SABR biography of Benz that many at the park, including AL President Ban Johnson, thought the hit should have been ruled an error.8 Benz concluded the season for the eventual sixth-place White Sox (70-84) with 15 wins, an AL-most 19 losses, and a 2.26 ERA.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author also accessed Retrosheet.org, Baseball-Reference.com, SABR.org, and The Sporting News archive via Paper of Record.

Notes

1 I.E. Sanborn, “No Hits Off Benz; Cals Pound Ball; Humble Naps, 6-1,” Chicago Tribune, June 1, 1914: 13.

2 Attendance totals from “Only 18,500 at Three Games; White Sox Draw 10,000 Fans,” Chicago Tribune, June 1, 1914: 13.

3 Sanborn, “No Hits Off Benz.”

4 “The Break with the Game,” Chicago Tribune, June 1, 1914: 13.

5 J.M. Waterbury, “Joe Benz Pitches No-Hit Game; Naps Are His Victims,” Detroit Free Press, June 1, 1914: 8.

6 “Sox Sydelights,” Chicago Tribune, June 1, 1914: 13.

7 I.E. Sanborn, “Benz Allows One Hit; Defeats Johnson in First Game, 2-0,” Chicago Tribune, June 11, 1914: 17.

8 Bill Lamb, “Joe Benz,” SABR BioProject. https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/8dc7bc65.

Then, too, there was the weather. A band of cold rain had settled across the upper portion of the country, shortening or washing out four major-league games on the 28th and threatening more contests on the 29th. But it was the last scheduled game at Comiskey Park this season for Connie Mack’s Athletics and both hosts and visitors were eager to get the game in before the skies opened up. It had been prearranged that, to permit both clubs to catch eastbound trains, the game would be called, regardless of the score, at 3:00 P.M.2

Twenty-one-year-old rookie right-hander Tom Sheehan, with three wins and three losses, was Mack’s pick to start for the Athletics. Choosing not to compete financially with the free-spending Federal League, Mack had conducted a fire sale of his best players. The defending league champion A’s had collapsed to a last-place club; except for aging second baseman Nap Lajoie, first baseman Stuffy McInnis, and first baseman-outfielder Amos Strunk, Mack’s current roster was stocked primarily with rookies, castoffs, and players of less than major-league caliber. A July call-up from Peoria of the Three-I League, Sheehan was one of 24 pitchers to take a start on the mound for the Athletics in 1915.

Some of the credit for Chicago’s rise was also owed to their 27-year-old ace, right-hander Jim Scott, who entered the game with a 20-7 record. If anyone on the White Sox might have been pleased at the prospect of playing in wet weather, it likely would have been Scott, known to sportswriters as “the curve ball wizard of the White Sox,”5 and “the best curve ball pitcher in baseball,”6 but to American League hitters as a purveyor of the mudball.7

Sources disagree on who introduced the mudball, although many credit Ed Reulbach8 as far back as 1905; others said Irvin “Kaiser” Wilhelm9 of the Federal League’s Baltimore Terrapins or Jack Ryan of the Pacific Coast League’s Los Angeles Angels10 popularized the pitch after the emery ball was banned following the 1914 season. Scott reportedly adopted the pitch during the White Sox’ spring training in Paso Robles, California,11 in 1915.

In throwing the mudball, Scott would moisten a portion of the surface of the ball — a squirt of tobacco juice in the glove worked quite nicely — then rub a little dirt on the spot. Pitching the ball so that the muddy side remained in the same relative position to the ground as it sailed to the plate, an able practitioner could make the ball break up, down, to either side, or in a combination of any two. Scott’s mudball, delivered with his trademark side-arm “clockspring” delivery,12 had confounded opposing batters all season, and helped Scott compile 20 victories, six by shutout, against seven losses through August 28. His top victims? The lowly Athletics, against whom Scott had won five decisions without loss, two of them by shutout.

