With a 2-2 record, the Allegheny team returned home for a debut in a city deprived of quality baseball for three seasons.2 On May 9, the St. Louis Brown Stockings came to western Pennsylvania after splitting their first six games. The Alleghenys were leading 8-2 with one on and one out in the third inning when the game was called because of rain, part of a weather system that also canceled Cincinnati’s game at Louisville. An anonymous Enquirer writer warned the Browns in print about the strong hitting of the Pittsburgh team: “One can safely wager before the latter delegation leaves the Smoky City their eyes will be protruding several feet from their heads.”3

On the following afternoon, May 10, about 2,000 people gathered at Exposition Park, a diamond built on the north shore of the Allegheny River across from downtown Pittsburgh on a field susceptible to flooding. The previous day’s rains were followed by heavy morning showers, leaving the field damp and soggy. Despite the poor conditions, the game went ahead. 

Six months earlier, representatives of several prospective teams had met in Cincinnati to forge a new independent baseball association. The representatives who gathered at Gibson House, a fine hotel, sought to create a money-making rival to the stuffy National League. The ambition was to make money by selling beer in the stands and playing games on Sunday, both of which had been outlawed by the senior circuit. With teams based in rollicking river cities with large immigrant populations, such as Cincinnati and Pittsburgh, the American Association would be dubbed the Beer and Whiskey League.

Each club was expected to have at least $5,000 (and preferably more) in capital from which to launch the new league. Louisville was represented by J.H. Pank of the Kentucky Malting Company, while wholesale grocer Chris von der Ahe sought membership for St. Louis. The Pittsburgh owner was 33-year-old Harmar Denny McKnight, an iron merchant and the son of a lawyer elected to Congress. McKnight was elected the league’s president at the Cincinnati meeting.4

The return of professional baseball after a three-year hiatus shared headlines with other news. Elsewhere in the state, Republicans gathered in convention at Harrisburg to nominate James Beaver, a Civil War general who lost his right leg in battle, for governor. He would lose, only to gain the office in an election four years later. Across the state line in Ohio, a forgotten stick of dynamite killed a worker in a tunnel in Steubenville. In Pittsburgh, the Kirkpatrick grocery on Liberty Street announced the arrival of a shipment of prunes, plums, and apricots from California.

At waterlogged Exposition Park, the visitors took to the field to start the game. (In earlier games, the order of batting was determined by a coin toss.) Pitching for St. Louis was George Washington McGinnis, a 196-pounder known as Jumbo. He kept the home Alleghenys off the scoreboard for three innings before being touched for two runs in the fourth.

The Pittsburgh hurler was Harry Arundel, a right-hander who had pitched in a game for the Brooklyn Atlantics of the National Association in 1875. He gave up two runs in the second, two more in the fifth and a final tally in the sixth.

“Arundel did not let up once in the entire game,” the Pittsburgh Commercial Gazette reported. “He pitched effectively from beginning to end. He has coolness and nerve. Some of his best work was done when the bases were all covered and none out.”5

The Alleghenys broke the 2-2 tie in the fifth inning. The tall first baseman Jake Goodman drove a McGinnis pitch deep into center field for a double. John Peters popped out to St. Louis third baseman Jack Gleason. (Peters and Arundel would be the only two Alleghenys to go hitless in the game.) Arundel walked. George Strief’s base hit knocked in Goodman to give the Pittsburgh side a lead it would not relinquish. The catcher Jim Keenan, batting ninth, sent a towering fly to center under which Oscar Walker settled.

McGinnis failed to limit the damage in the inning, as Ed Swartwood and then Billy Taylor reached base on hits. Three more came home, as Arundel, Strief, and Swartwood all scored. When Swartwood again came to the plate in the eighth, McGinnis had had enough. He “deliberately sent him to his base on balls, refusing to pitch even one of which he might strike with some show of success.”6

Both starting pitchers finished the game, with Arundel and the Alleghenys prevailing by the score of 9-5. Arundel would go 4-10 for the season, the poorest result on a three-man rotation including Harry Salisbury (20-18) and Denny Driscoll (13-9).

Swartwood and Billy Taylor each had three hits in the game, half of the Allegheny dozen (four doubles and eight singles). The visiting Browns also had 12 hits (one double and 11 singles), but failed to bunch them.

McGinnis, the losing pitcher, would finish 43 of the 45 games he started in 1882, going 25-18. St. Louis third baseman Jack Gleason, the Brown Stockings’ leadoff man, wielded a big bat for the visitors with a double and a trio of singles, though he was stranded each time, failing to score a run. His younger brother, shortstop Bill Gleason, also a St. Louis product, batting second, had a single in five plate appearances. Each Gleason brother committed an error, as did teammate Bill Smiley at second base. The Allegheny errors were charged to Taylor at third base and Goodman at first.

Gone unnoticed in game reports of the two-hour match was the tall, 22-year-old St. Louis first baseman, a right-hander born in Chicago by the name of Charlie Comiskey. Batting fourth, he hit a single and struck out once in five plate appearances, and made nine putouts at first without error. Of all the men on the field on May 10, 1882, he went on to have the greatest impact on baseball as an owner of the Chicago White Sox and builder of a ballpark in his hometown bearing his name.

The Browns were skippered by player-manager Ned Cuthbert in their inaugural season, but Comiskey would be a sometime playing manager in the following two seasons before taking over the reins full-time in 1885, leading the Browns to four consecutive American Association pennants and an 1886 world-championship victory over the Chicago White Stockings of the National League.

The Alleghenies were managed by Al Pratt, a Civil War veteran and a former pitcher for the Cleveland Forest Citys of the National Association.

The May 10 game got good reviews from sportswriters, who were even then given to ballyhoo and hyperbole. The Gazette’s writer liked the Alleghenys’ 32-year-old shortstop, the oldest starter on either team. “Peters merits credit, not only for his good general work,” he wrote, “but because he plays to win, and not to make an individual record.”7 In a brief report, the Pittsburgh Daily Post stated: “The attendance of spectators was quite large and the game was good enough to be thoroughly enjoyable.”8 The Cincinnati Enquirer promised: “Look out for some bold, bad, wicked work to-morrow.”9 As it turned out, the next day’s game would be rained out.

The Alleghenys ended the American Association season in fourth place in the six-team league with a 39-39 record, a whopping 20½ games behind Cincinnati (55-25). The Pittsburgh team finished ahead of St. Louis (37-43) and the woeful Baltimore Orioles (19-54), while trailing the Eclipse of Louisville (42-38) and the Philadelphia Athletics (41-34). Pittsburgh was runner-up to Louisville for the most doubles with 110 (Swartwood led the league with 18; teammates Mike Mansell and Taylor tied for third with 16), while the Alleghenys’ 18 home runs (four by Swartwood) led the circuit. Swartwood also led the league in runs (87) and total bases (161). 

In the great card shuffling of late nineteenth-century baseball, the clubs would swap leagues and nicknames, the Brown Stockings becoming the Cardinals and the Alleghenys the Pirates, National League rivals to this day. The city of Allegheny was annexed by Pittsburgh in 1907, erasing a historic name from the geographic record books, though of the course the river from which it took its name was one of the Three Rivers for which the Pirates’ ballpark was named when it opened in July 1970.

This article appears in “Moments of Joy and Heartbreak: 66 Significant Episodes in the History of the Pittsburgh Pirates” (SABR, 2018), edited by Jorge Iber and Bill Nowlin. To read more stories from this book at the SABR Games Project, click here.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author also relied on baseball-almanac.com, baseball-reference.com, and retrosheet.org.

Notes

1 “Chicagoed, The Smoky City Lads Shut Out the Porkopolitans,” Cincinnati Enquirer, May 9, 1882: 2.

2 An earlier team, also known as Allegheny, is credited with playing the city’s first professional game, defeating the Xanthas of the International Association by 7-3 at Union Park on April 15, 1876. The team disbanded midway through the 1878 season, according to William E. Benswanger’s article “Professional Baseball in Pittsburgh,” originally published in 1947. upress.pitt.edu/htmlSourceFiles/pdfs/9780822959700exr.pdf.

3 “Base-Ball Notes,” Cincinnati Enquirer, May 10, 1882: 5.

4 “Well Done,” Cincinnati Enquirer, November 2, 1881: 5.

5 “A fine game, the St. Louis beaten by the Alleghenys,” Pittsburgh Commercial Gazette, May 11, 1882: 4.

6 Ibid.

7 Ibid.

8 “Alleghenies win again, by a score of 9 to 5,” Daily Post (Pittsburgh), May 11, 1882: 4.

9 “The Alleghenys win from St. Louis,” Cincinnati Enquirer, May 11, 1882: 5.

Depleted by the Brotherhood war,² Pittsburgh finished the 1890 NL campaign dead last at 23-113. Expectations were high for the much-changed team heading into the April 22, 1891, season opener against Chicago. Among the changes, Pittsburgh was commonly referred as the Pirates. Hanlon predicted a first- or second-place finish based on the quality of players assembled in the offseason.³

Pete Browning joined Pittsburgh after eight years with Louisville in the American Association and a stint with Cleveland’s PL club. Browning was deemed “a terror to all pitchers, good, bad and indifferent and their hearts quiver whenever they see his lengthy form towering over the plate.”⁴ Charley Reilly moved over from the AA Columbus Solons and was viewed as “a young man full of ambition, [who] will play every point to win.”⁵ Connie Mack, formerly with Washington’s NL club and a member of the PL Buffalo Bisons, gave Pittsburgh a top backstop who “did great work and was admired by everybody.”⁶

Lou Bierbauer signed with Pittsburgh after playing with John Montgomery Ward’s PL club in Brooklyn. Hanlon was thought to have “made a ten-strike”⁷ in landing Bierbauer. A player who “hits like a Trojan and fields with consummate skill,”⁸ Bierbauer would man second base for Pittsburgh. Chicago player-manager Cap Anson shared the optimism about Pittsburgh, remarking, “Captain Hanlon has spent a barrel of money and has what you might call an all-star aggregation. … Pittsburg has corralled some of the champion hitters of the country.”⁹

There was a festive atmosphere around Exposition Park ahead of the 3:30 P.M. first pitch. The grounds were in good shape after a large group of workers spent the prior day on preparations.¹⁰ Fans crowded into the vicinity for the Opening Day parade as “[t]he band played and the base-ball season was inaugurated with a grand street pageant.”¹¹ The joyous mood dampened briefly when storms rolled through, but “[w]hen the clouds broke and the sun showed a winning hand there was a yell of satisfaction.”¹² The rain was thought to have limited the eventual 5,263 attendance, but fans purchased tickets despite the weather.

Chicago arrived by train the morning of the game. Anson’s club also entered the season with high expectations. The Chicago Tribune called the team “as evenly balanced a ball club as ever stepped on the field, and its discipline is almost perfect.”¹³ For the opener, the Colts were weakened by the absence of Tom Burns, who was laid up with an injured arm;¹⁴ Bill Dahlen, at 21, would make his major-league debut filling in for Burns at third base. Anson trusted the pitching to another freshman, 22-year-old Pat Luby. Because Luby “pitches in a way that proves very painful to most batsmen,”¹⁵ the move may have been viewed as a good one.

Though playing at home, Pittsburgh batted first. Fans greeted Doggie Miller16 with enthusiastic cheers as he approached the plate, an act that would be repeated for the rest of the home team’s lineup. Luby allowed a leadoff walk to Miller, but his teammates could not bring him home. Chicago scored in the bottom of the first, when Anson’s double brought Dahlen across the plate in his first major-league inning. Chicago added gradually to its lead. The Colts scored another run in the second inning when Fred Pfeffer worked his way around the bases after a leadoff walk. The visitors got two more in the fourth inning to take a 4-0 lead. In fielding a groundball off Cliff Carroll’s bat, Reilly belied his strong reputation playing third base by throwing wildly to first. Carroll landed at third base by the end of the play. Pfeffer brought him home with a single to center field. Three batters later, Elmer Foster singled to score Pfeffer.

