After a single season in the upstart American League, the Milwaukee Brewers franchise was relocated to the “Gateway to the West” in the fall of 1901. The team borrowed a name from the past, the Brown Stockings, and moved into the city’s vacant Sportsman’s Park, the one along Dodier and Grand. The ballpark hadn’t housed a team in 10 years, not since the original Browns, of the National League, left Sportsman’s Park and moved to a ballpark several blocks northwest. For a time, they also called that one Sportsman’s Park, and the club ultimately changed its name to the Cardinals.

For a while, Grand Avenue’s Sportsman’s Park kept its character. In 1875, when August Solari opened his quaint 8,000-seat Grand Avenue Grounds for the original Brown Stockings, he situated home plate in the ballpark’s northeast corner, the one bounded by Dodier and Grand. As the new Browns took up residence for the 1902 season, however, home plate was moved to the ballpark’s northwest corner, bordered by Sullivan Avenue and Spring Street. There it remained for the next seven years, backed by a wooden grandstand.

Much advancement took place in ballpark architecture over those seven years. By the end of the 1908 season, as one mediocre Browns team after another toiled in their wooden home, new ballparks made of concrete and steel had been built in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. It was time, then, to modernize Sportsman’s Park, to furbish it, too, with concrete and steel, and to enlarge the grand old park to accommodate the unprecedented growth that baseball was enjoying. In 1909, Browns fans would cheer for their team in, if not a brand-new ballpark, in one that looked nothing like they had ever seen.

The first and perhaps most symbolic change in Sportsman’s alignment was a complete reversal of the field’s layout: home plate was moved from the northwest corner to the southwest, where it was now bordered by Dodier Street and Spring Avenue. Most impressively, a two-tiered concrete and steel grandstand that spanned from first base to third base was erected behind the new home-plate location, and the old wooden grandstand that had stood behind the old home plate was transformed into a spacious new left-field pavilion made of concrete. When construction was completed, Sportsman’s Park had been transformed into a gleaming new 25,000-seat jewel that represented the Browns’ future.

Naturally, the public was eager to get a look at the rebuilt Sportsman’s Park. Under the conditions, though, the crowd perhaps failed to live up to all that the event may have promised. When Opening Day arrived on April 14, 1909, it brought an unseasonably cold day, one in which “even the peanut boys sat about hugging themselves to keep warm.”1 Some intrepid fans arrived early and in great numbers to stake out choice viewing locations in the outfield. Indeed, reported the press the following day, “The crowd was out on the field behind the ropes a long time before the game started.”2 They weren’t necessarily in a placid mood, either. In a throng that stood rows deep, with many spectators perched on “benches, [or] boards set on anything that the crowd could lay its hands on to gain a point of vantage,” the enthusiastic patrons waged a “never-ending battle with the policemen on guard at the ropes.”3 Continuously, “the bluecoats shoved the crowd back,” as “those in the third, fourth and fifth rows crowded forward.”4 Battling mightily to keep things under control, “the officers would almost be carried off their feet.”5

What must have most astonished the crowd behind the ropes, of course, looking up from ground level, was the sheer size of the new ballpark, particularly the new two-level grandstand behind home plate. In describing the grandstand, a sportswriter noted, “One look at the comparatively small structure that was the grandstand last year and a comparison with the big stand was enough to convince everyone that they might as well try to hunt for the haystack needle as to find anybody in the new park.”6

If the crowd on the field, though, was undaunted by the cold, the chill higher up in the atmosphere seemed to have kept some folks away from the ballpark’s gaudy new grandstand. For while the first level was “crowded almost to its limit,” the second level, “with the exception of the boxes, which were almost all filled,” was not. That small crowd likely had to do with the chill wind that “swept through the stand with a whistle that went through almost any amount of wraps.”7

Out in left field, meantime, the site of the old wooden grandstands that for the previous seven years stood behind the old home plate, the new concrete pavilion was “filled, but not overcrowded.”8

All in all, wrote the press, “Whether it was the chilly wind or the fact that the park is so much larger than last year, the crowd could not seem to show the enthusiasm they displayed last year. … The cheering seemed light. There seemed to be a lack of concerted noisemaking.”9 Perhaps it was the play on the field, though, which had for so long been less than stellar, that generated such tempered applause.

With the exception of their first year in St. Louis, when they finished in second place, the Browns had never been very good. True, in 1908 they’d won 83 games and finished above .500 for the third time in their seven-year history; yet they’d finished only in fourth place, so contending for a championship remained elusive. Perhaps, though, this year they would build on that moderate success and finally make a run.

In 1909, however, that success was not to be. On this day, the Cleveland Naps, led by superstar player-manager Napoleon Lajoie, visited Sportsman’s Park for the season’s opening three-game series. After a thrilling American League pennant chase the previous year, during which Lajoie’s Naps played and lost one more game than the champion Detroit Tigers and finished an agonizing second, just a half-game behind, the Naps looked to repeat their high level of play. On the mound for Cleveland in St. Louis was the brilliant Addie Joss, winner of 92 games over the past four seasons. Opposing Joss was 34-year-old right-hander Jack Powell.

The flame-throwing Joss eventually became one of baseball’s immortals. John Joseph “Red” Powell is less acclaimed in baseball lore, but he was entering his 13th big-league season with 209 wins and was one of his era’s toughest pitchers. He would prove as much on this day. Displaying “perfect control” and “speed that increased as the game progressed,” Powell “allowed just five hits to the heavy-slugging Naps” and “outpitched” Joss, who had “neither the speed nor control to match Powell.”10 Still, Powell’s toughness wasn’t enough, for, as it was reported the next day, although the “Browns beat [the Naps] down for eight innings … in one frame, the fourth, Lajoie and his tribe won the game.”11

Key to the Naps’ win were two critical Browns errors and a lack of speed on the basepaths. During that Naps fourth inning, Browns shortstop Bobby Wallace and third baseman Hobe Ferris, both normally surehanded fielders, committed miscues. Those mistakes, together with three Naps hits, accounted for four runs in the frame. Although St. Louis touched Joss for eight hits, including three doubles, two Browns runners were cut down at second, one on a perfect throw from the outfield, and the other on a steal attempt. Were it not for those chances, plus the defensive blunders, the press opined, “Powell should have been the victor by a score of 2-1,” rather than the 4-2 loser.12

Despite the Browns loss, the next day it was reported that the team “played a game of ball that was a delight to the estimated 25,000 fans who swarmed [the] new park. … Not one of them left the place discouraged.”13 When the game was ended, the “rush for the streetcars was fierce. … [C]ars ran one after another” and “hundreds and hundreds had to wait for an available seat.”14

It was a scene that in one way or another would be repeated many times over the next 57 years as

St. Louis’s baseball fans headed home after yet another game at their beloved Ballpark at Dodier and Grand.

This article appears in “Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis: Home of the Browns and Cardinals at Grand and Dodier” (SABR, 2017), edited by Gregory H. Wolf. Click here to read more articles from this book online.

Photo Caption

Workhorse Jack Powell started the first game for the Browns in their new home, Sportsman’s Park. He won 245 games and lost 254 in his 16-year career (1897-1912). (Library of Congress)

Sources

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

Notes

1 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 15, 1909: 17.

2 Ibid.

3 Ibid.

4 Ibid.

5 Ibid.

6 Ibid.

7 Ibid.

8 Ibid.

9 Ibid.

10 James Crusinberry, “Lack of Speed Still Injures Browns’ Play,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 15, 1909: 10.

11 Ibid.

12 Ibid.

13 Ibid.

14 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 15, 1909: 17.

Chicago Tribune 

A durable, yet often inconsistent hurler, Cicotte had flashed signs of brilliance since his first full season in 1908, with the Boston Red Sox, and his subsequent acquisition by the White Sox in July 1912. He finished second in the AL in ERA in 1913 (1.58) and again in 1916 (1.78) when he concluded the season on a tear, yielding just four earned runs in 48⅔ innings in September and winning all five of his decisions. With a 119-100 record in parts of 10 seasons, Cicotte’s success rested on a mesmerizing knuckleball and a series of trick pitches, especially the shine ball. Cicotte made only 19 starts among his 44 appearances in 1916, but Pale Hose skipper Pants Rowland looked to 5-feet-9 “Knuckles” to play a bigger role in 1917 — if there was a season.

The estimated 10,000 fans at Sportsman’s Park in the Gateway City on Saturday afternoon, April 14, 1917, for the final contest of the three-game season-opening series between the St. Louis Browns and the Chicago White Sox might have been confused when they saw players marching in unison with bats on their shoulders, led by a drill sergeant. Weeks earlier, AL President Ban Johnson had ordered all teams to practice military drills during spring training, as pressure mounted on the United States to enter World War I, which had ravaged Europe since 1914. On April 6, just days before the regular season began, the United States declared war on Germany. Former league MVP Eddie Collins of the White Sox praised the exercise regimen for preparing players physically for the season and instilling the discipline needed to succeed as a team.2 Baseball would go on despite calls that the season be suspended.