Although the mudball was legal (except in the Federal League, where it was banned on August 9, 191513), the pitch had an ugly reputation. “[The mudball] is the most dangerous ball that has ever been introduced in the game,” said Doc White, a former major leaguer now pitching for the Vernon Tigers of the Pacific Coast League. “You can’t hit it, because it breaks four ways. I don’t know who discovered the mudball, but we found out about it through Jim Scott, the White Sox hurler, when the Sox were here on their spring training trip. … Somebody will get killed. It is far more dangerous than the emery ball because a pitcher can do far more with it. It breaks so fast that it will get some player sooner or later.”14

Although contemporary accounts fail to comment on whether Scott was relying heavily on the mudball against the Athletics on August 29, it’s a fair conclusion that, considering his success with the pitch all year and the conditions under which the game was played, the Athletics saw more than a few sudden drops and swerves at the plate that day. The hapless A’s flailed away at Scott’s deliveries, managing but three hits, singles by Lajoie and Rube Oldring and a double by Jack Lapp, spaced so far apart as to be “not even second cousins.”15 Scott struck out six and walked one. No Philadelphia baserunner but Lapp reached as far as second base.

The game was effectively over in the White Sox’ half of the third inning. Catcher Ray Schalk singled and Scott bunted him to second. Murphy singled to score Schalk, and first sacker Shano Collins followed with another single, putting runners on first and second. Eddie Collins walked, loading the bases, and a long single by Jackson drove Murphy and Shano Collins home. Left fielder Happy Felsch followed with the White Sox’ fifth base-hit in the span of seven batters, scoring Eddie Collins and Jackson.

With a five-run lead, the White Sox hustled to get the game in the books. “Every batter took a good healthy swing at nearly everything that could come over the pan and hit it if he could.”16 Sheehan scattered three more hits over the remainder of the game, all singles, and walked three more White Sox, but none figured in any scoring. No Chicago batter struck out, and aside from stolen bases by Murphy and Schalk, there were no accounts of daring play on the basepaths or overt attempts to get another rally going.

When the final out was recorded, the game was officially clocked at 68 minutes.17 The elapsed time set a major-league record for the shortest regulation nine-inning game,18 eclipsing a 70-minute contest between St. Louis and Brooklyn on September 29, 1904.19

The record would stand but 65 days. On October 4, 1915, the Brooklyn Superbas required only 63 minutes to dispatch the Philadelphia Phillies, 3-2, at Brooklyn.20

Today, the major-league record stands at 51 minutes, set by the Giants and Phillies on September 28, 1919. The Brown and Yankees surpassed the White Sox’ and Athletics’ record for brevity in the AL with a 55-minute game in 1926.

Sources

In addition to the sources listed in the notes, the author also consulted:

Atlanta Constitution.

Ithaca (New York) Journal.

Los Angeles Times.

The Sporting News.

Topeka Daily Capital.

Notes

1 “All Around the Texas League,” Houston Post, August 29, 1915: 17.

2 “Comiskey Park,” Chicago Tribune, August 29, 1915: 46.

3 Rick Huhn, Eddie Collins: A Baseball Biography (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2008), 116.

4 Kelly Boyer Sagert, Joe Jackson: A Biography (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004), 58.

5 “Frank Isbell Sold Jim Scott to the Chicago White Sox,” St. Louis Star and Times, November 3, 1915: 11.

6 “How the Curve Became Baseball’s Greatest Discovery,” Ogden (Utah) Standard, September 25, 1915: 14.

7 “Scott First to Use Mud Ball,” Salt Lake Telegram, August 29, 1915, 5.

8 “ ‘Mud Ball’ Dances Right Up to Batter,” Philadelphia Evening Public Ledger, August 11, 1915: 11.

9 “’Mud Ball’ Is Banned by Federal League,” Bridgewater (New Jersey) Courier-News, August 14, 1915: 10.

10 “ ‘Tobacco Ball’ Newest from Coast,” Elmira (New York) Star-Gazette, August 25, 1916: 8.

11 “ ‘Mud Ball’ Dances.”

