The inaugural 1901 American League season was scheduled to open in Detroit on Wednesday, April 24, but rain just before game time prevented play. The next day was sunny, warm for April, and “a day to make a well man glad to be alive, and a sick man feel the tingle of returning health.”2

The largest throng to yet attend a ball game in Detroit overflowed Bennett Park. The players paraded to the park in carriages from the Russell House Hotel, and by the time they arrived, a mass of 10,0233 had overflowed into the outfield. The overflow necessitated the imposition of a ground rule— any balls into the outfield crowd would be doubles.

The visiting Milwaukee Brewers4 were introduced first to a polite reception. The Tigers, in red coats, then lined up, marched a few steps toward the grandstand, and removed their caps in a salute to the fans. After the teams warmed up, “Oom Paul,” the canine Detroit mascot, made an appearance, and the local Elks club presented a loving cup to Tiger owner James Burns and manager George Stallings, both fellow Elks. A local legislator, Jacob Haarer, filled in for the mayor and threw out the first pitch to Charlie Bennett, a retired catcher and Detroit baseball legend for whom Bennett Park was named.5

After a band played a prophetic “There’ll be a Hot Time in the Old Town To-night,” Brewer leadoff hitter Irv Waldron hit a grounder to Kid Elberfeld at shortstop, who “made a gorgeous fumble.”6 Billy Gilbert followed with a base hit and Bill Hallman sacrificed both runners up a base. Tiger third baseman Jim “Doc” Casey then forced Waldron at the plate on             John Anderson’s ground ball. Anderson and Gilbert attempted a double steal, but Elberfeld’s return throw to catcher Fred Buelow caught Gilbert for the third out.

Casey led off for Detroit. Wearing the club’s new uniform, with a small red tiger on the cap, he accepted a basket of flowers from the Elks on arrival at the batter’s box. After he bowed in appreciation and handed off the flowers, he grounded back to the Milwaukee pitcher, Pink Hawley. The Tigers managed a hit and stolen base by Bill “Kid” Gleason, but didn’t score.

Wid Conroy opened the Brewers’ second with a single. He went to third on an out by playing manager Hugh Duffy, but first baseman Frank Dillon made a bad throw in an attempt catch Conroy, who advanced and scored the first run of the game. With two outs Brewer catcher Tom Leahy reached second base on a wild throw by Elberfeld; he then scored as Tiger left fielder Ducky Holmes muffed a fly ball by Hawley when Holmes encountered the overflow crowd in the outfield. After another Elberfeld error, the Brewers were retired, but they had two runs. The four Detroit errors made it look to the Detroit Tribune reporter that the Tigers were hypnotized or suffering from an attack of stage fright. In any case they were playing “wretched ball.”7

Detroit failed to score in its half of the second, and Milwaukee, already leading 2-0, added five more runs in the third on another error, four hits, a walk and a sacrifice. Stallings replaced starting pitcher Roscoe Miller with Emil Frisk during the uprising. Milwaukee’s seven-run lead held as the Tigers failed to score in their half of the third. Brewer captain and third baseman Jimmy Burke made the defensive play of the game here, stopping Buelow’s hot grounder and throwing him out at first.8

Detroit managed to shut down the Brewers in the fourth, then scored their first run on an error, followed by Dillon’s ground rule double into the crowd. Elberfeld then knocked in Dillon with another ground rule double. The Tigers pecked away with a run in the fifth, and after six innings it was 7-3, Milwaukee.

The Brewers, though, lengthened this to 10-3, plating three runs after two outs in the seventh. Duffy apparently considered the lead safe and replaced Hawley with Pete Dowling, a 24-year-old left-hander, who “had been Detroit’s jonah all last season.”9 Dowling held form through the Detroit seventh, allowing only a walk.

Milwaukee padded its lead to 13-3 in the eighth, but the Tigers nicked Dowling for a run in their half, using another ground-rule double by Dillon. Still plugging away, Frisk got the Brewers one-two-three in the top of the ninth.

With their team down 13 to 4 and the Tigers not having shown them much, some Detroit fans had left by the bottom of the inning. But there were still enough for overflow in the outfield, and Casey led off with another ground rule double. Jimmy Barrett beat out a slow grounder to third. Gleason then singled to center to score Casey. The crowd livened, as Holmes, Dillon, and Elberfeld all doubled. “The tremendous shouts that were sent up evidently unnerved Pitcher Dowling. As each hit went out a mighty cheer went up that was enough to make most any one lose his nerve.”10 Five runs were now in; it was 13-9.

By this time Duffy was feeling uneasy. He came in from center field and replaced Dowling with Bert Husting. Husting, who wasn’t fully warmed up, uncorked a wild pitch, but settled down to retire Kid Nance for the first out.

As the inning progressed, the crowd had pressed closer to the diamond. Duffy protested, and umpire Jack Sheridan ordered the fans back. The game was delayed a few minutes as the Detroit players “ran out to push back the throng in order to afford the Milwaukee outfielders a chance to chase some of the terrific drives that were being sent out.”11 Although the delay gave Husting a chance to warm up, he walked the next batter, Buelow. Frisk followed with a single to left, scoring Elberfeld. 13-10.

Casey was next up and beat out a bunt down the third base line to load the bases. Husting was able to fan Barrett for the second out. Gleason then hit a hard shot to Burke at third base. But Burke botched the play and Buelow scored to make it 13-11. It quickly became 13-12 when Burke couldn’t get an out on Holmes’ slow roller and Frisk scored.

Dillon was up again. The big first baseman already had three ground-rule doubles on the day, and made it a fourth when he ripped a 2-2 pitch into the crowd in left field. Casey and Gleason romped home with the tying and winning runs.

Pandemonium broke loose at Bennett Park. The crowd quickly overtook the field and “a dozen crazy fans picked [Dillon] up and carried him about the diamond on their shoulders, while everybody assured his neighbor that he had never in his life seen anything so wonderful.”12 The Detroit Tribune writer waxed rhapsodic: “The riotously jubilant vocalization of 10,000 throats let loose in one simultaneous sub-aerial explosion, [making] the old earth’s enveloping atmosphere heave and billow clear to its surface 50 miles away, and no doubt it is tumultuous yet.”13

And as of this writing in late 2015, the Tigers’ feat on their first day of play in the brand-new American League is still the biggest ninth inning game-winning comeback in major league baseball history.

Across Lake Michigan in Milwaukee, there was astonishment as the wire reports rolled in. Brewer secretary Fred Gross was in the process of preparing a telegram recounting the victory to club president Matthew Killilea, who was in Arizona for health reasons. Before Gross could send the telegram he received a phone call telling him the Tigers had won the game. Gross assured the caller there had to be a mistake, as Detroit would have had to score ten runs to win. When told this was exactly what had happened, Gross replied that he needed to hear from Duffy, then presupposed a reason for the apparent collapse: “The men all must be injured for a team to make ten runs in one inning. I will wire Duffy to take care of the men until they recover.”14

Only the Brewers’ pride had been injured by the epic Detroit rally. Although some in Milwaukee talked of a protest because of crowd interference, the Evening Wisconsin was philosophical: “It was indeed hard for Duffy to lose a game in that manner, but such is baseball and will ever be that way. It only goes to prove once more that baseball is the one sport that is absolutely honest in every line of playing.”15

Box score

As a box score for this 1901 game is not yet available at Retrosheet.org or Baseball-Reference.com, the box score from the May 4, 1901, edition of Sporting Life is reproduced below. (For reasons lost in the mists of time Sporting Life showed Milwaukee as batting in the bottom of the innings, even though Detroit, as the home team, did. This inconsistency also appears from time to time in other, but not all, Sporting Life box scores.)

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank fellow SABR members Marc Okkonen and Jonathan Frankel (and any others whose emails I might have accidentally deleted) for help in obtaining material for this article.

Notes

Cleveland’s previous major-league team, the National League Spiders, had achieved ignominy two years earlier, in 1899, when they infamously lost 134 games, a record that may never be broken. When the National League reduced its roster of franchises from 12 to eight in 1900, the Cleveland team was, not surprisingly, one of the four teams that were disbanded.

A minor-league version of the American League was born in 1900 and Cleveland, with a completely revamped roster of players, was awarded one of the eight franchises. When American League President Ban Johnson declared the AL a major league in 1901 (major league because the league added franchises in the “major” cities of Baltimore, Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington), the Cleveland franchise was one of the four retained from the 1900 minor-league version. (Chicago, Detroit, and Milwaukee were the others.)1 This time, though, a handful of the hometown players stayed in Cleveland, most notably veteran first baseman Candy LaChance, right fielder Ollie Pickering, and pitcher Bill Hoffer.

The 1901 Cleveland team came to be known as the Blues because of their all-blue uniforms,2 and they played their games in League Park, the same wooden ballpark in which the Spiders had played.3 The ballpark was at the northeast corner of what was then Lexington and Dunham Streets (now Lexington and East 66th Street) in Cleveland’s Hough neighborhood. It had a capacity of about 9,000.4

The start of the Blues’ season was bleak, as the team endured an 11-game losing streak in mid-May that resulted in their dropping into last place. By the time the Washington Senators came to Cleveland for their first visit of the season, the Blues had lost 18 of their first 24 games. Washington, meanwhile, had opened the season well, winning 12 of its first 19 and sitting comfortably in the first division.

