Philadelphia resident George McFadden was there bright and early. There would be 6,055 games played in the history of Shibe Park (renamed Connie Mack Stadium decades later), and no one knows how many games Mr. McFadden attended. His claim to fame is that he was the first fan to enter the sparkling new and innovative steel and concrete park. He was the only one in line at 7:00 A.M.; by 8:30 there were 200 lined up behind him, and crammed trains and streetcars were still dropping people off. Soon Lehigh Avenue and 21st Street were lined with fans, a good day for the roving peanut vendors.

Officially, 30,162 entered that day, but the Philadelphia Inquirer estimated another 5,000 “gained admission either by invitation, by scaling the high walls or pressing into the grounds when the gates were rushed by the surging crowds.”1 The immense crowd entered just after noon through the 16 turnstiles. McFadden didn’t scale any walls, but plunked down his 25 cents, turning down a $25 offer for his spot. He was the first to experience what the Inquirer dubbed “the turning of a fresh and scintillating page in the annals of the horsehide sphere.”2

The gates were closed at 3 P.M., shutting out hordes of people still standing in line. It was the good fortune of some to own a home on 20th Street or Somerset Street, where they heard knocking at their doors as disgruntled fans offered them $2 to $5 to let them watch the game from their roofs. Some found a cheaper way by clambering up trees and telegraph poles. Others hurled rocks at the ballpark windows, breaking a few before being chased off by the police. After the pregame ceremonies of bands and anthems, umpire Tim Hurst called “Play ball!” and a new era began. Tommy Connolly also umpired this historic opener. Fans stood behind a rope in the outfield, creating ground-rule-double territory.

In 1908 Boston (75-79-1) and Philadelphia (68-85-4) finished fifth and sixth respectively in the American League. Fred Lake had taken over as Red Sox manager with 40 games to go in 1908, finishing a respectable 22-17. Connie Mack was in his ninth year as manager of the Athletics and had 41 more to go in his Hall of Fame career. Mack sent his veteran ace Eddie Plank to the hill. Plank had suffered a down year in 1908 (14-16 2.17 ERA) after winning 20-plus games in five of the six previous seasons. Boston had traded its ace pitcher, 42-year-old Cy Young, to Cleveland in the offseason for Jack Ryan and Charlie Chech. For this game, Lake turned to Frank Arellanes, with four wins to his name in his rookie campaign in 1908.

Boston went out one-two-three in the top of the first. With one out in the bottom of the inning, Simon Nicholls beat out a slow roller to the mound. Eddie Collins, who 30 years later would be included in the Baseball Hall of Fame’s first induction ceremony, singled over second base. Danny Murphy singled to right to score Nicholls, the first run in the ballpark’s history, to the roar of the crowd. An inspired Collins raced for home but was nailed on strong throws by Doc Gessler in right and relay man Heinie Wagner, who fired the ball to catcher Bill Carrigan. During the inning, the carriage gate in center field was forced open by the crowd, and police had to corral 1,000 people rushing in. The A’s led, 1-0 after one, and the teams were scoreless in the second, noted for Boston third baseman Harry Lord catching Doc Powers’ popup in a sea of scattering musicians.

With two out in the bottom of the third, Collins lined a single to left, then scooted to third on Murphy’s double to center. Harry Davis singled to right, scoring both.3 Boston had a great opportunity in the fourth. Lord smashed the ball to right and would have had a triple were it not for a fan snagging the ball over the rope. Chick Stahl reached when Stuffy McInnis dropped his popup, and a walk to Gessler loaded the bases with no one out. But Tris Speaker fouled out, Wagner popped out, and Jack Thoney grounded out. Then the Red Sox ran themselves out of the fifth inning when with two out Lord was thrown out trying to stretch a hit into a double, “a foolish play at best,” wrote Tim Murnane in the Boston Globe.4

In the bottom of the fifth, Nicholls doubled into the crowd in left field. He moved to third on Collins’s groundout and scored on Murphy’s single past Wagner at short. The Athletics now led, 4-0.

Boston countered with a run in the top of the sixth. Gessler drew a one-out walk. Speaker popped up to third. Wagner’s single to right sent Gessler to third. Thoney doubled into the crowd in right, scoring Gessler. Carrigan’s high fly to right was tracked down by Murphy, so Boston couldn’t chip any more off its deficit, now 4-1. It would not be a shutout for Plank that day. Historically, he ranks fifth all time with 69 shutouts.5 Considering the way the game is played in the twenty-first century, his place will be secure for all time.

The Athletics added a run in the seventh. Topsy Hartsel singled to center and when Nicholls followed with another, Lake pulled Arellanes, who had surrendered 11 hits and four runs. Jack Ryan came in from the bullpen and walked Collins to load the bases. Murphy’s groundball to Chick Stahl at first forced Hartsel at home. With the bases still loaded, Ryan plunked Harry Davis to force in Nicholls, the A’s fifth run. But Ryan avoided further damage as Amos Strunk tapped in front of the plate, where Carrigan scooped up the ball and forced Collins at home. The A’s now led, 5-1, after seven innings.

The Athletics made sure they sent their Opening Day crowd home happy, scoring three more runs in the bottom of the eighth. Powers reached on shortstop Wagner’s error. Plank fouled out to Carrigan, but Hartsel’s grounder caromed off third baseman Lord’s knee and into left field. Ryan walked Nicholls and Collins, the latter pass scoring Powers. Murphy launched a drive down the left-field line to score two more and blow the game open, 8-1.

Boston had a spark in the ninth. With Thoney on second, Carrigan reached on Nicholls’ error. Babe Danzig, pinch-hitting for Ryan, was hit by Plank. The bases were loaded, but Amby McConnell popped out and Lord struck out, the ball disappearing into Powers’ mitt as the A’s won the opening game at Shibe Park, 8-1. Murphy (4-for-5) and Nicholls (3-for-4) were the hitting stars of the day. The A’s put runners on base in six of their eight innings while for Boston, according to Murnane, the game was “like a glass of champagne with the bubbles all burst.”6

As he celebrated that first on the new diamond, no one knew catcher Doc Powers was standing on a baseball field for the last time. No one knew the agonizing pain he was likely experiencing. The Philadelphia Inquirer made only brief mention of Powers having a “seizure” in the seventh inning, but staying in the game.7

Powers died two weeks later, on April 26, at the age of 38. SABR researcher Robert D. Warrington has written an excellent analysis of this incident in the Fall 2014 Baseball Research Journal, which goes beyond the scope of this article.8 A quick Web search today for Doc Powers will return several erroneous books and websites that have disseminated misinformation regarding Powers’ demise: that sandwiches he ate that day caused food poisoning, or that he crashed into a wall attempting to catch a foul ball.9 Neither is based on historical evidence. The cause of death was reported as intussusception, which the Mayo Clinic defines as “a serious condition in which part of the intestine slides into an adjacent part of the intestine.”10 Neither a bad sandwich nor a banging into a wall would have contributed to this condition, which Powers, sadly, a physician who didn’t seek treatment for himself, must have noticed.

Just as thousands crammed into Shibe Park on Opening Day to welcome the new ballpark, so too on April 29 thousands crammed into St. Elizabeth’s Church, to say goodbye to their popular catcher. Fans who had watched from the rooftops now were crowded outside the church’s entrance. A year later, Connie Mack organized a charity game on “Doc Powers Day” at Shibe Park to raise money for Powers’ family. “The park will be a great aid to the city,” Mayor John E. Reyburn said on Opening Day. It was indeed, for the place dubbed “the World’s Greatest Ball Park” was already at the heart of the Philadelphia community, a place for cheers and tears.11

No doubt George McFadden experienced some of both.

Sources

“Great Crowds at Opening Games in American League,” Boston Herald, April 13, 1909: 1, 9.

“Local Fans Do Not Forget the Late Dr. Powers,” Philadelphia Inquirer, July 1, 1910: 1.

“Unusual Tribute Paid to Memory of Dr. Powers,” Philadelphia Inquirer, April 30, 1909: 1.

“When Gates Are Closed Thousands Climb Upon Surrounding Rooftops,” Philadelphia Inquirer, April 13, 1909: 10.

The author also consulted baseball-reference.com and retrosheet.org.

Notes

1 “Greatest Baseball Crowd at Shibe Park Sees Athletics Win Opening Game, 8-1,” Philadelphia Inquirer, April 13, 1909: 1.

2 “Greatest Baseball Crowd at Shibe Park Sees Athletics Win Opening Game, 8-1.”

3 Tim Murnane’s account in the Boston Globe records Collins scoring on Murphy’s double.

4 T.H. Murnane, “Red Sox Run Second Best,” Boston Globe, April 13, 1909: 1.

5 Only Walter Johnson, Pete Alexander, Christy Mathewson, and Cy Young have more shutouts.

6 Murnane: 1.

7 Murnane: 10. The account read: “The only thing that occurred to cast a shadow over the joy of the fans was the seizure of ‘Doc’ Powers with acute gastritis in the seventh inning. The redoubtable catcher, however, refused to abandon his post behind the plate, and though suffering intense agony, pluckily stuck to it until the end of the game. On the verge of collapse, he was taken to the Northwest General Hospital.”

8 Robert D. Warrington, “A Ballpark Opens and a Player Dies: The Converging Fates of Shibe Park and ‘Doc’ Powers,” Baseball Research Journal, Fall 2014. The article is available on the SABR website: sabr.org/research/ballpark-opens-and-ballplayerdies-converging-fates-shibe-park-and-doc-powers Retrieved May 19, 2018.

9 The “sandwich theory” was circulated by sportswriters at the time. While newspaper reports mention Powers catching foul balls twice during the game, neither was reported as something likely to have caused internal injuries.

10 “Intussusception.” Mayo Clinic Diseases & Conditions. mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/intussusception/symptoms-causes/syc-20351452 Retrieved May 19, 2018. “This ‘telescoping’ often blocks food or fluid from passing through. Intussusception also cuts off the blood supply to the part of the intestine that’s affected, which can lead to a tear in the bowel (perforation), infection and death of bowel tissue.”

11 “Praise and Admiration Heard on Every Hand,” Philadelphia Inquirer, April 13, 1909: 10.