12 Jim Scott biography, sabr.org/bioproj/person/c679f80c [accessed March 6, 2018].

13 “Reulbach’s ‘Mud Ball’ Banned by Fed League,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 9, 1915: 12.

14 “The ‘Mud’ Ball Controversy,” Sporting Life, September 11, 1915: 11.

15 Ibid.

16 “Baseball,” The (Chicago) Day Book, August 30, 1915: 22.

17 Ibid.

18 Ibid.

19 “Superbas Will Soon Be in Last Place,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, September 30, 1904: 12.

20 “Phillies on Edge for Start of World Series,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, October 5, 1915: 24.

As the 2:00 P.M. first pitch approached, a festive atmosphere began to take hold. The fans had filled the stadium to its 32,000-seat capacity an hour before game time. A band provided entertainment.2 Reflecting the United States’ entry into the Great War earlier in 1917, Comiskey Park was adorned with red, white, and blue streamers and the White Sox players wore patriotic-themed stockings. In the crowd were over 1,500 members of the Officers’ Reserve Corps from nearby Fort Sheridan, and “their khaki uniforms and sunburned faces supplied a background which contrasted sharply with the civilian gathering.”3 McGraw commented, “It always has been my wish to meet Charley Comiskey’s White Sox for the world’s title.”4 Comiskey exuded confidence about his club: “They are in perfect condition and will have no alibis.”5

As the Giants prepared for the game, the only question appeared to be which pitcher would get the ball from McGraw. Ferdie Schupp (21-7, 1.95 ERA) was expected to start and the bookies were giving 2-to-1 odds on that choice.6 At 26, however, Schupp was considered “the greenest man on the Giant staff.”7 Although he led the team in wins, McGraw opted for experience and selected 32-year-old Slim Sallee (18-7, 2.17); Schupp would be afforded time to study the White Sox hitters. Chicago manager Clarence “Pants” Rowland was reluctant to commit publicly, but as most expected, Eddie Cicotte (28-12, 1.53) took the mound for the home team. I.E. Sanborn wrote, “Cicotte has beaten even his own high standard of efficiency this year.”8 Cicotte’s reputed “shine ball” caused some consternation among the Giants for its break, which was characterized as “like the course of a flying pigeon, just after a shot has been fired.”9

The contest opened with George Burns batting against Cicotte. Burns worked a full count before rapping a single over second base. Shoeless Joe Jackson pulled down fly balls from Buck Herzog and Benny Kauff for the first two outs, and Happy Felsch hauled in Heinie Zimmerman’s ball in center field for the final out of the Giants first with Burns on second after a steal. Against Sallee, Shano Collins matched Burns’s leadoff single by lining his own into right field. Sallee collected Fred McMullin’s sacrifice bunt, which he flipped to Walter Holke at first base. With his namesake Shano now at second, Eddie Collins grounded sharply to shortstop Art Fletcher for the second out but advanced the runner to third. Jackson lifted a low fly toward right field that appeared likely to land for a hit and a run, but Herzog quickly backpedaled “in brilliant fashion after a hard run back into short center”10 to claim the ball and end the inning. Herzog, the Giants captain, had missed most of the season’s final month resting from a summer off-field injury, but appeared back to his usual standard at the most important time of year.

The second inning was scoreless. Ray Schalk led off the White Sox third with a “stinger” toward Zimmerman. The Giants third baseman “stabbed the bound with one hand” and delivered a clean throw across the diamond for the first out.11 Cicotte singled to center, and Shano Collins followed with a single to right; however, the play ended with only Collins still on the basepaths after right fielder Dave Robertson’s bullet to Zimmerman nailed Cicotte at third. With Collins on second and two out, McMullin lined Sallee’s pitch over second. From center field, Kauff “came tearing in and tried to make a shoestring catch of it.”12 Kauff’s father had traveled to Comiskey Park from Ohio to see his son play in a major-league game for the first time. Dad witnessed Benny dive for the ball … and miss. Collins scored easily for the first run of the Series as the ball rolled to deep center. Kauff’s judgment was questioned later, the thought being that letting the ball bounce in front of him might have provided the chance to gun down Collins at the plate.13 Eddie Collins popped up to Fletcher in foul territory but the White Sox had the lead through three, 1-0.