With temperatures hovering in the 40s and dark, ominous skies overhead, the White Sox came out swinging against 25-year-old Browns southpaw Earl Hamilton, who had also started the season opener just three days earlier, yielding only five hits and three runs (none earned) in 7⅓ innings in the Browns’ eventual 7-2 loss. After Collins drew a two-out walk and moved to third on Shoeless Joe Jackson’s double, he scored on Happy Felsch’s single. Cuban-born center fielder Armando Marsans made a running catch on Chick Gandil’s deep fly to save two more runs and end the inning.

In what proved to be the Browns’ only scoring chance of the game, Cicotte walked leadoff hitter Burt Shotton, who stole second when shortstop Swede Risberg dropped the catcher’s throw, but was stranded on third.3

The White Sox offense exploded in the second inning. Hamilton faced only two batters (hitting Buck Weaver and surrendering a double to Ray Schalk) before yielding to reliever Jim Park. “One would think that [Park] had desecrated the American flag,” wrote W.J. O’Connor in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “He got along with the enemy like percussion caps and dynamite. The explosion was terrific.”4 All four batters Park faced hit safely. Cicotte’s single knocked in two runs; Risberg followed Nemo Leibold’s single with a double to plate Cicotte; and Collins’s single increased Chicago’s lead to 5-0. With two men on, right-hander Tom Rogers made his big-league debut against Shoeless Joe. According to Sanborn, Rogers’s “first attempt was a wild throw,” permitting Risberg to score.5 Jackson ultimately walked; and he and Collins moved up a station on Felsch’s sacrifice bunt, the first out of the frame. After Gandil’s fly ball drove home Collins, and Weaver reached on first baseman George Sisler’s error (the first of five Brownie miscues), the Browns suffered the ultimate indignity when the White Sox executed a daring double steal.6 Jackson scored from third to make it 8-0, while Weaver rounded second and was thrown out going to third to end the inning.

The first two innings, noted the Tribune in utter amazement, lasted 40 minutes.7 The Post-Dispatch opined solemnly that “after the first six or eight runs nobody kept cases on the Chicago score.”8

Among the best control pitchers of the era, Cicotte “wobbled some” in the third, according to the Tribune, yielding consecutive two-out walks to Shotton and Ward Miller.9 But Risberg snared Sisler’s scorching liner to end the frame.

Rogers settled down enough after his baptism of fire to last seven innings, yielding just two hits but also walking four. The White Sox made it 9-0 in the fourth when Collins drew a free pass, moved to third on a hard-hit grounder by Jackson (which Sanborn noted was “scored as error to [shortstop Doc] Lavan by St. Louis’s blind official scorer”10), and subsequently raced home on Felsch’s out. After loading the bases with no outs in the sixth on a walk to Leibold, a single by Risberg, and a bunt single by Collins, Jackson and Felsch each drove in runs on outs for an 11-0 lead.

Staked to a seemingly insurmountable early-inning lead, Cicotte cruised through the Browns lineup. In the fifth he hit Lavan who was quickly erased in a 6-4-3 double play. The Browns’ most exciting play, and the game’s most controversial one, occurred with two outs in the seventh. Jimmy Austin hit what the Post-Dispatch called a “sizzling drive” straight to first sacker Chick Gandil. “Jimmy’s drive had whiskers like a German who was trapped for ten days on Vimy Ridge,” wrote O’Connor, making reference to the brutal battle between primarily Canadian and German troops on the Western Front that had concluded two days earlier with well over 10,000 casualties in four days of fighting. While the Tribune’s Sanborn suggested the ball “flitted through Gandil’s mitt,” O’Connor opined that “ordinarily this would have been scored a hit.” Casting doubt on the official scorer’s intention in the midst of Cicotte’s no-hitter, O’Connor added, “[T]here was ominous unanimity in the belief that … (the scoring decision) was an egregious error.”11

Despite the humiliating score, skipper Fielder Jones’s Brownies did not roll over, making up for their offensive woes with some excellent defensive stops. In the eighth, Collins and Jackson belted deep drives to center field. “The Cuban tore back and captured both of them brilliantly,” wrote Sanborn in a compliment to Marsans.12 O’Connor was even more effusive in his praise. “Marsans has only one peer as a defensive man,” he opined, naming the Cleveland Indians’ Tris Speaker as the standard-bearer at that position.13 In the ninth, right-hander Kewpie Pennington relieved Rogers, retiring three of the four batters he faced in his only big-league appearance. Third baseman Austin helped out his hurler by making what the Tribune called a “spectacular catch” of Weaver’s foul when “he slid under it to protect himself from hitting the grandstand.”14

Cicotte was at his “best at the finish,” gushed Sanborn.15 The Michigan native made quick work of the Browns in the ninth, retiring Miller, Sisler, and Del Pratt on infield popups to complete the no-hitter in 2 hours and 2 minutes to win with “apparent ease.”16 Cicotte fanned five and walked three in recording the sixth White Sox no-hitter in franchise history, and the first since teammate Joe Benz beat the Cleveland Naps, 6-1, on May 31, 1914. Future Hall of Famer Ray Schalk had also donned the tools of ignorance for that no-hitter, and would be behind the plate for the White Sox’ next one, too, on April 30, 1922, when Charlie Robertson tossed the first perfect game in team history (and fifth in big-league history) to beat the Detroit Tigers, 2-0.

The Browns exacted revenge of sorts against Cicotte on May 5 at Sportsman’s Park when Ernie Koob tossed the second no-hitter in Browns history, albeit a controversial one, defeating the Pale Hose, 1-0. The Tribune initially reported that Koob had tossed a one-hitter;17 but hours after the game, the official scorer, John B. Sheridan, a St. Louis sportswriter, changed Buck Weaver’s first-inning hit to an error on second baseman Ernie Johnson. The following day, the Browns’ Bob Groom tossed a no-hitter against Chicago in the second game of a doubleheader. It was the first time in big-league history that a team had thrown no-hitters on consecutive days.

Sanborn’s prediction that the White Sox would win the pennant was correct. They won 100 games, owing in large part to the emergence of Cicotte as the AL’s best pitcher. He led the league in wins (28), ERA (1.53), and innings (346⅔), while completing 29 of his 35 starts among 49 appearances. Cicotte defeated the New York Giants in Game One of the World Series. He made three appearances in Chicago’s Series victory, yielding just four earned runs in 23 innings in three appearances.

This article appears in “Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis: Home of the Browns and Cardinals at Grand and Dodier” (SABR, 2017), edited by Gregory H. Wolf. Click here to read more articles from this book online.

Photo Caption

Eddie Cicotte led the AL in wins (28), ERA (1.53), and innings pitched (346) in 1917 for the world champion Chicago White Sox. (Library of Congress)

Sources

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

Notes

1 I.E. Sanborn, “Sox Should Win Flag Unless Stars Are Hurt,” Chicago Tribune, April 8, 1917: A1.

2 Edward T. Collins, “Eddie Collins Tells Benefits of Army Drills,” Chicago Tribune, April 15, 1917: A1.

3 According to “Notes,” Chicago Tribune, April 15, 1917: A1, Shotton was credited with a stolen base; however, the box scores in Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org do not credit him with a stolen base.

4 W.J. O’Connor, “Browns Hitless Before Cicotte, Sox Go Over, 11-0,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 15, 1917: 35.

5 According to I.E. Sanborn, “Cicotte Pitches No-Hit Game for Sox,” Chicago Tribune, April 15, 1917: A1, Rogers made a wild pitch; however, the box scores in Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org do not credit Rogers with a wild pitch.

6 Contemporary newspaper reports mentioned the stolen bases; however, the box scores in Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org do not credit Jackson or Weaver with one.

7 I.E. Sanborn “Cicotte Pitches No-Hit Game for Sox,” Chicago Tribune, April 15, 1917: A1.

8 O’Connor.

9 Sanborn, “Cicotte Pitches No-Hit Game for Sox.”

10 Ibid.

11 Ibid.

12 Ibid.

13 O’Connor.

14 “Notes,” Chicago Tribune.

15 Sanborn, “Cicotte Pitches No-Hit Game for Sox.”

16 Ibid.

17 I.E. Sanborn, “Koob Tames Sox in One Hit Game, 1-0,” Chicago Tribune, May 6, 1917: 1.

Skipper Fielder Jones’s Browns were itching to get back on the diamond on Saturday, May 5, to play the first game of a six-game series against the White Sox. The “dark, dank, dismal days of sunless Spring,” as O’Connor put it, had forced the postponement of the Browns’ games with the Detroit Tigers the previous two days.5 Coming off their first winning season in eight years and just their fourth in franchise history as a charter member of the AL, the Browns had split their first 16 games, and were in fourth place, three games behind the front-running Boston Red Sox. The Pale Hose (11-7), piloted by Pants Rowland, had pennant aspirations, having finished runners-up to the Red Sox the previous year. However, the club had lost five of its last seven games to fall out of first place.