By the seventh inning, Pittsburgh still trailed 4-0 and the Pirates partisans despaired. “Everybody had given up hope of scoring a run, to say nothing of winning the game,” wrote one of the local papers.¹⁷ After holding Pittsburgh scoreless through six innings, Luby unraveled. He hit leadoff batter Mack in the shoulder and followed that with four bad throws to put Reilly on base. Pitcher Pud Galvin “rapped out a clear single”¹⁸ to load the bases. At this point, “Luby evidently feared the consequences of pitching over the plate”¹⁹ and walked Miller on four pitches, which scored Mack. Luby surrendered another walk to Jake Beckley, which scored Reilly. With his pitcher “wild as a March hare,”²⁰ Anson tried to calm Luby. His words did not have the desired effect as Luby walked Fred Carroll, thereby scoring Galvin. With Pittsburgh now within one run, Anson called upon Bill Hutchinson to stem the tide.

Swapping pitchers did not stop the momentum, however. Browning’s sharply hit single to center field scored Miller to tie the game, 4-4. The bases remained loaded and there were still no outs. Bierbauer’s hit to Dahlen was collected by the Colts third baseman, who threw home to force Beckley. Hanlon’s drive into the outfield grass brought home Carroll and Browning, putting Pittsburgh ahead 6-4. “Pandemonium reigned in grand stand and bleachers. Two runs ahead was a cyclonic surprise,” a Pittsburgh sportswriter rhapsodized.²¹ Though dejected after the disastrous seventh, Chicago halved the deficit in the bottom of the inning. Hutchinson flied out to Browning in left-field foul territory and Malachi Kittridge grounded out to Miller at shortstop, but Foster started a two-out rally by reaching first after Miller bobbled a groundball. Jimmy Ryan uncorked a long double into center field that scored Foster. Jimmy Cooney struck out to end the frame but Chicago had pulled within one run.

Neither club scored in the eighth, but Chicago came close. With one out and Dahlen on third base, Cliff Carroll sent a high fly toward Fred Carroll (no relation) in right field. Dahlen neglected to take a chance on scoring, and would not make it home that inning. Pittsburgh did not add to its lead in the top of the ninth. Nonetheless, sensing victory, “the Pittsburgers put on their coats, and with a smile of satisfaction prepared to leave the grounds.”²² Chicago would provide reason for them to stay. Hutchinson sent a high fly to Fred Carroll, but the right fielder misjudged the ball and muffed the catch. With Hutchinson on second, Kittridge brought home his batterymate by singling to left field. The game now tied, 6-6, the Exposition Park crowd “resumed their seats with a thud that shook the stand.”²³ Chicago would not find the winning run in the bottom of the ninth, and the season opener headed into extra innings.

Only the 10th inning would be required to settle the matter. The Pirates’ Mack and Reilly began the top of the inning by striking out, adding to the anxiety in the grandstand. Galvin singled to keep the inning going, and Miller followed by drawing a walk from Hutchinson. The rally ended with Fred Carroll’s fly out to Cliff Carroll in right field. In Chicago’s half of the inning, Dahlen smacked the ball down the left-field line, almost reaching the outfield fence, and Dahlen was safe at third as a “sickening chill spread through the stands.”²⁴ Anson popped up to shortstop Miller, and Dahlen held third. He would not need to do so when Cliff Carroll drove the ball to left-center, allowing Dahlen to score the winning run. Chicago 7, Pittsburgh 6.

Despite the loss, the local newspaper observed some reason for optimism: “While they show a lack of team work, still there is evidence that this will be remedied in a game or two. …”²⁵ In truth, the optimism proved unjustified. Although Pittsburgh’s record was above .500 at the beginning of June, the team finished 55-80, placing it in the same spot as the season before: last place in the National League.

This article appears in “Moments of Joy and Heartbreak: 66 Significant Episodes in the History of the Pittsburgh Pirates” (SABR, 2018), edited by Jorge Iber and Bill Nowlin. To read more stories from this book at the SABR Games Project, click here.

Notes

¹ “About the Boys,” Pittsburgh Commercial Gazette, April 22, 1891: 6.

² For information about the “Brotherhood War” related to the formation of the Players League, see, e.g., https://baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Players_League.

³ “News, Gossip and Comment,” Sporting Life, April 25, 1891: 3.

⁴ “About the Boys.”

⁵ Ibid.

⁶ Ibid.

⁷ Ibid.

⁸ Ibid.

⁹ “Anson’s Review,” Sporting Life, April 25, 1891: 3.

¹⁰ “Sporting Notes,” Pittsburgh Commercial Gazette, April 22, 1891: 6.

¹¹ “Lost the First,” Pittsburgh Commercial Gazette, April 23, 1891: 6.

¹² Ibid.

¹³ “Opening of the Campaign,” Chicago Tribune, April 23, 1891: 5.

¹⁴ Ibid.

¹⁵ “Lost the First.”

16 Miller was referred as “Kid Miller” in a season preview article in the Pittsburgh Commercial Gazette. “About the Boys.”

¹⁷ “Lost the First.”

¹⁸ Ibid.

¹⁹ Ibid.

²⁰ “Opening of the Campaign.”

²¹ “Lost the First.”

²² “Opening of the Campaign.”

²³ Ibid.

²⁴ “Lost the First.”

²⁵ Ibid.

The 1902 Pittsburgh Pirates were one of the greatest teams in baseball history; during the season’s last weekend, they were on the verge of completing the season with an exclamation point. In the midst of a three-year reign atop the National League, the Pirates handily won the 1901 NL pennant with a 90-49 record, the first time Pittsburgh won a league title and attained 90 wins.1 Led by Hall of Fame outfielder-manager Fred Clarke, Hall of Fame shortstop Honus Wagner, and 20-game winners Jack Chesbro and Deacon Phillippe, the Bucs finished 7½ games in front of the second-place Philadelphia Phillies.

The 1902 Pirates started the season with mostly the same key personnel from the previous season: first baseman Kitty Bransfield, second baseman Claude Ritchey, third baseman Tommy Leach, and outfielders Ginger Beaumont and Lefty Davis. The most significant changes included returning catcher Harry Smith, who jumped from Pittsburgh to the American League’s Philadelphia Athletics the previous year, and Wid Conroy, who was originally slated to be Wagner’s backup at shortstop but started the season there, with Wagner moving to the outfield.2

The early 1900s were especially tumultuous for professional baseball, as Ban Johnson’s American League played its inaugural season during 1901 and numerous players were jumping leagues for better opportunities and higher salaries.3 During the first three years of the AL’s existence, over 100 players joined the AL4 with Johnson constantly fighting for new talent;5 by 1903, many believed the American League was the superior league.6 However, Pittsburgh owner Barney Dreyfuss successfully retained his top stars through 1902, while most NL teams lost significant players.7 During 1901-1902, the Pirates lost only four players: third baseman Jimmy Williams (to Baltimore), shortstop Fred “Bones” Ely (to Philadelphia), Smith (who returned), and catcher Jack O’Connor (left following 1902 season). Other teams faced greater losses, ranging from Philadelphia and St. Louis (highest with 16 players jumping) to Cincinnati (second fewest with eight players jumping).8

In addition, Dreyfuss helped stabilize NL ownership before the 1902 season, and thereby prevented Pittsburgh itself jumping from the National League to the American League.9 He also helped eliminate the possibility of an AL entry based in Pittsburgh for 1902, although efforts undermining the NL Pirates continued after the season ended.10 The Pirates entered the 1902 season in good shape, with manager Clarke “highly pleased with the outlook, and if the weather is good from now on for another week, he says his boys would be in condition second to none in the league.”11 The Pirates started fast, winning their first five games and ending April with an 8-2 record, up 1½ games on the Chicago Cubs. After compiling a 22-4 record during May and 11-6 record during June, the Pirates never looked back.  

Conversely, the 1902 Reds were looking to improve upon the previous season’s last-place finish, as their 52-87 record was 38 games behind Pittsburg. Although seven Reds switched leagues before the 1901 season, only outfielder Dick Harley left before the 1902 season started. In addition, four star players, pitcher Noodles Hahn, outfielder Sam Crawford, first baseman Jake Beckley, and pitcher Bill Phillips, remained with the club.12 The Reds dropped their first three games and struggled through May and June before improving during the second half. During September, Cincinnati assembled a 15-12 record and climbed to a more respectable fourth place, flirting with a .500 finish. 

Four-year veteran Phillippe started Pittsburg’s final 1902 game. He attained 20 wins and amassed at least 270 innings during each of his first three seasons, and was pitching for his 20th win facing Cincinnati. Phillippe was one of the many players traded from the Louisville Colonels to Pittsburgh after the 1899 season. He spent the rest of his 13-year career in Pittsburgh, and was voted the greatest right-handed pitcher in Pirates history in 1969.13 A 6-foot right-hander possessing a fastball and curveball, Phillippe had legendary control; his career record 1.25 walks per nine innings is the lowest ratio once the modern 60-foot 6-inch pitching distance was established in 1893.14

His mound opponent that afternoon was Beckley, better known as a Hall of Fame first baseman than a starting pitcher. Beckley’s career spanned 20 seasons with five different teams, including seven-plus years with the Pirates and a single year (1890) with the Players League Pittsburgh Burghers during their only year of existence. After nearly 2,000 games played at first base, Beckley was making his lone career pitching appearance as part of Cincinnati manager Joe Kelley’s protest over sloppy weather conditions. Rookie reliever Rube Vickers served as Beckley’s catcher; newspaper reports describing the game didn’t sugarcoat the Reds’ behavior, noting, “Beckley’s weak throwing arm is notorious in baseball circles, but Jake proved a better pitcher than Vickers did a catcher.”15

Although Pittsburgh already clinched the NL pennant, they were tied with the 1892 and 1898 Boston Beaneaters with 102 wins in a single season. The Pirates’ winning percentage was higher because they played in fewer games, but Dreyfuss and his players wanted to break the single-season wins record. A heavy storm rained upon Pittsburgh that morning, but the Reds were informed that the game would be played if the storm passed and the field drained. During the early afternoon, the Reds learned the game was going forward, but they arrived late and Kelley generated a laughable lineup.

During the opening frame, Kelley, who was also hitting third and playing third base, emphasized his unhappiness by walking to the plate while smoking a cigarette. Umpire Hank O’Day threatened Kelley with expulsion before he complied with the umpire’s request to extinguish the cigarette.16 With the Reds barely trying, the Pirates scored three runs in the first inning. In the second inning, the Reds’ Harry Steinfeldt reached on an error and scored on a Vickers single. The Pirates responded with four more runs in the bottom half and now built a 7-1 lead. At that point, a furious Dreyfuss announced that the 1,200 patrons attending the game would receive ticket refunds, and the Reds would be paid nothing for the game.17

The Pirates added a run in the fourth inning, which the Reds countered an inning later when Beckley doubled home outfielder Mike Donlin. In the fifth inning, Kelley acquiesced slightly when he inserted outfielder Cy Seymour, who was playing third base that afternoon, as a relief pitcher. Seymour, who pitched years earlier for the New York Giants and won 25 games in 1898, was effective for two innings before allowing three runs on two walks and two hits in the eighth inning.18 The game ended on a double play; with one out and Donlin on second base, Kelley lined out to Jimmy Sebring, who doubled off Donlin. Phillippe pitched a complete game, allowing two runs on nine hits and two walks while striking out five. Six different Bucs had at least two base hits, with Bransfield going 3-for-5 with a double and triple. Pittsburgh trounced Cincinnati 11-2 to win its 103rd game.