In their first meeting, on Wednesday, May 22, the Blues surprised the Senators, grabbing a 6-4 lead midway through the game and holding on for a 6-5 victory.5

The next game, played on Thursday, May 23, looked as though it would end in the more expected result of Cleveland losing yet again. By the middle of the fifth inning, the Senators were leading 9-0. The Blues came back a bit in the bottom of the fifth, scoring four runs, but by the middle of the ninth and final inning, the Washington lead had ballooned to 13-5.6

Starting pitcher Hoffer, who had been the ace pitcher of the famous NL champion Baltimore Orioles of the mid-1890s (winning 78 games over a three-year span),7 but then faded into relative obscurity, had been pounded by the Washington batters, giving up 14 hits in his nine innings on the mound. Seemingly set up to add insult to injury, Hoffer led off the bottom of the ninth. The few remaining fans could be heard making such sarcastic remarks as “Hit her out, Hoffer, and run around nine times – then you’ll win.”8 Continuing his miserable day, Hoffer struck out.

Leadoff hitter Pickering was next. Although he is now unknown by most fans, Pickering actually had quite a few claims to baseball fame. He was the starting center fielder for the NL Louisville Colonels for the first half of the 1897 season, but on July 19 of that season he sat on the bench to make room for the major-league debut of all-time great Honus Wagner.9 Pickering never again played center field for the Colonels and was sold to the minor-league Syracuse team two weeks later.10

Another claim to fame of Pickering’s is that a month before this game against Washington, back on April 24, in the American League’s first-ever game, when Cleveland visited Chicago to play the White Sox, Pickering was the first batter in American League history. (He flied out to center field.)11

And finally, Pickering is credited with making famous the Texas Leaguer-type hit, back in his debut with Houston in the Texas League in 1892.12 Pickering’s career in baseball spanned 30 years, from his debut as a player in 1892 until his last year as a manager in 1922.

Pickering followed Hoffer by grounding to Washington second baseman Joe Quinn for the second out.

With only one out remaining before the Blues would be put out of their misery, veteran left fielder Jack McCarthy came to the plate for Cleveland. McCarthy had been the starting left fielder the previous season for the NL’s Chicago Orphans and for the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 1898 and 1899 seasons, as well. McCarthy hit a clean single to right field. “The spectators were offended. It seemed like a useless delay.”13

Up-and-coming 23-year-old third baseman Bill Bradley, who like McCarthy had also played for the Orphans the previous year (and would end up playing more than 1,000 games for the Cleveland franchise), then got another hit.

Next up was cleanup hitter LaChance, who had begun his major-league career nearly a decade earlier, in 1893 with the Brooklyn Bridegrooms. He swung and missed on Senators left-handed pitcher Casey Patten’s first pitch, then missed the second one, too. Down to his last strike, LaChance pounded a single to deep left, scoring McCarthy and Bradley to make the score 13-7. Thirty-five-year-old catcher Bob Wood, who had previously played for Ohio’s other major-league team, the Cincinnati Reds, was then plunked by a tiring Patten.

Shortstop Frank Scheibeck, at 5-feet-7 and 145 pounds the shortest and lightest of Cleveland’s players, was next in the order. Scheibeck had begun his major-league career with the old American Association version of the Cleveland Blues, way back in their inaugural 1887 season. The 36-year-old journeyman, whose career batting average was only .235, came through, though, when he doubled off Patten to drive in a couple more runs, cutting the deficit to four runs, 13-9.

Center fielder Frank Genins, then 34 and playing his last season of major-league ball (but who would continue to play minor-league ball into his early 40s) followed with a sharp single, sending Scheibeck home: 13-10. “The crowd became frantic. Hats and coats were thrown up in the air, and the Cleveland players were dancing all around the field. LaChance, working like a Trojan on the coaching lines, kept the crowd yelling so as to rattle the pitchers.”14

Washington’s manager, Jim Manning (who would never manage in the major leagues again after the 1901 season), told his team captain, Bill Everitt, former star infielder of Cap Anson’s Chicago team, to remove Patten from the game. Everitt told right-handed veteran Win Mercer to take Patten’s place, “but Mercer would not go in, claiming that he had not warmed up.”15 Young southpaw Watty Lee, who along with manager Manning, pitcher Patten, and half a dozen other Washington players had moved from the 1900 AL Kansas City franchise to the 1901 Senators, was called on instead.

The first batter Lee faced was Blues second baseman Truck Eagan. Eagan had been signed only a week earlier, after Pittsburgh released him two weeks into the season.16  Eagan would then be released by the Blues a week later, terminating his major-league career with a total of only nine games played. (He did play in the California minor leagues for another decade, though.) Lee walked Eagan on four pitches to put men on first and second and bring the tying run to the plate.

With pitcher Hoffer scheduled to bat again, Cleveland’s manager, Jimmy McAleer, who began playing professionally in 1883, including a decade for the local Cleveland major-league teams in the National League and the Players’ League, and had also been the manager of the 1900 Cleveland Blues, didn’t hesitate for a second to pinch-hit for his beleaguered pitcher.

Young Erve Beck, who would play only one more season in the major leagues, was called off the bench and smashed a hit so close to the left-field fence that Senators left fielder Pop Foster, “who stood on his tip toes to reach for it, but could only touch the ball,”17 could not catch it and Beck ended up on second base with a double, having driven in two more runs to cut the lead to one, 13-12.

Pickering came to bat again and was hoping he would fare better than he had so far, having made outs in each of his first five plate appearances against Patten. This time, though, he was facing Lee, and he hit a clean single just outside of shortstop Billy Clingman’s reach, scoring Beck from second, tying the game at 13 runs apiece.

“By this time the audience gave a life-sized picture of pandemonium let out for recess. A crowd of Indians on a red-hot warpath could not have been more demonstrative. They roared, they jumped, they shouted. They threw everything within reach in the air. Hats, umbrellas, canes, cushions went up as if a cyclone had struck that part of the landscape. They rushed on the field and came close to losing the game for Cleveland by forfeit.”18

It took a few minutes to clear the field, then the game resumed, with McCarthy coming to bat once again. Lee’s first pitch to McCarthy passed right by catcher Mike Grady, allowing Pickering to take second base. McCarthy then lined a clean single to left, allowing Pickering to race home ahead of Foster’s throw with the unlikeliest of winning runs. The “crowd rushed onto the diamond”19 and the “Cleveland players were carried to their dressing rooms by the jubilant crowd.”20

The Cleveland Press began its report of this “remarkable”21 game by quoting “from the proverbs of ‘Rube’ Waddell: ‘A game of base ball hain’t ever over until it is over. Don’t ever forgit this.’”22 (So it appears that Yogi Berra wasn’t the one who coined this phrase!)

Both the Cleveland Leader and the Washington Times referred to the Blues’ great comeback win as a “Garrison finish,”23 a reference to nineteenth-century jockey Edward “Snapper” Garrison, known for his spectacular come-from-behind horse-racing wins.24 The Leader called it “the greatest contest ever witnessed in this city.”25

The Cleveland Plain Dealer said that the Blues’ “sensational finish”26 was like Sheridan arriving from Winchester, “a case of hopeless defeat turned into glorious victory.”27 This was a reference to the Civil War battle of Cedar Creek in the Shenandoah Valley, when Union Army Colonel (later promoted to general) Phil Sheridan dramatically returned from Winchester to rally his troops to defeat General Jubal Early’s Confederate army on October 19, 1864.28

All of these descriptions were apt, as being down by eight runs with the bases empty and two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning, the probability of Cleveland winning the game was 0.0332 percent, the second most unlikely comeback in modern baseball history.29

Sources

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

Notes

1 “The History of the American and National League, Part 1,” Beyondtheboxscore.com, beyondtheboxscore.com/2008/11/18/664028/the-history-of-the-america, accessed November 29, 2019.

2 “Sports Team History,” Sports Team History, sportsteamhistory.com/cleveland-blues, accessed November 29, 2019.

3 “League Park,” League Park Info, leaguepark.info/facts.html, accessed November 29, 2019.

4 “League Park.”

5 “Many Old Faces at League Park,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, May 23, 1901.

6 “Never Too Late to Win,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, May 24, 1901.

7 David Nemec, Major League Baseball Profiles, 1871-1900, Volume 1 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2011), 92.

8 “Never Too Late to Win.”

9 “Louisville vs. Washington,” New York Clipper, July 24, 1897: 340.

10 “Brief Ball Notes,” Rockford (Illinois) Daily Register-Gazette, July 31, 1897: 3.

11 “Whitestockings Fly Flag,” Chicago Daily News, April 24, 1901: 1.

12 “Texas Leaguers,” Sporting Life, April 21, 1906: 2. 

13 “Never Too Late to Win.”

14 “Notes of the Game,” Cleveland Leader, May 24, 1901.

15 “Notes of the Game.”

16 “Never Too Late to Win.”

17 “Nine Runs in Last Inning,” Cleveland Leader, May 24, 1901.

18 “Never Too Late to Win.”

19 “The Wily Spiders,” Evening Star (Washington), May 24, 1901.

20 “Nine Runs in Last Inning.”

21 “A Game to Remember,” Cleveland Press, May 24, 1901.

22 “A Game to Remember.”

23 “Nine Runs in Last Inning”; “In the Baseball World,” Washington Times, May 24, 1901.

24 “Garrison finish,” Merriam-Webster.com, merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Garrison%20finish, accessed December 1, 2019.

25 “Nine Runs in Last Inning.”