The inclement weather and poor field conditions suggested an advantage for the hurlers. Chicago sent its ace, 33-year-old right-handed knuckleballer Eddie Cicotte, to the mound. On April 14 the 11-year veteran, with a career record of 121-101 (2-1 thus far in ’17), had opened the season by hurling the first no-hitter in the history of Sportsman’s Park, defeating the Browns, 11-0. The Brownies countered with Koob, a 24-year-old southpaw and part-time starter who had entered the season with a 15-13 career record. In his last outing, on April 29, he was scorched for four hits and four runs in just 1⅔ innings of relief against the Cleveland Indians, but notched the victory to improve his record to 2-1.

After Koob fanned leadoff hitter Shano Collins to start the game, Buck Weaver hit a sharp grounder to second baseman Ernie Johnson, in what proved to be the most important and controversial play of the afternoon. A journeyman infielder making his first career start at the keystone sack, Johnson replaced the injured Del Pratt, generally acknowledged as one of the best second basemen of the era. Johnson “gave it a valorous battle,” opined O’Connor, while sportswriter I.E. Sanborn of the Tribune noted that Johnson “tore in and tried to pull a brilliant stop.”6 O’Connor poetically described Johnson’s struggles in the Post-Dispatch: He “fielded [the ball] with his chest, and knocked it silly at his feet. He then laid a prehensile paw on the pill and came up with ample time” to throw to first baseman George Sisler. “But he suddenly lost his prehensileness and threw the ball over his shoulder like a superstitious person throwing salt to avoid a fight.”7 Weaver easily reached first as Johnson searched for the ball behind him. Johnson’s fumbling act, noted O’Connor, instantly evoked a debate in the press box about whether Weaver deserved a hit or Johnson an error. The official scorer, John B. Sheridan, a St. Louis sportswriter, ruled immediately and emphatically that it was a hit. Johnson redeemed himself just moments later. Koob scooped up Eddie Collins’s grounder back to the mound and tossed to Johnson to initiate an inning-ending twin killing. “Johnson has a great arm for a middle man in double-murders,” gushed O’Connor.8

The Browns threatened to tally the game’s first run in the bottom of the third when light-hitting Doc Lavan (batting just .135 entering the game) popped a one-out single over first baseman Chick Gandil’s head. After Koob walked, Burt Shotton loaded the bases when second baseman Eddie Collins misplayed his grounder.9 Cicotte, one of the game’s most notorious shine-ballers, escaped the jam when Jimmy Austin grounded to shortstop Swede Risberg and Sisler struck out on what the Post-Dispatch considered “three bad balls.”10

The fifth proved to be Koob’s “severest test,” according to O’Connor, when the White Sox advanced as far as second base for the first and only time of the game.11 Gandil led off with a grounder and raced 180 feet following shortstop Lavan’s two-base throwing error. After Risberg and Ray Schalk were retired on “anemic flies” to right fielder Baby Doll Jacobson, Cicotte walked. Lavan then atoned for his miscue by fielding Shano Collins’s grounder and beating Cicotte to the bag to squelch the rally.12

The outcome of the game rested on Austin’s routine pop-up behind second base in the sixth. According to the Post-Dispatch, Risberg, calling off second sacker Eddie Collins and center fielder Happy Felsch, “tangoed back and hesitated,” but fumbled the ball for an error, enabling the speedy Austin to reach second.13 Up stepped Sisler, emerging as one of the league’s best hitters, who entered the game batting .381, third highest in the AL. Sisler lined a single to right field to drive in Austin for the game’s only run.

O’Connor described the game as “featureless … as pitched battles always are.”14 Save for Johnson’s muff in the first, Koob set down the White Sox, the big leagues’ highest-scoring team in 1917, without the help of any exceptional defensive gem; nonetheless, he profited from heads- up, fundamentally sound ball. As tension mounted in the pitchers’ duel, Risberg drew a one-out walk in the seventh, Koob’s fifth free pass (all with two outs) of the game. Third baseman Austin fielded Schalk’s lazy grounder to initiate the Browns’ second double play, in exciting 5-4-3, around-the-horn fashion.

As the game wore on, “grave doubt,” wrote the Post-Dispatch, arose in the press box about the hit awarded to Weaver in the first.15 Koob had thrown two shutouts in his career, a five-hitter against the Washington Senators and a marathon 17-inning, 14-hitter against Boston that ended in a tie, but had never seriously flirted with a no-no.

The Browns tried to add on when Armando Marsans, the third Cuban-born big-league player and the first to start regularly, led off the seventh with a double and moved to third on Johnson’s sacrifice bunt. He broke for home when Lavan grounded up the middle. Eddie Collins fielded the ball cleanly and rifled a strike to his fellow future Hall of Famer, Ray Schalk, who tagged Marsans at the plate. Koob fouled out to end the frame.

Koob “moved merrily along,” gushed O’Connor, “mowing ’em down with great éclat.”16 He retired all six batters he faced in the eighth and ninth to finish the game in 1 hour and 34 minutes. Without celebrations, the contestants retired to their clubhouses; the Brownies delighted with Koob’s one-hit shutout. Koob “throttled Comiskey’s de lux twenty-four cylinder machine,” praised the Tribune.17 Cicotte, a tough-luck loser, surrendered just five safeties.

While the ballpark emptied and the players dressed, Sheridan harbored doubts about his first-inning ruling. He “sought sounder counsel,” wrote the Post-Dispatch, and conferred with umps, players, and coaches.18 According to the paper, “to a man” all parties agreed that Johnson deserved an error and Koob a no-hit game. The Post-Dispatch admitted there was a “suspicion of gang ethics” and attempts by the Browns to influence Sheridan’s decision but O’Connor tried to defuse those accusations. “The able and honorable official scorer yielded reluctantly under the preponderance of evidence and erased the hit, substituting an error.”19 Koob was credited with the first no-hitter by a St. Louis Browns pitcher in Sportsman’s Park, and just the second in franchise history.20

“I made a rank error,” Ernie Johnson told the St. Louis Star and Times the next day.21 “The ball was hit straight at me and although I got in front of it, it hopped out of my hands. But as it fell ‘dead’ at my feet, I still had a second chance to get the batter. … [A] throw to Sisler would have had him but the ball slipped out of my hand and flew over my shoulder.”

Sheridan’s flip-flop caused a scandal. The Base Ball Writers Association of America lodged a formal protest with the both league offices on May 6. It also polled its members on a resolution asking both league presidents to instruct official scorers that their rulings cannot be reversed except in cases on “misinterpretation of the rules.”22 There was also an unsuccessful attempt to change Sheridan’s decision back to a hit.

This article appears in “Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis: Home of the Browns and Cardinals at Grand and Dodier” (SABR, 2017), edited by Gregory H. Wolf. Click here to read more articles from this book online.

Sources

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

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/SLA/SLA191705050.shtml

http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1917/B05050SLA1917.htm

Notes

1 Tim Jones, “Dewey defeats Truman,” Chicago Tribune. https://chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/chi-chicagodays-deweydefeats-story-story.html.

2 W.J. O’Connor, “No-Hit Game Nets Koob and Browns One-Run Victory,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 6, 1917: 1S.

3 I.E. Sanborn, “Koob Tames Sox in One Hit Game, 1-0,” Chicago Tribune, May 6, 1917: 1.

4 O’Connor.

5 Ibid.

6 O’Connor; Sanborn.

7 O’Connor.

8 “Sisler, Who Leads Cobb in Batting, Strikes Out With Bases Filled,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 6, 1917: 1S

9 There is some discrepancy on this play. The Post-Dispatch and the Chicago Tribune charged Collins with an error; the game account on Baseball Reference.com does not.

10 “Sisler, Who Leads Cobb in Batting, Strikes Out With Bases Filled.”

11 O’Connor.

12 O’Connor.

13 “Sisler, Who Leads Cobb in Batting, Strikes Out With Bases Filled.”

14 O’Connor.

15 Ibid.

16 Ibid.

17 Sanborn.

18 O’Connor.

19 Ibid.

20 The first no-hitter in Browns history belongs to Earl Hamilton who beat the Detroit Tigers, 5-1, at Navin Field on August 30, 1912.

21 “Koob Is Entitled to a No-Hit Game, E. Johnson Claims,” St. Louis Star and Times, May 7, 1917: 11.