In the Giants fourth, Robertson’s two-out double was the only blemish for Cicotte as New York failed to tie. During pregame warmups, Felsch had blasted a ball into the left-field bleachers.14 He equaled the feat with a pitch that counted in the bottom of the fourth. Seeing a favorable pitch coming his way with one out, Felsch “met it squarely with every ounce of power in his muscles, backed by the full swing of his body.”15 The result was “a drive of remarkable power and length”16 that Burns and Kauff could only stand and watch as the ball landed in the left-field bleachers for a 2-0 White Sox advantage. After the game, Felsch was rewarded with a $50 Liberty bond, a prize offered by entertainer Al Jolson to any player who clouted a home run during the Series.17 Chick Gandil’s grounder and Buck Weaver’s fly ball ended the frame.

The Giants struck in the fifth, and their pitcher was instrumental in clawing back a run. Before Sallee batted, catcher Lew McCarty led off the inning. McCarty had missed three months of the season with a broken leg18 and struggled at the plate after his return on September 5. In fact, McCarty accounted for zero extra-base hits during that time. Against Cicotte, however, McCarty slammed the ball into right-center field for a triple that might have been a round-tripper but for his “game leg.”19 His batterymate, however, helped get McCarty across the plate. After staring at two pitches from Cicotte, Sallee dropped a short fly behind Eddie Collins to score McCarty. Hopes for a sustained rally were damaged when Weaver scooped up Burns’s grounder to start a double play. Herzog struck out to end the inning.

With Chicago leading 2-1, the pitchers settled into a groove. The White Sox went down on three groundballs in the bottom of the fifth and neither team reached base in the sixth. After the game, Rowland observed of Cicotte that he “was stronger against the Giants at the finish than he was at the start.”20 Opportunity presented itself for the Giants in the seventh and defensive heroics preserved Chicago’s lead. After McMullin gathered Robertson’s roller for the first out, Holke hit a bullet to right for a single. As McCarty strode to the plate, White Sox defenders spread out in recollection of his earlier triple. McCarty’s liner over Weaver’s head appeared likely to drop fair. Like Kauff in the third inning, Jackson raced in, hoping to make the catch before the ball hit the turf. Unlike Kauff, Jackson’s effort proved successful. Diving head-first, Jackson made the catch, turned a somersault, and “bobbed up on his feet again and the ball was firmly clutched in his grasp.”21 Rowland called the catch one of Jackson’s best — and a likely game-saver.22

After Gandil’s one-out single in the bottom of the seventh, Weaver struck out, but Gandil stole second and then claimed third on McCarty’s bad throw. Schalk’s grounder to Fletcher ended the inning, however. In the top of the eighth, Burns and Herzog accounted for the first two outs, but Weaver’s throw on Kauff’s grounder pulled Gandil off the bag. Sensing a possible hit-and-run play, Cicotte pitched out twice against Zimmerman. With Kauff again off the base, Cicotte fired to Gandil. Kauff raced for second, and Eddie Collins reeled in Gandil’s high throw to apply the tag. After Cicotte grounded out to open the White Sox eighth, Shano Collins doubled down the line into left field. Sallee threw Collins out at third on McMullin’s grounder for a fielder’s choice, and McMullin was nailed trying to steal second with Eddie Collins batting.

Cicotte made quick work of the Giants to close out the game. Zimmerman’s tapper back to the pitcher suggested such an easy out that Zim did not even bother running to first base. Weaver hauled in Fletcher’s popup for the second out, then Shano Collins claimed the third out on Robertson’s fly ball. Game One to the home team.

Rowland calmly summarized the result: “The boys went through in great shape, and we won a close one.”23 His owner was overcome with emotion; a tearful Comiskey grasped Cicotte’s hand in congratulations.24 Indeed, Cicotte’s pitching appeared to confound the New Yorkers. For their part, the Giants promised revenge. “Wait till he faces us again. He’ll be driven off the rubber before four innings have been played.”25 The Giants would have to wait until the Series reached the Polo Grounds before getting their next shot at Cicotte’s “shine ball.”