26 “Never Too Late to Win.”

27 “Never Too Late to Win.”

28 “Union Colonel Phil Sheridan’s Valiant Horse,” Smithsonian.com, smithsonianmag.com/history/union-colonel-phil-sheridans-valiant-horse-124899830/, accessed December 1, 2019.

29 Tom Ruane, “Perhaps the Most Improbable Comebacks From 1901 to 2018,” Retrosheet.org, retrosheet.org/Research/RuaneT/retro_fun5.htm#A190513, accessed December 1, 2019.

Ed Willett pitched for Hughie Jennings and the Detroit Tigers. He gave up one run in the first inning but didn’t give up another until the sixth. By that point, it looked as though he had the game well in hand.

Ed Karger, a left-hander, started for the Red Sox. He held the 1-0 edge until the bottom of the third but then saw the Tigers erupt for six runs. Catcher Oscar Stanage started the inning with a solo home run over the bleacher screen in left field, tying the game.

The next three batters reached base, and center fielder Ty Cobb drove them all in with a grand slam over the fence in right field that all news accounts of the game declared to be the longest hit to date at Bennett Park, and one of the longest ever hit in the American League.

Detroit did not stop there. Third baseman Sam Crawford singled and made it all the way to third base on a bad throw from Boston center fielder Tris Speaker. He scored, too, on a sacrifice fly to right by second baseman Jim Delahanty. The Tigers led 6-1.

The Tigers added two more in the fourth and yet two more in the fifth. Left fielder Delos Drake tripled in the fourth, driving in Stanage, who had singled. Shortstop Donie Bush then singled in Drake. Three Boston errors in the fifth combined with two singles for two more Tigers runs. Detroit’s lead was now 10-1.

The Red Sox got a pair of runs back in the top of the sixth (on singles by Duffy Lewis, Rip Williams, Bill Carrigan, and pinch-hitter Jack Thoney) and one more in the seventh on a double by Lewis and a single by Clyde Engle, but the score was still a pretty hopeless 10-4, Detroit, heading into the ninth inning. Red Sox manager Patsy Donovan had used three pitchers — Karger, Charley Hall, and Jack Killilay.

Willett seemed to have everything under control. The Red Sox went down in order in the eighth without getting a ball out of the infield.

The top of the ninth seemed similarly unpromising for Boston when Harry Hooper made the first out. But Gardner singled to shortstop, and Speaker also singled. Duffy Lewis hit a home run, a ball that got past Cobb and rolled to the center-field fence. Detroit’s lead was down to 10-7.

Clyde Engle singled to center and then took third on Heinie Wagner’s single. Ralph Works relieved Willett. Williams swung at the first pitch and singled past third base, driving in Engle.

The tying run was on first, but Bill Carrigan popped up to short for the second out. Pinch-hitting for Killilay was Joe Riggert, playing in just his third big-league game. Fans began to edge toward the exits.

But Riggert tripled, a “shrieking three-bagger over Crawford’s head,” driving in Wagner and Williams to tie the game.1 The Boston Globe reported “great uneasiness in the grandstands.”2 Hooper grounded to Delahanty at second base, but he fumbled the ball, allowing Riggert to score the go-ahead run. Gardner grounded out to first base, but it was a seven-run ninth inning. The Red Sox had an 11-10 lead.

Detroit tied it in the bottom of the ninth off Killilay’s replacement, Smoky Joe Wood. They got the run on a Texas Leaguer by Bush and then a double off the left-field screen by Ty Cobb, for his fifth run batted in of the game.

An intentional walk put Sam Crawford on first base, but then he and Cobb executed a double steal. Detroit had runners on second and third with one out. Cobb had stolen home and won the Tigers’ game, 6-5, against New York just the day before, but now there were so many other possibilities to bring him home and gain another victory.

Delahanty was walked intentionally to load the bases. Boston’s biggest defensive play of the game followed. Wood struck out pinch-hitter Boss Schmidt; Carrigan fired the ball to Engle at third and caught Cobb off the base. The game was headed for extra innings.

In the top of the 10th, Delahanty’s second fielding error of the game allowed Speaker to reach first. Speaker suffered a sprained ankle on the play and had to be carried off the field.3 Billy Purtell entered the game as a pinch-runner. He advanced to second on a sacrifice by Lewis. Wagner singled and scored Purtell. Then Williams doubled to left and scored Wagner. The Red Sox held a 13-11 lead.

In the bottom of the 10th, Wood struck out the first batter, pinch-hitter Biff Schaller, got Stanage to ground out to second, and then struck out George Mullin. Boston had an improbable win.

The Red Sox had 20 base hits and the Tigers had 14. Each team hit for 24 total bases. There were two Tigers errors but four by Boston. The game lasted 2 hours and 35 minutes and was witnessed by about 12,000.

Why had Willett fallen apart so abruptly? Herman Nickerson of the Boston Journal suggested that he “pitched a fine game, but his fast ball had no break on it and he was forced to use his curve. That tired him out, not perceptibly, but when the Bostonians found him, they pounded out five nice clean hits in a row and Jennings delayed yanking him until it was too late.”4

Mullin bore the loss and Wood got the win. They each had a record of 6-2 after the game. Wood wound up with a 23-17 (2.02 ERA) record at the end of the season. (Karger was 5-8 and Willett was 13-14.) Mullin finished the season with a record of 13-10 (3.07).

Sources

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

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/DET/DET191105130.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1911/B05130DET1911.htm

Notes

1 Paul H. Shannon, “Tigers Beaten by Terrific Batting,” Boston Post, May 14, 1911: 15.

2 “Red Sox Win Out in Sensational Finish,” Boston Globe, May 14, 1911: 1, 17.

3 Speaker missed eight games, returning to action on May 25.

4 Herman Nickerson, “Red Sox Beat Tigers in 10-Inning Clash,” Boston Journal, May 14, 1911: 8.

The Pirates and Cubs had little to play for as the 1916 season came to a close except for an outside chance to move into the first division. Baseball schedule makers, however, had done them no favors in September. A day after suffering consecutive shutout losses in a Sunday afternoon doubleheader sweep by the Cubs at Forbes Field, Jimmy Callahan’s fifth-place Pirates (61-69) faced the sixth-place Cubs (61-72) again, but some 460 miles away in Chicago. It marked the Pirates’ first game of a grueling road swing during which they played 23 games in 18 days, including eight twin bills. The Cubs barely had time to unpack. After just one game in front of their partisan fans, manager Joe Tinker’s squad commenced an 18-game road trip.

It was a gorgeous late summer day in Chicago with clear skies and temperatures in the low 70s as the two teams met at Weeghman Park.4 The Cubs were finishing their first season playing in the three-year-old ballpark, which had originally been built for the Chi-Feds/Whalers of the upstart Federal League. When that circuit disbanded after the 1915 season, club owner Charles Weeghman bought the Cubs and relocated them from their wooden park on the west side of the city.

Prior to the game the Cubs received some bad news. Their second baseman, former MVP Larry Doyle, whom they had acquired two weeks earlier in a blockbuster trade with the New York Giants, would miss the rest of the season. He had broken his ankle in the first game of the doubleheader the day before.5

On the mound for the Cubs was left-handed swingman Gene Packard (9-6), who had starred in the Federal League in its two-year existence, winning 20 games twice for the Kansas City Packers. Through the first five innings, Packard “southpawed with pleasing effect,” cooed Alcock, mowing down the Pirates on three scattered singles.6 It must have been a strange sensation for Packard when the crowd erupted in a “spontaneous ovation” after a Pirates batter dug in at the plate in the second inning.7 That player was Frank “Wildfire” Schulte, a star from the Cubs’ dynasty that captured four pennants and won two World Series titles in a five-year stretch (1906-1910). Making his first appearance in Chicago since his trade to the Pirates on July 29, he smacked a “vicious liner,” noted the Post, but right to center fielder Les Mann for an out.8

The Cubs took the lead in the first inning against right-handed rookie Frank Miller. A surprise find for the Pirates, Miller (7-9, 2.09) had tossed a four-hit shutout in his last start, but lacked that sharpness in this outing. With two men on (via a single and walk), rookie Earl Smith, making his major-league debut, stroked a two-out triple to left to put the Cubs on the board. The Cubs tacked on three more in the fourth. Vic Saier led off with a double, moved to third on Smith’s single, and scored on Jimmy Archer’s sacrifice. Singles by three of the next four hitters brought in two more runs. Chuck Wortman and Rollie Zeider, the latter on a two-out hit-and-run, picked up an RBI to build the Cubs’ seemingly commanding 5-0 lead.

In the bottom of the fifth, Callahan sent in a rookie hurler who had just joined the team that morning: Burleigh Grimes. A 22-year-old right-hander who had won 20 games for the Birmingham Barons in the Southern Association, Grimes retired the Cubs in order. The Pirates gave the recruit two runs to work with in the sixth. Max Carey led off with a single and came home on Bill Hinchman’s blast to left field that “took a mighty bound and landed in the seats,” reported the Post, for a two-run home run.9

Save for the Pirates’ ninth-inning heroics, Grimes would have been the team’s bright spot of the day and “seen his name in large type” in the newspaper, opined the Tribune.10 Thrust into an emergency appearance, Grimes pitched four innings and yielded just three hits, though he struggled with his control, walking four. Sportswriter Charles J. Doyle of the Pittsburgh Gazette-Times noted his “fine delivery and plenty of speed” to go along with a spitball.11 He yielded two runs in the seventh, but also exhibited coolness under pressure. Max Flack walked to start that frame and raced to third when Mann beat out a bunt and Grimes’ throw to first sailed into right field for an error. Saier knocked Flack in and Mann scored on Smith’s sacrifice to give the Cubs a 7-2 lead. The Pittsburgh Press reported on Grimes’ “peculiar experience” at Weeghman Park.12

“[A]ccustomed to pitching from a strictly level box,” said the paper, Grimes felt that Weeghman Park’s nine-inch-high pitching mound was like “on a hill.”