“Bender’s control, his absolute mastery over the batters and his speed were almost ideal,” gushed the Philadelphia Inquirer about Charles Bender’s no-hitter, the first in the history of Shibe Park.1 Cleveland Naps batters were “Benderized and hypnotized” by the Athletics hurler, opined the Cleveland Plain Dealer, noting in the racially insensitive parlance of the era that Bender “sunk his tomahawk deep into the Naps.2

After finishing in second place in 1909, owner-manager Connie Mack’s A’s exploded out of the gate in 1910, winning 12 of their first 16 games as they prepared for a four-game set against the second-place Naps (12-6) in the City of Brotherly Love. The first two scheduled contests had not produced a winner: In the opener the A’s Cy Morgan battled Addie Joss to a 1-1, 12-inning tie and the second game was rained out. Right-hander Jack Coombs warmed up for the first-place club, ready to make his third start of the season. Just as home-plate umpire Bill Dinneen called for the batterymates, the Tall Tactician, made a sudden and unexpected switch, according to the Cleveland Press, and announced Bender as his starter.3

A 26-year-old right-hander, Bender had the reputation of a cerebral, unflappable hurler. He won 17 games and logged 270 innings as a 19-year-old rookie in 1903 and notched 18 more victories for the AL pennant winners in 1905, highlighted by an overpowering four-hit shutout against Iron Man Joe McGinnity and the New York Giants in Game Two of the World Series. Entering the ’10 season with a stellar 102-71 career slate, Bender’s success was set against the backdrop of the fierce racial prejudice and discrimination he endured on and off the baseball field because of his Native American ancestry. Charles Albert Bender’s mother was part Ojibwa and his father German-American. The young Bender lived on the White Earth Reservation in northern Minnesota, and was later educated in boarding schools, including the Carlisle Indian School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, which legendary athlete Jim Thorpe had also attended. Bender despised the moniker Chief, and was known for his calm demeanor on the mound despite taunts and violent references to his heritage. Sportswriters typically reduced him to a caricature of Native American culture, a fierce warrior with a tomahawk and headdress.

Coming off an 18-8 campaign with a 1.66 ERA, the stout 6-foot-2, 185-pound Bender began the 1910 season on a roll, tossing four consecutive complete-game victories. He looked to extend that streak on a cool Tuesday afternoon with temperatures in the 50s against the Naps, whose name derived from hitter extraordinaire Nap Lajoie, who had also managed the club until yielding to Deacon McGuire in the middle of the 1909 season. The Naps’ leadoff batter, rookie Jack Graney, lined a “low and savage drive,” according to the Plain Dealer, that looked as if it would fall in for a hit until center fielder Rube Oldring rushed in and made a shoestring catch.4

Oldring’s snare turned out to be the play of the game as the Naps didn’t sniff at another hit all afternoon. The only other cause for excitement occurred in the sixth when right fielder Danny Murphy sprinted to the concrete wall separating the bleachers from the playing field in foul territory to corral Bris Lord’s popup, and then jumped over the wall and up three rows of seats before he could catch his balance.5 Bender’s solitary blemish was a fourth-inning walk to Terry Turner, who was immediately erased attempting to steal.

While Bender mowed down the Naps, the A’s faced 24-year-old southpaw Fred Link (2-1), who burst on the scene after winning 20 or more games in three of his first four seasons in the minors. He debuted by tossing a 10-inning complete-game four-hitter to beat the Detroit Tigers on April 15 and was coming off an 11-inning, three-hit victory against the St. Louis Browns in his last start. In the second inning, Murphy belted a double down the left-field line. Moments later, he was caught a “mile off second” when Link made a quick toss to shortstop Turner, whose muff enabled Murphy to reach third.6 That play epitomized the afternoon for Link and the Naps. Normally a good-fielding team (finishing with the AL’s second highest fielding percentage, behind the A’s), the Naps committed four costly blunders in this contest. Jack Barry’s roller to left drove in Murphy for what proved to be the only run the A’s needed with Bender on the rubber.

In the fourth, Home Run Baker beat out an infield hit to Lajoie at second base. Link’s quick toss to first seemingly caught Baker napping, but his throw sailed and Baker advanced a station. After Harry Davis’s sacrifice bunt, Murphy’s “wicked smash,” which third baseman Bill Bradley “partly batted down,” accounted for the second run.7 It was almost déjà vu in the sixth when the fleet-footed Baker beat out an infield down the first-base line and reached second when Link, covering first, couldn’t hold on to first baseman George Stovall’s throw. Davis’s single plated Baker for a 3-0 lead.

A capable hitter who knocked in 16 runs on 25 hits in 1910, Bender singled in the seventh and scored the A’s fourth and final run, on Topsy Hartsel’s triple.

Breezing through the ninth, Bender retired Lord on a line drive to Hartsel in left field, then fanned Bradley. Elmer Flick, pinch-hitting for Link, popped a “dinky little foul” to catcher Ira Thomas to end the game in 1 hour and 36 minutes.8

Bender faced the minimum 27 batters and fanned four en route to the first no-hitter in the history of Shibe Park, baseball’s first steel and concrete stadium, which opened at the beginning of the previous season; and the first no-no by an A’s pitcher in Philadelphia. It was the second in A’s history, following Weldon Henley’s no-hitter against the St. Louis browns on July 22, 1905.

In his next start, Bender tossed a four-hit shutout against the Chicago White Sox in what unfolded as a career year. He won a personal-best 23 games, completed 25 of 28 starts, and posted a career-low 1.58 ERA in 250 innings. He teamed with Coombs, who emerged as baseball’s best hurler (31-9), to form a staggering duo that led the A’s to their first of four pennants in a five-year stretch that included World Series titles in 1910, 1911, and 1913. Bender went on to win 212 games (127 losses) in his 16-year career and was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1953.

Sources

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

Notes

1 “Naps Were Helpless Before Big Injun,” Philadelphia Inquirer,” May 13, 1910: 10.

2 “Even Lajoie Cannot Make Hit Off the Great Chieftain,” Cleveland Plain Dealer,” May 13, 1910: 10.

3 “Big Chief Bender Kept Base Paths Looking as Bare as Abandoned Trail,” Cleveland Press, May 12, 1910: 12.

4 “Even Lajoie Cannot Make Hit Off the Great Chieftain.”

5 “Even Lajoie Cannot Make Hit Off the Great Chieftain.”

6 “Even Lajoie Cannot Make Hit Off the Great Chieftain.”

7 “Even Lajoie Cannot Make Hit Off the Great Chieftain.”

8 “Even Lajoie Cannot Make Hit Off the Great Chieftain.”

The league-leading Philadelphia Athletics saw their six-game win streak snapped at the hands of the “meek and lowly trailing Browns of St. Louis”1 in a Thursday afternoon game at Shibe Park, the first game in a three-game series. The Browns entered the game with a record of 34-77; this meant that they were 43 games under .500 and 44 games behind the 79-34 Athletics.

Not only had the Athletics won six in a row, but they earned victories in 10 of their last 11 contests (and they were on their way to finishing August with a 22-7 mark), while the Browns came to Philadelphia having lost seven in a row and 9 of their previous 11 games. In head-to-head matchups prior to this game, Philadelphia had prevailed in five straight meetings, outscoring St. Louis 25-9.

Yet on this day, the Browns persevered. According to the St. Louis Star and Times, “Connie Mack sent eighteen of his tried and trusty gladiators in against them; all proved absolutely harmless.”2 The only exception for the home team came from right fielder Danny Murphy, who went 5-for-5 at the plate and hit for the cycle in the losing effort.

St. Louis jumped on Philadelphia starter Eddie Plank for a run in the first inning and then added two more in the third.3 Then, in the fifth inning, the crowd watched a bit of entertainment, courtesy of Browns manager Jack O’Connor. Cy Morgan had taken over the pitching duties for Philadelphia in the fourth inning. With a 3-0 lead, George Stone was on third base and Pat Newnam stood at second. With two outs, Bobby Wallace stroked a hard grounder that ricocheted off pitcher Morgan’s leg and rolled toward shortstop Jack Barry. Stone scored easily and O’Connor, standing in the third-base coaching box, waved Newnam home. Barry scooped up the ball and fired home to catcher Ira Thomas, who, in home-plate umpire Tommy Connolly’s opinion, tagged Newnam before he touched the plate.

Instead of appealing to the umpire, O’Connor “ran towards the plate and yelled, ‘Did he touch you? He didn’t, did he?’”4 The sports pages of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported, “the crowd let out a roar at O’Connor’s odd way of objecting to a decision, and even Umpire Connolly was forced to smile at Jack’s remark.”5 Two more runs had scored, increasing the lead to 5-0. The Browns added a sixth run in the top of the sixth inning, and that was all for Morgan. He was replaced by Jimmy Dygert, who pitched the seventh.

Philadelphia finally put up some tallies in the seventh inning. The Athletics plated five runs off Browns starter Fred Link, who could get only two outs in the inning. Bill Bailey came on in relief to get the final out. Chief Bender, one of Mack’s pitchers, had pitched a nine-inning complete game the day before and had picked up his 21st victory, so he was unavailable to toe the rubber, but Mack used him as a pinch-hitter for Dygert. Bender bashed a two-run double, to raise his batting average to .286.

St. Louis answered with a run in the eighth and two more in the ninth. Philadelphia tried to rally in the bottom of the ninth, as Mack sent in his ace pitcher, Jack Coombs, as a pinch-hitter. Coombs, who had pitched a 10-inning complete game two days earlier and was scheduled to pitch against these Browns the next day, struck out. The Athletics did get one run across on Murphy’s solo home run to complete the cycle, but they lost the game, 9-6.

As stated earlier, the lone bright spot for the Athletics was the hitting of Murphy. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, “Above all the fuss and feathers, the hitting of one Daniel Murphy stuck out like a sore thumb on a player piano’s mitts.”6 Murphy was home-grown, born in Philadelphia in the centennial anniversary year of the nation (August 11, 1876). He was perfect at the plate, collecting five hits and extending his hitting streak to eight games, which was tied for second-longest of the season (Murphy put together a 10-game hitting streak from June 7 to 18).

Murphy tied a team record for the 1910 season by totaling 11 bases in one game. But in only one inning (the seventh) were any of his teammates on base when he got a hit. He finished the game with a lone run batted in, from his solo home run. He did raise his batting average eight points and his slugging percentage 21 points, to .463.

The top of the Browns’ lineup set the pace. Frank Truesdale, Stone, and Newnam each collected three hits against the Athletics hurlers. Truesdale and Stone each doubled and Newnam tripled in the game. Interestingly, Bailey was awarded the win, his third of the season against 13 losses. Link had pitched 6⅔ innings for St. Louis and left with the lead, but he did not get the victory.