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted baseball-reference.com.

Photo credit: Happy Felsch, SABR-SOPA Collection.

Notes

1 I.E. Sanborn, “Over the Top for White Sox Today!” Chicago Tribune, October 6, 1917: 15, 16.

2 James Crusinberry, “Crowd Handled at Sox Contest Like a Machine,” Chicago Tribune, October 7, 1917: 2, 1.

3 “Three Sox Big Figures in Winning First Game,” The Sporting News, October 11, 1917: 3.

4 “Before the Battle,” Chicago Tribune, October 6, 1917: 16.

5 Ibid.

6 James Crusinberry, “Confidence of Foe Supreme; Schupp Starts,” Chicago Tribune, October 6, 1917: 15.

7 Sanborn, “Over the Top”: 15.

8 Ibid.

9 Crusinberry, “Confidence.”

10 I.E. Sanborn, “Felsch’s Homer Wins First, 2-1,” Chicago Tribune, October 7, 1917: 2, 1-2.

11 Ibid.

12 Ibid.

13 “Home-Run Hit Defeats Giants as Series Opens,” New York Times, October 7, 1917: 1.

14 “Gossip of First Game,” The Sporting News, October 11, 1917: 6.

15 Sanborn, “Felsch’s Homer.”

16 “Three Sox Big Figures.”

17 Ring W. Lardner, “In the Wake of the News,” Chicago Tribune, October 7, 1917: 2, 1.

18 Sanborn, “Over the Top”: 16.

19 Sanborn, “Felsch’s Homer.”

20 Clarence Rowland (as told to James Crusinberry), “Sox In Front!” Chicago Tribune, October 7, 1917: 2, 3.

21 “Home-Run Hit.”

22 Rowland.

23 Ibid.

24 “Home-Run Hit.”

25 “Here Are Views on Mr. Cicotte,” Chicago Tribune, October 7, 1917: 2, 1.

Faber was an unproven minor leaguer then, but Comiskey took the pitching prospect along for the ride as an extra arm in case one of his stars got hurt on the four-month adventure around the globe.1 McGraw took a liking to the White Sox recruit and helped him work on his spitball, which Faber used to earn a spot on Chicago’s major-league roster the following spring.

In 1917 Faber got his chance to show McGraw just how much he had learned. No White Sox player would play a more important role in the fall classic against New York’s National League champions.

Back in the World Series for the first time in 11 years, the White Sox had won 100 games in the regular season largely on the strength of their deep pitching staff, which posted a major-league-leading 2.16 ERA. Ace Eddie Cicotte held the visiting Giants to seven hits to win the World Series opener, 2-1, and now it was Faber’s turn to stop an explosive offense that had led the NL in runs scored, home runs, and stolen bases.

The 29-year-old right-hander from Cascade, Iowa, was in his fourth big-league season but he had yet to make much of a name for himself. His career-best 1.92 ERA was marred by an inconsistent 16-13 record and he was used by manager Pants Rowland nearly as much out of the bullpen as in the starting rotation until the season’s final weeks.

In Game Two against the Giants in front of about 32,000 fans at Comiskey Park, Faber became almost as much of a World Series goat as a hero.

New York opened the scoring in the second inning on a two-run single by Lew McCarty to score Dave Robertson and Walter Holke. When Robertson kicked away left fielder Joe Jackson‘s throw home, which was scored as an error on catcher Ray Schalk, Holke came scampering home for a second run. “Things became so quiet in the grandstand that one could hear the sparrows chirping in the rafters,” the Chicago Tribune reported.2 

But the White Sox quickly returned serve against Giants starter Ferdie Schupp with two runs of their own in the bottom half of the inning, thanks to consecutive hits by Jackson, Happy Felsch, Chick Gandil, and Buck Weaver, all singles. After Schupp walked the light-hitting Faber, McGraw had seen enough. He lifted his starter after just 1⅓ innings. His strategy of using southpaws like Schupp, Rube Benton, and Game One starter Slim Sallee against the White Sox offense, led by the left-handed-hitting Jackson and Eddie Collins, was quickly backfiring.