22 “Baseball Writers to Protest Koob’s No-Hit Contest,” Pittsburgh Daily Post, May 7, 1917: 7.

A day earlier, Groom’s St. Louis Browns teammate Ernie Koob had subdued the South Siders on what newspapers reported was a one-hit shutout. Hours after that game, the official scorer, St. Louis sportswriter John B. Sheridan, changed a controversial first-inning hit by Buck Weaver to an error on second baseman Ernie Johnson. Koob was credited with the Browns’ first no-hitter, but the incident unleashed a protest by sportswriters, and an attempt to have Sheridan’s decision overruled. (It wasn’t.) There was no such concern in what O’Connor described as Groom’s “Homeric effort” which began with the hurler tossing two hitless frames of relief in the first game of the Browns doubleheader sweep.3

The Browns and White Sox were headed in opposite directions. Koob’s tainted no-hitter pushed skipper Fielder Jones’s squad one game above .500 (9-8), tied with the New York Yankees for third place, 2½ games behind the Boston Red Sox. After a strong start to the season, manager Pants Rowland’s White Sox were reeling. The team had lost six of its last eight games, and was in second place (11-8).

An estimated 20,000 spectators braved a cool, raw day with temperatures hovering in low 50s to take in a Sunday afternoon twin bill. The “outpouring at Sportsman’s Park gives pause to those who have figured that major league baseball was slipping,” suggested sportswriter John Wray in the Post-Dispatch.4 The overflow crowd included fans lined up several deep in the outfield, cordoned off by a rope.

In the first game, the Browns exploded for five runs in the fourth inning but held a precarious 5-4 lead to begin the eighth inning. Into the game stepped Bob Groom, a 32-year-old right-hander who began his ninth season with a 109-129 record since debuting for the Washington Senators in 1909. A former 20-game winner, Groom was a sturdy workhorse, averaging 258 innings and 14 wins per campaign in his career; he had also led his league in losses twice (26 as a rookie in 1909; and 20 with the St. Louis Terriers of the Federal League in 1914). Making his fifth relief appearance among his seven outings thus far in ’17, Groom held the White Sox hitless in two innings, though he looked wobbly at times, issuing three walks in the Browns’ eventual 8-4 victory, their fifth win in sixth games.

Minutes later Groom was back on the mound as the Browns starter in the second game, but did not look anything like a pitcher who could toss a no-hitter. He issued a walk to leadoff hitter Nemo Leibold, then benefited when his batterymate, Hank Severeid, picked up Weaver’s poorly-placed sacrifice bunt in front of the plate and fired a strike to shortstop Doc Lavan to initiate a 2-6-3 twin killing.

The Browns came out swinging against 31-year-old right-hander Joe “Butcher Boy” Benz, making his first start of the season. Benz (62-64 in parts of six seasons) had authored a no-hitter on May 31, 1914, defeating the Cleveland Naps, 6-1, at Comiskey Park. After George Sisler reached on a two-out single, Baby Doll Jacobson whacked a “tremendous double” which, according to the Post-Dispatch, “almost killed Umpire [Billy] Evans, who was doing duty on the speedways.”5 Sisler rounded third and scored easily. The Chicago Tribune blamed the tally on a “boner” by the White Sox’ right fielder. “[I]f Leibold had let the ball roll into the crowd,” opined Sanborn, “Sisler would have been held at third” and Jacobson credited with a ground-rule double.6

Groom worked around another leadoff walk in the second – his fifth free pass in 14 batters in the two games – to Shoeless Joe Jackson, who was subsequently caught stealing.

The Browns picked up another run in the second when Johnson doubled to right and moved to third on Severeid’s out. He scored on Lavan’s grounder to first baseman Chick Gandil, whose throw to catcher Ray Schalk was not in time to nab the speedy, sliding Johnson.

Groom and Benz traded zeroes over the next five frames. Groom hit Weaver with one out in the fourth, but then picked him off first for the final out of the inning. The South Siders had their best scoring chance in the sixth when Swede Risberg drew Groom’s third and final free pass to lead off the inning, and then advanced a station on Schalk’s sacrifice, and another on Benz’s roller to first baseman Sisler. Then, in what was described as a “great play” by sportswriter Clarence Lloyd of the St. Louis Star and Times, Severeid “speared [Leibold’s pop foul] a foot from the concrete stand” to end the frame with Risberg stranded on the hot corner.7

Benz yielded only eight hits in his route-going outing, but they came at inopportune times. The Indiana native of German stock quashed a Browns rally in the sixth after Sisler and Jacobson led off with consecutive singles, but was not so lucky two innings later in an action-packed eighth. Jimmy Austin led off with a single and moved to third on Sisler’s third single of the game. After Sisler stole second on Jacobson’s strikeout, Cuban-born Armando Marsans hit a tapper to third baseman Weaver, whose strike to Schalk easily erased Austin at the plate while Sisler reached third and Marsans first. Reports differed about how the Browns tallied their final run, with Johnson at the plate. According to the Post-Dispatch, the Browns attempted a daring double steal; Schalk’s throw to second caught Marsans in a rundown while Sisler scored.8 The Tribune reported that Benz caught Marsans off first, and in the ensuing rundown Sisler sneaked home. “Gandil and Risberg took so much time retiring [Marsans] a run scored,” wrote Sanborn.9

The Browns faithful were on their feet when Groom took the mound in the ninth. “I will admit that I got terribly nervous in that ninth inning,” said Groom, noting that a teammate alerted him to his no-hitter. “I had gone along for eight innings without knowing that the Sox hadn’t made a hit off me.”10 The scoreboard at Sportsman’s Park did not show hits and errors, only the run totals. Perhaps Groom was thinking about the only other time he had flirted with a no-no. A year earlier, on April 21, 1916, Groom held the Cleveland Indians hitless for 8⅓ innings at Sportsman’s Park when Elmer Smith doubled home Tris Speaker in the Browns’ 11-1 victory.11

After Schalk popped up to short for the first out, it was no laughing matter when pinch-hitter Eddie Murphy hit a tricky grounder that drew Sisler far off first base. Racing to cover the bag, Groom took Sisler’s throw to retire Murphy for the second out. Groom had retired 11 straight batters and was just one out from a no-hitter. When Leibold took Groom’s first two pitches, Severeid walked the ball back to Groom, reported the Star and Times. “[P]ut everything you have on that ball now and don’t lose this fellow,” Severeid supposedly told his hurler.12 Groom retired Leibold on a weak grounder to Sisler, who scooped up the ball and raced a few steps to first to secure Groom’s no-hitter; it had taken a mere 81 minutes.

Fans poured onto the field to celebrate Groom’s accomplishment, the second Browns no-hitter in as many days, and the third no-hitter at Sportsman’s Park between the Browns and White Sox in three weeks. The South Siders’ Eddie Cicotte authored the first no-hitter in the history of Sportsman’s Park on April 14. Groom was “hoisted on the shoulders of a half dozen men who carried him to the coop,” reported the Star and Times excitedly.13 Groom fanned four and faced just 28 batters, one over the minimum. There was “no flaw in Groom’s no-hit game,” added Sanborn, praising the pitcher’s complete dominance.14 Home plate umpire Dick Nallin called both Groom’s and Koob’s no-hitters; as of 2016 Nallin is the only umpire to be behind the plate for no-hitters on consecutive days.

Described as “intensive entertainment” by the Post-Dispatch, the Browns doubleheader sweep of the eventual World Series champion White Sox pushed them into second place, 1½ games behind Boston.15 It proved to be the Brownies’ high-water mark of the season. The club lost 15 of its next 19 games en route to its 13th losing season since entering the AL as a charter member in 1901. (The club was founded as the Milwaukee Brewers, and relocated to St. Louis in 1902.)

Groom, who had hurled a no-hitter as a member of the Portland Beavers of the Class-A Pacific Coast League in 1906, lost his next start, three days later to the White Sox to conclude the team’s six-game series, yielding 11 hits and four earned runs in seven innings. In what proved to be his final full season in the big leagues Groom finished with nine victories and tied teammate Allan Sothoron for the AL lead in losses (19). Waived by the Browns in the offseason, Groom pitched ineffectively for Cleveland in 1918, finishing with a 119-150 record in parts of 10 seasons.

This article appears in “Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis: Home of the Browns and Cardinals at Grand and Dodier” (SABR, 2017), edited by Gregory H. Wolf. Click here to read more articles from this book online.

Photo Caption

Bob Groom pitched a no-hitter in the same year he tied for the AL lead in losses (19). In his 10-year career he posted a 119-150 record. (Library of Congress)

Sources

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

Notes

1 W.J. O’Connor, “Bob Groom Pitches 11 No-Hit Innings, As Browns Beat Sox Twice, Gaining Second Place,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 7, 1917: 14.