Philadelphia skipper Connie Mack, the Tall Tactician, set a season record when he “sent in every one of his six pitchers in an effort to stem the tide of defeat.”7 It was to no avail, as the Philadelphia Inquirer reported; “[b]y lamming our pitchers all over the lot and jumping on our team like a lot of abysmal brutes, this gang of Jack O’Connor’s piled up a six-run lead on us in six innings.”8 The hometown paper pulled no punches on its pitching staff, writing, “As for our pitchers, they performed consistently throughout. They started bad and they were bad all the way.”9 Plank’s record dropped to 14-8.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch tried to blame the Athletics loss on superstition. For example, “the Athletics have won only one game on a Thursday since last June.”10 As a second reason, the Athletics had been nearing the .700 winning percentage mark, and it seemed that every time they came close, they would lose. That plateau had become a Sisyphus-type scenario for the Mackmen. They came into this contest with a record of 79-34, giving them a win percentage of .699, but it was “too much of a hoodoo to get over.”11

Murphy was the second of three players in the 1910 season to hit for the cycle. On July 3 Pittsburgh’s Chief Wilson accomplished the feat at the expense of the Cincinnati Reds, and on October 6, during the last week of the regular season, Bill Collins of the Boston Doves recorded a natural cycle (by hitting a single, double, triple, and home run in that order) as Boston12 crushed the Philadelphia Phillies, 20-7. Murphy’s cycle was the first for the Athletics since the inaugural season for the American League (1901), when Philadelphians Harry Davis (July 10) and Nap Lajoie (July 30) each hit for the cycle.

In addition to Murphy’s cycle, another exciting event occurred with ties to the American League. The newly installed lights at White Sox Park (later renamed Comiskey Park) “received their first real tryout”13 when a lacrosse game between the Illinois Athletic Club and the Calumet Lacrosse team was played under one million candlepower of light, “which constitutes a portion of the light plant that will give Chicago night baseball in the near future.”14 That future took close to 30 years to arrive, as the first night game at Comiskey Park took place on August 14, 1939. Four years earlier, on May 24, 1935, the Reds and Phillies played the first night game in major-league history.

The August 25 loss brought Philadelphia’s record to 79-35. With 37 games left to play in the season, the Athletics needed only 21 victories to reach the century mark. The Evening Journal (Wilmington, Delaware) ran an article the day after this game, proclaiming, “The Athletics are going to win the world’s pennant.”15 The story quoted Ed Bang of the Cleveland News as saying, “By drawing comparisons, I firmly believe that the Athletics will prove themselves masters of the Cubs, Pirates, or whoever may win the National League flag. The one big reason why the Athletics should win the world’s championship is that the Cubs are not the great machine they were two, three and four years back. They have been going; the Athletics have been coming.”16

Philadelphia won 23 of those 37 games to finish the season at 102-48. (The Athletics tied Cleveland in an 11-inning scoreless game on September 21.) They then beat the Cubs in the World Series, making Mr. Bang’s prediction come true. Danny Murphy, a .300 batter during the regular season, “batted .400, lashing eight hits, including three doubles and the only home run of the series, and drove in nine runs as the Athletics crushed the Cubs 4-1 for Mack’s first World Series win.”17

SOURCES

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

Regarding the decision to give Bailey the win instead of Link, the author consulted SABR’s Records Committee who shared “All the Record Books Are Wrong,” by John Thorn, the official historian for Major League Baseball (Ourgame.mlblogs.Com/All-the-Record-Books-Are-Wrong-340d12173b88 – accessed July 2018). Thorn writes, “Scoring rules governing won and lost decisions by a pitcher did not become official until 1950. It was decided that all pitching decisions during the period 1920-1949 shall stand as they are in the official records, but that for the period 1876-1919 the 1950 ruling shall be in effect. The reason for this was that since 1920 the official scorer did exist, and he had the explicit authority to award the victory based on common practice, which was very close to the rule adopted in 1950. In the pre-1920 period, however, there was no official scoring rule or common practice for wins by a pitcher and for many years no official scorer.” Therefore, today’s practices of awarding the victory to a pitcher who had the lead after pitching at least five innings did not always apply.

NOTES

1 “League Leaders Fear Our Browns,” St. Louis Star and Times, August 26, 1910: 7.

2 “League Leaders Fear Our Browns.”

3 Play-by-play for this game Is not available, and the newspaper accounts do not explain how the runs were scored.

4 “Browns Play Smart Ball In Defeating Mack’s Men,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 26, 1910: 7.

5 “Browns Play Smart Ball in Defeating Mack’s Men.”

6 Jim Nasium, “Mackies’ Pitchers Get Bamboozled,” Philadelphia Inquirer, August 26, 1910: 10.

7 St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

8 Jim Nasium.

9 Jim Nasium.

10 “Browns Play Smart Ball in Defeating Mack’s Men.”

11 “Browns Play Smart Ball in Defeating Mack’s Men.”

12 In 1906, the National League’s Boston Beaneaters changed their name to the Doves, which lasted four seasons. In 1911, the team was called the Boston Rustlers, and in 1912 they became the Boston Braves.

13 “Commy Shows That Night Baseball Is Possible,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 26, 1910: 7.

14 “Commy Shows That Night Baseball Is Possible.”

15 “Cubs Not So Strong; Athletics Stronger,” Evening Journal (Wilmington, Delaware), August 26, 1910: 10.

16 “Cubs Not So Strong; Athletics Stronger.”

17 Doug Skipper, “Danny Murphy,” sabr.org/bioproj/person/ef6684c3. Accessed June 2018.

Jack Coombs was in the midst of one of the most spectacular seasons in baseball history as he took the mound against the lowly St. Louis Browns. After posting a pedestrian 35-35 record in his first four seasons, the 27-year-old right-hander for the Philadelphia A’s was leading the majors with 22 wins (against just seven loses) and eight shutouts, one of which was a monumental 16-inning, three-hit, scoreless tie with 18 strikeouts against the Chicago White Sox on August 4. “Jawn,” as Philadelphia newspapers like to call him, had also completed 26 of 28 starts and was coming off consecutive 10-inning complete-game victories, yielding just one run in each, in a span of six days.

Coombs’ emergence as the circuit’s best hurler had propelled skipper (and owner) Connie Mack’s squad to the best record (79-35) in the major leagues. With a 12-game lead over the second-place Boston Red Sox, it was a forgone conclusion that the Athletics would capture their first pennant since 1905 and the second in franchise history as a charter member of the AL. The Brownies, on the other hand, had baseball’s worst record (35-77) and had been riding a seven-game losing streak before beating the A’s in the first game of the three-game set the day before by exploding for 15 hits in a 9-6 thrashing, the most runs the A’s had surrendered in more than two months. First-year skipper Jack O’Connor sent 29-year-old right-hander Barney Pelty to the mound. In his eighth season, all with the Browns, Pelty was 4-9 with an 82-91 career slate.

The Friday afternoon game at Shibe Park, the A’s state-of-the-art steel-and-concrete ballpark (baseball’s first), which had opened to inaugurate the 1909 season, was played under what sportswriter Jim Nasium of the Philadelphia Inquirer described as “lowering skies” and “leaden atmosphere” with temperatures in the 70s. He further noted that such conditions created a “proper setting to render pitchers with plenty of smoke.”1

After two scoreless frames, the Browns mounted the first scoring chance when Bobby Wallace led off the third by drawing Coombs’ first and only free pass of the game, stole second, and moved to third when catcher Jack Lapp’s throw sailed into the outfield. Flashing his speed and knee-buckling curveball, once described as dropping several feet at the plate without moving its lateral direction,2 Coombs fanned Jim Stephens and Pelty and then dispatched Frank Truesdale on an infield grounder to end the frame. The Browns reached as far as second on only one other occasion, in the sixth when Stephens led off with a single and moved up a station on Pelty’s sacrifice, but Coombs again reared back and punched out the next two batters to quash the scoring chance. Coombs, opined the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “fooled O’Connors’ pets in a wholesale manner.”3

The contest unfolded as a pitchers’ duel with Pelty matching zeroes with Coombs through the first five frames while the twirlers yielded only four total hits (three off Pelty). The double shutout ended in the sixth when the A’s Frank “Home Run” Baker led off with a triple to left-center and then sprinted home when center fielder Danny Hoffman’s return throw sailed over Wallace’s head at short. Ben Houser followed with single and it looked as though Pelty might be on the ropes when Lapps laced a two-out single, but Coombs’ popup to right ended the threat.

The A’s, who eventually led the AL in 1910 with a team batting average of .266 and ranked second with 4.3 runs per game (just behind the Detroit Tigers’ 4.4), put on an exhibition of Deadball Era offensive tactics in the seventh. Bris Lord led off with a double and moved up a station when Rube Oldring, who entered the game leading the club with a .325 batting average, beat out a bunt to third. Eddie Collins’s single brought Lord home and the floodgates were open. After Baker’s sacrifice moved both runners into scoring position, Oldring aggressively ran home on Houser’s grounder to second and scored standing up, according to the Inquirer. Danny Murphy’s sacrifice fly driving in Collins accounted for the third and final run of the frame to make it 4-0.

The A’s tacked on two more runs in the eighth. With Lord on second via a fielder’s choice and a stolen base, Collins hit a two-out single to Hoffman, whose bad day in center field continued. According to Jim Nasium, the former A’s flychaser, who had led the AL with 46 stolen bases for the pennant-winning team in 1905, “let [the ball] ooze through,” enabling Lord to score and Collins to reach third.4 Baker’s single to right scored Collins to make it 6-0.

Through eight innings, Coombs had yielded just three hits and had fanned 13, including two in five different innings, and had registered at least one punchout in every frame thus far. George Stone eked out a seeing-eye infield single with one out, but Coombs retired Pat Newnam on a fly to right fielder Danny Murphy, who registered the only two outfield putouts for the A’s the entire game. Colby Jack put an emphatic exclamation point on his masterpiece by registering his 14th strikeout of the afternoon, whiffing Art Griggs to end the game in exactly two hours. “Coombs was the whole show,” gushed the St. Louis Star.5

Coombs continued to befuddle hitters for the rest of the season with his heater and curveball, which F.C. Lane wrote in Baseball Magazine said “actually shortened [his arm] by the stiffening of the cords at the elbow.”6 Coombs won his next six starts, giving him nine consecutive victories, and ultimately won 10 straight decisions, during which he pitched four shutouts and logged 53 consecutive scoreless innings. He finished the season by leading the big leagues with 31 wins (9 losses) and 13 shutouts, and ranking second in ERA (1.30), just behind Big Ed Walsh of the Chicago White Sox. He capped off the campaign by tossing three complete-game victories in the World Series against the Chicago Cubs, helping the Mackmen to their first title.