After relieving Schupp, right-handed spitballer Fred Anderson deftly escaped a bases-loaded jam by striking out Nemo Leibold and inducing Fred McMullin to ground out. But he could hold off the White Sox onslaught for just one more inning. In the fourth, the home team’s bats came alive to break the game open.

Weaver led off with a bunt single and moved up on Schalk’s single. After Faber popped out, Leibold singled in Weaver with the go-ahead run and McMullin doubled the White Sox’ lead with another base hit. That ended Anderson’s day and another right-hander, Pol Perritt, came in to limit the damage. Collins greeted him with an RBI single and Jackson added another to make the score 7-2. Felsch mercifully ended the Giants’ misery with a line drive to second baseman Buck Herzog, who turned an unassisted double play.

The collapse of the Giants’ pitching “was one of the most pitiful incidents imaginable,” wrote Grantland Rice.3 “The Giants were supposed to have a fairly well-rounded staff, while the White Sox were supposed to be entirely dependent on Eddie Cicotte. … It was one of those occasions when one side does all the fighting and the other side is only beaten.”

Rice credited manager Rowland with calling for successful hit-and-run plays — one of McGraw’s signature strategies — on five of the White Sox’ seven run-scoring hits. “This stealing of their stuff has pained the Giants not a little,” he wrote.4 

With Faber masterfully shutting down the Giants — only one New York baserunner got as far as second base in the final seven innings — the outcome was no longer in doubt. That set the stage for a little bit of levity and an all-time World Series blunder.

After reaching base in his first plate appearance, a rare occurrence for someone with only four hits in the regular season, Faber received an ovation from the Chicago fans when he stepped to the plate for his third plate appearance in the fifth. With two outs and Buck Weaver on second base, Faber promptly earned another round of applause by knocking a single to deep right field. Weaver must have been too surprised to get a good jump and only advanced to third base. Meanwhile, Faber moved up to second on the throw home.

On the next pitch, Faber surprised everyone in the ballpark by taking off for third base “without rhyme or reason or warning.”5 Weaver, taking a big lead, slid back into the bag at the same time as Faber arrived. Catcher Bill Rariden had the presence of mind to throw the ball to third baseman Heinie Zimmerman, who placed a tag on both runners in the dirt. Faber’s out was recorded to end the inning.

The play led to an oft-repeated, possibly apocryphal quote that still makes the rounds in baseball history books. When Faber reached third base only to find his teammate already there, a bewildered Weaver asked him, “Where in hell do you think you’re going?” Red looked up and supposedly replied: “Back to pitch.”6

White Sox beat writer I.E. Sanborn predicted that Faber’s blunder would be “dug up by the historians as the feature of the 1917 world’s series … a thousand, thousand years from now.”7 But by the end of the Series, it wasn’t even the most notable mistake on the basepaths that week, having been overshadowed by Zimmerman’s ill-fated footrace with Eddie Collins in Game Six.

Faber’s adventures at the plate and on the bases provided some amusement, but the Giants were stifled by his steady work on the mound. He threw an efficient 99 pitches, 63 for strikes, according to an analysis by the Chicago Tribune.8 The Giants swung early and often, allowing the White Sox pitcher to get out of the sixth inning on just six pitches. The ninth inning lasted only eight pitches.

In a game that epitomized the small-ball nature of the Deadball Era, the teams set a World Series record that still stands by combining for 22 singles and no extra-base hits.9

The White Sox were brimming with confidence heading to New York, having thrashed the National League champions two days in a row. “They knocked us silly,” one Giants player said.10 In a syndicated column written under Collins’s name, the Chicago team captain said, “The game showed we are capable of hitting all kinds of pitching: southpaws, spitters, fast and curveballs. I cannot see how they ever expect to stop us now.”11

Sources

Box scores for this game can be found at Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org:

baseball-reference.com/boxes/CHA/CHA191710070.shtml.

retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1917/B10070CHA1917.htm.