Pittsburgh won its second consecutive NL pennant, 27½ games ahead of the Brooklyn Superbas. The Pirates had a dominant 56-15 home record, a .789 winning percentage. Their superior team offense led the NL with 5.45 runs per game, a full run ahead of second-best Cincinnati; 1,410 hits; 189 doubles; 95 triples; .286 batting average; and .374 slugging percentage. Individually, Beaumont paced the NL with a .357 batting average; Wagner led the NL with 105 runs, 30 doubles, 91 RBIs, and a .463 slugging percentage; and Tommy Leach hit six home runs for the league lead.

The top four run scorers were all from Pittsburgh: Wagner, Clarke (103), Beaumont (100), and Leach (97). The pitching staff had the second-lowest team ERA (2.30), but allowed the fewest runs per game (3.10). In addition, the Pirates pitchers compiled the highest team strikeout total (564), issued the fewest walks (250), and allowed the fewest home runs (4). The staff included three 20-game winners: Jack Chesbro (28-6, 2.17 ERA over 286⅓ innings), Jesse Tannehill (20-6, 1.95 ERA over 231 innings), and Phillippe (20-9, 2.05 ERA over 272 innings). Their success carried over into the following year, when they won their third consecutive NL pennant and appeared in the first modern World Series.

This article appears in “Moments of Joy and Heartbreak: 66 Significant Episodes in the History of the Pittsburgh Pirates” (SABR, 2018), edited by Jorge Iber and Bill Nowlin.

Sources

Besides the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Almanac.com, Baseball-Reference.com, Retrosheet.org, and the following:

Thorn, John, and Pete Palmer, et al. Total Baseball: The Official Encyclopedia of Major League Baseball (New York: Viking Press, 2004).

Notes

1 Jim Trdinich and Dan Hart, 2016 Pittsburgh Pirates Media Guide (Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh Pirates, 2016), 264.

2 Sam Bernstein, “Wid Conroy,” SABR Biography Project, sabr.org/bioproj/person/9202a5e3.

3 “War That Crippled National League,” New York Times, December 7, 1913: 36.

4 Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns, Baseball: An Illustrated History (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994), 65.

5 “American to Fight,” Washington Times, May 2, 1902: 4.

6 Tom Simon, ed., Deadball Stars of the National League (Washington: Brassey’s, Inc., 2004), 15. See also John S. Bowman and Joel Zoss, The National League (Rocky Hill, Connecticut: Great Pond Publishing, 1992), 26.

7 Deadball Stars of the National League, 141.

8 “War That Crippled National League.”

9 Ronald T. Waldo, The 1902 Pittsburgh Pirates: Treachery and Triumph (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2015), 62-67.

10 “Dreyfuss Has a Talk with Spalding in Chicago – No American League for the Pittsburg Pirates,” Pittsburg Daily Post, January 19, 1902: 12; “Another Park for Johnson,” Pittsburg Press, October 19, 1902: 18.

11 “Champions Begin Their Spring Training,” Pittsburg Daily Post, April 2, 1902: 6.

12  Cincinnati had three managers during the 1902 season: Bid McPhee (27-37), Frank Bancroft (9-7), and Joe Kelley (34-26).

13 Mark Armour, “Charles Phillippe, Pittsburgh,” Deadball Stars of the National League, 159.

14 Ibid.

15 “Reds Made Farce Out of Finish,” Pittsburg Press, October 5, 1902: 18.

16 Ibid.

17 “The Champion Pirates Finish the Season of 1902 by Breaking the World’s Record of Games Won,” Pittsburg Daily Post, October 5, 1902: 2.

18 “Reds Made Farce Out of Finish.”

Dinneen won 21 games in 1902 and the same number again in 1903. He’d been 21-13, with a 2.26 ERA. Teammate Cy Young had been 28-9, with an ERA of 2.08, including seven shutouts; Dinneen had six. 

Phillippe had been 25-9 (2.43) for the Pirates and his teammate Sam Leever had been slightly better (25-7, 2.06.)  Leever hurled seven shutouts, and Phillippe had done so four times. Sixteen-game winner Ed Doheny had suffered a mental breakdown and was in an insane asylum. To make matters worse, Leever hurt his right shoulder late in the season, while trapshooting, and it was undeniably Phillippe who was the only top Pirates pitcher in condition at the end of the grueling regular season.  Given the dire circumstances, Clarke was compelled to rely on Phillippe. 

This game could determine the championship of the world. “The game meant something more than victory. It was a question of supremacy between two great leagues, a question which for the past two years has agitated the entire baseball world.”1 Should Pittsburgh win, the Series would be even at four wins apiece. Should Boston triumph, the honor would be theirs. 

Despite the importance of the game, attendance was only 7,455, way below the 18,801 of Game Three (the fourth through seventh games were played at Pittsburgh’s Exposition Park), because so many large blocks of tickets had been snapped up by speculators who hoped to cash in — but, wrote the Chicago Tribune, “the public would not submit to the extortion.”2 

Dinneen retired the Pirates on seven pitches in the first inning. He was perfect through the first three innings. Jimmy Sebring‘s slashing drive back to the mound (which he fielded and threw to first) in the top of the third split Dinneen’s finger, but “despite the bleeding that continued to stain the balls he threw throughout the game, the gritty right-hander continued to pitch well.”3 

Phillippe was effective, too, allowing just two singles over the three frames. A walk and a single marred Dinneen’s start in the top of the fourth. The Pirates might have scored. They had runners on first and third with two outs, when Wagner stole second base on the front end of a double steal, but the Bostons were wise to the play and catcher Lou Criger threw to Collins at third base and got Tommy Leach out, 2-5-2. 

In the bottom of the inning, slugger Buck Freeman — Boston’s right fielder, who had led the American League with 104 RBIs, hit a leadoff triple deep to center field. Freddie Parent reached first on a fielding error by catcher Ed Phelps on a ball hit in front of home plate. Freeman didn’t dare attempt to score, nor did he on Candy LaChance‘s sacrifice bunt — though Parent took second. Hobe Ferris singled to center field and drove in both Freeman and Parent. Ferris advanced to second when Criger grounded back to Philippe. With two outs, Dinneen singled, but Ferris was thrown out at home trying to go for a third run. Right fielder Jimmy Sebring’s throw cut him down. There was every anticipation that the game would be a low-scoring affair, and that staking Dinneen to a two-run lead would likely be sufficient. The Boston Post‘s inning-by-inning game account said, “Nobody cared that Criger followed with an out, that Dineen (sic) singled and Ferris was thrown out trying to reach home. Boston had scored two runs off the great Phillippe and everyone believed that those two runs meant victory.”4

Sebring himself tripled in the top of the fifth, but there were two outs and Dinneen struck out catcher Phelps to end the threat. 

Another triple set up another run for Boston in the sixth. There were two outs when LaChance tripled to right field. Ferris then singled to center — his third RBI of the game. As it transpired, there were no other runs scored in the game. Ferris alone drove in all the runs. 

Phillippe hadn’t pitched poorly at all. He didn’t walk a single Boston batter, and one of the three runs scored off him was unearned. The problem was that Bill Dinneen simply pitched a better game. Just as he had in Game Two, he shut out the Pirates — and by the same 3-0 score. The Pirates committed three errors; Boston, none. Indeed, Boston’s fielding was superlative. The Post in particular praised third baseman Jimmy Collins, who “covered acres of ground and threw as only he can throw.” The team’s infield work made the Pirates “look amateurish by comparison.”5 

Dinneen allowed just four hits, and the denouement was especially apt — he retired Fred Clarke and Tommy Leach on fly balls in the top of the ninth inning, and then struck out the great Honus Wagner. The Boston Herald rhapsodized about the final pitch: “No more artistic conclusion to the great series was possible. Slowly the big pitcher gathered himself up for the effort, slowly he swung his arms about his head. Then the ball shot away like a flash toward the plate where the great Wagner stood, muscles drawn tense, waiting for it. The big batsman’s shoulders heaved, the stands will swear that his very frame creaked, as he swung his bat with every ounce of power in his body, but the dull thud of the ball, as it nestled in Criger’s waiting mitt, told the story.”6 

Dinneen struck out seven and walked only two. He improved his Series mark to 3-1 with the win, finishing with a 2.06 ERA, and he remains one of the few pitchers to win three games in a given World Series. 

Phillippe wound up with five decisions in one World Series, every one being a complete game. This is something we will almost certainly never see again. Phillippe posted a 3.07 ERA for the Series, but had two defeats to go with his three victories. Sam Leever was 0-2 for the Pirates and Brickyard Kennedy bore the loss in Game Five. Pittsburgh manager Fred Clarke conceded to the Boston Journal, “Boston won on its merits. We were weak in pitchers.”7 

For Boston, Cy Young was 2-1, with a 1.85 earned-run average. Tom Hughes was 0-1; he had pitched just two-plus innings of Game Three before being relieved by Cy Young. In fact, Dinneen and Young had combined to pitch all but two innings of the eight games. 

The first world championship in modern baseball history belonged to the Boston Americans. The Boston Journal‘s headline the following day indeed said it all: “Boston Americans Are Now the Champions of the World.”

The fans who were present reveled in the championship. For his part, Jimmy Collins credited the support shown the team by the Boston fans. “The support given the team by the ‘Royal Rooters’ will never be forgotten. … [N]o little portion of our success is due to this selfsame band of enthusiasts. Noise — why they astonished Pittsburgh by their enthusiasm.”8 

As for the Pirates, they knew they had suffered such losses among their own pitching staff that it was impossible to put their best nine on the field at all times. The Pittsburg Post still called them “the best baseball team in the world, take it from all points,” and said that as they left the field of play, they “moved proudly out of the park and to the bus. Not a man among Captain Clarke’s force but felt the defeat keenly, yet every head was high in the air as with firm strides the National League champions skirted the howling mob and bid farewell. …The Pittsburgs, although not at all used to playing second fiddle, took their Waterloo philosophically and had nothing but good words for their conquerors, the umpires and the spectators.” 9 

Despite Tom Hughes being a 20-game winner in 1903, Collins was uncertain about the pitcher and he was sent to New York after the season, traded in December for pitcher-outfielder Jesse Tannehill. Dinneen had an even better year in 1904, going 23-14. Cy Young won fewer games in 1904, but he still won 26, with a 1.97 ERA. The Boston Americans won the AL pennant again, though it was a battle down to the final day with the New York Highlanders. John McGraw and his New York Giants simply refused to play them in the World Series. 

This article appears in “Moments of Joy and Heartbreak: 66 Significant Episodes in the History of the Pittsburgh Pirates” (SABR, 2018), edited by Jorge Iber and Bill Nowlin.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author also consulted numerous other newspapers, Retrosheet.org, and Baseball-Reference.com. Thanks to Thomas Mueller for providing the Pittsburg Post. 

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS190310130.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1903/B10130BOS1903.htm

Notes

1 “World’s Champion Bostons Win 3 to 0,” Boston Post, October 14, 1903: 5.

2 “World’s Series Goes to Boston,” Chicago Tribune, October 14, 1903: 6. “Considering the weather, the crowd of 7500 was considered extremely large,” wrote the Post. “The speculators did little or no business and lost big money.” See “Speculators Lost On Yesterday’s Ball Game,” Boston Post, October 14, 1903: 5.