SOURCES

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

NOTES

1 Jim Nasium, “In Beating Browns Coombs Sets Record,” Philadelphia Inquirer, August 27, 1910: 10.

2 Malachi Kittredge in the National Game, quoted from Bill James and Rob Neyer, The Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers (New York: Fireside, 2004), 171.

3 “Coombs Pitches Pennant Ball Against O’Connorites,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 27, 1910: 6.

4 Jim Nasium.

5 J. Coombs Fans Fourteen Browns,” St. Louis Star, August 27, 1910: 10.

6 F.C. Lane, Baseball Magazine, November 1913, quoted from Bill James and Rob Neyer, The Neyer/ James Guide to Pitchers (New York: Fireside, 2004), 171.

Skipper Connie Mack was tired of waiting. Eleven days after his Philadelphia Athletics (102-48) played their last regular-season game, they finally took the field for Game One of the World Series.1 The delay was caused by the National League, which had concluded its regular season just two days earlier with the juggernaut Chicago Cubs (104-50) capturing their fourth pennant in five seasons. Frank Chance’s squad was a nominal favorite to win its third title in that span, despite losing the coin toss to determine which team would enjoy home-field advantage.2

The City of Brotherly Love was baseball-mad about the Athletics, who became first team to eclipse the century mark in victories in the 10-year history of the American League. On a warm and sunny Monday afternoon with temperatures in the low 70s, Shibe Park, baseball’s first steel and concrete ballpark, was packed with an overflowing crowd of 26,891 spectators, more than three times the A’s regular-season (and the major-league highest) game average of 7,550.3

The carnival-like atmosphere at the intersection at 21st Street and Lehigh Avenue had begun the night before with hundreds of fans camping out for a chance to buy a general-admission ticket. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that the throng was 7,000 strong by 7 A.M. on the day of the game and grew to more than 20,000 people.4 Rowhouse rooftops along 20th Street and Somerset Street across from the ballpark had been converted into makeshift viewing stands despite orders from the Bureau of Building Inspectors forbidding it.5

The Athletics and Cubs were evenly matched, balanced teams each of which led its league in ERA and came within a handful of runs in pacing its circuit in runs scored. The Cubs’ advantage was their World Series experience: They fielded essentially the same team that had won a major-league record 622 games over the previous six seasons (still the record as of 2022). Chance took a gamble on his starting pitcher. Instead of his ace, Mordecai “Three Finger” Brown (25-14, 1.86 ERA), he called on right-hander Orval Overall, known for his “oxlike strength,” gushed Windy City sportswriter Harry Daniel.6 Overall had won just 12 games in an injury-plagued campaign; however, he was 82-38 since his acquisition in mid-1906 and even better in the World Series, in which he was 3-0 and sported a stellar 1.12 ERA in 48⅓ innings.

There was considerable speculation about whom Mack would send to the mound in Game One. Many figured the Tall Tactician would go with Jack Coombs, who burst on the scene with one of the greatest seasons in AL history, leading the league with 31 wins and 13 shutouts. However, two of the few remaining players from the A’s 1905 pennant winners warmed up prior to the game: Eddie Plank and Charles Albert “Chief” Bender.

Mack chose right-handed Bender against the Cubs’ righty-heavy lineup. The 26-year-old Native American, who hated the racist monikers the press gave him, boasted a 125-76 slate, including 23-5 with a 1.58 ERA in 1910, but hadn’t pitched since he won his final start on September 7. With the pennant effectively wrapped up in mid-August, Mack had given his cerebral hurler time to overcome some nagging injuries. Bender, however, was far from idle. He had scouted the Cubs during their series against the Phillies in Philadelphia in mid-September. None of the A’s were rusty, though, as Mack’s troops played a three-game series (October 11-13) against Jimmy McAleer’s All-Stars, a barnstorming team consisting of AL stalwarts.7

Bender had two more advantages: He was the only A’s player with a World Series victory, having tossed a four-hit shutout in Game Two against the New York Giants in 1905; and he was the only A’s pitcher to have beaten the Cubs. The two teams had played an exhibition game the previous October and Bender blanked the Cubs and Overall on two hits.8

Scheduled to start at 2 P.M., the game was delayed by 14 minutes as Chance and Mack wrangled with the four-man umpiring crew about the ground rules. Both managers objected to still and movie cameramen on the field behind home plate; they were dispatched to the grandstand. More disconcerting were the thousands of spectators standing in right field and left field cordoned off by rope, the first time that was required since Shibe Park opened in 1909.9

Armed with various noisemakers, the crowd was “wild with enthusiasm” when Bender took the mound, reported Chicago sportswriter Harry Daniel.10 Leadoff hitter Jimmy Sheckard sent Bender’s first pitch sailing over the left-field bleachers, but it was a foul. It was also the hardest hit ball off Bender the entire afternoon. Three pitches later, Bender fanned Sheckard. The Cubs’ most dangerous hitter, Frank “Wildfire” Schulte, whose 10 home runs tied Fred Beck of the Boston Braves for the NL lead, followed with a single, but was caught stealing. Solly Hofman was retired on a grounder. The A’s managed one single against Overall in the first, and, like Schulte, Eddie Collins was caught stealing.

After Bender set down the Cubs in order in the second, Frank “Home Run” Baker led off with a smash to left field that “pulled up in the crowd” for a ground-rule double, and moved to third on Harry Davis’s sacrifice.11 Danny Murphy’s single drove Baker home. With two out and Murphy on third and Ira Thomas on first via a walk, Bender hit a “vicious” chopper to second baseman Heinie Zimmerman, who had replaced Johnny Evers, sidelined with an ankle injury.12 (No slouch at the plate, Bender had batted .269 and knocked in 16 runs in 1910.) The ball “bounded out of his hands” and into center field, plating Murphy.13 No error was given to Zimmerman, who “should have cleanly made the assist,” argued sportswriter Fred J. Hewitt.14

The A’s tacked on another run in the third when Bris Lord led off with a deep shot into the crowd in right-center field for a ground-rule double. Collins sacrificed him to third, then Baker singled to left to make it 3-0.

The A’s three runs were more than Bender needed as he delivered “one of the most marvelous exhibitions of pitching in the history of baseball,” gushed Daniel.15 He baffled the Cubs with his array of fastballs, curveballs, and his nickel curves (proto-sliders). His delivery was mesmerizing, too. “[H]is long, wiry arm would swing through the air,” explained Daniel. “Twice it would circle around like a great revolving wheel. Then his left leg would go up and the arm of steel would flash around with a dazzling side-arm movement.”16 Through eight innings Bender faced the minimum 24 batters. Schulte walked in the fourth, but was again gunned down trying to steal second on another bullet from catcher Ira Thomas.

“Wild and weak” through three innings, Overall was replaced by spot starter Harry McIntire.17 Sportswriters from around the country suggested the next day that Chance had thrown in the towel with this decision instead of calling on Brown, King Cole (20-4), or Ed Reulbach. However, the 31-year-old right-hander McIntire mystified the A’s with a confusing underhand motion and kept the Cubs in the game. He held the A’s hitless from the fourth inning through the seventh, yielding only walks to Amos Strunk in the fifth and Thomas in the seventh.

The A’s added an insurance run in the eighth. After Eddie Collins drew a two-out walk, McIntire tossed nervously over to first, hoping to pick him off rather than face the dangerous Baker at the plate. Coming off an AL-record 81 swipes in 1910, Collins was finally caught napping, but McIntire’s toss flew past first base and Collins reached third. Baker smashed a line drive “splintering the right field fence,” which dropped into the crowd for his second ground-rule double and resulted in another run.18

Bender suffered some bad luck in the ninth, but kept his cool and remained the “very embodiment of confidence,” opined the Inquirer.19 Joe Tinker received a second chance when Thomas muffed his popup behind the plate by grounding the next pitch past second, then took second when center fielder Strunk fumbled the ball. It was the Cubs’ first hit since the first inning. Johnny Kling followed with another single to plate Tinker (unearned run), then gave way to pinch-runner John Kane, who advanced a station on pinch-hitter Gene Beaumont’s grounder. After Sheckard fanned, Schulte drew a walk to bring the tying run to the plate. With the count 1-and-2, Hofman grounded to Baker, who stepped on third for the final out, ending the game in 1 hour and 54 minutes and securing the A’s victory.

Home Run Baker was the batting hero of the game, collecting three of the A’s seven hits and driving in two runs, but this game was about Bender. Praised for his “phenomenal speed, accurate control, and magnificent head work,”20 Bender went the distance for the 26th time in 29 starts of the season, fanned eight and walked two in an overpowering victory that “turned much baseball calculation topsy-turvy,” wrote Chicago’s Inter Ocean.21 The A’s emerged as the new Series favorites.

SOURCES

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

NOTES

1 The A’s played their final game on October 6; the final day of the regular season in the AL was October 8.

2 A’s owner Ben Shibe won the coin toss from Cubs owner Charles Webb Murphy several days before the beginning of the World Series; however, it was not without controversy, as Tom Swift explains. AL President Ban Johnson flipped the coin, which had apparently rolled off a table. Under the rules the two owners had agreed upon, the flip should have been nullified. Tom Swift, Chief Bender’s Burden: The Silent Struggle of a Baseball Star (Lincoln: Bison Books, 2010), 144.

3 “Local Weather Report from U.S. Weather Bureau,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 18, 1910: 2.

4 “Doors Are Opened Early for Vast Bleacher Throng,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 18, 1910: 13.

5 “Spectacle of Brilliant Crowd Rarely Equaled at Any Event,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 18, 1919: 13.

6 Harry Daniel, “Indian’s Wonderful Pitching for Athletics Costs the Cubs the First Game of the World Series,” (Chicago) Inter Ocean, October 18, 1910: 1.

7 The McAleer All-Stars had some of the biggest names in the AL, including Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, and Walter Johnson. See “All Stars Here to Battle With Mackies,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 12, 1910: 10; Jim Nasium, “Pick of A.L. Teams Clean Up Mackies,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 12, 1910: 10.

8 Ring Lardner, “Redskin Tames Overall’s Cubs,” Chicago Tribune, October 20, 1909: 12.

9 “Spectacle of Brilliant Crowd Rarely Equaled at Any Event.”