Notes

1   Brian Cooper, “Red Faber,” SABR BioProject, accessed online at https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/a6dff769 on January 16, 2018.

2   James Crusinberry, “It’s All Over but Shouting, Fans Believe,” Chicago Tribune, October 8, 1917: 13.

3   Grantland Rice, “Teams Hurrying Eastward With Sox Two Games Ahead,” Brooklyn Eagle, October 8, 1917: 20.

4   Ibid.

5   Ibid.

6   For two of many examples over the years, see Irving Vaughan, “Faber Attributes Long Diamond Life to Spitter,” Sioux Falls (South Dakota) Argus-Leader, February 17, 1929: 8; and Daniel Okrent and Steve Wulf, Baseball Anecdotes (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 73-74.

7   I.E. Sanborn, “White Sox Whale Giants, 7-2,” Chicago Tribune, October 8, 1917: 1.

8   “Red Faber Pitches 99 Balls at Giants,” Chicago Tribune, October 8, 1917: 13.

9   In 1971, the Baltimore Orioles tied the White Sox’ team record with 14 singles and no extra-base hits in Game Two against the Pittsburgh Pirates. But no World Series game has come close to the 22 combined singles that the White Sox and Giants had in 1917. See: https://baseball-reference.com/tiny/Qx0kA.

10 Damon Runyon, “Defeat Dazes McGraws,” Chicago Examiner, October 8, 1917: 9.

11 Eddie Collins, “Sox Have the Punch — Collins,” Chicago Examiner, October 8, 1917: 8.

On the hill for the visiting Giants was southpaw Harry “Slim” Sallee, who had lost Game One to Eddie Cicotte on October 6. Sallee was a 10-year veteran who had after the 1917 regular season a record of 138 wins and 118 losses. Making his first start in the Series for the White Sox was Ewell Albert “Reb” Russell. Russell, like Sallee, was a left-hander and during the 1917 regular season he finished fourth on the White Sox with 15 wins, behind Cicotte (28), Lefty Williams (17), and Red Faber (16).

The 27,323 fans in attendance watched Russell walk the leadoff hitter, George Burns, with four pitches wide of the plate. 2 A double by second baseman Buck Herzog advanced Burns to third base and he scored on Benny Kauff‘s double that had Herzog going to third base. Kauff continued his hot hitting; he had hit two home runs in Game Four on Thursday.3 Rowland wasted little time and replaced Russell on the mound with Cicotte. A fielder’s choice by Heinie Zimmerman resulted in Herzog being thrown out at the plate by Buck Weaver. Kauff advanced to third base and he too was thrown out at the plate when Art Fletcher grounded to third baseman Fred McMullin, who threw home to catcher Ray Schalk. Dave Robertson hit for Jim Thorpe (the former Gold Medal-winning athlete from the 1912 Summer Olympics), and he singled to score Zimmerman, giving the Giants a 2-0 lead. Chicago came back with a run in the third inning on a walk to Eddie Collins and Happy Felsch’s two-out double.

In the fourth inning the Giants broke through the White Sox lines with Cicotte in trouble and his supporting cast in danger of breaking into countless fragments.4 Bill Rariden singled through the hole between second baseman Collins and first sacker Chick Gandil. Then after a round of applause as he approached the plate,5 Sallee sacrificed Rariden to second base. He scored when Shano Collins erred trying to pick up a ball hit to him by Burns. Burns scored the second run of the inning when Weaver fumbled Herzog’s groundball and Gandil made a throwing error to Cicotte on a grounder by Kauff; it was Chicago’s third error of the game. Zimmerman grounded to McMullin at third base to end the frame with the Giants ahead 4-1. Sallee had allowed the White Sox just two hits at this point.

Neither team scored in the fifth inning, and after a scoreless top of the sixth, the White Sox hit three straight singles that had Weaver scoring their second run of the game.