3 Bill Nowlin and Jim Prime, From The Babe to the Beards: The Red Sox in the World Series (New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2014), 18.

4 “World’s Champion Bostons Win 3 to 0.”

5 Ibid. 

6 “Boston Americans Champions of World,” Boston Herald, October 14, 1903: 5.

7 W.S. Barnes Jr., “Boston Americans Are Now the Champions of the World,” Boston Journal, October 14, 1903: 1.

8 Bob Ryan, When Boston Won the World Series (Philadelphia: Running Press, 2003), 157.

9 John H. Gruber, “Dineen Shuts Out the Pirates,” Pittsburg Post, October 14, 1003: 8.

Few, if any, pitchers in Pirates history have begun their career with such a dominant stretch as Maddox. Widely considered one of the hardest-throwing pitchers in baseball, Maddox tossed an overpowering five-hit shutout, striking out 11, to beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 4-0, in his major-league debut on Friday, September 13, 1907, at Exposition Park in Pittsburgh.2 As SABR member Bill Lamb discussed in his biography of the player on the BioProject, the Pirates had owned the rights to Maddox since September 1 of the previous year, and had farmed him to the Wheeling (West Virginia) Stogies of the Class-B Central League, where he had pitched for most of the season and fired two no-hitters.3 Three days later, Maddox notched his second straight complete-game victory over the Cardinals, 4-2, in St. Louis.4

After just two starts, local papers touted him as a star. “His coolness at all times is capital and his generalship is the sort that conquers the most dangerous diamond foes,” gushed Edward F. Balinger in the Pittsburgh Post.5 In an era when baseball players were often seen as uncouth or unsavory, hard-drinking characters, Balinger praised Maddox’s temperament (indeed temperance): “He is said to be steady in his habits, which virtue is lacking among many slabmen.”6 In Maddox’s third start in eight days, he made history.

With just 18 games left to play, the Pirates, led by player-manager Fred Clarke since 1900, had no chance of capturing their first pennant since the last of three consecutive in 1903. Despite a stellar 82-54 record, they were in second place, a whopping 15½ games behind the streaking Chicago Cubs. The previous afternoon, on September 19, they kicked off their last homestand (14 games) of the campaign by defeating the fifth-place Brooklyn Superbas on Tommy Leach’s dramatic ninth-inning walk-off single for a 4-3 victory.7 Maddox was expected to contribute to the momentum, both his own and the team’s, against Brooklyn’s Elmer Stricklett, regarded by many historians as one of the originators of the spitball. The 5-foot-6, 30-year-old right-hander was in the last of his four big-league seasons during which he went 35-51 before jumping to an “outlaw” league in California, and was subsequently blacklisted from the majors by the National Commission.8

A ferocious early afternoon rainstorm threatened a Friday afternoon of baseball, but by 3:30 the skies had cleared and the sun was bright. A crowd of about 2,380, according to the Pittsburgh Post, packed Exposition Park, located on the north side of the Allegheny River, several blocks south of where PNC Park would be inaugurated in 2001.9 This geographical area had been an independent municipality called Allegheny City until it was annexed by Pittsburgh earlier that year, and became known as Pittsburgh’s North Side.

The fast-paced contest quickly revealed itself as a pitchers’ duel. Both hurlers held their opponents hitless through three frames, while Maddox walked two and Stricklett one. With two outs in the fourth, Pittsburgh flinched first. Maddox fielded Emil Batch’s chopper back to the mound and threw high to first baseman Harry Swacina, who could not hold onto the ball, enabling Batch to scamper to second. Maddox remained “perfectly cool,” opined the Pittsburgh Post, “and behaved himself like a veteran.”10 Al Burch followed with a routine grounder to shortstop Honus Wagner, whose high throw caromed off Swacina’s glove and rolled into right field, allowing Batch to score easily. “I didn’t hold that against Honus,” said Maddox decades later. “He saved my no-hitter in the ninth.”11

The Pirates’ Clarke collected the game’s first hit in the fourth by ripping a one-out double over Batch’s head in left-center, but was left stranded at the keystone sack. His teammates finally got on the board the next inning owing to Swacina’s “daring baserunning.”12 On first via walk, Swacina took off when Alan Storke executed a sacrifice bunt to third base. By the time first baseman Tim Jordan caught Doc Casey’s throw, Swacina had rounded second. According to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, catcher Bill Bergen darted to third base to take Jordan’s throw, which sailed high, permitting Swacina to race home and tie the score.13

“[T]he game was speedy in every way,” opined the Pittsburgh Press.14 While Maddox overpowered the Superbas with his fastball, with an occasional slowball tossed in, Stricklett’s “moist slants” and their corresponding dances to the plate deceived the Pirates.15

Skipper Patsy Donovan’s Superbas threatened in the seventh when Burch led off with a walk, and moved up two stations on a sacrifice and a groundout. With poor-hitting Stricklett at the plate, the speedy Burch attempted an audacious steal of home, but was tagged out by catcher George “Moon” Gibson.

With mounting tension, Honus Wagner led off the Pirates seventh with a walk. Ed Abbaticchio followed with a tailor-made double-play grounder which Jordan fielded cleanly, but threw wildly to second base to force Wagner, who easily reached third when the ball rolled into left field. After Storke drew a one-out walk to load the bases, Gibson drove in Wagner on a grounder forcing Storke at second. Stricklett retired Maddox  to keep the pressure on his mound mate.

While Stricklett yielded his second hit of the game, a two-out single by Clark in the eighth, Maddox mowed down all six batters he faced in the eighth and ninth innings. Honus Wagner recorded the final out when he fielded Billy Maloney’s chopper over Maddox’s head and rifled a bullet to Swacina to end the game in 1 hour and 30 minutes. “The ball seemed to hang in the air,” recalled the Hall of Famer. “When it finally came down, I let fly to first base without even looking for the bag. The throw just beat the runner.”16

In fashioning the Pirates’ maiden no-hitter, Maddox fanned five, walked three, and hit a batter. The Pittsburgh Post reported that the Superbas did not manage a “semblance” of a hit.17 The “boy behaves as though he had been working in major league company for ten years instead of ten days,” wrote Balinger enthusiastically of Maddox.18 A tough-luck loser, Stricklett walked four; however, newspaper accounts considered it noteworthy that he did not register a strikeout considering the effectiveness of his spitter, which the Pirates chopped into the grass all afternoon.

Prior to Maddox’s gem, there had been three no-hitters in Pittsburgh, each of which occurred when the Alleghenys were members of the American Association. Guy Hecker of the Louisville Colonels tossed the first on September 19, 1882. Ed Morris of the Columbus Buckeyes fashioned the second, on May 29, 1884. Both of those took place at the first incarnation of Exposition Park. On October 7, 1886, Matt Kilroy of the Baltimore Orioles held the Alleghenys hitless in front of 600 spectators at Recreation Park, situated several blocks north of where Exposition Park had been built around 1880. At that time, pitchers threw from a box 50 feet from home plate; the pitcher’s box was removed in 1893 and was replaced by a pitcher’s plate, located 60 feet 6 inches from home plate.

Two days after Maddox’s historic performance, team owner Barney Dreyfuss and the Pirates traveled by Pullman coach to Wheeling to play an exhibition game with the Stogies on what the Pittsburgh Press called “Nick Maddox Day.”19 While Stogies fans clamored for the Pirates’ new favorite son to start the game, manager Clarke kept his wits, but sent Maddox to the mound for only the first three innings in the Pirates eventual 5-3 victory in 11 innings.20

Maddox continued his hot pitching in his fourth start with a distance-going six-hit victory, 14-1, against the New York Giants in Pittsburgh on September 25. Impressively, he extended his hitless streak to 13 innings.21 The next Pirates hurler to win his first four big-league starts was Gerrit Cole in 2013. Maddox completed all six of his starts in 1907, winning five of them, and permitting just five earned runs in 54 innings (0.83 ERA). After winning 23 games in 1908, and helping the Pirates to their first World Series championship in 1909, Maddox developed arm problems in 1910 and was sold to the Kansas City Blues in the American Association, never to return to the big stage. In four years with the Pirates he posted a 43-20 record.

This article appears in “Moments of Joy and Heartbreak: 66 Significant Episodes in the History of the Pittsburgh Pirates” (SABR, 2018), edited by Jorge Iber and Bill Nowlin. To read more stories from this book at the SABR Games Project, click here.

Sources

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

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1907/B09200PIT1907.htm

Notes

1 “Pirates Win a Great Game,” Pittsburgh Press, September 21, 1907: 8.

2 “Won Fine Game From St. Louis,” Pittsburgh Press, September 14, 1907: 5.

3 Bill Lamb, “Nick Maddox, SABR BioProject, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/1ee85e7c.

4 “Pirates Got an Even Break,” Pittsburgh Press, September 17, 1907: 10.

5 Edward F. Balinger, “Review of Sports During the Week,” Pittsburgh Post, September 22, 1907: 16.

6 Ibid.

7 “Fine Finish by Pirates, “Pittsburgh Press, September 20, 1907: 22.

8 Stephen V. Rice, “Elmer Stricklett,” SABR BioProject, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/e350a2d2.

9 “Maddox Proves Bright Star in Sensational Slab Battle,” Pittsburgh Post, September 21, 1907: 7.

10 Ibid.

11 Paul Meyers, “September 20, 1907: Nick Maddox pitched the first no-hitter in Pirates franchise history,” Pittsburgh-Post-Gazette, September 20, 2007, https://post-gazette.com/sports/2007/09/20/September-20-1907-Nick-Maddox-pitched-the-first-no-hitter-in-Pirates-franchise-history/stories/200709200425/.

12 “Superbas Fail to Make a Hit, Yet Nearly Win the Game,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, September 21, 1907: 12.

13 Ibid.

14 “Pirates Win a Great Game,” Pittsburgh Press.

15 “Maddox Proves Bright Star in Sensational Slab Battle,” Pittsburgh Post.

16 Meyers.

17 Maddox Proves Bright Star in Sensational Slab Battle,” Pittsburgh Post.

18 Balinger.

19 “New Man to Help Locals,” Pittsburgh Press, September 22, 1907: 18.

20 “Wheeling Is Beaten in Bitter Struggle,” Pittsburgh Post, September 23, 1907: 7.