10 Daniel: 1.

11 Frank J. Hewitt, “Bender Invincible and Cubs Lose First,” (Chicago) Inter Ocean, October 18, 1910: 2.

12 Daniel: 2.

13 “Story in Detail of Victory Over Cubs of Chicago,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 18, 1910: 12.

14 Hewitt.

15 Daniel: 2.

16 Daniel: 2.

17 Daniel: 1.

18 Hewitt.

19 The Old Sport, “Frank Baker’s Timely Hits Big Factor in Mackmen’s Victory,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 18, 1910: 1

20 Daniel: 1.

21 Daniel: 1.

After Philadelphia defeated the Chicago Cubs 4-1 in Game One of the 1910 World Series behind the three-hit pitching of Chief Bender and bat of Frank “Home Run” Baker, Athletics founder and manager Connie Mack gave the ball to staff ace Jack Coombs. After four pedestrian years in which the Iowa-born right-hander went 35-35 with a 2.45 ERA, Coombs came into his own in 1910, going 31-9 with a 1.30 ERA, tossed a league-best 13 shutouts, and didn’t allow a home run in 353 innings.1

Cubs skipper and first baseman Frank Chance turned to his own ace, Mordecai “Three Finger” Brown, a versatile veteran righty who not only paced the Cubs in wins with 25, but tied Cincinnati Reds hurler Harry Gaspar for the National League lead in saves with seven.2 Brown also paced the circuit in complete games, shutouts, and WHIP, and with his 34th birthday only a day away, he thought there was no way he could lose.3

The Tuesday game drew 24,597 fans to Shibe Park a day after almost 27,000 watched the first tilt. One scribe was perplexed by the drop-off, considering it was a perfect day for baseball and that an Athletics victory in Game One all but ensured that more Philadelphians would show up for the second contest.4 But a failure by the city’s police force to uphold an order issued before the first game prohibiting fans from watching from rooftops across from the park emboldened more people to do just that for Game Two.5

Coombs was shaky in the first and walked leadoff man Jimmy Sheckard on four pitches. Frank Schulte forced Sheckard at second on a grounder to Eddie Collins, but Solly Hofman walked on six pitches, the last two of which nearly hit him, and Chance singled to third after almost being plunked himself. Heinie Zimmerman plated the first run on a fly ball to Amos Strunk, and Hofman and Chance advanced to third and second, respectively. Coombs continued to be wild and almost hit Harry Steinfeldt with his second pitch, but the Cubs third baseman helped the A’s hurler by whiffing at a ball over his head to end the threat.

Brown struck out Strunk to start the bottom half of the first and got an assist from catcher Johnny Kling, who scooped the third strike from the dirt and fired to Chance for the out. Bris Lord grounded to third for an easy out before Collins fisted a single over Zimmerman’s head, then stole second after a cat-and-mouse game in which Brown threw to first three times before throwing two waste pitches to Baker. Collins made it to second easily on Brown’s third delivery to Baker, but the third sacker grounded back to the mound to end the inning.

Coombs was much sharper in the second, but ran into some bad luck when first baseman Harry Davis dropped Baker’s throw after the third baseman snared a grounder by Joe Tinker to lead off the frame. The pitcher’s luck quickly turned, however, when Kling shot a line drive right to Collins, who threw to Davis to double up Tinker. Brown grounded to Collins for the third out.

Brown retired Davis on a fly ball to Hofman before walking Danny Murphy on four pitches. Tinker made a nice play on a grounder by Jack Barry, fielding the ball at second, stepping on the bag, and throwing to first to complete the double play and end the inning. The third started with a second free pass to Sheckard and a Schulte sacrifice bunt that would have been the first out had Davis not dropped Coombs’s throw and committed his second miscue in as many innings.

With runners at first and second, Hofman popped his bunt to Davis, who held on this time, and Coombs fanned Chance after catcher Ira Thomas saved a wild pitch by stopping a low curveball with his bare hand. Zimmerman lined the first pitch he saw to Lord in left field and the game went to the bottom of the third with the Cubs clinging to a 1-0 lead.

Philadelphia took a 2-1 lead in the bottom of the third, thanks in part to a comedy of errors by Steinfeldt and perfectly placed hits by Strunk and Collins. Thomas led off with a slow roller to third that Steinfeldt tried to barehand but missed for his first error. Coombs whiffed for the first out, then Strunk expertly bunted between the mound and first base, and though Brown was able to reach the ball he couldn’t hold on and all were safe. Lord grounded to Zimmerman, who threw to Tinker to force Strunk at second with Thomas advancing to third on the play.

Brown was careful with Collins and tossed him four straight curves, three of which were balls, before firing a fastball over for strike two. His next fast one caught too much of the plate and Collins served it between Steinfeldt and the third-base bag for a double. Thomas scored easily and Lord followed him home when Steinfeldt missed Sheckard’s throw from left. Baker grounded to Zimmerman and the inning was over.

Coombs and Brown traded goose eggs in the fourth, the only blemishes being Tinker’s hit off Coombs and hits by Barry and Thomas off Brown. Coombs almost did himself in when he made consecutive errors on bunts by Brown and Sheckard to lead off the fifth, bobbling Brown’s until he was safe and falling down while attempting to field Sheckard’s. A third bunt, this one by Schulte, went to Davis for an out, but the runners moved to second and third with Hofman and Chance due up.

Three more errant curves and an inside fastball loaded the bases for Chance, but Brown foolishly tried to tag up on a short fly ball to Murphy in right and Murphy’s perfect throw nailed the hurler at the plate to retire the side. The A’s manufactured their third run in the bottom of the fifth. Lord poled a one-out single before being erased by a fielder’s choice that put Collins on first.

Again, Brown tried to get the better of the American League’s stolen-base champ by throwing three wide ones to Baker, but Collins refused to budge until Brown’s fourth pitch when he swiped his second base of the game.6 Baker walked and Davis atoned for his errors with a run-scoring single before Murphy grounded out to end the inning.

Both teams threatened in the sixth but neither scored. The Cubs put a man on second to no avail; the A’s had runners at first and third with one out before Brown worked out of the jam with help from Strunk, who tried to bunt Thomas home and failed miserably. “It looked like a large joke to see Strunk trying to squeeze Thomas home from third,” opined the Chicago Tribune. “… Strunk bunted as if he never tried it before.”7

The game went to the seventh with Philadelphia still up 3-1 and that’s when they stepped on the throttle, but not before Chicago made things interesting. Sheckard followed a Brown strikeout with a shot into the right-field crowd for a double, and Hofman followed a fly out by Schulte with a walk. Chance singled to center and scored Sheckard to cut the lead to 3-2, but that was as close as the Cubs would get.

Collins started the bottom of the inning with a free pass and moved to third on Baker’s single to right. Davis doubled into the left-field crowd to score Collins, and Murphy did the same to plate Baker and Davis, prompting Chance to order Lew Richie to warm up. Barry sacrificed Murphy to third and the move paid off when Thomas followed with a run-scoring single to boost Philadelphia’s lead to 7-2.

Coombs grounded to first for the second out, but Strunk’s double scored Thomas, and Sheckard’s failure to hold on to Lord’s line drive to left plated Strunk. Lord was thrown out trying to steal second with Collins at the plate, but when the smoke cleared, the score stood at 9-2 in Philadelphia’s favor.

The Cubs continued to fight, loading the bases in the eighth and scoring a run in the ninth when Zimmerman knocked in Hofman with a two-bagger, but Coombs wrapped groundouts around a walk to Tinker to end the game and send the Athletics to Chicago with a two-game lead.

SOURCES

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

NOTES

1 On the surface a 2.45 ERA is much more impressive than “pedestrian,” but Coombs’s career ERA+ prior to 1910 was only 5 percent better than league average.

2 The save rule wasn’t adopted until 1969 and saves were retroactively calculated by researchers for every season that came before. It’s because of them that we know Brown and Gaspar had seven each.

3 “Sidelights on the Second Battle,” Chicago Tribune, October 19, 1910: 21.

4 “Sidelights on the Second Battle.”

5 “Sidelights on the Second Battle.”

6 Collins led the American League with 81 stolen bases in 1910, finishing with 16 more than the 1909 leader, Ty Cobb.

7 “Sidelights on the Second Battle.”

Heading into the 1911 season, the Philadelphia Athletics were a near unanimous choice to capture their second straight American League pennant and fourth in 11 years despite boasting one of the youngest lineups in the circuit. Their average age was a hair younger than 27 with a core that featured 20-year-old Stuffy McInnis at first base, 24-year-olds Eddie Collins and Jack Barry at second base and shortstop, respectively, 25-year-old Frank “Home Run” Baker at third, and 22-year-old reserve outfielder Amos Strunk.

The Detroit Tigers, on the other hand, were said to have felt the “effects of time” in 1910 when they finished in third place after having copped three straight pennants from 1907 through 1909.1 John B. Foster of the New York Evening Telegram blamed Detroit’s slide in the standings in 1910 on “snarling and petty fault finding on the part of the players,” especially Ty Cobb, whom he called a “spoiled baby.”2

But when the Tigers defeated the Athletics, 9-8, on May 19, 1911, they pushed their record to 27-5, and it looked as though they would cruise to another pennant. The next closest team, the Chicago White Sox, was already 9½ games back and the Athletics sat in fifth place with a 12-game deficit. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Tigers benefited from “striking splendid weather” during spring training and “started off as though they meant to make a runaway race of it.”3

Indeed, the Tigers won 21 of their first 23 games and capped off their run with a 10-0 drubbing of the New York Highlanders on May 9. Led by Cobb, Sam Crawford, Donie Bush, and pitcher George Mullin, Detroit was scoring more than six runs a game while allowing fewer than three. Only one pitching staff was stingier – the Pittsburgh Pirates were allowing 2.85 runs to that point – and the next most potent offense, belonging to the Philadelphia Phillies, was a full run behind.

But the race was far too early to call and the early fates of both squads proved to be a fluke. After a 13-15 start, Philadelphia went 52-20 and passed the Tigers atop the standings on August 7, then spent the next seven weeks building on their lead, which stood at 10½ games on September 25.

The Inquirer blamed lousy weather for the Athletics’ slow start and reported that magnate and skipper Connie Mack had “never encountered such adverse weather conditions for a spring training trip, and as a result it was not until the championship season was well under way that the Athletics began to round into first-class playing shape.”4

At 95-46, all the Athletics had to do to cop their second straight flag was beat the 85-57 Tigers, which was easier said than done. The Tigers had just beaten the Athletics in the first game of a two-game set on Monday and they were the only team with a winning record against Philadelphia, having won 12 of 21 contests.