2 I.E. Sanborn, “Sox Defeated Twice; Held Without a Hit by Groom of Browns,” Chicago Tribune, May 7, 1917: 20.

3 O’Connor.

4 John Wray, “Wray’s Column,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 7, 1917: 14.

5 “Team That Jinxed Browns in 1916 Beaten Three Times in Two Days,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 7, 1917: 17.

6 Sanborn.

7 Clarence Lloyd, “Brownies, Aided by Groom’s Great Game, Reach Second Place,” St. Louis Star and Times, May 7, 1917: 11.

8 “Team That Jinxed Browns in 1916 Beaten Three Times In Two Days.”

9 Sanborn.

10 “I Didn’t Know I Had No Hit Game on Way Until Eighth – Groom,” St. Louis Star and Times, May 7, 1917: 11.

11 “Jones Is Repaid for His Faith in Pitcher Groom,” St. Louis Star and Times, April 22, 1916: 11.

12 “I Didn’t Know I Had No Hit Game on Way Until Eighth – Groom.”

13 “Fans Carry Groom on Shoulders From Park,” St. Louis Star and Times, May 7, 1917: 11.

14 Sanborn.

15 “Team That Jinxed Browns in 1916 Beaten Three Times In Two Days.”

Of course, baseball’s owners immediately protested Baker’s decision. In turn, Baker, who admitted to little knowledge of baseball’s business or how best to enact the order, agreed to postpone his decree until September 1; he also committed to meet on July 24 with baseball’s representatives to discuss how the work-or-fight order might be implemented. Unsure how the ruling would affect the season, the American League announced that unless it was given some assurances as to what to expect from the War Department, it to cease operations.

Under this cloud, the regular season progressed. One might think that given the vagueness of Baker’s order the players naturally would have become preoccupied with their immediate futures, causing their performances to suffer. Not so for everyone. Case in point: Walter Johnson, one of the sport’s preeminent stars. In the midst of baseball’s maelstrom, the Big Train produced one of the most dominant exhibitions of his legendary career.

On July 25 Johnson’s Washington Senators opened a four-game series against the St. Louis Browns at Sportsman’s Park in the Gateway City. Fresh from a four-game sweep of the Chicago White Sox, the Senators came into the game in third place in the American League, with a 47-41 record. With Senators manager Clark Griffith home in D.C. awaiting the outcome of Secretary Baker’s meeting, George McBride directed the team. Scarcely could McBride imagine how little his managerial instincts would be required on this day.

Across the field, the Browns, too, were skippered by a new manager, although one who’d already been on the job for a month. The Browns’ 88th game of the season was the first home game for Jimmy Burke, the team’s third manager of the season.1 After a seven-year playing career and a 90-game managerial stint in 1905 with the crosstown Cardinals, Burke had spent four seasons the Detroit Tigers coaching staff (1914-1917) before taking the Browns’ helm on June 28, 1918, in the team’s 63rd game. From that date, amazingly, the Browns spent the next 25 games on the road, so this was the first time the home crowd saw the new manager of their sixth-place squad. As it turned out, Burke and the fans were both in for an agonizing afternoon.

If Walter Johnson was assuredly going to be tough for the Browns to beat, his opponent promised to be no less a challenge for the Senators’ offense. Twenty-five-year-old right-hander Allen Sothoron was that most enigmatic of Deadball Era pitchers, a spitballer. In fact, already this season Sothoron, who came into the game on a personal five-game winning streak, had gotten the best of the Big Train just 18 days earlier, when they squared off in Washington. Sothoron won, 3-0, allowing just three singles. Sothoron had notched wins in both of his previous starts against Washington (with one loss in relief), while Johnson had gone winless in his two starts against the Browns (with one save in relief). With a 10-8 record and 1.97 ERA, Sothoron was the Browns’ ace; so, too, was Johnson (16-10, 1.33) for the Senators. This game, then, had the makings of a classic pitchers’ duel.

The confrontation more than lived up to its potential. For Sothoron, the story of this afternoon was not that he allowed 12 Senators hits, but that in spite of those hits, his “exhibition, while not quite so impressive as Johnson’s, still was really deserving of more credit, for the Senators had numerous scoring opportunities, all of which, until the final stanza, Sothoron succeeded in erasing.”2 For Johnson, the game was marked not simply by a paucity of Browns runners on the basepaths, but by the degree to which he proved “positively invincible”3 in the few instances when the batters did reach base. That each man offered his best was vital to their respective teams, for, as the press related the next day, “It became apparent early in the game that one run by either club would win the contest.”4

One look at the line score suggests how the game’s suspense grew. Over the first three innings, neither team scored; nor were any runs plated in the fourth, fifth, or sixth innings. While over this period Sothoron may have had to quell some of the Senators’ aforementioned “numerous scoring opportunities,”5 Johnson, with just a few exceptions, totally handcuffed the Browns. After the first six St. Louis batters had been retired in order, Earl Smith coaxed a leadoff walk in the third inning, finally giving the Browns a baserunner. Yet, after Smith advanced to second on a sacrifice by the next batter, Les Nunamaker, the inning ended with Smith standing on second base.

The fourth inning presented the Browns with what was their best scoring chance of the game. When it failed, however, Johnson became virtually unhittable. Batting second for the Browns and leading off the bottom of the inning was Jimmy Austin, whom Johnson retired for the first out. Next up was the brilliant George Sisler. As Johnson fired, Sisler swung and lined one down the left-field line; the speedy Sisler stopped at third with a triple. To the plate strode the cleanup hitter, lefty-swinging Ray Demmitt. In this, his sixth major-league season, Demmitt would post a career-best 61 RBIs, and here he “strove mightily to tally Sisler,”6 driving a fly ball to right field. But as Sisler broke for home, Frank “Wildfire” Schulte, 35 years old and in his final season, fired a “beauty bright peg”7 to catcher Eddie Ainsmith, who tagged Sisler for the out. Sisler’s hit had been the Browns’ first of the game. It would be a while before they got another.

For the next seven innings the Browns had no answers for Johnson’s offerings; in each inning, he retired the side in order. Yet Sothoron, too, “clung firmly to the pace set by his illustrious adversary,”8 so the scoreless game moved to the 12th. That inning, St. Louis finally got its second hit, when Nunamaker singled to left field. After Nunamaker advanced to second on Sothoron’s sacrifice, the Browns seemed poised to score, but again Johnson stranded the runner. Both starters moved on to the 13th.

That inning, the Browns mounted their final scoring threat, but again came up empty. With one out, Demmitt blasted a double off the right-field wall. As Demmitt took a long lead off second, however, Ainsmith rifled a throw to shortstop John “Doc” Lavan,9 who tagged him out. The next batter, Jack Tobin, pushed a “fluke”10 bunt safely past Johnson but when he subsequently tried to steal second, he too was retired Ainsmith-to-Lavan. It was the Browns’ last gasp.

Though Sothoron had allowed 10 hits through 14 innings, the Senators had not scored. Their drought ended with two outs in the top of the 15th inning. Following an Eddie Foster single up the middle, Joe Judge came to the plate. As Foster ran with Sothoron’s pitch, Judge hit a long, high fly to right-center field, where it fell for a double. Foster scored standing up, and the Senators led 1-0. Johnson ended the game in the bottom of the inning.

It had been a sensational outing for the Big Train. In 10 of 15 innings he had retired the Browns in order, and from the fifth inning to the 12th not one St. Louis batter had reached first. Remarkably, too, with just four hits and two walks, the Browns had left just two men on base. Known for strikeouts, Johnson fanned only three. With those accomplishments, it was hard to argue with the writer who contended that “when a club gets but four hits in 15 innings and scores not one run during that time, there isn’t much chance for victory.”11Indeed, there wasn’t.

This article appears in “Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis: Home of the Browns and Cardinals at Grand and Dodier” (SABR, 2017), edited by Gregory H. Wolf. Click here to read more articles from this book online.

Photo Caption

Coming off an AL-high 19 losses in 1917 (tied with teammate Bob Groom), Allen Sothoron went 12-12 in 1918 with a 1.94 ERA. (Library of Congress)

Sources

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

thisgreatgame.com/1918-baseball-history.html.

facs.org/about%20acs/archives/pasthighlights/crowderhighlight.

Retrosheet.org.

Baseball-Reference.com.

Notes

1 The first two managers had been Fielder Jones (with a 22-24 record) and Jimmy Austin (7-9).

2 “Johnson Winner Over Sothoron in 15-Inning Combat,” St. Louis Post- Dispatch, July 26, 1918: 16.

3 Ibid.

4 Ibid.

5 For this game summary the author could rely only on game descriptions, none of which provided specifics as to the Senators’ scoring chances in any inning other than the last.

6 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 26, 1918: 16.