21 Nick Maddox Invincible,” Pittsburgh Press, September 26, 1907: 14.

Hope was high for Pirates fans. That morning’s Pittsburgh Press included a feature item on the sports page entitled “Pirates and Tigers Likely to Clash for The World’s Pennant.”1 Pirates fans knew that in order to make that prediction a reality, their team would have to go through the defending world champion Chicago Cubs. The Cubs and Pirates were to play the first game of this important five-game set at Exposition Park on Tuesday before moving across town to inaugurate the brand-new Forbes Field on Wednesday. The local papers were full of notes that morning both about the importance of the game to the season standings, but also the closing of Exposition Park and the anticipation of opening Forbes Field the next day. A few highlights:

• Last game at Exposition Park.
• Dedication ceremonies at Forbes Field tomorrow start at 2:30, and the Cubs-Pirates contest at 3:30.
• The Pittsburg baseball club now has two big canvas coverings for its infield. Both will be spread over Forbes Field tonight.
• President Dreyfuss [president of the Pittsburgh Pirates] yesterday received a letter from [United States] President W.H. Taft, expressing regret over his inability to attend the opening of Forbes Field.
• The Cubs won the only game they have played in Pittsburg this season. It was that memorable 11-inning battle of May 29, played in the presence of President William H. Taft.
• It is fitting that Chicago should be the attraction in the last game at Exposition Park. A Chicago team was the first to play the locals in that historic game, the game occurring on April 22, 1891. The Pirates were defeated in 10 innings, 7-6.2

The Sporting News previewed the series by talking about the important race between the front-runners but also the historic closing of an old home and opening of a new home for the Pirates. “Five games are to be played, starting on Tuesday, which marks the final appearance of any ball team at Exposition Park, which has been the home of the bold Buccaneers for many years. Base ball history has been made there, but the field has grown too small to accommodate the large crowds that want to attend the games.”3

Exposition Park (actually the third incarnation of a park with that name, so sometimes referred to as Expo III) was built in 1890 by the Pittsburgh Burghers of the Players League on the north side of the Allegheny River near where PNC Park stands today. It had a capacity of 10,000 in two-tiered covered wooden grandstands and giant deadball dimensions: 400 feet to each line and 450 feet to center. When the Players League folded after just one season, the Pittsburgh Alleghenies of the National League (just renamed the Pirates) moved in for the 1891 season. The high point of Exposition Park history came in 1903 when the Pirates, led by Honus Wagner, faced off against Cy Young’s Boston Americans in the first modern World Series. The first Series game to be played in a National League Park was at Exposition Park on October 6, 1903, which the Pirates won, 5-4, in front of 7,600 fans before eventually losing the best-of-nine Series, five games to three. Continual problems with flooding and sewage backup in the field due to its location near the river, as well as a small capacity, led the Pirates ownership to build Forbes Field, which held 25,000, in Bellefield, in Pittsburgh’s East End, far from any rivers.4

Perhaps saving their excitement for the new park, only 5,545 fans paid for a ticket that Tuesday to say goodbye to Exposition Park.5 At the same time, hundreds of baseball fans watched the game for free from their picnic seats on the bluffs surrounding Exposition Park.6 They were all treated to an offensive showing by the home team as the Pirates, behind Albert “Lefty” Leifield, beat Mordecai “Three-Finger” Brown and the Cubs, 8-1. The scoring started in the first inning as the Pirates scored four runs on three hits off the right-handed Brown, including a two-run triple by rookie second baseman Jack “Dots” Miller, earning him two of his 87 RBIs for the year; he trailed only his famous teammate, shortstop Honus Wagner, for the team lead. (Wagner led the team as season’s end with 100 RBIS.) Pittsburgh added another run in the bottom of the third, also driven in by Miller.

After six innings, Heinie Zimmerman pinch-hit for Brown in the top of the seventh. Left-hander Jack Pfiester took over mound duties for Chicago; he finished the 1909 season with a 17-6 mark and a 2.43 ERA, the final one of four very good seasons pitching for the Cubs. Brown had given up five runs on nine hits and a base on balls; Pfiester gave up three runs on five hits, without walking a batter. All three runs off Pfiester scored in the seventh, with Dots Miller collecting his fourth RBI of the afternoon.

Meanwhile Leifield held the Cubs to seven hits, struck out four, and finished the game on his own. The Cubs scored their lone run in the eighth inning.

Leifield struck out Cubs catcher Jimmy Archer for the final out, and baseball at Exposition Park was no more. The time of game had been 1 hour and 40 minutes, with future Hall of Fame umpire Hank O’Day working the plate and veteran Bob Emslie, in the midst of his 35 years as a National League umpire, working at first base. The Pittsburgh Press commented, “The Pirates proved stronger than their opponents in every department, in spite of the fact that Chicago had the services of Frank Chance for the first time in six weeks. The Cubs saw plainly that they were up against it, and tried to cover up some of their shortcomings by arguing with the umpires, but this ruse failed to work.”7 Two errors were committed during the game, both by Chicago.

Even before the end of the game, while the Cubs were still at bat in the ninth inning, the farewell ceremonies began. The Pittsburgh Daily Post described the scene in serious tones:

When the champions went to bat in the ninth, the notes of a bugle broke the silence. Commodore Charles Zieg, the well-known local musician, had quietly taken a position on the circus seats back of middlefield, and as soon as it was certain that Chicago had been hopelessly crushed, he sounded “taps” through his cornet. At the same time Groundskeeper Jim O’Malley commenced lowering the big flag, and just as Old Glory touched the ground and the last note of the farewell bugle call ceased, [Cubs’ catcher Jimmy] Archer struck out and the historic old baseball lot had passed into history.8

Perhaps not surprisingly, the Chicago Tribune’s reporter did not share the sentimentality in reporting the same events:. “In the Cubs’ half of the ninth inning a pathetic scene was enacted,” wrote Ring Lardner, “the bugler playing taps with more or less accuracy while the American flag was let down from the top of the pennant pole, which hasn’t held a pennant for some time and never will again.”9

Whatever anyone thought of the closing of Exposition Park, the season was a great success for the Pirates. That Tuesday’s 8-1 victory was one of 110 games won during the 1909 season as the Pirates held off the Cubs to win the pennant by 6½ games. In October, they did indeed face off with Hughie Jennings’ Detroit Tigers, winning the World Series in seven games. Meanwhile, the Pirates played the next 61 years at Forbes Field before moving near the river to Three Rivers Stadium in July 1970.

This article appears in “Moments of Joy and Heartbreak: 66 Significant Episodes in the History of the Pittsburgh Pirates” (SABR, 2018), edited by Jorge Iber and Bill Nowlin. To read more stories from this book at the SABR Games Project, click here.

Sources

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

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/PIT/PIT190906290.shtml

http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1909/B06290PIT1909.htm

Notes

1 D.L. Reeves, “Pirates and Tigers Likely to Clash for The World’s Pennant,” Pittsburgh Press, June 29, 1909: 8.

2 Excerpted from “Baseball Notes,” Pittsburgh Press, June 29, 1909: 8. Taft had attended the May 29 game.

3 Ralph S. Davis “Test for Pirates,” The Sporting News, July 1, 1909: 4.

4 “Exposition Park: Birthplace of Pittsburgh Baseball & Site of First World Series,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 11, 2006: 8.

5 “Curtain at Exposition Park Falls After Pirate Victory,” Pittsburgh Daily Post, June 30, 1909: 8.

6 Ibid.

7 “Pirates Win Last Game at Expo Park,” Pittsburgh Press, June 30, 1909: 18.

8 Ibid.

9 R.W. Lardner, “Pirates Take First Game of Series From Cubs, 8-1,” Chicago Tribune, June 30, 1909: 12.

The new baseball palace was located in the elite Oakland/Schenley area of Pittsburgh on property on the southern boundary of the newly named University of Pittsburgh, which moved there in 1907 from downtown, nearly three miles west. Visionary Andrew Carnegie himself had spearheaded an extended development program to make it an area to rival downtown. He succeeded beyond expectations. Schenley Park, the most pristine in the city, abutted the ballpark along the outfield wall. From their seats, fans could see Carnegie Institute, Carnegie Tech, the University of Pittsburgh, and a host of affluent homes and mansions. 

It was a day for the fans and the city of Pittsburgh to relish. Many firms had closed for the day to allow employees to attend the game. Patrons began to arrive at the park at 9:00 A.M. to buy 25-cent bleacher seats, since all reserved seats and most grandstand admittance seats were gone. The gates were scheduled to open to the general public at 1:00 P.M. By that hour thousands of baseball patrons of every class milled about in front of the red, white, and blue bunting that patriotically festooned the elegantly adorned façade and gates. The B&O Railroad had put on extra cars to bring in excursion groups from outlying communities. In spite of a strike settled just the day before, the trolley system proved up to the task of handling its largest day’s traffic in history. The throng was abuzz with revelry, laughter, excitement, and awe over the spectacular new ballpark they were about to enter. 

Fans came attired in their Sunday best. The ladies wore garments in delicate tints and bonnets of every description. The men wore suits, ties (noticeably bows), coats, and hats. Hats of every kind. By far the most popular were straws: sailors, Milans, and Panamas.2 

The stands, when filled, looked like a massive sea of waving straw hats. Dreyfuss had lined up an army of attendants to take care of the grandstand spectators. Red, white, and blue megaphones were passed out, largely to the ladies, accentuating the colorful flow of revelers. 

Because of the overflow crowd, men and boys without seats “were perched on girders or clung to pillars.”3 From the end of the grandstand to the end of the bleachers in left field and along the outfield wall was a necklace of humanity seated on the ground.  Failing to get a seat on the grass, males climbed to the top of the walls to sit, legs dangling.

While the massive crowd was locating seats, it was entertained by two lively bands, the Nirella and the Fourteenth Regiment, stationed at either end of the huge grandstand. Once the crowd was settled in the dedication ceremonies began. “Come the trumpeters from the Nirella Band, clad in gaudy red coats, hats of the helmet brand with white plumes, sound the glad greeting that all is well and it is time for the real fun to begin.”4 The blare of the instruments brought a mighty roar from the crowd of 30,000. 

The two bands converged at home plate to lead the dedication procession. From clubhouses beneath the grandstand contingents began to emerge: the current Pirates team, led by player-manager Fred Clarke, the men in suits (city fathers, baseball-team owners and magnates, prominent businessmen), and the Chicago Cubs team. The crowd roared when one final contingent emerged, the old warriors of Pirates teams past. They were the honorees this day and led by “Uncle” Al Pratt, the founder and manager of Pittsburgh’s first professional baseball team, the Alleghenys.5 

The current ballplayers removed their caps and opened ranks with great respect to allow the “old warriors” to pass through and take their place of honor behind the bands. Harry Pulliam, president of the National League, and Ban Johnson, president of the American League, led the “suits” and current players. The entire line marched slowly to the center-field flagpole, where the bands began to play America.  “A monster flag was raised to the top of the flagstaff.”6 The crowd rose in unison when it reached its pinnacle. There followed “a touching silence, which became profound when the flag was dropped to half mast out of respect to Israel W. Durham of the Philadelphia club, who died this week.”7 The curtain came down on the dedication ceremonies when Pittsburgh Mayor William Magee threw out the first pitch. 

Certainly, the Pirates faithful wanted to cap off this spectacular and historic week with a victory. The game turned out to be a well-fought pitchers’ duel between a pair of veteran right-handers, Vic Willis for the Pirates and Ed Reulbach for the Cubs. The latter had led the NL in winning percentage for the previous three seasons. Willis, as it turned out, was playing his last season with the Bucs.8 

Willis had a bit of a shaky start. He hit the leadoff batter, Johnny Evers. Jimmy Sheckard walked. Solly Hofman laid down a sacrifice, advancing both runners. Cubs player-manager Frank Chance got his only hit of the day, a single, scoring Evers. Sheckard tried to take home on the hit but was thrown out at the plate. 

Both pitchers settled in and allowed no further scoring until the sixth, when the Pirates tied the game. The “Flying Dutchman,” Honus Wagner, singled. Rookie Bill Abstein sacrificed and Wagner scored when another rookie, Dots Miller, singled.  

The deadlock was broken in the eighth. Evers singled and Sheckard sacrificed, gaining second on an errant throw into the crowd by third baseman Jap Barbeau. After Hofman flied out, Chance hit a grounder to second baseman Dots Miller, who threw home to get Evers. But Evers got his second run of the day when catcher George Gibson dropped the throw. Harry Steinfeldt laid down a bunt that Gibson could have played to get Sheckard coming home. Instead he went for a seemingly easy out at first to get Steinfeldt. Sheckard scored before Abstein made the putout. The Cubs were up by two runs, 3-1.  

The Pirates rallied in the bottom of the eighth. Or did they? With one out, Clarke walked. Wagner flied out. Uncharacteristically, Evers muffed an easy fly ball, allowing Abstein to reach first. Dots Miller hit a ball to deep center field. Although enthusiasm ran high throughout the game, “pandemonium broke loose when Miller made his hit in the eighth inning, which looked like the game winning wallop.”9 Or was it? 