For Tuesday’s game Mack called on 28-year-old right-hander Jack Coombs, who was leading the league with 26 wins. Of his 12 losses, four had come against Detroit. Hughie Jennings countered with 27-year-old righty Ed Willett, who had struggled to a 13-12 record and an ERA in the mid-3’s after averaging 17 wins and a 2.33 ERA over the previous three seasons.5 The Virginia native had faced Philadelphia twice out of the bullpen and surrendered 10 runs in seven innings before his first start against them.

Neither team scored in the first and Coombs got out of the second with another zero on the scoreboard, but Willett wasn’t so lucky. Athletics cleanup hitter Frank Baker led off the bottom of the second with his ninth homer of the season to stake Philadelphia to a 1-0 lead. “Frank Baker busted open the action of the fray,” wrote Jim Nasium of the Philadelphia Inquirer, “and slapped one of Willetts’ [sic] shoots on the snoot and lifted it far over the right field wall close to the foul line for the first run of the game.”6

Danny Murphy walked and all hands were safe when first baseman Del Gainer fumbled Willett’s throw on a bunt by Claud Derrick. Barry’s force out sent Murphy to third and he and Barry scored on a double to right-center by catcher Jack Lapp. Willett worked out of the jam thanks in part to Bush, who hauled in Coombs’ short fly and doubled up Lapp at second to keep the score at 3-0.

Perhaps buoyed by Bush’s play, the Tigers tied the score, 3-3, in the top of the third. Baker tossed wildly to Derrick on Willett’s grounder to lead off the inning, Bush singled to right, and Cobb beat out a chopper in front of the plate to load the bases with nobody out. Crawford plated Willett on a force out at second, Jim Delahanty knocked in Bush with a sacrifice fly to right, and Crawford tied the score when he crossed the plate on a two-bagger by Delos Drake. Coombs ended the frame and averted tragedy after walking Gainer when he speared a liner by George Moriarty that was heading for his face.7

Willett immediately killed Detroit’s momentum when the Athletics scored two in the bottom of the third. “Then the champs came in and proceeded without further monkey business to put the finishing touches on Mr. Willetts,” wrote Jim Nasium.8 The Tigers hurler retired Bris Lord to begin the inning, but a Rube Oldring hit followed by a triple to left-center field by Collins untied the score. Baker drove in his second run of the game with a double to left and it looked as if the inning would get out of hand when Murphy singled to put runners at first and third with only one out. But Bush made another sensational play on Derrick’s grounder and turned an inning-ending double play.

Coombs continued to put up zeroes and the 5-3 cushion held until the bottom of the sixth when Philadelphia scored another run, this time against relief pitcher Ralph Works, who entered the game in the fourth. Singles by Lapp and Coombs put runners on first and second, and a wild pitch advanced Lapp to third. He came home on a force out at second by Lord and Philadelphia’s lead grew to 6-3.

The onslaught continued in the seventh when Collins walked, then scored on Derrick’s three-bagger to put the Athletics up 7-3. Philadelphia effectively put the game on ice in the bottom of the eighth when four more runs came home. “The eighth inning was a series of disastrous events for Mr. Works,” Jim Nasium reported. “Coombs started the stuff with one down by slamming a two-base whack to the corner of the latitude then Works splashed the ball into the palpitating gizzard of Bris Lord.”9

Both runners scored on a double down the left-field line by Oldring to push the lead to 9-3, then Baker slammed his second four-bagger of the contest and became the first player to hit two home runs in one game at Shibe Park.10 That was all the runs the Athletics would score, but it was more than enough. The Tigers rallied for two runs in the top of the ninth when Cobb singled with two outs and Crawford followed with a two-run homer off Coombs. But the hurler rebounded and fanned Delahanty to win the game, 11-5, and the Athletics clinched their second straight American League pennant.

“There was no doubting the Athletics’ intentions of winning the game yesterday,” waxed the Philadelphia Inquirer. “They gave both Willetts and Works one of the worst grillings to which a pair of visiting slabmen have been subjected at Shibe Park this season. Singles, doubles, triples and home runs were smashed out with such regularity that the 10,000 odd fans were kept continually yelling themselves hoarse over the terrific exhibition of clubbing on the part of the Mackies.”11

SOURCES

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

NOTES

1 John. B. Foster, “Athletics to Run Their Race in 1911 Against the Field,” Owensboro (Kentucky) Messenger, April 2, 1911: 9.

2 Foster.

3 The Old Sport, “Athletics Win Championship From Detroit,” Philadelphia Inquirer, September 27, 1911: 1.

4 “Athletics Win Championship From Detroit.”

5 Willett finished the season with a 3.66 ERA, but it’s difficult to know what his exact ERA was going into the September 26 game because neither Baseball-Reference.com nor Retrosheet.org has complete earned-runs data for game logs and daily splits.

6 Jim Nasium, “This Is the Game Which Decided It,” Philadelphia Inquirer, September 27, 1911: 10.

7 “Athletics Again Are Champions of American League,” Detroit Free Press, September 27, 1911: 11.

8 “Athletics Again Are Champions of American League.”

9 “Athletics Again Are Champions of American League.”

10 Baker accomplished the feat again on June 26, 1914, against the Washington Senators in the second game of a doubleheader.

11 “Athletics Win Championship From Detroit.”

The World Series returned to Philadelphia for the second year in a row in 1911, and 26,286 baseball fans swarmed a wet Shibe Park on October 16, 1911, for Game Two of the 1911 World Series between the New York Giants (99-54) and Philadelphia Athletics (101-50). Despite their losing Game One, 2-1, at the Polo Grounds, the Evening Bulletin reported that the Athletics were favored 6 to 5 to win Game Two.1

The starting pitchers for the game were Rube Marquard for the Giants and Eddie Plank for the Athletics. Marquard had been purchased by the New York Giants in 1908 from the Indianapolis Indians for a record $11,000, leading many to dub him the “$11,000 Beauty.” Marquard struggled in his first two full seasons in the big leagues, and compiled a 9-17 record with a 3.14 ERA. He struck out 161 and walked 113. He was then dubbed the “$11,000 Lemon.” But Marquard turned doubters into believers in 1911 when he went 24-7 in 45 games with a 2.50 ERA, striking out 237 and walking 106. Marquard pitched 16 more seasons for the Giants, Dodgers, Reds, and Braves before retiring in 1925 at age 38. His career record was 201-177 and he had a 3.08 ERA in 536 games with 1,593 strikeouts and 858 walks. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1971.

Philadelphia Athletics owner-manager Connie Mack signed 25-year-old Eddie Plank to a contract in 1901. Plank was enrolled at Gettysburg Academy and played for the Gettysburg College baseball team. He joined the Athletics in Baltimore in May 1901 and at the end of the season, he had a 17-13 record in 33 games with a 3.31 ERA. In 1911 Plank went 23-8 with a 2.10 ERA at age 35. He retired after the 1917 season at age 41 after 17 seasons in the major leagues and finished with a 326-194 record and a 2.35 ERA.

The Evening Bulletin noted that “seats for the game were as rare as aeroplane visits to the moon.”2 Female fans began to enter the park at 11 A.M. and made their way to the right-field bleachers. New York fans, fearing limited seating, arrived en masse at noon while droves of fans rushed on-field police officers and found standing room all around the outfield. Athletics President John Shibe stationed several men around the ballpark to gather foul balls. He even secured an injunction against 20th street property owners for failing to secure proper permits in an attempt to prevent the sale of seats on top of row houses, but it did not matter. Many fans who did not have tickets to the game were still able to buy tickets for a rooftop bleacher seat. Factories in the neighborhood shut down at noon, allowing workers to watch the game from factory windows.3 A constant buzz was in the air prior to first pitch and even caused one overexcited man to be taken out of the grounds on a stretcher to the Woman’s Homeopathic Hospital.4

A hush overcame the crowd as Plank delivered the first pitch of the game at 2:02 P.M. and subsequently struck out Giants leadoff man Josh Devore looking, to the delight of the local fans. Larry Doyle was up next and he sent a long fly to Athletics left fielder Bris Lord. Fred Snodgrass was hit by a pitch on a two-strike count and became the Giants’ first baserunner. But Red Murray lined out to second baseman Eddie Collins to conclude the top half of the first inning.

In the Athletics’ half, leadoff man Lord knocked a 2-and-1 pitch to right field and took second on Murray’s error. Rube Oldring’s sacrifice advanced Lord to third. With Collins at bat, Marquard unleashed a wild pitch that allowed Lord to score the first run of the game. Collins singled past Giants third baseman Buck Herzog but Marquard gathered himself as he struck out Frank Baker and got Danny Murphy to fly out to left field to end the inning.

Fred Merkle led off the second for the Giants and grounded out to third base. Herzog smashed a 1-and-2 pitch over third baseman Oldring’s head for a double and advanced to third on Art Fletcher’s groundball to Collins. Catcher Chief Meyers, a Native American who was the Giants’ best hitter in 1911, drove Merkle in with a single to left field, tying the game, 1-1. Plank then struck out Marquard to end the inning.

Only two men reached base between the bottom of the second inning and top of the sixth – the A’s Jack Barry got to second base in the second inning on an error by left fielder Devore, and the Giants’ Snodgrass singled in the top of the third. Otherwise the 36-year old Plank and the 24-year-old Marquard mowed down the opposing batters with few balls leaving the infield. The Athletics finally broke the stalemate in the bottom of the sixth inning. Marquard retired Lord and Oldring on fly balls. With two out and none on, Eddie Collins slashed a double down the left-field line. Frank Baker stepped to the plate next.

Giants manager John McGraw, an expert at the mental game, had chided Baker from the dugout while the Athletics were in the field in an attempt to break Baker’s concentration. “You’re a quitter,” the New York manager cried. “[Hughie] Jennings and the whole Detroit club told us so.”5 It was a reference to a game earlier in the year when Detroit’s Ty Cobb spiked Baker sliding into third base. Baker was mild-mannered and McGraw sought to leverage this alleged weakness, despite the fact that Baker slashed .334/.379/.508 and led the league with 11 home runs in 1911.