A weak offensive team ranking last in the NL in runs scored with just 3.08 per game, the Pirates exploded in the ninth and “started to hammer the ball to all parts of the field,” wrote Doyle.13 Walter Schmidt led off with a single and moved to third on third baseman Charlie Pechous’s throwing error. After Grimes fanned, Packard fell apart. Frank Smykal’s single scored Schmidt and Carson Bigbee also singled. With three balls to Carey, Packard was pulled in favor of Mike Prendergast, a former Whalers hurler. He completed the walk to load the bases, then dodged a bullet when Hinchman popped up to second base. And then the wheels fell off.

With Honus Wagner at the plate, Prendergast uncorked a wild pitch that brought in a run. Still a threat at age 42, Wagner singled, driving in two more, to pull the Bucs to within one run. Hometown hero Schulte, who had blasted a double off the right-field wall in the previous inning, collected his third hit of the game, a deep line drive that looked like a triple, opined Doyle, but Mann made a good play to hold Schulte to a single and keep Wagner at third.14

Doug Baird rapped a bullet that “almost crippled” shortstop Chuck Wortman, wrote the Gazette-Times, while Wagner crossed the plate to tie the game.15 Schmidt collected his second single of the inning, driving in Schulte to give the Pirates an 8-7 lead and complete the comeback with “high class” battling, lauded the Press.16

The Pirates weren’t out of trouble yet. After flying out to end the top of the ninth, Grimes was back on the mound and issued a leadoff walk to Flack. Callahan yanked Grimes and called on Al Mamaux, the club’s best starter, who had won 21 games in 1915 and would finish with the same number in 1916. Flack moved up a station on a passed ball and Mann’s sacrifice. Needing just a deep fly ball to tie the score, Saier popped up to the catcher. Mamaux then denied rookie Earl Smith a chance for a fairy-tale ending to his debut by striking him out and ending the game in 1 hour and 50 minutes.17

The Pirates’ stunning comeback made Grimes a winner in his big-league debut. After a rough first full season with the Pirates in 1917, he was traded to the Brooklyn Robins (Dodgers), with whom he became a star and built his Hall of Fame bona fides.

Just hours after the game, the Pirates boarded a train bound to Buffalo, New York, en route to play an exhibition game the following day in Binghamton. Their road trip proved disastrous. They won only four of 23 games (and also tied two) and finished the season in sixth place (65-89). The Cubs didn’t fare much better, winning just four of 18 games with one tie, and finished in fifth place (67-86).

Sources

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

Notes

1 “Pitcher Grimes Looks Like Find,” Pittsburgh Press, September 11, 1916: 20.

2 “Buccos Surprise Bruins,” Pittsburgh Post, September 11, 1916: 8.

3 J.J. Alcock, “Pirates Defeat Cub Team, 8 to 7, by Six in Ninth,” Chicago Tribune, September 12, 1916: 13.

4 “The Weather,” Chicago Tribune, September 11, 1916: 1.

5 “Doyle Out for the Year,” Chicago Tribune, September 11, 1916: 13.

6 Alcock.

7 Charles J. Doyle, “Pirates Rally in Ninth and Beat Cubs, 8-7,” Pittsburgh Gazette-Times, September 11, 1916: 6.

8 “Buccos Surprise Bruins.”

9 “Buccos Surprise Bruins.”

10 Alcock

11 Doyle.

12 “Pitcher Grimes Looks Like Find,” Pittsburgh Press.

13 Doyle.

14 Doyle.

15 Doyle.

16 “Pitcher Grimes Looks Like Find,” Pittsburgh Press.

17 The Chicago Tribune gave the game time as 1 hour and 50 minutes. Pittsburgh papers had 2 hours.

In New York, the Giants were pulling away from the rest of the National League with a blistering 16-1 start, while in Boston a Red Sox pitcher and part-time first baseman named Babe Ruth was cause for awe by hitting a home run in a record-tying2 third straight game, but the biggest news in the sports pages on May 8, 1918, came out of St. Louis.

The Cardinals’ rising star, Rogers Hornsby, had announced he would be retiring from baseball at the end of the season to care for his invalid mother. “No more baseball, no more jaunting round where I can’t be home of nights,” the 22-year-old shortstop told the press.3

In 1917 Hornsby had finished second in batting in the NL at .327 while leading the league in triples and slugging percentage. Eventually he reconsidered and carried on with the profession that put him in the Hall of Fame, but for this day he was out of the lineup with a pulled groin muscle.4

Filling in for the young star at shortstop was 44-year-old Bobby Wallace, playing in the 25th and final season of his own Hall of Fame career. Wallace had retired from the St. Louis Browns in 1915 to become an American League umpire for a season, then managed Wichita in the Western League before joining the Cardinals as a free agent in July 1917.

The fourth-place Cardinals couldn’t afford to lose a promising batsman like Hornsby. Mired in a collective hitting slump since the start of the season,5 the team had been held hitless for seven innings the day before by the Cincinnati Reds’ Rube Bressler until they broke through in the eighth and rallied to win the game. Except for first baseman Gene Paulette, off to a hot start at .375, no other Cardinals batter had a batting average approaching .300; second-best to Paulette was Hornsby’s meager .273.

By contrast, the Reds were socking the ball for a good average, second in the league behind the heavy-hitting Giants, but poor pitching had the team behind the Cardinals in seventh place. Center fielder Edd Roush, the defending NL batting champion, was off to a slow start at .282, but third baseman Heinie Groh was hitting .324, and second baseman Lee Magee was close behind at .319.

First baseman Hal Chase and his .314 average was out of the lineup for the third of what would be 10 games with a sore shoulder, necessitating a shift to first by Sherry Magee (no relation to Lee). The veteran left fielder would take over as the team’s regular first baseman in August when Chase was suspended for “indifferent play.”6 The notoriously troublesome Chase was dropped by the Reds after the season, charged with offering bribes to teammates and opponents to influence the outcome of games on which he had bets.

For this day’s matchup before 1,200 fans, Cardinals manager Jack Hendricks handed the ball to left-hander Jakie May. The rookie May had pitched almost exclusively in relief since joining St. Louis during the 1917 season, but earned a place in this season’s starting rotation by pitching seven innings of two-hit, scoreless ball in relief against the Pirates on April 23. With a won-lost record of 2-0 and an earned-run average of 1.27, “May’s work since the team came north from Texas has bordered on the sensational.”7

Starting for Christy Mathewson’s Reds was right-hander Pete Schneider. Since tossing a one-hit shutout against the Pirates on Opening Day, Schneider had pitched in poor luck and, despite a 1.57 ERA, took the mound with a record of one win in four decisions.

In attendance at the game was the baseball legend of a previous generation, Adrian “Cap”  Anson, in St. Louis to appear in a theatrical engagement with his daughters, Dorothy and Adele. Members of both the Cardinals and the Reds were invited to be Anson’s guests for the evening’s performance at the Forest Park Highlands amusement park.

The Cardinals scored a run in both the second and third innings against the “wild and ineffective”8 Schneider before driving him from the mound with a three-run rally in the fifth, helped along by a base hit and stolen base by Wallace. Snipe Conley replaced Schneider and successfully put the Cards away, although they scored once more in the sixth. The spitballing Conley had joined the Reds during the offseason after pitching in the Federal League in 1914-15 and winning 27 games, including 19 in a row, in 1917 for the Dallas Giants of the Texas League; he pitched only once more for the Reds before returning to pitch for Dallas.

For their part, the Reds did little at the plate through the first eight innings, knocking out only four singles and never threatening to score. With Cincinnati down by six runs in the bottom of the eighth, Mathewson sent in right-hander Mike Regan, 0-2 with an ERA of 22.85, to mop up for the Reds. Regan retired the Cardinals in order.

Taking the hill for the final frame, May, who had been wild all day, seemed to lose any semblance of control. He walked Roush leading off, then after a single by Sherry Magee, walked right fielder Tommy Griffith to load the bases.

“What’s comin’ off here?” shouted Mathewson from the first-base coach’s box,9 upon which May nicked left fielder Greasy Neale in the back with a pitch, forcing in Roush with the Reds’ first run of the game. May then fell behind 3-and-1 to light-hitting shortstop Lena Blackburne. “It looked like bad baseball”10 when, rather than take the next pitch, Blackburne swung and lined out to center field. With the bases still full and one out, May still couldn’t find the plate, issuing a pass to catcher Harry Smith that forced home Sherry Magee with the Reds’ second run.