7 Clarence F. Lloyd, “Sothoron Is Beaten in 15-Round Duel by Famed Fireball King,” St. Louis Star and Times, July 26, 1918: 11.

8 St. Louis Post- Dispatch, July 26, 1918: 16.

9 Lavan had been acquired by the Senators from the Browns on December 15, 1917, but the 1918 season was his only one in Washington. In early September of 1918, Lavan, a naval surgeon, reported to the Great Lakes Naval Training Station, where in addition to his medical duties he also managed the baseball team. Upon his death in 1952, Lavan was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

10 St. Louis Post- Dispatch, July 26, 1918: 16.

11 Ibid.

Thus, as the Cardinals hosted a three-game series against the Pirates beginning July 1, an estimated 20,000 fans came to see their club in action.2 Attendance was no doubt swelled by an annual benefit for the St. Louis Tuberculosis League, which included an assortment of races, field events, and musical entertainment. Local society women walked through the stands selling programs that held the promise of various prizes. An exhibition game involving Army and Navy personnel preceded the Cardinals-Pirates contest at what was described as “the Browns Park,” a descriptive that popular usage would change to “the Cards Park” within a few years.3

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch faithfully covered these events; not until the fourth paragraph of the article did it touch on the day’s most significant development, and then only in passing. The Cardinals were playing their first “Championship contest” (as the Post-Dispatch expressed it), in Sportsman’s Park. It was an occurrence that would have profound implications for the Browns and Cardinals over the ensuing years. This was unrealized in the next day’s coverage of the game. A mundane recounting of the contest carried the day.4

The matchup featured Ferdie Schupp, 8-4 for far, against the Pirates’ Hal Carlson, who began the contest with a 5-6 record. Pittsburgh, in sixth place, just five games behind the Reds (and two behind St. Louis) drew first blood in the third on Carson Bigbee’s triple and Max Carey’s single. Another Pirates tally came the next inning off the bat of Walter Barbare, whose double followed Howdy Caton’s double to make it 2-0.

Carlson held St. Louis scoreless until the bottom of the eighth, when Cliff Heathcote slammed his second home run of the year. St. Louis then tied the game in the bottom of the ninth on Doc Lavan’s double and pinch-hitter Austin McHenry’s one-out single.

Henry had batted for Schupp, whose 10 hits and three walks surrendered remarkably yielded just two runs for Pittsburgh. He was replaced in the 10th by Bill Sherdel, the Cardinals’ main relief pitcher that year. Sherdel had done yeoman work for the club, and would do so for years to come, but this would not be one of his better efforts. He gave up four hits and a walk, aided by first baseman Jack Fournier’s wild throw, as the Pirates scored four times. St. Louis went quietly in the bottom of the inning to give Pittsburgh a 6-2 victory.

The results of the game had no bearing on a pennant race eventually won by Brooklyn. Pittsburgh ended the season in fourth; St. Louis, plagued by ineffective pitching, faded into a tie for fifth, encouraged, however, that at 75-79 they almost reached.500, substantially better than they had done in 1919. Rogers Hornsby, at .370, won the first of six consecutive batting titles, starting a run that included three seasons over .400.

Quite often the importance of a major-league game is measured by the outcome of the contest, often by what might have been accomplished either individually or by either club. In this game Hornsby had two singles in four at-bats. But what he or anyone else accomplished on the field this day was not the significant story. This was the Cardinals’ first home game at Sportsman’s Park, a field they would use for the next 46 years. That the Cardinals could use Sportsman’s Park for their home games would prove of significant importance not only to their franchise but also to their rival St. Louis Browns.

A review of major-league baseball in St. Louis over the years rightfully focuses on the Cardinals. There was a time, however, when the favored team in St. Louis was the American League Browns — not the Cardinals. Until 1926, when the Cardinals won their first pennant and world championship, the Browns regularly outdrew their National League counterparts to the tune of over 50,000 fans per year on average. The Browns were the better team in the early 1920s, and came breathtakingly close to a pennant in 1922, finishing just one game behind the Yankees.

While the Cardinals, in retrospect, might be seen as a greater draw in those years because of Hornsby, the Browns had just as big a pull in first baseman George Sisler. The same year, 1920, that saw Hornsby lead the league with his .370 average, Sisler batted .407 with a then major-league-record 257 hits.

How allegiance gradually shifted from the Browns to the Cardinals was based on several factors. One involved the Cardinals’ promotion of what was called the Knothole Gang, an effort that arranged for free tickets to mostly underprivileged youth. This program gained scores of loyal Cardinals fans for decades. Another development involved Branch Rickey’s move from the Browns to the Cardinals. The Browns’ wealthy, irascible, and unpredictable owner, Phil Ball, did not appreciate Rickey’s talents and Rickey, seeking better opportunities, was lured to the Cardinals. Although he was mediocre as a field manager, his visionary efforts as a general manager in developing an expansive minor-league farm system were peerless. By the time Rickey left the Cardinals in 1942 he had earned the club six pennants and four World Series championships.

Despite these factors, what really cemented the Cardinals’ future in St. Louis — and the Browns’ eventual departure to Baltimore — was how they gained access to Sportsman’s Park, and how it saved the franchise.

By 1920, Robison Field, the Cardinals’ home ballpark for decades, was in a state of serious disrepair. Built in 1893, the wooden structure had outlived its usefulness. Cardinals president Sam Breadon lacked the wherewithal to refurbish it — he estimated it would cost over half a million dollars to do so.5 As the 1920 season approached, the structure had become a firetrap, ready to collapse. Breadon was warned that the ballpark would not pass a fire inspection.6

Desperate, and without the cash to fix the ballpark or build a new one, Breadon approached Ball to see if he could rent Sportsman’s Park for Cardinals home games. Sportsman’s Park had been used by the Browns since 1902 and had received a major overhaul in 1909 with construction of steel and concrete grandstands.

Ball rebuffed Breadon in large part because he was offended at Rickey having left the Browns for the Cardinals years before. “Are you crazy, Sam? I wouldn’t let Branch Rickey put one foot inside my ballpark. Now get out yourself.”7 Facing financial calamity, Breadon was persistent; after several attempts, he finally asked Ball to listen to his plea. Ball relented.

As historian Fred Lieb told it later, Ball told Breadon, “I was a poor boy — a very poor boy — in New York. I came here to St. Louis, nearly starved at first, but eventually made some money in the automobile business. I got into the Cardinals with that fan group — soon got in over my head — and much of my money is in the club. We’re heavily in debt, and our only chance to salvage what we put into it is to sell the Cardinals’ real estate (Robison Field) for $200,000, get out of debt, and move to Sportsman’s Park. You’re a rich man, Mr. Ball; money doesn’t mean anything to you, but I’m about to go broke, and only you can save me.”

Ball respected determination, and behind his blustery façade rested the temperament of a caring man. Breadon’s entreaty hit its mark. “Sam, I didn’t know you were hooked so bad. I admire your frankness, and what’s more I admire a fighter, a man that doesn’t quit easily. Get your lawyer to draw up a contract, insert a rental figure you think is fair and I’ll sign it. Even if it included having that Rickey around the place.”8

With Ball agreeing to take on the Cardinals as tenants, Breadon was able to sell Robison Field for $275,000, clear outstanding debts and provide working capital for the future. One of the main initiatives Breadon and Rickey could now pursue was establishment of the productive minor-league system that would eventually create a competitive team for decades to come.9 This, and a growing allegiance created out of the Knothole Gang, would bury the Browns.

By itself the game of July 1, 1920, between the Cardinals and Pirates was of no great importance in the scheme of things. Where it was played would prove to have a lasting impact on two major-league franchises.

This article appears in “Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis: Home of the Browns and Cardinals at Grand and Dodier” (SABR, 2017), edited by Gregory H. Wolf. Click here to read more articles from this book online.

Photo Caption

Ferdie Schupp, who posted a 61-39 record in his 10-year career (1913-1922), was the Cardinals’ starter in their first game in Sportsman’s Park. (Library of Congress)

Sources

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

Notes

1 “Cards’ Biggest Local Attendance This Year, Welcomes Team Home,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 1, 1920: 37.

2 “National League,” The Sporting News, July 8, 1920: 6.

3 “Cards Biggest Local Attendance.”

4 Edward P. Balinger, “Sherdel Hammered for Four Hits in Vicious Exhibition,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 2, 1920: 10.

5 Joan M. Thomas, “Robison Field,” SABR BioProject, https://sabr.org/bioproj/park/88929e79.

6 Mark Armour, “Sam Breadon,” in The 1934 St. Louis Cardinals, The World Champion Gas House Gang (Phoenix: Society for American Baseball Research, 2014): 239.

7 Golenbock, Peter, The Spirit of St. Louis: A History of the St. Louis Cardinals and Browns, (New York: Avon Books, Inc., 2000), 267.