Before the game, McGraw had told Marquard to stay away from the strike zone when he pitched to Baker. Marquard struck out Baker on three straight curveballs in the first inning and got him out on a weak grounder to second base in the fourth. But in the sixth, the pitcher ignored McGraw’s advice when Baker refused to offer at a nibbling breaking ball outside the zone. “…I had one strike on him and he had refused to bite on another outcurve which was a little too wide,” Marquard said in an article under his byline in the New York Times. “I thought to cross him by sending in a fast high straight ball the kind that I know he liked. Meyers had called for a curve, but I could not see it [due to the sun], and signaled a high fast ball,”6 Marquard suggested that Collins had relayed the signal to Baker from second base. Baker sent Marquard’s fastball over the right-field wall, and the Athletics led 3-1.

According to Connie Mack biographer Norman Macht, “Delirium erupted within Shibe Park, in the windows and along the rooftops of Twentieth Street, and downtown on Broad Street, where the action was being recreated. … The howling, stomping, whistling, and cheering had begun at 3:20 and went on for a full five minutes. Fans sitting behind the visitors’ dugout banged on its tin roof with canes and bottles and feet.”7

Marquard was pulled after the seventh inning and replaced by 23-year-old Doc Crandall, who set down the Athletics without a hit in the eighth. Marquard had surrendered only four hits but Baker’s blast proved fatal to the Giants. The Series was now tied. The Athletics’ Plank pitched a complete game and surrendered five hits, struck out eight, and allowed only one run. The game was a true pitchers’ duel but Baker’s home run stole the headlines and was a catalyst for his future identity as Home Run Baker.

SOURCES

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

NOTES

1 “Plank Opposes Marquard in Second Great Struggle of World’s Series Contest,” Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, October 16, 1911.

2 Plank Opposes Marquard in Second Great Struggle of World’s Series Contest.”

3 Plank Opposes Marquard in Second Great Struggle of World’s Series Contest.”

4 “Fan Overcome by Excitement,” Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, October 16, 1911.

5 Lew Friedman, Connie Mack’s First Dynasty: The Philadelphia Athletics, 1910-1914 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2017), 83.

6 Rube Marquard, “Giants Beaten by Home Run Hit,” New York Times, October 17, 1911.

7 Norman Macht, Connie Mack and the Early Years of Baseball (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2007), 525.

The Philadelphia Athletics were on Cloud Nine as they pulled out a come-from-behind victory in 11 innings over the New York Giants in Game Three of the 1911 World Series and led the Series two games to one. As they took the field on October 24, they had been soaring for an entire week, thanks to lousy weather in Philadelphia. Their soaring was figurative, of course, compared with those who were really in the clouds. Orville Wright was at Kill Devil Hill, North Carolina, that day, breaking a world’s record by maintaining his aeroplane in the air for 9 minutes and 45 seconds.1 A’s fans, however, were fascinated more with the soaring home runs off the bat of Frank Baker, who inherited the name for which he would forever be known: Home Run Baker. He was the league leader with 11 home runs in 1911, but this Series cemented his fame for all time.

It all began as a feud between Baker and the Giants’ Fred Snodgrass. Baker earlier in the season had an incident with Detroit’s Ty Cobb in which the Georgia Peach slid hard into third and spiked Baker on the arm. Giants manager John McGraw thought Baker looked weak, so he encouraged his team to play a rougher brand of ball. Snodgrass went hard into Baker in Game One of the Series, gashing his arm. Baker won Game Two with a decisive home run, and then, as the Giants held a 1-0 lead in the ninth inning of Game Three, he smashed another home run to force a tie. The game went into extra innings and Snodgrass again slid spikes up at Baker, trying to take third on a passed ball. The A’s prevailed and Baker said, “Yes, Snodgrass spiked me intentionally. He acted like a swell-headed busher. You can use those very words, too.”2

The Philadelphia Inquirer dubbed Snodgrass the “Spiking Kid,” and the crowd voiced their disapproval at his arrival at Shibe Park. For his part, Baker was treated like royalty, as banners were flown on the houses outside the ballpark, and the name Home Run Baker would stick forever after. The crowd anxiously awaited every Baker at-bat, waiting for him to launch another round-tripper. “The fans shouted his name continuously and his vicious drives invariably brought the fans to their feet in a stampede of enthusiasm,” the Philadelphia Inquirer noted.3

The crowd of 24,355 was also shivering on that chilly October day which “caused fans and fanettes to turn out in wraps and blankets that made the crowd assume the appearance of football cohorts,” wrote the Inquirer.4 While the grandstand and bleachers were mostly filled, there were plenty of open seats in the outfield. One group of filled seats was in the first row of the upper pavilion which belonged to a group dubbed the “50 Tourists,” guests of the Inquirer. They made their presence felt. “Armed with megaphones, cow bells, tom-toms and other earsplitting devices” they made a “bedlam of noise” and created their own impromptu song to their hero:

What’s the matter with Baker? He’s all right!
What’s the matter with Baker? He’s all right!
He slammed the ball right over the fence;
He only did it in self-defense!
What’s the matter with Baker? He’s all right!5

Two Hall of Fame managers, McGraw and Connie Mack, sent two of the greatest pitchers of all time to the mound. McGraw went with his ace, Christy Mathewson, who at 26-13 had the National League’s best ERA at 1.99. Chief Bender was 17-5 with a 2.16 ERA for the Athletics. The two legends had faced each other six years earlier in Game Five of the 1905 World Series, when Matty outdueled Chief, 2-0, for his third shutout of the Series. This year, Mathewson had squeaked out a win over Bender in Game One, a 2-1 classic, despite Bender’s 11 strikeouts. The Christian Gentleman (another of Mathewson’s sobriquets) was brought back for Game Three and went the distance for McGraw in an 11-inning loss as the defense around him faltered. That was a week ago, as a stretch of bad weather postponed the series for five consecutive days. “With a week’s rest Mathewson went into the game brimful of confidence,” wrote the New York Times.6

The Giants jumped on the board quickly. Leadoff batter Josh Devore beat out a hit back to the mound that glanced off Bender’s meat hand. Larry Doyle launched a triple as center fielder Rube Oldring slipped in the mud and the ball rolled to the fence. Devore scored. Snodgrass, hearing “yells of derision,” lofted a fly ball to left that scored Doyle and gave the Giants a 2-0 first-inning lead.7

Mathewson allowed a hit in the bottom of the first but struck out the side, so no damage was done. In the second he allowed Danny Murphy a leadoff double. Murphy was caught napping at second and Mathewson picked him off, but his throw was wild and Murphy took third. Mack must have accepted the fact that his A’s would not have many chances like this against Mathewson, so he tried some trickery; with Jack Barry at the plate, Mack put the squeeze play in motion. But Barry missed the bunt and Murphy was a dead duck at home. Barry then reached on a bunt down the third-base line that Mathewson and Buck Herzog hoped would roll foul. Ira Thomas popped up to end the inning, filled with a flurry of activity, but the A’s had nothing to show for it.

The game remained 2-0 into the bottom of the fourth. Home Run Baker led off with a double to left-center. Murphy followed with another double to left-center, and Baker scored. Murphy scored on a double into the right-field corner by Davis that “singed the ozone” in the words of the Inquirer.8 Mathewson was perplexed and there was a conference at the mound with the entire infield as action began in the New York bullpen. “Matty was plainly nettled.”9 Davis scored on a sacrifice fly by Thomas. The A’s scored three in the inning and now led, 3-2.

In the top of the fifth, the Giants’ Chief Meyers doubled but was thrown out when he tried to advance on a wild pitch, “on an eye lash decision at the sack,” wrote the Inquirer.10 In the bottom of the inning after two were out, Eddie Collins singled and scored “like a scared rabbit” on Baker’s double to deep center. The A’s led, 4-2.11

The Giants’ Larry Doyle had egg on his face in the top of the sixth after he walked. After Snodgrass struck out, Red Murray hit a high pop foul toward third. Doyle was running with the pitch and became the victim of the A’s trickery. Barry at shortstop went through the motions of fielding a groundball and Collins covered second, playing along. Doyle fell for the bluff despite McGraw and others yelling at him from the dugout. Oblivious to where the ball really was, Doyle arrived at second, only to see it land in Baker’s glove, and he was easily doubled off first. Ridiculing his reputation as a smart player, the Inquirer wisecracked that the “superior illumination of the belfry of which we have heard so much was not in evidence, unless it was furnished by Barry and Collins.”12 Fans mockingly cheered Doyle “who walked into the trap as if blindfolded.” Doyle’s teammates smirked, and an anxious McGraw was seen biting his finger.13

Bender would allow the Giants only three hits and no runs from the sixth inning on. He faced trouble in the eighth. Devore singled and Snodgrass reached on an error, but with two outs Murray popped up to the catcher to leave two on base. Matty was pinch-hit for in the eighth, so eight-year veteran Hooks Wiltse came in to pitch a scoreless eighth. Fred Merkle, who had been struck out three times by Bender, led off the Giants ninth with a double. He made it to third on a groundout, but Art Fletcher popped out and Myers grounded out. The Athletics won, 4-2, and now had a commanding three-games-to-one advantage in the series.

Bender scattered seven hits, giving up two in an inning only in the first, while striking out four. Mathewson was certainly not his legendary self that day, allowing 10 hits, described as “juicy swats” by the Inquirer, with six of them being doubles: two each by Murphy and Baker.”14 The two Hall of Fame pitchers and Wiltse threw a total of 202 pitches in the game: Mathewson 84, Bender 106, and Wiltse 12.15

Baker, Bender, and the A’s were indeed “all right,” and on their way back to New York for Game Five.

SOURCES

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

NOTES

1 “Wright Maintains New Soarer Nine Minutes in the Air,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 25, 1911: 1.

2 C. Starr Mathews, “‘I’ll Cut You Down,'” Baltimore Sun, October 19, 1911: 10.

3 “Athletics’ Bats Win Against Pitching of Mathewson,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 25, 1911: 10.

4 “Athletics’ Bats Win Against Pitching of Mathewson”: 11.

5 “Famous Fifty Elect Matty to Down and Outers,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 25, 1911: 10.

6 “Three Straight for Athletics,” New York Times, October 25, 1911: 1.

7 “Three Straight for Athletics”: 10.

8 “Athletics’ Bats”: 10.

9 “Three Straight for Athletics”: 2.

10 “Play by Play Briefly Told of Macks’ Great Victory,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 25, 1911: 10.

11 “Three Straight for Athletics”: 10.

12 “Athletics’ Bats Win Against Pitching of Mathewson”: 10.

13 “Three Straight for Athletics”: 10.

14 “Athletics’ Bats Win Against Pitching of Mathewson”: 10.