Skipper Hendricks pulled May and sent in right-hander Lee Meadows to face Ivey Wingo, batting for Regan. Nicknamed Specs for being the first big-league ballplayer to wear eyeglasses since Will White in 1886, the side-armer Meadows got two quick strikes on Wingo before the batter lifted an easy fly ball to right-center. Converging beneath the ball were center fielder Red Smyth and right fielder Jack Smith, each thinking the other had it, allowing the ball to fall between them with Griffith trotting home. Meadows, appearing “unstable”11 and perhaps rattled, then hit Groh with a pitch. Neale crossed the plate, and suddenly the Cardinals found their lead cut to two runs. With catcher Frank Snyder calling to the bench, “Get him out of there!”12 Hendricks opted to stick with Meadows.

“There were entirely too many ‘ifs,’ ‘ands,’ and ‘buts’ connected with the horrible finish to state in detail what might have happened had Hendricks played his Cards differently,” commented an anonymous St. Louis sportswriter.13 The next batter, Lee Magee, tapped a pitch back to the mound and Meadows fumbled the ball, blowing the chance at a double play. Meadows recovered to toss to first to retire Magee, but Harry Smith scored on the play to cut the Cardinals’ lead to a single run. Roush was walked for the second time in the inning and fourth time in the game, and, with the bases again loaded, a walk to Sherry Magee forced Wingo home to knot the score, 6-6.

The improbable rally continued with Griffith driving a pitch into right field for a single, scoring Groh and Roush and putting Cincinnati ahead. Neale then poked another single to right, bringing home Magee. Blackburne finally “brought the agony to a close”14 by grounding to Wallace, who forced Neale at second.

Five walks, four singles, and two hit batsmen had pushed nine Reds across the plate and turned the tables on the Cardinals. Right-hander Hod Eller was brought in to face the stunned Redbirds in the bottom of the ninth, and set them down in order. Despite it being May’s wildness that ignited the Reds’ incredible comeback, it was the rattled Meadows, unable to put the fire out, who was tagged with the loss; Regan, for his single inning of work, got the win.

“It was the wildest, wobbliest, weirdest windup to a ball game that has been staged on a local lot in years,” wrote one St. Louis sportswriter.15 Cracked another, “They ought to have saved that explosion for the Fourth of July.”16

Sources

In addition to the sources listed in the Notes, the author also consulted The Sporting News and a number of local newspapers, including the Dayton Herald, the New York Herald, the New York Times, and the Paterson (New Jersey) News.

Notes

1 L.C. Davis, “Sport Salad,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 9, 1918: 24.

2 Len Wooster, “Sport Topics,” Brooklyn Times Union, May 8, 1918: 12.

3 “Hornsby to Quit Diamond,” Pittsburgh Press, May 7, 1918: 20.

4 “Hornsby Injured; Bobby Wallace May Play Short Today,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 8, 1918: 22.

5 Clarence F. Lloyd, “Cardinals Home for Series of 22 Games; Reds to Call Today,” St. Louis Star and Times, May 6, 1918: 13.

6 Jack Ryder, “Heat!” Cincinnati Enquirer, August 8, 1918: 8.

7 Clarence F. Lloyd, “Cardinals Home for Series of 22 Games.”

8 “Cardinals Pull Great Rally in Favor of Reds,” Dayton Daily News, May 9, 1918: 16.

9 “Reds Set Record for Season with 9 Runs in Ninth,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 9, 1918: 24.

10 Clarence F. Lloyd, “Thank Mr. Blackburn That Reds Brought Their Rally to End,” St. Louis Star and Times, May 9, 1918: 15.

11 “Reds Set Record for Season with 9 Runs in Ninth.”

12 “Reds Set Record for Season with 9 Runs in Ninth.”

13 “Reds Set Record for Season with 9 Runs in Ninth.”

14 Clarence F. Lloyd, “Thank Mr. Blackburn That Reds Brought Their Rally to End.”

15 Clarence F. Lloyd, “Thank Mr. Blackburn That Reds Brought Their Rally to End.”

16 Davis.

Although they were still in the running for the pennant, the Senators had given away a number of games during the weeks before their series with the Tigers, causing one sportswriter to refer to them as the champions of “baseball philanthropists.”1 The ninth-place Tigers were 48-60, 15½ games off the pace. Nearly a decade removed from their three consecutive American League pennants, the Bengals were playing out the string.

The weather was ideal for baseball. The afternoon high in reached 86 degrees in the nation’s capital with unseasonably low humidity for the mid-Atlantic region in August. Rookie Rudy Kallio drew the starting assignment for the Tigers. The 25-year-old right-hander was 7-11 with a 3.45 ERA. He was opposed by left-hander Harry Harper. In his sixth major-league season, the 23-year-old “veteran” was 10-7 with a 1.86 ERA.

After keeping the Tigers off the scoreboard in the top of the first inning, the Senators scored five runs off Kallio in the bottom half of the inning. Left fielder Burt Shotton led off with a double to left. After Eddie Foster and Joe Judge were retired on fly balls to Ty Cobb in center field, Clyde Milan hit a single that advanced Shotton to third. Milan stole second ahead of Frank Schulte’s double that plated the game’s first two runs.

Second baseman Howie Shanks followed with a single to center that scored Schulte. Shanks took second on Cobb’s throw to the plate. Shortstop Doc Lavan followed with an RBI single and moved up to second when Tigers catcher Tubby Spencer failed to corral Cobb’s attempt to nail Shanks at the plate. Lavan scored when catcher Eddie Ainsmith tripled. Harper, the ninth batter of the inning, ended it by striking out.

Down 5-0, Tigers manager Hughie Jennings turned to right-hander Deacon Jones in the bottom of the second to keep the game close. For the next five innings, Jones, who entered the game with a record of 3-1 and a 4.39 ERA, “was the rock upon which the Nationals split,” setting them down “almost as fast as Griff’s men came to the plate.”2

The Senators broke through against Jones for what appeared to be an unnecessary insurance run in the seventh inning. Foster led off with a double. After Judge grounded out, Milan singled to score Foster. Jones retired Schulte and Shanks to end the inning. In the end, Jones did exactly what was asked of him as he scattered seven hits over seven innings and gave up only one run.

Behind 6-0, the Tigers looked destined to go down in defeat as the game entered the top of the ninth inning. However, “[T]he Griffs did enough unproductive and non-essential work in the ninth inning … to be sentenced to the rock pile for life.”3

Jennings sent pitcher George Cunningham up to pinch-hit for Deacon Jones, who was to lead off the inning. Cunningham delivered a single and proceeded to steal second “with no one making an effort to cut him down.”4 After Harper struck out Donie Bush for the first out, Bob Jones singled Cunningham to third. Cobb followed with a groundout to second and the Senators were content with trading an out for a run as the Tigers scored their first run and Jones moved to second. The Tigers were now down to their last out.

Bobby Veach tripled to the right-field scoreboard to score Jones who had stolen third, again without a throw. Art Griggs followed with a single to center that scored Veach, narrowing the Senators’ lead to 6-3. George Harper singled to right and second baseman Ralph Young drew a walk to load the bases before Spencer singled to center to drive in Griggs and Harper and trim the deficit to a single run. At this point, Senators manager Clark Griffith had “reached the same conclusion as every fan in the park – that Harper would never be able to get the side out.”5

With the Tigers already having batted around, Griffith called on veteran Jim Shaw to preserve the victory. Griffith’s decision to bring in the right-hander was widely questioned, especially given the fact that Shaw had experienced a ninth-inning meltdown against the Tigers only two days earlier and that Walter Johnson was also available to pitch.6 Shaw entered the game with a record of 11-12 and a 2.82 ERA.

Handicapped by chronic control problems throughout his career,7 Shaw walked Cunningham to load the bases and then walked Bush to force in Young with the tying run. The inning came to an end when Bob Jones grounded out to second. The Tigers had come back from five down with two outs in the ninth inning.

After starting the Tigers comeback rally in the ninth, Cunningham remained in the game to pitch. The right-hander, who was 4-4 with a 3.42 ERA, was nothing short of fabulous. He retired the Senators in order in his first four innings and gave up only two hits over his eight innings of work. His performance was even more impressive given the fact that he had tossed a complete game, albeit in a losing effort, against the Senators the day before.8

Walter Johnson came on to pitch for the Senators in the top of the 10th inning. The right-handed Johnson had already won 20 games that year – the ninth year in a row he had won 20 or more games – against 12 defeats. “Walter had the Tigers eating out of his hand all the way” until the 16th inning when he was victimized by poor defense.

George Harper led off the inning with a groundball to Foster at third. Foster’s throw to first base ended up in the Washington dugout and Harper took second. Harper went to third when Young reached on a “lucky swinging bunt.”9 Spencer followed with a fly ball to center that advanced Young to second as Milan’s throw held Harper at third. Cunningham struck out for the second out of the inning. It appeared that Johnson and the Senators were out of trouble when Bush hit another grounder to Foster at third. However, the Washington third baseman “got tangle footed and threw wide to Ainsmith, Harper and Young scoring.”10 Bob Jones flied out to Shotton in left to end the inning.

The Senators did not go quietly in the bottom of the 16th. After Schulte grounded out to second to start the inning, Shanks reached on an error by Tigers second baseman Young. Lavan singled, advancing Shanks to third. Ainsmith hit a fly ball to left to drive Shanks home and trim the deficit in half. That brought Johnson to the plate. Johnson was a good hitter, but this time he sent a fly ball to Cobb in center to end the game.

Cunningham earned the victory and improved his record to 5-4. Johnson, who allowed only two scratch hits in seven innings, deserved a better fate. With the loss he dropped to 20-13. The time of the game was 3 hours and 22 minutes.