While fielding the hit, Solly Hofman touched the ball, which spurted into the crowd. All three runners – Clarke, Abstein, and Miller – came home. However, the umpires held a conference and decided the play was subject to a ground-rule double due to the involvement of the spectators. Clarke scored but Abstein was sent back to third and Miller to second. Left-handed-swinging rookie Ham Hyatt pinch-hit for Chief Wilson and struck out, ending the inning. Neither team could mount an offense in the ninth as the Pirates left the tying run on third base during the game-ending force play at second base. The score held up: Cubs 3, Pirates 2. The time of game was 1 hour and 50 minutes.

The Pirates had five hits to the Cubs’ four, and Reulbach had walked six Pirates to Willis’s three, but the Cubs put across three runs to Pittsburgh’s two. 

Owner Dreyfuss, who sorely wanted to cap off one of the most memorable weeks in Pittsburgh history with a win, lamented: “What a shame we had to lose that one. I’d have given my share of the gate to have won on this day.”10 

At the end of the day 30,338 baseball patrons had passed through the turnstiles of the new baseball palace, which seated only 25,000. It was the largest crowd that ever witnessed a baseball game up to that time.11 In spite of the loss, the Pirates went on to win the National League pennant by 6½ games over the Cubs and defeated  Ty Cobb and the Detroit Tigers in seven games to win its first World Series. 

Forbes Field arguably spawned the most spectacular kickoff of any stadium in baseball history on June 30, 1909. After the din died down, the new stadium took on the daily task of serving the Pirates and their faithful followers and the Pittsburgh community. It served both spheres admirably and honorably. Over the next six-plus decades it became an iconic symbol of the spirit of the region it served. 

This article appears in “Moments of Joy and Heartbreak: 66 Significant Episodes in the History of the Pittsburgh Pirates” (SABR, 2018), edited by Jorge Iber and Bill Nowlin. To read more stories from this book at the SABR Games Project, click here.

Sources 

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

Bernstein, Sam. “Barney Dreyfuss,” sabr.org/bioproj/person/29ceb9e0. 

Constans, L.H. “Forbes Field: The Great Stadium of the Pittsburgh Pirates,” library.la84.org/SportsLibrary/BBM/1913/bb1m07u.pdf. 

Ritter, Lawrence S. Lost Ballparks (New York: Penguin Group, 1992), 63-71. 

Smith, Curt. “Forbes Field (Pittsburgh),” https://sabr.org/bioproj/park/forbes-field-pittsburgh. 

“Beautiful Forbes Field,” Pittsburgh Press, July 1, 1909. 

“Opening Day Crowd Greatest on Record,” Pittsburgh Press, July 1, 1909. 

“Pirates Lose First Game on Forbes Field,” Pittsburgh Daily Post, July 1, 1909. 

“Showed He Was Game,” Pittsburgh Press, July 1, 1909. 

“Straw Hat Sale Enters Last Lap,” Pittsburgh Press, June 28, 1909. 

“World’s Greatest Baseball Park to Open Wednesday,” Pittsburgh Press, June 29, 1909. 

Notes 

1 Forbes Field was named for a British officer, John Forbes, who was a hero in the French and Indian Wars. In 1758 Colonel Forbes (later promoted to general) led the campaign to capture Fort Duquesne from the French. As the enemy fled, it burned the fort. Forbes immediately rebuilt it, naming it Fort Pitt after British Secretary of State William Pitt the Elder. Forbes also named the settlement at the junction of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers Pittsburgh.

2 Haberdashers in downtown Pittsburgh conducted sales campaigns to dress every male fan in a straw hat for this game.

3 “New Home of Pirates Taxed,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 1, 1909.

4 Ibid.

5 Al (“Uncle Al”) Pratt was a pitcher-outfielder for the Cleveland Forest Citys in 1869-1870. The team was in the Professional League of Baseball Players, the first professional league in America. In 1880 he founded the first major-league club in Pittsburgh, the Alleghenys, which joined the American Association.  The team began play in 1882 with Pratt as its manager through 1883. He dropped out of major-league baseball at the end of the 1883 season.

6 “New Home of Pirates Taxed.”

7 Ibid. Israel Wilson Durham was a state senator from Philadelphia and briefly the president and principal owner of the Philadelphia Phillies in 1909.

8 Vic Willis pitched in the NL for 13 years, four of which were with the Pirates. He was a mainstay of the Pittsburgh starting rotation. He went 22-11 in 1909 and led the league with 35 starts. Before the start of the 1910 campaign, he was a Cardinal. In 1911 he was out of baseball. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1995.

9  “Immense Throng at Forbes Field,” Pittsburgh Press, July 1, 1909.

10  Daniel Levitt, “Vic Willis,” SABR BioProject. https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/3c061442.

11 The Forbes Field opener exceeded the previous attendance high for a baseball game, 30,247, on October 4, 1908, in Chicago. That game was also a Pittsburgh-Chicago game.

But an uncharacteristic performance by the Pirates’ Owen “Chief” Wilson made the day a memorable one for baseball fans. 

The location was Cincinnati’s Palace of the Fans, a ballpark that hosted the city’s major-league baseball team from 1902 through 1911. Unique in that it sported what Reds historians Greg Rhodes and John Erardi called “the most distinctive grandstand ever built at a major league baseball park,”1 the structure was inspired by the neoclassical White City structures at the 1893 World’s Columbia Exposition in Chicago. This location in Cincinnati would later make way for Redland Field in 1912, and ultimately Crosley Field in 1934, the Reds’ home until Riverfront Stadium hosted its first major-league game in June 1970. 

The visiting Pirates sent Howie Camnitz to the mound, a 28-year-old right-hander who won 25 games the previous season. At 4-5, he had yet to match his 1909 brilliance, and in fact had given up four runs in a start that lasted just four innings two days earlier, a 4-1 loss at the Pirates’ own Forbes Field. 

The Reds countered with Harry Gaspar, who sported a modest 7-6 record after posting wins in his previous two outings. And for three innings, the right-handed Gaspar continued his effectiveness, suffering little damage at the hands of the Pirates except for a bunt single by Wilson. 

But when the Chief stepped to the plate with two outs in the fourth, a crooked number quickly adorned the scoreboard. 

From the Pittsburgh Post: “Wilson’s four-ply hit vanished the Reds defense into thin air. For four rounds after Billy Klem, the master of ceremonies, had introduced the principals, Camnitz and (George) Gibson for Pittsburgh, and Gaspar and (Larry) McLean for Cincinnati, the game progressed in such a scientific manner that spectators were in doubt about the outcome. Then Wilson got busy. With two down in the fourth and (Honus) Wagner on second the Texan successfully robbed Gaspar of his good name as a pitcher, wheeled Wagner home and made the entire circuit while (Mike) Mitchell was returning the ball to the infield.”2 

Gaspar managed to hang around until the sixth inning, but Wilson’s third hit of the day, a double, drove in Ham Hyatt with the final run of the frame after Fred Clarke and Wagner had previously scored. Gaspar managed to retire Gibson and Camnitz to end the inning, but his day was terminated after he allowed five runs and nine hits. 

For Camnitz’s part, the Pirates pitcher hadn’t allowed a run through six frames, a vast improvement over his performance against the Reds two days earlier. He wasn’t dominant, scattering 12 hits in the contest, but the Kentucky-born hurler was able to keep Cincinnati from mounting a serious rally, allowing single runs in the seventh and ninth innings, after the outcome had presumably been decided. It was the most safeties allowed in a game by Camnitz in his mediocre 1910 campaign (he also allowed 12 hits in a win over Boston on May 18), but he still tallied a win for his efforts. 

With three innings remaining, Cincinnati manager Clark Griffith sent Rube Benton to the hill. An interesting character, Benton has been described as “a hard-throwing, fast-living left-hander” who “had a reputation for drinking, gambling, and driving too fast.”3 The Reds had purchased his contract a few days earlier (he was a Class-D player at the time), and this represented only his second appearance in the big leagues. 

It didn’t go well, as intimated in the Pittsburgh Post: “Like all bush leaguers Benton relies on his alleged ability to strike out opposing batsmen. The minor leaguers fish at balls which do not come over the plate, but the ball players on the Pittsburgh and Chicago clubs just fold their arms and let the Rube hang himself with his own rope. In language more easily understood they wait and wait and Rube walks and walks.”4 

Benton did walk four in three innings, and he also surrendered five hits, including a single by Tommy Leach and an RBI double by Clarke, the second and third batters he faced. Three Pirates scored in the seventh before Benton struck out Gibson to end the attack, and the Pirates had jetted to an 8-0 lead. 

In the bottom of the seventh, Cincinnati finally tallied a run, on consecutive singles by Mike Mitchell, Dode Paskert, and McLean, three of the 12 hits allowed by Camnitz in the contest. Despite the offensive prowess shown throughout the contest, the Reds had only themselves to rely on, as Camnitz didn’t issue a single free pass, nor did his fielders commit an error. 

Unsympathetic, Pittsburgh answered with two more runs in the eighth on two walks and two hits, including Clarke’s third counter of the game. The runs pushed the Pirates’ lead to 10-1, and although the top of the ninth was scoreless, with one out, Wilson delivered a triple to complete the cycle. He was left stranded at third when the inning concluded. 

Wilson reached base in all five plate appearances, including an eighth-inning error by Cincinnati second baseman Sam Woodruff, a stand-in for Dick Egan, who was ailing with a lame arm. 

An insignificant run in the final frame for the Reds came from hits by Dick Hoblitzell, Mitchell, and McLean, and the Pirates left town with a 10-2 victory, heading directly to Chicago for a four-game series with the league-leading Cubs. 

Cincinnati’s hurlers were anything but stellar, with Gaspar and Benton each allowing five runs, while the Pirates’ Camnitz avenged his subpar outing of two days earlier. 

Offensively, the Reds’ McLean had three safeties, as did Clarke for the Pittsburgh side. Wagner scored three times while being credited with two hits, but it was the Chief who stole the headlines with 10 total bases and a hit of each variety. 

Cincinnati Enquirer sportswriter Jack Ryder summed up the contest this way: 

“It was one of those games which reminded one of the champs of last season, with everyone hitting the ball hard and getting a lot of runs from their hard poling. Chief Wilson had a great picnic at the bat, a regular Fourth of July celebration all by himself. He cut in with every variety of bingle, from a single to a home run. Five times up, he got on every time, making a single, a double, a triple and a home run, and reaching first the other time on a fumble by Woodruff.”5 

The win kept the Pirates in third place in the National League standings, but they never got within reasonable distance of the Cubs, who won the pennant in 1910 by 12 games over the second-place New York Giants. Pittsburgh was a distant third, 17½ games back. 

Notably, Chief Wilson’s outstanding performance was the only time a major-league player hit for the cycle in Palace of the Fans ballpark. 

This article appears in “Moments of Joy and Heartbreak: 66 Significant Episodes in the History of the Pittsburgh Pirates” (SABR, 2018), edited by Jorge Iber and Bill Nowlin. To read more stories from this book at the SABR Games Project, click here.

Sources 

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

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CIN/CIN191007030.shtml

http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1910/B07030CIN1910.htm

Notes

1 Jeff Suess, “Reds’ Legendary Palace of the Fans Symbol of Baseball’s Growth,” Cincinnati.com, April 7, 2017, https://cincinnati.com/story/news/2017/04/05/reds-legendary-palace-fans-symbol-baseballs-growth/100063096/, September 4, 2017.