15 “Record of the Pitchers,” New York Times, October 25, 1911: 3.

“The old White Elephant stands above the great throbbing world of baseball,” gushed sportswriter Jim Nasium following the Philadelphia Athletics crushing 13-2 victory over the New York Giants in Game Six of the 1911 World Series to capture their second consecutive title.1 “The Athletics were positively savage the with the bat,” opined scribe Thomas S. Rice, by setting a new Series record for the most runs scored in a game and the largest margin of victory.2 The “real hero of the Series,” wrote the Brooklyn Eagle, was not the A’s offense, but rather their pitcher Chief Bender, who tossed his second complete-game victory in three days.3 Bender exhibited “cool and calculating leadership” and “never lost his head,” wrote the New York Tribune,4 while the New York Times praised him as “one of the greatest slabmen of his time” and a “cool, brainy, unshakable flinger.”5

Skipper Connie Mack’s high-scoring A’s (101-50) were heavily favored going into the Series, but the first five games were hardscrabble affairs, each won by one or two runs and featuring a total of just 25 runs scored. Manager John McGraw’s Giants (99-54) squeaked out their second one-run victory in Game Five at the Polo Grounds, sending the teams back to Philadelphia on the latest day a World Series Game had ever been played (a record that stood until 1981). The fall classic was in its 13th day, prolonged by six consecutive days of rain between Games Three and Four.

Mystery surrounded the skippers’ choices for starting pitchers. McGraw, who had relied on only his stars Christy Mathewson (26-13) and Rube Marquard (24-7) thus far, chose Red Ames among the four who warmed up (Ames, Doc Crandall, Hooks Wiltse, and Marquard). The curveballing Ames, coming off an 11-10 campaign to push his record to 95-71 in his nine-year career, had made his first Series appearance the day before, tossing four scoreless frames. After Jack Coombs (28-12) severely injured his groin in Game Five and was lost for the remainder of the Series, Mack needed to be strategic and sent his three other primary regular-season starters to warm up. Mack surprised everyone by choosing Bender over Eddie Plank (23-8), who had started only Game Two 10 days earlier, though had taken the loss in relief in Game Five, and Cy Morgan (15-7), who hadn’t pitched since October 5.

The 27-year-old Bender had long proved to be a big-game pitcher, as well as one of the Tall Tactician’s favorites. He had a 142-81 slate in nine seasons, including 17-5 in 1911, and had excelled in the World Series, where he owned a 1.54 ERA in 52⅔ innings, having completed all six of his starts. He had lost the Series opener to Mathewson, 2-1, tossing 137 pitches and fanning 11, then handed Big Six his second Series defeat in Game Four, 4-2.6 “They say the Chief isn’t good for a quick comeback,” quipped the New York Sun, echoing an oft-repeated critique of Bender’s durability that revealed as much about the racism Bender faced as reality.7

Shibe Park drew a less-than-capacity crowd of 20,485 spectators, almost 6,000 fewer than for Game Two, on a clear, cool, autumnal Thursday afternoon with temperatures in the 50s.8 About a half-hour before the 2 P.M. start time, fans from the overcrowded bleachers were permitted onto the field, where they were cordoned off by rope in left field and right field.9

The “baseball maddened crowd was stunned” in the first inning, wrote the Inquirer, when Larry Doyle lined a one-out hit off the right-field fence, just missing a home run, and the ball fell into the crowd for a ground-rule double.10 Two batters later, Red Murray hit a routine fly ball that should have ended the frame, but Danny Murphy made a “scholastic muff” enabling Doyle to score.11 Murphy was struggling. His flub attempting to catch a foul ball enabled the Giants to score the game-winning run in the 10th inning the day before, but he would emerge as an offensive hero in this game.

The A’s tied the game in the third on Bris Lord’s one-out double scoring Ira Thomas, who had led off with a walk. It was the first of the A’s 13 unanswered runs, highlighted by two big innings. The Mackmen blew it open in the fourth with consecutive singles by Home Run Baker and Murphy. Graybeard Harry Davis, forced into action because of 20-year-old emerging star Stuffy McInnis’s season-ending hit-by-pitch injury on September 25, grounded to second baseman Doyle, who hesitated, looked home and then to first base before firing to the catcher, but Baker scored easily. Though no error was given, the Giants committed two on the next batter leading Jim Nasium to quip that their defense played like “a bunch of trolley leaguers on a barn storming tour through the mustache-cup belt.”12 It began when Ames fielded Jack Barry’s routine sacrifice bunt. His throw to first bounced off Barry’s head and into right field, and Murphy scored. Retrieving the orb, Murray heaved it wildly over shortstop Art Fletcher’s head and into the wall along the left-field foul line, enabling Davis and Barry to score and give the A’s a 5-1 lead. The comedy of errors “broke the Giants nerve and defense,” quipped the Inquirer.13 Wiltse replaced Ames to start the fifth. The A’s padded their lead in the sixth on Murphy’s leadoff double “over [Fred] Snodgrass’s head” and Barry’s sacrifice fly.14

The baseball world wondered when the A’s offense would explode. Mack’s squad had led the majors by scoring 5.7 runs per game and posting a composite .296 batting average, featuring five starters who batted at least .310, led by Eddie Collins (.365), Baker (.334), and Murphy (.329). The wait ended in the seventh when the A’s “riddled [the Giants] with a fusillade of ringing hits,” noted the Times, scoring a then-World Series record seven runs in an inning.15 After Bender flied out, the next eight batters reached base, “overwhelming the Giants, scoring runs galore, swatting balls to every corner of the lot,” wrote the Inquirer.16 After Lord and Rube Oldring singled, Fred Merkle muffed Ames’s throw on Collins’s sacrifice bunt, resulting in the first run. Baker, Murphy, and Davis all connected for RBI singles. Barry doubled to plate another, finally mercifully sending Wiltse to the showers. Marquard came on in relief, but his second pitch to Thomas crossed up catcher Chief Meyers, “dented the screen in the grandstand,” and Davis and Barry scored the final two runs of the inning. “The hollowness of the one-sided victory,” opined the Tribune, “took much of the enthusiasm out of the crowd.”17 With the outcome of the game and Series secure after seven innings, spectators began to leave Shibe Park.

Bender should have had a shutout in the game. The A’s led the majors with the fewest errors and the highest fielding percentage, but were uncharacteristically sloppy. The 6-foot-2 right-hander yielded only four hits, yet pitched with men on in every inning except the fourth when he retired the side on three pitches. Barry, who had led all big-league shortstops with a .944 fielding average, committed three errors (in the second, seventh, and eighth). Despite the miscues, the Giants had two men on base only once. In the fifth, Meyers singled with two outs and Doc Crandall, pinch-hitting for Ames, drew a free pass. With the 23rd pitch of his most taxing inning, Bender retired Josh Devore on “a high, fast drop,” according to the Inquirer, which caught him looking on a 3-and-2 count.18 The A’s fifth and final error led to the second Giants tally, and like the first it was unearned. With one out in the ninth, Herzog’s single to center caught Oldring “loafing.”19 Oldring fumbled the ball, allowing Herzog to reach second. He advanced another station on Bender’s wild pitch, then tallied the Series’ final run on Fletcher’s groundout. In a remarkable gesture of sportsmanship that reflected the Athletics’ close-knit bonds, Harry Davis motioned to McInnis on the bench to take his place. In his last season as a player, Davis had agreed months earlier to become the manager of the Cleveland Naps in 1912. In a conclusion befitting the A’s championship season, McInnis recorded the last out, receiving Baker’s throw on Art Wilson’s grounder to end the game in 2 hours and 12 minutes.

The A’s captured their second straight championship in a Series that was more competitive than the final game suggested. The biggest difference in the Series was that the A’s trio of pitchers – Coombs, Bender, and Plank – logged every inning and limited the Giants to a .175 batting average on 33 hits. Bender needed just 102 pitches (74 strikes) to complete Game Six. Had there been an MVP award, he would have earned it: three complete games and a 1.04 ERA in 26 innings. The star on offense was Home Run Baker, who produced a Series-most seven runs, nine hits, and five runs batted in (tied with Davis), and belted two of the Series’ three round-trippers.

SOURCES

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

Bulger, Bozeman. “Hitting’s the Main Thing in Baseball, and That’s Why Athletics Won Title,” (New York) Evening World, October 27, 1911: 22.

“Coombs Badly Injured,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 27, 1911: 8.

Mathewson, Christy. “Mathewson Gives Praise to Macks,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 27, 1911: 10.

NOTES

1 Jim Nasium, “Macks Make Every One of the 13 Hits Count a Run,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 27, 1911: 10.

2 Thomas S. Rice, “Remarkable Series Ended with Slaughter of the Giants,” Brooklyn Eagle, October 27, 1911: 25. The A’s 13 runs remained the World Series record until the New York Yankees pounded the New York Giants 18-4 in Game Two of the 1936 fall classic, which also set a new record for the largest margin of victory in a World Series. The A’s 13 runs were matched by the Giants in Game Three in 1921 in their defeat of the Yankees, 13-5; and by the Yankees in Game Four in 1932, defeating the Chicago Cubs, 13-6. The A’s 11-run margin of victory was tied by the St. Louis Cardinals in Game Seven in 1934 when they beat the Detroit Tigers, 11-0.

3 Rice.

4 “Athletics Capture the World Series Title,” New York Tribune, October 27, 1911: 1.

5 “Athletics Are the Champions,” New York Times, October 27, 1911: 1.

6 Bender’s total of 137 pitches is from “Bender Pitched 102 Balls to Giants,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 27, 1911: 10.

7 “Athletics Rout the Giants,” (New York) Sun, October 27, 1911: 1. Bender averaged 25 starts and 21 complete games among his 31 appearances from 1903 to 1911. He suffered poor health and arm miseries most of his career, yet Mack recognized his value and gave him extra time between starts.

8 “Yesterday’s Local Weather Report,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 27, 1913: 2.

9 “Athletics Capture the World Series Title.”

10 “Macks Bat Out Victory; Scoring Runs with Ease,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 27, 191: 1.

11 “Turning Point Was the Fourth Inning,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 27, 1911: 1.

12 Jim Nasium.

13 “Turning Point Was the Fourth Inning.”

14 “Athletics Rout the Giants.”

15 “Athletics Are the Champions.”

16 “Macks Bat Out Victory; Scoring Runs with Ease.”

17 “Athletics Capture the World Series Title.”

18 “Bender Pitched 102 Balls to Giants.”

19 Jim Nasium.