Swede Risberg had pinch-hit for Cicotte in the sixth inning and Claude “Lefty” Williams, in only his second full major-league season, took over in the top of the seventh. Williams gave up a double to Fletcher to lead off the inning. Williams made an error (Chicago’s fourth of the game) on a bunt by Robertson and the Giants had runners on first and second with no outs. Williams struck out the side, but not before Rariden’s single scored Fletcher and made the score 5-2.

Sallee was still on the mound for the Giants when Chicago came to bat in the bottom of the seventh inning. Sallee got Eddie Collins out easily, on a popup to shortstop. It then got interesting when Shoeless Joe Jackson stepped to the box. Home-plate umpire Silk O’Laughlin called Sallee’s first pitch a ball. That brought about loud protests from both Sallee and Rariden.6 Shoeless Joe singled on Sallee’s next pitch, and Felsch sent him to second with another single. Both scored on Gandil’s double to center field. Weaver’s grounder to shortstop sent Gandil to third base and a walk to Schalk put runners at first and third with two outs. Schalk stole second base and when Herzog muffed Rariden’s throw, Gandil scored the tying run and Schalk advanced to third base. Sallee struck out Byrd Lynn, pinch-hitting for Williams, to end the inning with the scored tied, 5-5.

Red Faber replaced Williams on the mound in the top of the eighth and retired the Giants in order. In the bottom of the inning Shano Collins singled and went to second on a sacrifice by McMullin. Shano Collins scored on Eddie Collins’s single to center. Jackson singled to center; Kauff’s throw to third attempting to cut down Eddie Collins was late, and when Heinie Zimmerman threw wild to second, Collins scored. The White Sox led 7-5. Sallee was replaced on the mound by Pol Perritt, who gave up a single to Felsch that made the score 8-5.

Now the game went into the ninth. Faber came back to the mound to close it out. He got Fletcher on a grounder to shortstop and Robertson on a fly to left, and faced Giants first baseman Walter Holke with a chance to give the White Sox a three-games-to-two lead in the Series. Holke fouled off several pitches and then hit a groundball to McMullin at third base. McMullin gloved it and threw to Gandil at first base for the final out of the game.7

Now both teams were headed back to the Polo Grounds for Game Six with Chicago needing just one more win to clinch the Series title.

There was an interesting side note to Game Five. It was the first time McMullin, Jackson, Felsch, Gandil, Weaver, Cicotte, Risberg and Williams all played in the same game. These were the infamous Black Sox, who were all banned from baseball on August 3, 1921, by Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis. A ninth player in Game Five was also banned by Landis: the Giants’ Benny Kauff. Landis ruled Kauff ineligible for his part in a scheme with his brother involving stolen cars received at a Manhattan automobile accessory business they owned. Kauff was acquitted on the charges but Landis called the acquittal a miscarriage of justice and banned Kauff from baseball in 1921.

Sources

In addition to the game story and box-score sources cited in the notes, the author consulted the Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org websites’

Notes

1 “Giants Favored Over White Sox in Series Betting on Eve of Fifth Game,” New York Times, October 13, 1919:10.

2 Ibid.

3 Ibid.

4 Grantland Rice, “Giants Routed After Leading Up to the Seventh,” New York Tribune, October 14, 1917: 17.

5 “Detailed Account of Game by Innings,” New York Times, October 14, 1917: 20.

6 Walter Trumbull, “Umpire’s Ruling a Factor,” Chicago Tribune, October 14, 1917: 17.

7 “Detailed Account of Game By Innings.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sources

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

Notes

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

2 Ibid.

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

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

5 New York Times.

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

7 New York Times.

8 Burlington Free Press.

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

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

11 Wray.

12 New York Times.

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

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

15 Ibid.

16 New York Times.

17 Ibid.

18 Ibid.

19 Ibid.

20 Ibid.

21 Ibid.

22 Babwin.

23 Ibid.

24 New York Times.

25 Sanborn.

26 Crusinberry.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sources

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

Notes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

15 Ibid.