2 “World’s Champions Have Easy Time Beating Reds,” Pittsburgh Daily Post, July 4, 1910.

3 Bill Bishop, “Rube Benton,” posted online at https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/36b8167d.

4 “World’s Champions Have Easy Time.”

5 Jack Ryder, “After Six Rounds Against the Pirates, Mr. Gaspar Failed to Hold the Champs Safely,” Cincinnati Enquirer, July 4, 1910.

Despite banging out 16 hits in the second contest, the Pirates could not beat New York’s Rube Marquard, who tossed a complete game to secure his 25th win of the season. The left-handed-throwing Marquard had won his first 19 starts of the season before losing to the Chicago Cubs on July 8. His confidence was high each time he took the ball. His opponent on the mound was Pittsburgh right-hander Claude Hendrix, who “suffered a bombardment in the first four innings.”5 From July 4 through August 14, Hendrix had 11 straight starts of at least eight innings, but in his last starting effort before this game, he had been knocked out after three innings and was used out of the bullpen once; for four innings two days earlier.

Pittsburgh started the action in the bottom of the first inning, as leadoff batter Solly Hofman doubled down the right-field line and scored on a single by Wagner. The Flying Dutchman promptly stole second base, his second steal of the day, but Dots Miller grounded out to pitcher Marquard to end the threat.

In the top of the second, New York’s Red Murray led off with a triple, and scored on a double down the right-field line by Fred Merkle. After Buck Herzog sacrificed Merkle to third, Chief Meyers followed with a single, but Merkle did not score. So with Art Fletcher batting, Giants manager John McGraw put on the double steal. Pirates catcher George Gibson threw the ball into center field trying to get Meyers at second, and the error allowed Merkle to motor home. Merkle was credited with a stolen base as well. The Giants now led, 2-1.

In the fourth inning, Herzog tripled, Meyers singled, and Fletcher tripled, and New York had two more tallies to make the score 4-1. In the fifth inning, Pirates skipper Fred Clarke replaced Hendrix with Ed Warner, a rookie left-hander. Hendrix had yielded seven hits to the 19 batters he faced. Warner would also face 19 batters and give up four runs.

In the sixth inning, each team scored once. New York manufactured its run when Herzog was hit by a pitch, motored to third on a single by Meyers, and scored on a fielder’s choice when Fletcher grounded to Wagner, who forced Meyers at second. “The Corsairs got this run back”6 when Wagner led off with a triple to the fence in left-center. He trotted home when Miller singled up the middle to cut the Giants’ advantage to 5-2. Then, in the bottom of the seventh, Pittsburgh struck again as Hofman singled to right, followed by Max Carey, who lifted a fly ball down the left-field line that dropped in for a double as New York’s Fred Snodgrass, who had raced over to make a shoestring catch, instead saw the ball slip through his fingers. Hofman halted at third. Snodgrass insisted that the ball had landed foul, but umpire Bill Klem, from home plate, “declared it safe.”7 Wagner drove a ball to center, and this time it was Beals Becker who couldn’t make the play, and the ball dropped in. This double enabled Wagner to trade places with Carey, who scored behind Hofman. Miller then singled again, and “Wagner carried the tying run across the pan.”8 The score was now tied at 5-5.

Four New York hits resulted in three more runs in the Giants’ half of the eighth. With one out, Herzog singled. Meyers doubled him home, and then scored on Marquard’s single into center field. Snodgrass drove a triple to deep left, and “Marquard waltzed home.”9 Pittsburgh manager Clarke called on right-hander King Cole to pitch the ninth, and Cole retired the Giants in order. 

The Pirates tried to mount a two-out rally in the ninth. According to the Pittsburgh Daily Post, “Wagner sailed the sphere over the left field fence above the twelfth panel, but nobody was on when it happened and the jig was up.”10 Miller, who was 3-for-5 in the game, came up next and doubled to center, but he was stranded as Alex McCarthy, pinch-hitting for Chief Wilson, flied out to Larry Doyle past second base for the final out of the game. The Giants had won, 8-6. 

TheNew York Timesdescribed Wagner’s performance with great praise. His “quartet of hits figured in every Pittsburgh run, three being scored by the Teuton and the other three chased home by his timely smashes. On the paths he showed that Father Time is still a stranger by stealing two bases, and in the field he galloped nimbly on all sides of his position, accepting fourteen chances out of a possible fifteen.”11 In the last four innings of the tight second game, the 38-year-old Wagner had come to bat three times, and produced a triple, double, and home run.

Of the 29 hits between the two squads, 13 went for extra bases. Wagner hit the only home run, but there were five triples and seven doubles. The distances to the fences in left, center, and right field were 360 feet, 462 feet, and 376 feet, respectively,12 so the spacious stadium allowed for extra-base hits. In the cycle, Wagner was 4-for-5 and added a stolen base. His fifth home run of the season instantly became “the longest over-the-fence home run ever poled at Forbes Field.”13 The game was “an old-fashioned slugging bee, with doubles and triples coming so fast that the outfielders were legweary from chasing the ball.”14 In addition to Wagner’s four safeties, Pittsburgh’s Hofman, Carey, and Miller each had three hits in the losing effort. Gibson and Warner were the only other Pittsburgh players to get hits.

For Pittsburgh, Hendrix and Warner combined to allow eight earned runs to the Giants; Cole pitched one scoreless inning. Warner picked up the loss, the only loss of his major-league career.15 Every New York batter except Becker got at least one hit. Meyers had the most productive day for New York, going 4-for-4 with two runs scored and two batted in. Five different New Yorkers pushed runs across home plate.

At the end of the day, the Giants stood at 78-33, atop the National League, while the third-place Pirates had a record of 67-45. In the first two weeks of September, the Pirates won 12 games in a row, but remained mired in third. After September 2, they went 21-5, finally climbing to second by the season’s last week. They ended the campaign with a sterling record of 93-58-2, but 10 games behind New York.

New York fans might have been disappointed, as McGraw used his two aces, Mathewson and Marquard, and his Giants lost a half-game in the standings to the second-place Cubs, who were now four games behind. The Giants had been alone in first place since May 21, due to three nine-game winning streaks and another of 16 games, which carried through to July 3. McGraw’s team finished at 103-48-3, taking the second of three consecutive National League pennants.

Wagner’s cycle was the fifth in Pittsburgh franchise history. Fred Carroll had the first, on May 2, 1887. Player-manager Clarkecycled on July 23, 1901, and again on May 7, 1903. Chief Wilson accomplished the rare feat on July 3, 1910. After Wagner’s accomplishment, Pirates fans would have to wait nine years before Dave Robertson hit for the cycle on August 30, 1921. From Fred Carroll (May 2, 1887) to John Jaso (September 28, 2016), 24 Pirates have hit for the cycle, the most of any major-league team, as of the beginning of the 2017 season.

This article appears in “Moments of Joy and Heartbreak: 66 Significant Episodes in the History of the Pittsburgh Pirates” (SABR, 2018), edited by Jorge Iber and Bill Nowlin. To read more stories from this book at the SABR Games Project, click here.

Sources

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/PIT/PIT191208222.shtml

http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1912/B08222PIT1912.htm

Notes

1 Ed F. Balinger, “Buccaneers and Giants Break Even in Bargain on Forbes Field,” Pittsburgh Daily Post, August 23, 1912: 13.

2 Ibid.

3 Retrosheet lists the attendance at 25,000. The Pittsburgh Daily Postproclaimed 20,000 fans, the New York Timeslisted 27,000 spectators, but the Pittsburgh Post-Gazetterecorded 25,000. According to Forbes Field: Essays and Memories of the Pirates’ Historic Ballpark, 1909-1971, the stadium capacity was 25,000. See David Cicotello and Angelo J. Louisa, Forbes Field: Essays and Memories of the Pirates’ Historic Ballpark, 1909-1971(Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2007). 

4 Balinger.

5 James Jerpe, “Wagner and Camnitz Star While Pirates and Giants Draw Even,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, August 23, 1912: 8.

6 Balinger: 14.

7 Ibid. In 1912, only two umpires worked the game. Klem was behind home plate and Jim Johnstone worked first base.

8 Ibid.

9 Ibid. Marquard was a decent hitter, sporting a .215 average at this point in the season. In 1912, he had 10 runs batted in, helping his cause on the mound.

10 Balinger: 13.

11 “Giants Divide With Pirates,” New York Times, August 23, 1912: 7.

12 Michael Gershman. Diamonds: The Evolution of the Ballpark(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2003), 90.

13 Jerpe. Forbes Field opened in 1909, so it had been home to the Pirates for just three seasons.

14 New York Times.

15 Warner’s major-league career lasted for two months.He appeared in 11 games in 1912, starting three. He got one victory, a shutout of the Boston Braves.

It’s been a century since there was a tripleheader played in major-league baseball. Research has turned up only three instances of tripleheaders. The most recent one was played at Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field on October 2, 1920, and it definitively determined which team would finish in third place in the National League that year.

After the close of play on September 30, the Brooklyn Robins were in first place and the New York Giants in second place. Bad weather prevented games between the reigning world champion but now third-place Cincinnati Reds (80-69) and the fourth-place Pittsburgh Pirates (77-73) on either September 30 or October 1. The two teams each had four games left on their schedule, three against each other and one against other teams on October 3 (the Pirates in Chicago against the Cubs, with the Reds hosting the Cardinals.) Mathematics shows that should the Pirates and Reds get in their three games and the Pirates sweep, both teams would have 80 wins. Third place would be resolved on October 3; at the time, finishing third earned the team a share of the World Series proceeds. Fourth place earned nothing.1

Pirates owner Barney Dreyfuss suggested three games in one day, beginning at noon. Sunset on October 2 was at 6:01 P.M. National League President John Heydler agreed to Dreyfuss’s suggestion.2 Everyone in Pittsburgh knew that “one defeat this afternoon will kill the Buccos’ chances.”3

“Talk about your bargain days,” wrote Pittsburgh Post-Gazette sportswriter Charles J. Doyle. “Come early and bring your lunch. The big show begins at 12 o’clock and will continue for five or six hours. All for one price of admission, folks, and the sideshow thrown in.”4 Doyle said the gates would open “some time after breakfast” and “last, but not by any means least, the baseball writers will be served a lunch. It will not be in liquid form. Tough luck.”5

Pirates manager George Gibson, wrapping up his first season as skipper, assigned the starting role for the first game to Pittsburgh’s ace, left-hander Wilbur Cooper, who entered the game with a record of 24-14 and an ERA of 2.25. He got shelled. He gave up one run in the first thanks to an Edd Roush double, and another run in the second after shortstop Larry Kopf tripled to the scoreboard and Greasy Neale singled over second base. Cooper saw his team take a 3-2 lead in the bottom of the second on two walks and two Reds errors (both by Kopf), and Charlie Grimm’s single.

But then he collapsed, surrendering six runs to the Reds in the top of the third. Jake Daubert led off with a triple over Max Carey’s head in center field. Heinie Groh doubled to right field. After one out, Pat Duncan reached on rookie Pie Traynor’s error, then stole second, and Kopf drove in both Groh and Duncan.6 Neale was hit by a pitch. Catcher Bill Rariden singled and drove in Kopf, and then Reds pitcher Ray Fisher helped his own cause with a two-run single over first base.

Cooper was pulled with only one out in the third. He hadn’t walked a batter, but he had allowed 10 hits. Whitey Glazner and Jack Wisner relieved.

Manager Pat Moran’s choice of pitcher for Cincinnati was righty Ray Fisher. He was 9-11 (2.79). Of the four runs he gave up in his complete-game win, only one was earned. He scattered eight hits and walked three.