The loss was another major blow to the Senators’ pennant hopes, dropping them 4½ games off the pace. Despite winning 11 of their final 15 decisions, the Senators settled for a third-place finish. It was not until 1924 that the Senators would again contend for the pennant. That year they won their first American League pennant and went on to win the World Series.

Sources

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

Notes

1 J.V. Fitz Gerald, “Griffs Loaf Away Another Game to Tigers by 8-7,” Washington Post, August 17, 1918: 6.

2 “Tigers Beat Washington in Sixteenth,” Detroit Free Press, August 17, 1918: 9.

3 Fitz Gerald.

4 Fitz Gerald.

5 Denman Thompson, “Griffmen Dissipate Chances by Losing Game to Detroit,” Washington Evening Star, August 17, 1918: 10.

6 Shaw blew a 3-1 ninth-inning lead against the Tigers on August 14, 1918.

7 Bill Lamb, “Jim Shaw,” SABR BioProject, sabr.org/bioproj/person/5f888acd.

8 Thompson.

9 Thompson.

10 Fitz Gerald.

The home team had scored single runs in the first two innings and four more in the fifth inning. Actually, the first inning Cincinnati run was a pure Keystone Kops play. With two outs, Heinie Groh hit a routine fly to left field, where left fielder Turner Barber should have easily caught it. However, he did not shout “I’ve got it.” Thus center fielder Dode Paskert did not think it was going to be caught and also ran for it. When Paskert arrived, each thought the other would catch it and this apparent routine out fell for a double. A single by Edd Roush then drove Groh home.

Entering the ninth inning, Cincinnati pitcher Hod Eller had given up only four hits and walked only one batter: That batter was then erased in a double play. Shufflin’ Phil Douglas had given up six runs, but only three were earned; three of the runs in the fifth inning were unearned because of his error on a bunt. The Reds’ half of the fifth inning had opened with a Larry Kopf single: actually, he bunted safely to Douglas. Bill Rariden singled him to third base. Eller then singled and drove in Kopf as Rariden advanced to second. Then Morrie Rath bunted toward third base. Douglas had an easy force play on Rariden, but he threw the ball over Charlie Deal’s head at third base, and Rariden, Eller, and even Rath all scored.

Max Flack was first man up in the Cubs’ ninth inning and singled to left field. Charlie Hollocher doubled down the left-field line, sending Flack to third base. Turner Barber hit a grounder to Jake Daubert at first base that hit a stone or a chunk of dirt. Instead of being an easy out, or perhaps cutting down Flack trying to score, the ball bounced over the first baseman’s head.1 Flack scored easily and Hollocher went to third base. A long fly ball by Dode Paskert to Edd Roush in center field scored Hollocher, making the score 6-2. Fred Merkle then lined a double off the left-field wall, sending Barber to third base.

Charlie Pick singled to center, scoring Barber with the third run of the inning. Charlie Deal followed with a fly to short right-center field. Edd Roush dove for the ball but missed it. Instead of the ball being the second out of the inning, Merkle scored on the play to make it 6-4. Pick thought that Roush would catch the ball and delayed running to second base. Roush had lain there rolling on the center-field grass and it took several moments to determine that it had not been a catch. Greasy Neale in right field ran over, picked up the ball, and threw it to second, where Pick barely beat the throw. A physician who was in the stands was called to examine Roush.2 He determined that Roush’s shoulder was severely bruised and the center fielder had to leave the game, not to return to the lineup until May 14. He was replaced by Wally Rehg. This was only Rehg’s second game played for Cincinnati, and after three more games, the last being May 10, he was gone from the major leagues.

Cubs manager Fred Mitchell replaced Deal with pinch-runner Bill McCabe. Bob O’Farrell batted for Bill Killefer. With McCabe on first base and Pick on second base, Mitchell ordered a double steal. Unfortunately, McCabe missed the sign, did not initially move, and finally ran to second.3 Reds catcher Bill Rariden did not try to nab Pick trying to steal third. He reasoned that if McCabe stole second, there would be two runners in scoring position. His throw to second surprised McCabe, who did not even try to slide and was an easy out – the second out of the inning. Pick reached third base (no stolen base).

However, this third Keystone Kops play actually helped the Cubs tie up the game. Greasy Neale in right field was playing very swallow to so that if a ball were hit past the infield, he could throw out Pick trying to score. Neale then moved further back to prevent O’Farrell from getting an extra base hit. Bob O’Farrell singled exactly where Neale had previously been standing and Pick’s run made it a 6-5 game. It was noted that not only would O’Farrell’s hit been caught, by Neale if he had not moved, but it might have resulted in a game ending double play.

Les Mann batted for Douglas and singled to right, sending O’Farrell to second. Manager Mitchell inserted Fred Lear to run for O’Farrell, who represented the tying run. (O’Farrell had only 35 stolen bases in his 21 major-league seasons.) Jimmy Ring replaced Eller on the mound for Cincinnati. (Ring later became the answer to a baseball trivia question as the man the New York Giants traded with Frankie Frisch to the St. Louis Cardinals for Rogers Hornsby after the 1926 season.)  

Flack, batting for the second time in the inning, singled to left field. Sherry Magee’s throw home was too late and too wide to catch Lear at home. This was the sixth run of the inning and now the score was tied, 6-6, and the Cubs had Mann on third and Flack on second, having advanced on the throw. Hollocher was hit by a pitch, and the bases were loaded. Rube Bressler replaced Ring on the mound and retired pinch-hitter Pete Kilduff on a fly to left. Chicago had made nine hits, scored six runs to tie the game, and had left the bases loaded.  

In the bottom of the ninth inning, Cubs manager Mitchell had Mann, who had batted for pitcher Douglas, go to left field. Tom Daly, the Cubs’ third-string catcher, replaced Lear, who had run for catcher O’Farrell after O’Farrell batted for catcher Killefer. Paul Carter went in to pitch. Kilduff, who batted for left fielder Barber, went to third base. Carter retired the Reds one-two-three; Magee grounded to second, Daubert grounded to third, and Larry Kopf flied to left. 

The 10th and 11th innings were uneventful. But in the Cubs’ half of the 12th, Reds pitcher Rube Bressler walked Flack and Hollocher sacrificed him to second. The next batter, Kilduff, singled to center and Flack scored to put the Cubs ahead for the first time in the game, 7-6. Bressler retired the next two batters on grounders to end Chicago’s half.

Chicago manager Mitchell did not want this game to be lost now. Thus he had Grover “Pete” Alexander go to the bullpen to warm up, in case Carter got into difficulty. In the bottom half of the inning, Magee flied to Paskert in center and Daubert fouled out to third baseman Kilduff. Cincinnati had some transient hope as Kopf reached first on an error by shortstop Hollocher. But Rariden flied out to Paskert, and the game was over. Pete was not needed. 

Paul Carter was the winning pitcher and Rube Bressler the loser. The Cubs outhit the Reds 15 to 8. Since Eller went 19-9 that season, this game deprived him of a 20-win season. Cincinnati had won its first seven games of the season, lost one, and won two more for a 9-1 start. At the end of the day the Reds (9-2, .818) were in second place behind the Brooklyn Robins (7-1-1, .875) in percentage, but a half-game ahead of the Robins in the won-lost column. Chicago (6-4, .600) was in fourth place. With a roster almost identical to their 1918 pennant-winning team, they finished third, 21 games behind Cincinnati and 12 games behind the second-place New York Giants.

In this season, the first after World War I, only 140 games were scheduled. Ironically, the Cincinnati Post noted, “O’Farrell brought back the worry with a single and Mann’s single, which followed, cast real gloom over all except some gamblers who had bet on the Cubs, getting 8 to 5 for their jack.”4 Was this Cincinnati Chicago game in 1919 a harbinger of the Cincinnati Chicago World series for 1919? 

Sources 

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author also consulted Retrosheet and acknowledges its help.

Notes

1 James Crusinberry, “Cubs’ Furious Attack in Ninth Ties Reds; Win in 12th, 7-6,” Chicago Tribune, May 6, 1919: 19.

2 “Looks Like the Reds of Bygone Days,” Dayton Evening Herald, May 6, 1919: 12.

3 Oscar Reichow, “Cubs Get the Breaks Win Exciting Ball Game,” Chicago Daily News, May 6, 1919: 1.

4 “Cubs Murder Ball in Ninth Round,” Cincinnati Post, May 6, 1919: 12.

By the time the Tigers (65-47) arrived in St. Louis to close out the month, they had lost four straight and seen the White Sox lead widen to eight games. They had to stop the bleeding in a four-game weekend series with the Browns (59-53) before returning to Detroit to face the league leaders in a Monday doubleheader.

The Tigers won their series opener with Jimmy Burke’s Browns, then dropped the first game of a Saturday doubleheader, shut out by Allen Sothoron in a 4-0 loss.

St. Louis starting pitcher Dave Davenport began the second game on the right note, stranding Ty Cobb after his two-out first-inning single. Tigers starter Howard Ehmke was shakier out of the gate, walking his first two batters, Jimmy Austin and Joe Gedeon. Baby Doll Jacobson sacrificed to advance the runners, and Austin scored on a groundout by George Sisler.

The Tigers had a rare early chance in the top of the second, when Harry Heilmann walked and Chick Shorten bunted and beat Davenport’s throw. But the threat vanished instantly with the next batter, Bob Jones, who hit into a double play, and Eddie Ainsmith sent a harmless groundball to Sisler at first to end the inning. The Tigers offense then went back into hibernation.