8 Frederick G. Lieb, The Baltimore Orioles: The History of a Colorful Team in Baltimore and St. Louis, (Carbondale, Ilinois: Southern Illinois University Press, 1955),191-192.

9 Armour. 239

Breadon had been wheeling and dealing, but was not yet tipping his “Cards.” He soon let the media in on the monetary details of an agreement with Browns owner Phil Ball to lease Sportsman’s Park.3 Subsequently, the July 1 publication of “The Base Ball Paper of the World” reversed its previous week’s concern and touted Breadon as a genius for his coup in the venue switch.4 This edition came out on the same date that the Redbirds hosted the Pittsburgh Pirates in their first game at Sportsman’s Park, which was viewed by an overflow gathering in the annual benefit game for the St. Louis Tuberculosis Society.5 All seemed perfect, except for the final score of Pirates 6, Cardinals 2, in 10 innings.

At least one individual at the Cardinals’ inaugural loss was decidedly more upset about leaving an important article inside the ballpark after the conclusion of the extra-frame affair. An appeal in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch spelled out the situation: GOLD MESHBAG – Lost, at Sportsman’s Park Thursday: containing small amount of money and owner’s cards. Call Forest 4370: reward.6

While the Cardinals players could not do anything about the missing handbag, they were determined to “right the ship” and earn a triumph during the midafternoon tilt on Friday, July 2. The fourth-place Cardinals had lost four straight and stood at 34-32. Pittsburgh had also been struggling lately and possessed a 30-30 record, good for fifth. The Pirates’ first-year manager, George Gibson, settled on 28-year-old southpaw Earl Hamilton, fittingly born in Gibson, Illinois.7 Hamilton’s father happened to be in St. Louis on business and was able to watch his son pitch.8

Cardinals skipper Branch Rickey tabbed 6-foot right-hander Bill Doak, who was coming off a bout with ptomaine poisoning.9 “Spittin’ Bill” was 8-7, with a 3.57 ERA, as he neared the halfway mark of his ninth major-league season. Rickey had to order his regular first baseman, Jack Fournier, to the bench due to a lingering hand injury.10 Utilityman Hal Janvrin played first and batted leadoff for St. Louis. Janvrin had not played a full game at first in over four years.

Unlike the day before, plenty of seats were available. Five price levels were offered with the ducats ranging from 50 cents to $1.50,11 and could be purchased in advance on North Broadway at Dengler & Hatz Cigar Store inside the Boatmen’s Bank Building.12 A paid crowd of 2,500 passed through the gate along with an additional 1,500 members of the Knot Hole Gang to watch the Cardinals in steamy 93-degree heat.13

Born in Pittsburgh, the 29-year-old Doak strolled to the hill with a 15-11 career record versus the Pirates. He was a deliberate worker who used a large red handkerchief to wipe his brow during the game. He relied on good control, an effective curve, and a signature spitball.14 In the top of the first, Max Carey singled and advanced to second when right fielder Joe Schultz fumbled the ball, but Doak pitched out of the trouble.15 Hamilton, despite giving up two hard-hit balls and benefiting from a shoe top grab of a little popup by first baseman Charlie Grimm, retired the first six St. Louis batters.16

Hamilton, who was 2-3 with a 3.11 ERA, saw his luck go south in the third when Doc Lavan singled to right. With the hit-and-run on, 17 Pickles Dillhoefer came through with a double to right and Lavan scored. Doak’s bunt moved his batterymate to third, and Dillhoefer came home when Janvrin’s hard grounder caromed off second baseman Walter Barbare for an infield hit to make it 2-0. Cliff Heathcote forced Janvrin, and then the young center fielder was caught napping and picked off first by Hamilton.18

In the fifth, Barbare knocked a one-out infield hit that went off Doak’s glove. With the Pirates attempting the hit-and-run, Schmidt drove a liner to right-center that the left-handed Heathcote dashed over for to make a backhanded catch, forcing Barbare to race back to first. Pittsburgh turned in three defensive gems of its own during the bottom half when third baseman Possum Whitted stabbed a tricky hopper by Schultz, spun and fired low to Grimm, who scooped up the peg. Lavan sent a deep drive down the line that left fielder Carson Bigbee raced for and caught in front of the fence. Dillhoefer’s bid for another hit was foiled when his smash glanced off Hamilton’s mitt and was scooped up by shortstop Howdy Caton, who fired to first for the putout.19

The Pirates were looking for a way to get to Doak in the sixth, but failed to deliver even after two free passes from the Cardinals hurler. Bigbee was out on a close play after second baseman Rogers Hornsby knocked down his grounder and threw quickly to Janvrin. Carey walked, but Dillhoefer, the catcher, made an alert snap throw and picked the speedster off first. Billy Southworth also walked, but was left on when Whitted flied out to Schultz in deep right.20

St. Louis started strong in the bottom half when Doak and Janvrin opened with singles. After Heathcote forced Janvrin at second, Milt Stock grounded slowly to Caton, who fired home to Schmidt. Doak was tagged out after a rundown, but Heathcote maneuvered to third and Stock slipped in to second. Hornsby worked the count to 3-and-1 and Hamilton fired outside for ball four, but Heathcote, trying to steal home on the pitch, was tagged on the heel by Schmidt and called out by plate umpire Cy Rigler for the third out.21 Heathcote indignantly whirled, grabbed a nearby glove, and accidentally shoved it into Schmidt’s face when he actually meant the physical abuse for the arbiter.22

Another argument over a close play took place in the seventh. With one away for the Pirates, Janvrin ranged to his right to field Grimm’s groundball. Doak covered first base and caught Janvrin’s toss just as Grimm hit the dirt with a head-first dive for the bag. Umpire Charlie Moran signaled out and Grimm was not pleased as he lay flat across the base protesting the decision. The Cardinals’ Austin McHenry launched his third consecutive long drive to the outfield in the home half, but Southworth put this one away, just as center fielder Carey had run down his first two clouts.23

The bottom of the eighth featured plenty of action on the basepaths for St. Louis. Rookie right-handed reliever Johnny Meador had taken over on the mound for Hamilton. Two walks, a sacrifice, and a force put Cardinals runners on the corners with two outs. Stock came through with a line-drive single to right, plating Dillhoefer for a 3-0 lead and sending Heathcote to third base. The Cardinals again tried some trickery as Rickey signaled for a double steal; however, Caton, after taking Schmidt’s late throw to second, whipped the ball over to third and nipped Heathcote trying to return to the base.24

With a three-run lead, Doak went after the complete-game conquest. A one-out double to right-center by Caton, followed by Grimm’s infield hit brought the tying run to the plate. But Doak prevailed for his ninth win by getting a force out and a routine fly ball to center field,25 securing his shutout and giving the St. Louis Cardinals their first regular-season victory at the intersection of Grand and Dodier.

The time of game was 1 hour and 40 minutes. Overall, the base-on-balls total (six) skunked the strikeout figure (0), with six hits in the line score for each team, and St. Louis committing the only error. Many of the fans exiting the ballpark headed for the busy streetcar transit stops and stations that could return them home via the 485-mile track network within and near the city.26

The game’s hero, Bill Doak, eventually made history off the field as well as on it. After baseball outlawed the spitball, Doak was a prominent voice in the successful effort to allow 17 pitchers, including himself, who used the pitch to continue throwing it for the remainder of their careers. Also, Doak approached the St. Louis-based Rawlings Sporting Goods Company with a proposal for a new model of baseball glove with webbing that made it easier for fielders to catch the ball. Doak’s design marked a significant evolution in the role of the glove, transforming it from primarily a means of protection, and Rawlings sold the Bill Doak model for years to come.27

This article appears in “Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis: Home of the Browns and Cardinals at Grand and Dodier” (SABR, 2017), edited by Gregory H. Wolf. Click here to read more articles from this book online.

Photo Caption

Bill Doak tossed a six-hit shutout to record the Cardinals’ first victory in Sportsman’s Park. He posted a 169-157 record in his 16-year career (1912-1924; 1927-1929). (Library of Congress)

Sources

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

Notes

1 Rob Rains, The St. Louis Cardinals, The 100th Anniversary History (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992), 30.

2 “Babe Draws Crowd but Ping Does Work,” The Sporting News, June 24, 1920: 1.

3 Rains, 26.

4 “Cards Sure Move to a Place in the Sun,” The Sporting News, July 1, 1920: 1.

5 Robert L. Tiemann, Cardinal Classics: Outstanding Games From Each of the St. Louis Baseball Club’s 100 Seasons, 1882-1981 (St. Louis: Baseball Histories, Inc., 1982), 100.

6 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 2, 1920: 32.

7 Edward Callary, Place Names of Illinois (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 135). Gibson was later renamed Gibson City by the US Post Office Department.