The big bats of the first game were Groh and Kopf (who tripled twice), each with three RBIs. Every Reds player had at least one base hit. The Reds ran free on the bases, stealing seven bases (left fielder Duncan stealing three); the Pirates stole none at all.

The Reds scored four more runs in the top of the ninth, an inning featuring two double steals, the second of them seeing Groh take second base while Daubert scored from third. By game’s end the Reds had won, 13-4, and any hope the Pirates had had to finish third in the standings was gone. The game had taken 2:03 to play.

Game 2: Cincinnati Reds 7, Pittsburgh Pirates 3

The two games that followed were anticlimactic in terms of the standings, but played nonetheless. However, the Pittsburgh Press said they “were farces as far as the use of the regular lineups were concerned. Manager Moran used pitchers and catchers in infield and outfield positions and in the third spasm, Manager Gibson followed his lead and used a pitcher and catcher in the outfield.”7 In the second game, pitcher Dutch Ruether played first base for the Reds and Fritz Coumbe played center field. Hod Eller, yet another Reds pitcher, played second base and then first base. Rube Bressler, a pitcher who was transitioning to become an outfielder, played right field.

Both starting pitchers went the distance. Righty Lynn Brenton pitched for the Reds. He’d pitched in one game for Cleveland in 1913 and 11 in 1915. In 1920, he made the majors again, working in four September games for Cincinnati with a 1-1 record prior to this October 2 start. Opposing Brenton was Jimmy Zinn. Also a right-hander, Zinn had been 1-3 for the Phillies in 1919, and entered this game with a 1-0 record, winning a 12-inning complete game, 2-1, against the Cardinals on September 25.

The Pirates scored first, in the bottom of the first, but only once, on rookie Cotton Tierney’s sacrifice fly. They added another run in the bottom of the fourth when third baseman Clyde Barnhart hit a ball to the cinder path in left field, scoring right fielder Fred Nicholson, and things were looking better. Zinn was giving up a lot of hits, but the baserunners weren’t scoring. Only two of the 14 hits off him went for extra bases, both doubles. He walked two, but struck out seven and had managed to keep the Reds scoreless until the seventh inning. Six of the 14 Cincinnati hits, however, all came in the top of the seventh.

The Reds scored seven times. A hit on a bad hop, an infield hit, and a walk loaded the bases, an error and a wild throw saw the first two runs come in, the second on one of second baseman George Cutshaw’s two errors. Morrie Rath singled in another run on another poor fielding play. Shortstop Ed Sicking, purchased from the Giants in early July, drove in two with a single to center. Third baseman Sam Crane singled to center and drove in another. Sicking got caught in a rundown between third base and home, but made it back safely to third while Crane alertly moved up to second. Sicking got thrown out at the plate when the next batter was up, but then Eller, the pitcher who played infield (and had a 3-for-4 day), drove in two more Reds runs, the final two runs of the seven-run seventh, with a double to left field.

Cincinnati won the game, 7-3, the Pirates scoring one final run in the bottom of the ninth on a single by Nicholson and a triple over first base and down the right-field line by Possum Whitted.

Brenton allowed only six hits — three singles, two doubles, and a triple. He walked two and struck out five. All three of the runs off him were earned. The Reds committed only one error, but the Pirates made three. The game took 1:56 to play.

Game 3: Pittsburgh Pirates 6, Cincinnati Reds 0 (six innings)

Umpires Pete Harrison (a native of England) and Hank O’Day worked all three games, Harrison working home plate for the full tripleheader.

The opposing pitchers were two right-handers, Johnny Morrison for the Pirates and Buddy Napier for the Reds. It was only Morrison’s second big-league game. He’d pitched one scoreless inning on September 28. Napier had some scattered major-league experience, in seven games for the 1912 St. Louis Browns and one game for the 1918 Cubs. He was 4-1 with a 1.05 ERA for the Reds in 1920, though.

The Pirates struck first, in the first, scoring three runs off Napier. Leading off was Cotton Tierney. He singled to right field. Traynor was hit by a pitch. Nicholson doubled to left field. Cliff Lee’s sacrifice fly enabled Traynor to score from third base. Grimm singled to score Nicholson. That was all it took.

Morrison kept the Reds scoreless through six, scattering four hits and walking only one. One of the hits was by Eller, who played first base once more.

Pittsburgh’s Zinn, who had pitched game two, played right field in game three. He was 1-for-3 at the plate.

Napier allowed three more runs by the Pirates in the sixth inning. With one out, Grimm singled to center field. Bressler dropped Zinn’s fly ball; Grimm took third and Zinn took second. Catcher Bill Haeffner singled over second and Grimm crossed the plate. Morrison reached on a force out that retired Haeffner. Tierney doubled to left field, scoring both Zinn and Morrison.

Darkness encroached and the game was called at 6 o’clock on account of said darkness. It had taken one hour and one minute to play. The Pirates won, 6-0. Only two of the runs were earned.

The Pirates were eliminated from third-place contention after the first game; the Reds ultimately shared $10.744.14 for finishing third.8

Each team had players who appeared in all three games. For the Pirates, they were Cotton Tierney, Fred Nicholson, and Clyde Barnhart, and for the Reds, they were Morrie Rath and Pat Duncan.

Five Baseball Hall of Famers took part in one or more of these three games — Max Carey, Pie Traynor, and Billy Southworth of the Pirates, and Edd Roush of the Reds. Officiating was Hall of Fame umpire Hank O’Day. In 1920, Roush batted .339, with a career-high 90 RBIs. Carey batted .289 in 1920, with a league-leading total of 52 stolen bases. Traynor, as noted, was just beginning his long career. Southworth played right field in the first game. He appeared in 146 games in 1920, batting .284. Though he finished with a career .297 mark, it was his 13 years as a manager, leading the Cardinals to three World Series and the Boston Braves to one that punched his ticket to the Hall. A fifth Hall of Famer played this day, too. Earle “Greasy” Neale played for the 1919 World Series champion Cincinnati Reds and was enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1969 primarily for his work as head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles from 1941 to 1950.

Total playing time for the three games came to precisely five hours — 2:03, 1:56, and 1:01. There was a scheduled 10-minute break between each of the games.9 The length of an average game in 2016 was 3 hours and 26 seconds.10

The first of the two prior “tripleheaders” was on Labor Day, 1890 — September 1. The two teams were the Brooklyn Bridegrooms, who finished first in the National League that year, and the Pittsburgh Alleghenys, who finished last with a record of 23-113 (with two ties). Brooklyn swept all three games — 10-9, 3-2, and 8-4. The first game was quite a thriller. Brooklyn had led 10-0 heading into the ninth inning, but Pittsburgh scored nine runs and had the tying run thrown out at home plate for the final out on what would have been an inside-the-park home run. In 1891, the Pittsburgh team became the Pirates.

The first game had started at 10:30 A.M. There was a separate admission for that game from the two games played in the afternoon — hence, it was not a true tripleheader.

The same was true for the Labor Day “tripleheader” on September 7, 1896, between Baltimore and Louisville. That year Baltimore finished first and Louisville finished last. Again, one game was played in the morning and the other two as a doubleheader in the afternoon. Baltimore swept, winning the games by scores of 4-3, 9-8, and 12-1 (the third game lasting eight innings.)

Thus the games at Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field on October 2, 1920, constitute the only true tripleheader played in major-league baseball.11 How many fans took in the games? The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette said “about 8,000 fans sparked themselves in the cool stands during the afternoon, but less than half of this number were present when the flitting shadows played.”12

The 24 innings played were three fewer than the 27 innings the Pirates and Cubs played against each other on June 28, 1916 — when the Pirates won a nine-inning game, 3-2, and then an 18-inning game by the same score.

After the game, Charles J. Doyle declared, “All in all, it was a very exciting afternoon — but the day proved that too much is too much.”13

This article appears in “Moments of Joy and Heartbreak: 66 Significant Episodes in the History of the Pittsburgh Pirates” (SABR, 2018), edited by Jorge Iber and Bill Nowlin. To read more stories from this book at the SABR Games Project, click here. 

Sources

Thanks to Steve Krevisky who suggested the topic and did some initial research. Thanks to Mike Huber for assistance. The author relied upon Retrosheet.org for many details. Other articles consulted include:

Jackson, Frank. “The Longest Day,” Hardball Times, January 20, 2014.

Willard, Jim. “Baseball’s Last Triple-Header Was Certainly One for the Record Books,” Loveland (Colorado) Reporter-Herald, November 20, 2011.

Photo credit: Pittsburgh Daily Post, Newspapers.com.

Notes

1 Dan Hughes, “The Last Tripleheader,” Baseball, October 6, 2015. Hughes led his article with the very apt Ernie Banks quotation. https://baseballmagazine.wordpress.com/2015/10/08/the-last-tripleheader/.

2 “Play Three Games Today,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 2, 1920: 16. See also A.D. Suehsdorf, “The Last Tripleheader,” SABR Baseball Research Journal, Vol. 9, 1980. Suehsdorf wrote, “Barney Dreyfuss, the Pirates’ energetic owner, proposed this to Pat Moran, the Reds’ manager, who sensibly if not sportingly, refused. Undaunted, Dreyfuss got in touch with John A. Heydler, the National League’s president, in New York. As has happened once or twice before in baseball, the owner got his way. Heydler telegraphed Moran to play the three games.”

3 L.H. Wollen, “Triple-header Carded Today,” Pittsburgh Press, October 2, 1920: 1. The first game to be played was the game originally scheduled for Saturday, October 2. The second game was to be the game which had originally been scheduled for Thursday, September 30, and the third game would make up the October 1 game.

4 Charles J. Doyle, “Pirates and Reds Play Tripleheader Today,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, October 2, 1920: 9. Ticket prices had been increased from 1919, with the cheapest bleacher seats jumping from 25 cents to 50 cents. Ralph S. Davis, “All Ticket Prices To Be Higher,” Pittsburgh Press, February 22, 1920: 20. Thanks to Dennis VanLangen for tracking down this article on Forbes Field ticker pricing.

5 Ibid.

6 For Traynor, it was the 16th game of his career. He played shortstop. Traynor played in only seven games in 1921, but settled in as Pittsburgh’s regular third baseman from 1922 to 1934, ultimately voted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

7 L.H. Wollen, “Reds Cinch Third Place,” Pittsburgh Press, October 3, 1920: Sporting Section 1.

8 A.D. Suehsdorf.

9 “Play Three Games Today.”

10 https://foxsports.com/mlb/story/mlb-game-average-length-increase-how-to-fix-051716.

11 Due to rainout the preceding day, there was a minor-league tripleheader scheduled for May 4, 2016, between the Potomac Nationals and the Lynchburg Hillcats, affiliates of the Washington Nationals and the Cleveland Indians, for May 5, but one of the games was not played and it became a doubleheader instead. Tim Hagerty of The Sporting News wrote about the time in 1899 the New England League’s Manchester Manchesters and the Portland Phenoms played six games all in one day, starting at 9:00 A.M. He says, “the Manchesters won all six games to clinch the division title, but baseball officials were furious about the sneaky scheduling change and later decided only two of the six wins counted, returning the second-half championship to Newport.” Tim Hagerty, “Sextupleheader: Two Minor League Teams Played Six Games in One Day,” The Sporting News, August 17, 2014. https://sportingnews.com/mlb/news/sextupleheader-six-games-in-one-day-portland-manchester/16y3fiygv4o5r1bwf9rjrnahxm.

12 Charles J. Doyle, “Bucs Suffer Two Defeats by Reds in Tripleheader,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, October 3, 1920: 20.

13 Ibid.