Josh Billings kept the Browns alive in the second inning with a two-out single, before Ehmke hit Davenport to put two runners on. That turned the lineup over to Austin, who hit a double to the right-field wall. Austin tried his luck after a faulty throw from Shorten but was thrown out at home plate. But Billings and Davenport had scored to make it 3-0.

St. Louis kept sizzling in the third on a two-run home run by Sisler after Jacobson’s leadoff single and Gedeon’s infield popup. Jack Tobin came “within an inch,” the Detroit Free Press said, of matching Sisler’s result, but Shorten retired him “on the edge of the sun gods’ section.”2 Ray Demmitt became the third straight batter to send a fly ball in Shorten’s direction, but it was the easiest to handle. That ended the inning, but the Browns were on top 5-0.

The fifth inning all but assured fans that the home team would win for the second time that day, and likely even more decisively. Austin and Gedeon led off with back-to-back walks for the second time. Jacobson tried to bunt them over but popped up to Ehmke. Sisler singled to right to score Austin, and Gedeon came home on a squeeze bunt by Tobin. The Browns led 7-0, and the game appeared to be out of reach.

While the Browns’ bats battered Ehmke, Davenport “boomed along like a stake horse,” the Free Press reported.3 After Cobb’s harmless first-inning single, the Tigers went six more innings without a hit from anyone other than Ehmke, who mustered two. As they entered the eighth, they had played 16 innings that long day without scoring a run.

“For seven innings of the second game, Dave Davenport held the Tigers about as Sothoron had in the first,” the Free Press wrote. “No matter what the Bengals did the lean flinger of the Browns checked them and it looked like curtains for the second time with the enemy rolling along on a seven-run lead and no prospects of anything to relieve the situation.”4

If anyone were to ignite an improbably rally, it would have to be Ehmke, who was having more success at the plate than on the mound. He answered the call by leading off the eighth inning with a double to left field. Donie Bush followed with a single, and Ralph Young was safe at first on a fielder’s choice that retired Bush but scored Ehmke. The Tigers had, at long last, changed their number on the scoreboard.

Then, in an unexpected outburst, they kept right on going. Cobb came up after Young and clobbered a ball over the fence for a two-run homer to make the score a more respectable 7-3. Davenport had utterly stymied the Tigers for seven innings, but now, the Free Press commented, “Everything he threw up the Tigers hit.”5 Veach and Heilmann followed Cobb with singles, and the starting pitcher, “clearly upset, wild-pitched the pair” to second and third, the Free Press reported. With Shorten in the batter’s box and the tying run now, incredibly, on deck, Burke yanked his starter in favor of Ernie Koob.

Jennings responded by replacing Shorten with the right-handed Ira Flagstead to face the lefty reliever. Koob immediately made matters worse by plunking Flagstead to load the bases. Ben Dyer’s groundball scored Veach but retired Heilmann on a force out at third. Ainsmith grounded back to the mound to end the inning. But the Tigers were within reach, with the score 7-4.

Ehmke completed the bottom of the inning and was due up once again to lead off the ninth. Jennings gave his starter a chance to tally his fourth hit of the game, and Ehmke did just that, nabbing an infield single before being lifted for pinch-runner Babe Ellison. After Bush flied out to center, Young’s single to left put runners on first and second for Ty Cobb. The league batting leader smacked a double to score Ellison. It was 7-5 with two runners in scoring position. Bobby Veach brought them both home on a single to right field, and scampered to second on the futile throw to home plate.

“This attack of the Tigers, in view of the way they had behaved prior to the eighth, struck the fans dumb and must have had a disheartening effect on the Browns,” the Free Press wrote.6

Having trailed by seven runs with only the faintest of pulses, the Tigers had rallied to tie the game. Desperate and dumbfounded, Burke made another call to the bullpen and brought in Bert Gallia.

“Heilmann’s greeting to Bert was a smash to center,” the Free Press reported.7 Veach reached the dish and the Tigers took an 8-7 lead.

Flagstead kept the pressure on with a single, but Dyer struck out, and after Ainsmith reached first on an infield hit, Heilmann was out on the basepaths on the play and the inning was finally over. After nothing but goose eggs all day, the Tigers had scored four runs in consecutive innings. The stunned Browns now faced a do-or-die bottom of the ninth.

With Ehmke benched for the pinch-runner, Jennings called on Slim Love, and the new hurler slammed the door, striking out pinch-hitter Herman Bronkie, inducing a grounder to short from Austin, and getting Gedeon on strikes for the final out.

“That’s the story of how the Browns let a seven-run lead slip away from them,” wrote the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “This contest was one of the toughest the Burkemen have lost this season.”8

The Tigers, snatching victory from not just the jaws but the tonsils and windpipe of defeat, had earned a comeback win and a doubleheader split.

“There didn’t appear to be a chance in the world for the Tigers, under the conditions, to save even a vestige of the afternoon,” the Free Press wrote. “Only the most vicious attack that a Bengal club ever has administered a collection of rival pitchers averted a double beating at the hands of the Browns.”9

Sources

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

Notes

1 Jennings’ 1919 season would be his 13th and last with the Tigers. His 1,131 wins as Detroit skipper stood until Sparky Anderson eclipsed the mark in 1992.

2 Harry Bullion, “Tigers Win Second Game in Great Closing Rally; Shut Out in the Opener,” Detroit Free Press, August 31, 1919: 13.

3 Bullion.

4 Bullion.

5 Bullion.

6 Bullion.

7 Bullion.

8 “12-Swat Shell from Detroit Artillery Gives Jungaleers an Even Break with Browns,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 31, 1919: 6.

9 Bullion.

 

“The defeat came like a bolt of lightning out of a clear sky,” James O’Leary of the Boston Globe described the unanticipated turn of events.1 Instead of racking up his 21st pitching victory of the season, Oeschger was saddled with his 12th loss.

In the top of the ninth inning, Oeschger gave up three straight singles to Dots Miller, Bevo LeBourveau, and Cy Williams that produced the first Philadelphia run. Ed Konetchy then doubled to score two more runs and narrow the Boston lead to 6-3. After Lee King flied out, Oeschger walked Frank Parkinson and then yielded a run-scoring single to John Peters that cut the Boston lead to 6-4.

The game should have ended with the next batter, Russ Wrightstone, who pinch-hit for pitcher Jesse Winters. Wrightstone grounded to second baseman Lloyd Christenbury, who initially fumbled the likely double-play ball and then threw wildly to first base to allow a fifth Philadelphia run to score. 

Braves manager Fred Mitchell finally replaced Oeschger at this juncture, bringing Hugh McQuillan into the game to relieve him. McQuillan was no more effective than Oeschger, though, as John Monroe batted in the tying and go-ahead runs. Monroe made the second out of the inning when he was thrown out trying to steal second base. Miller, up for the second time in the inning, then walked and scored Philadelphia’s eighth run on LeBourveau’s triple to right-center field. The inning mercifully ended for the Braves when LeBourveau was thrown out at home plate trying to stretch his triple into an inside-the-park home run.

Huck Betts, in relief of Winters, shut down the Braves in the bottom of the ninth inning to preserve the Philadelphia victory.

Among the Boston sportswriters, there was some second-guessing of Mitchell’s ninth-inning pitching decisions, in an era when relief pitchers were not yet the specialists of today and starting pitchers were expected to finish the game. Paul Shannon of the Boston Post called it “criminal negligence” that Mitchell left Oeschger in the game too long, writing that “after the first three men up hit safely and the fourth connected for a solid two-bagger, Oeschger should have been relieved.”2 However, O’Leary of the Globe excused Mitchell’s tardiness in replacing Oeschger, writing that “Mitchell did not wish to humiliate him by sending in another pitcher after the wonderful work he had done in the previous eight innings and thought he might pull through.”3 O’Leary also noted that Oeschger, who had led off the bottom of the eighth inning with a base hit – his fourth hit of the game – “was loafing around on the bases with no sweater on and undoubtedly cooled off.”4

There was little criticism of second baseman Christenbury, who botched the potential game-ending double-play ball, even though the 27-year-old journeyman was substituting for the Braves’ regular second baseman, Hod Ford. “Mitchell benched Walter Barbare and put Ford at short and Christenbury at second,” Gus Rooney wrote a week later in The Sporting News. “The new middle diamond combination was mostly responsible for the Braves’ [recent] success.”5

Christenbury was a good-hit, no-field utility player who had played just a handful of games at second base that season. Christenbury was the leading hitter for the Braves at the time (.446 batting average), but was next to last in defensive prowess (.898 fielding percentage).6 True to form, Christenbury went 4-for-5 at bat in this game, but committed two of the team’s three errors.

Boston won the second game of the doubleheader, 13-2 behind Walter Holke’s four hits and four RBIs and Mule Watson’s seven-hit complete game, which became the theme deployed not only in the Boston Globe headline (“Phils Land Opener in Ninth, Then Lose”) but also in most wire-service accounts of the twin bill reported in newspapers across the country. The New York Tribune had one of the more colorful headlines: “Oeschger Collapses and Phils Overcome Six-Run Advantage.”7

The ninth-inning rally nearly escaped communication to readers of the Philadelphia Inquirer, which in the trend of the era did not send a writer to cover road games and depended instead on “Special to the Inquirer” dispatches written by a local writer who covered the home team. The Boston writer ghosting the article for this game focused on Oeschger’s “immaculate inning” in the fourth when he struck out three batters on just nine pitches.8

To supplement this story, the Inquirer sports editor commissioned a cartoon to better convey the ninth-inning rally to Philadelphia baseball fans who were interested in reading more than just the recap of the game at Shibe Park between the Philadelphia Athletics and the New York Yankees, who entered the day with a one-game lead in the American League pennant race over the second-place Cleveland Indians. Interestingly, the Athletics marshaled their own ninth-inning comeback, tallying two runs to overtake the Yankees, 6-5.

Sources

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

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BSN/BSN192109081.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1921/B09081BSN1921.htm

Notes

1 James O’Leary, “Phils Land Opener in Ninth, Then Lose,” Boston Globe, September 9, 1921: 15.

2 Paul Shannon, “Phils Handed Gift Then Get Walloped,” Boston Post, September 9, 1921: 20.

3 O’Leary.

4 O’Leary.

5 Gus Rooney, “Hub Fairly Happy in Its Lower Altitude,” The Sporting News, September 15, 1921: 3.

6 “Batting and Fielding of Red Sox and Braves,” Boston Globe, September 5, 1921: 7. These statistics are through games played on September 4, not through September 7, the day preceding this comeback game.

7 “Oeschger Collapses and Phils Overcome Six-Run Advantage,” New York Tribune, September 9, 1921: 12.

8 “Oeschger Fans Side on 9 Pitched Balls,” Philadelphia Inquirer, September 9, 1921: 14.

Since they began in the American League in 1901, the Washington Senators as of 1922 had finished fourth or better just six times. In 1915 and 1921 they were fourth, in 1914 and 1918 they were third, and in 1912 and 1913 they had two second-place finishes. Detroit, on the other hand, had won three pennants (1907-09) but had failed to win a World Series.

As of the first game of the July 7 Friday afternoon doubleheader with the Tigers at Griffith Stadium, the 1922 Senators were in fifth place with a record of 35-37 and they trailed the first-place St. Louis Browns by 8½ games. Detroit was a game and a half ahead of Washington, trailing the Browns by seven games.

Detroit squeaked out a 7-6 win in the first game of the twin bill, led by Bobby Veach, who was 3-for-4 with two RBIs, and Ty Cobb (triple, double, two runs scored), Topper Rigney, and Johnny Bassler, all of whom had two hits. The Senators’ Walter Johnson suffered the loss in the game, giving up all of the Tigers’ 13 hits.

To try to keep the Tigers from getting a sweep, the Senators sent George Mogridge to the hill to face Detroit’s Red Oldham. Mogridge had spent the first two years of his major-league career with the Chicago White Sox (1911-12); from 1915 to 1920, he was with the New York Yankees. On April 24, 1917, Mogridge pitched the Yankees’ first no-hit game, defeating the Red Sox, 2-1, at Fenway Park in Boston.

On December 31, 1920, the Yankees traded Mogridge and outfielder Duffy Lewis to the Senators for Braggo Roth.

Oldham had just one winning season in the majors before 1922: in 1915 with the Tigers, when he had a record of 3-0 in 17 games. (He had just one other winning season in the majors, that coming in 1925 when he was 3-2 for the Pittsburgh Pirates.)

In the second game, Washington scored first when Roger Peckinpaugh reached first base with a single. Sam Rice grounded out to Detroit first baseman Lu Blue and Peckinpaugh went to second.

Joe Judge, who entered the game batting .296, worked the count to 3-and-2 and then hit a pitch to center field for a double that scored Peckinpaugh with the game’s first run.

To quote a Detroit sportswriter: “Nothing of an exciting nature occurred until the Washington third that saw the Nationals getting a single with three doubles for three runs.”2

Neither team scored in the second inning, and the Tigers did not score in the third. In the bottom of the inning, Clyde Milan singled to right field with one out. Peckinpaugh got his second hit of the day, a double. Rice hit the inning’s second double, and then Judge hit the third. Three more runs added to the Senators’ side of the scoreboard for a 4-0 Washington lead.

In the fourth inning a triple by Bucky Harris and a sacrifice fly by Patsy Gharrity gave the Senators a 5-0 lead.

With one out in the fifth inning, Chick Gagnon batted for Oldham and singled to left field. Lu Blue doubled with Gagnon holding at third base. A single by Fred Haney scored Gagnon. Blue thought the ball might be caught so he remained at second base. On Cobb’s hit to left field, Blue left second homeward-bound. He beat the throw and Gharrity dropped the ball. Everybody in the ballpark saw that happen, except the one man whose opinion counted: home-plate umpire Ed Walsh, who called Blue out.3

Bobby Veach singled to score Haney and send Cobb to third base. But Harry Heilmann flied out. The Tigers had scored a pair and Washington’s lead was now 5-2.

In the bottom of the fifth inning, Peckinpaugh walked and stole second base. With two men out, Frank Brower, batting for Senators right fielder Ed Goebel, singled off Carl Holling, who had relieved Oldham to the start of the bottom of the inning. Brower’s hit scored Peckinpaugh and gave the Senators a 6-2 lead.

Two more runs came Washington’s way in the seventh inning. Peckinpaugh started it off with a single to left field. He scored on a triple to center by Rice. Judge walked. Brower forced Judge while Peckinpaugh remained at third. Brower stole second base as Howie Shanks struck out, as Peckinpaugh scored on the bad throw.4  Brower also tried to score but was out on Cobb’s throw to catcher Clyde Manion.

The Senators got two more runs in the seventh inning and scored one in the eighth, when Mogridge doubled and scored on Clyde Milan’s single to center field. Washington now led  9-2 going to the top of the ninth inning. “The haughty Griffmen, finding themselves leading by seven runs with the start of the ninth, smiled,” wrote the Washington Times’s scribe. “Possibly more than half of them were perishing from sheer hunger. They had been toiling today since high noon and it was time for ease and refreshment.”5

A Washington Herald account said, “Everything happened in the ninth inning. And it all broke like an unexpected storm over a Sunday school picnic.”6

With the game seemingly in hand, the Senators took to the field needing just three outs to add a win to their season total. “Can you picture a ballclub taking its last turn at bat seven runs down and emerging from it two to the good?”7

A single by pinch-hitter Larry Woodall, a walk to Blue, and a single by Haney loaded the bases with Cobb stepping into the batter’s box. Cobb singled to center field to score Woodall and Blue with Haney going to second base A fly ball by Ira Flagstead was the first out of the inning. Heilmann, who entered the game with a .361 batting average, worked a walk to fill the bases again. George Cutshaw singled, scoring Haney and leaving the bases full. The Tigers now trailed 9-5.

Peckinpaugh’s throw on Topper Rigney’s groundball was late and Cobb scored the Tigers’ fourth run of the inning. Howie Shanks missed a tag on Cutshaw on a groundball by Clyde Manion, allowing Heilmann to score. The Senators were now leading by just two runs, 9-7, and the bases were still loaded.

Woodall got his second hit of the inning, a single, and both Cutshaw and Rigney scored. The game was tied, 9-9.

The Tigers weren’t through. They took the lead on a single by Blue that scored Manion and put Woodall safely at third base. Haney beat out a bunt that scored Woodall and the Tigers led, 11-9.

Tom Zachary took over for Mogridge and secured the second out. The scoring orgy ended when the second reliever of the inning, Jim Brillheart, struck out Heilmann with the bases still full.

The Tigers’ Hooks Dauss came in to face the Senators in the bottom of the ninth. He got Peckinpaugh to foul out to catcher Manion. ShortstopTopper Rigney threw out Sam Rice and tird baseman Fred Haney threw out Joe Judge. The game was over after 2 hours and 40 minutes, and the Tigers had a thrilling (if a Detroit fan) or stunning (if a Washington fan) come-from-behind win. A Detroit writer described the scene: “You have seen a beaten fighter reeling from a beating for a place of refuge. That is the way the Nationals after going into the ninth inning happy at the thought of impending victory, staggered in broken order before the compelling influences of the Bengal drive.”8

One Washington writer opined: “Ty Cobb and his Tigers won that game because they kept at it.”9

Said another: “But the Griffs lost more than just two ball games. They lost also the whole-hearted support of approximately 17,000 fans who watched the Tigers perform the ‘Impossible’ in their last time at bat, watched them score nine runs on nine hits and three walks after the Griffs had gone into the last frame with a seven-run lead and appeared to have the game nailed in the win column.”10

Carl Holling got the win, and Tom Zachary, who retired only one of the six batters he faced, bore the loss.

Nearly a century has passed as of this writing, and the game represents the greatest comeback in major-league history.

Sources

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

Notes

1 Tom Ruane, “Perhaps the Most Improbable Comebacks From 1901 to 2018,” Retrosheet.org, May 13, 2019, at https://retrosheet.org/Research/RuaneT/retro_fun5.htm#A190513.

2 Harry Bullion, “Bengals Open Final Seven Runs in Rear,” Detroit Free Press, July 8, 1922: 12.

3 Bullion.

4 Bullion.

5 Louis Dougher, “Ferocious Jungle Cats Go After Griffs Again in Two Clashes Today,” Washington Times, July 8, 1922: 10.

6 Ray Helgesen, “Detroit Wins Twice, Massacring Nationals in Second Game,” Washington Herald, July 8, 1922: 9.

7 Bullion.

8 Bullion.

9  Dougher.

10  Helgesen.