8 “Notes of the Game,” Pittsburgh Daily Post, July 3, 1920: 10.

9 Edward F. Balinger, “Doak Has Pirates at Mercy and Cardinals Score Whitewash, 3-0,” Pittsburgh Daily Post, July 3, 1920: 10.

10 “Notes of the Game,” Pittsburgh Daily Post, July 3, 1920: 10.

11 The Sporting News, July 1, 1920: 8.

12 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 2, 1920: 22.

13 “Janvrin Is Sent to Initial Sack by Boss Rickey,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 2, 1920: 24.

14 Steve Steinberg, “Bill Doak,” SABR Baseball Biography Project, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/1359e4e2.

15 “Play-by-Play,” Pittsburgh Daily Post, July 3, 1920: 10.

16 “Notes of the Game,” Pittsburgh Daily Post, July 3, 1920: 10.

17 Charles J. Doyle, “Failure to Hit Bill Doak Cost Buccos Hard Battle, 3 to 0,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 3, 1920: 9.

18 “Play-by-Play,” Pittsburgh Daily Post, July 3, 1920: 10.

19 “Play-by-Play,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 3, 1920: 9.

20 Ibid.

21 “Play-by-Play,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 3, 1920: 9.

22 “Notes of the Game,” Pittsburgh Daily Post, July 3, 1920: 10.

23 Ibid.

24 “Play-by-Play,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 3, 1920: 9; James M. Gould, “Cardinals 3, Pittsburg 0,” St. Louis Star, July 2, 1920: 20.

25 Ibid.

26 Tim O’Neill, “A Look Back – Hodiamont Line Street Car Closed Out After 107 Years of Service,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 23, 2010, stltoday.com.

27 Steinberg.

With Cobb temporarily relegated to the background due to a protracted slump that saw him hitting under .300 as late as June 2, and then by being sidelined for a month after colliding with teammate Ira Flagstead in pursuit of a fly ball, the St. Louis Browns first baseman had emerged from Cobb’s shadow as arguably baseball’s premier hitter.

The 27-year-old Sisler, now in his sixth campaign with the Browns, had hit better than .300 all but his rookie season, and above .340 for the past three years, but was finally capturing national attention by seizing a place at or near the front of the batting race since Opening Day.

On June 14 Sisler passed the .400 mark and kept on going, reaching as high as .434 on June 28. Although his average dipped into the .390s in late July, on the morning of August 5 Sisler, having hit safely in 10 straight games, was in second place among the AL leaders at .403, just ahead of Chicago’s Shoeless Joe Jackson at .397, and Yankees slugger Babe Ruth at .392. Topping them all was Tris Speaker, the veteran leader of the Cleveland Indians, whose torrid hitting in June and July had pushed his average to a phenomenal .421.

With the Browns stuck in a distant fifth place at 47-51, far behind the contending Indians, Yankees, and White Sox, the attention of St. Louis fans was focused primarily on Sisler and his progress at the plate as the Washington Nationals, a half-game up on the Browns at 46-49, arrived in town on August 5 for a four-game series.

The Browns won the first two games, 2-1 and 14-7, with Sisler collecting three hits in nine at-bats, extending his hitting streak to 12 games. After a scheduled day off, the clubs met again for a Sunday doubleheader.

The Browns took the opener, 3-2, in the ninth on a double by Earl Smith, a wild throw by center fielder Sam Rice that allowed Smith to take third, and a single by Jack Tobin. Sisler smacked two hits, a single and a double, in four at-bats.

A pair of right-handers, Elam Vangilder (2-5) for the Browns and Eric Erickson (10-9) for the Nationals, started on the mound for the second game. Washington was the first to score, tallying a pair of runs in the third inning. After Patsy Gharrity walked and Erickson bunted him to second, Joe Judge singled to center, scoring Gharrity. Judge was subsequently called out stealing second on a contested call that loomed larger when the following hitter, Clyde Milan, hit only the 15th home run of his of his 14-year career into the right-field stands for a 2-0 lead.

St. Louis took its revenge in the bottom of the third when Joe Gedeon walked and Sisler, who tallied a single in the first inning, doubled to right center, advancing Gedeon to third. Baby Doll Jacobson drove Gedeon and Sisler home with a game-tying double. Erickson bobbled Ken Williams’s smash back to the mound and then threw the ball away, allowing Jacobson to score and Williams to take second. Smith flied to center, but Tobin singled to right, scoring Williams to put the Browns up 4-2.

Bucky Harris’s double to left, an infield single by Howard Shanks, and a sacrifice fly by Jim O’Neill gave the Nationals a third run in the fourth inning but a great defensive play possibly prevented further damage. Shanks stole second and Gharrity reached base on an error by Smith at third. Erickson hit a grounder past Vangilder, but second baseman Gedeon grabbed the ball in back of second, tumbled, and threw the pitcher out at first from a sitting position.

Sisler belted his 14th home run of the season with Gedeon on base in the bottom of the fourth, giving the Browns a 6-3 lead.

St. Louis skipper Jimmy Burke, who had pulled Vangilder for a pinch-hitter in the fourth inning, brought in right-hander Bill Burwell to pitch. Although Burwell allowed a single to Milan and hit Braggo Roth with a pitch, the Nats failed to score in the fifth.

Gharrity came close to a homer in the sixth when his long drive to left caromed off the wall inches short of going over. Williams snared the ball on the rebound to hold Gharrity to a double. Ericksen left Gharrity stranded when he tapped back to the mound for the third out.

A single by Wally Gerber and a walk to Gedeon put two runners on as Sisler came to the plate in the bottom of the sixth. Sisler, who had singled in the first, doubled in the third, and homered in the fourth, hit a low liner to center which bounced off Rice’s shins and rolled to the wall. Both Gerber and Gedeon scampered home and Sisler pulled into third with a triple, giving him a cycle for the game. Sisler attempted to score when Williams was thrown out at first on a grounder to Harris at second, but was tagged out at the plate on the relay from Judge to catcher Gharrity.

Judge hit a solo homer in the seventh to cut the St. Louis lead to 8-4, but the Browns retaliated in the bottom of the frame with a triple by Josh Billings and a single by Burwell. Two batters later, Sisler, hitting for the fifth time in the game, came to the plate with the bases full but went down swinging.

St. Louis added two more in the eighth. Jacobson and Williams singled. After Jacobson was picked off second by Gharrity, Smith poked a base hit to center, with Williams scoring on an errant throw to the infield, his second of the afternoon, by Rice. Tobin’s sacrifice fly brought Smith home to make the score 11-4.

Burwell set the Nationals down in the ninth, giving the Browns a sweep of the doubleheader and the four-game series, and evening their record for the season at 51-51.

Under the scoring rules of the day, Vangilder was awarded the win despite pitching only four innings. Although he’d been hammered for 16 hits and 11 runs, 10 of them earned, Eric Erickson pitched a complete game for the losers. Washington manager Clark Griffith had his reasons. “With a double bill in Chicago tomorrow staring him in the face, the National boss was obliged to leave Erickson in throughout the entire second game, although it was apparent early in the game that the big Swede was not at his best.”2

George Sisler’s 6-for-9 day at the plate raised his batting average to .407, the same average with which he would win the batting title at season’s end. His hitting streak, standing now at 14 games, would extend to 25 games before it was stopped by Philadelphia’s Scott Perry on August 24. Sisler, the first Browns player to hit for the cycle, would duplicate the feat almost a year to the day later, on August 13, 1921, against the Detroit Tigers, in the Motor City.

This article appears in “Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis: Home of the Browns and Cardinals at Grand and Dodier” (SABR, 2017), edited by Gregory H. Wolf. Click here to read more articles from this book online.

Photo Caption

George Sisler led the majors in batting with a .407 average in 1920 and a .420 mark two years later. He hit at a .340 clip in his 15-year career. (Library of Congress)

Sources

In addition to the sources listed in the notes, the author also consulted the New York Times, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, St. Louis Star-Times, The Sporting News, and Washington Post.

Notes

1 Dean Snyder, “Sisler Heralded as the New Ty Cobb,” Fitchburg (Massachusetts) Sentinel, August 9, 1920: 6.

2 Jack Nye, “Double Defeat Handed Griffmen Gives Browns Clean Sweep of Series,” Washington Herald, August 9, 1920: 8.

A capsule look at the Browns in 1921 shows that George Sisler led the team in batting with an astounding .371 average. Gentleman George led the league in stolen bases (35) and tied with teammate Jack Tobin for the league-best in triples (18). The hard-hitting outfield was Tobin in right field and “Baby Doll” Jacobson in center, who both hit .352, and left fielder Ken Williams, who batted .347 and led the Browns in home runs (24) and RBIs (117). Catcher Hank Severeid (.324) and third baseman Frank Ellerbe (.288) contributed to the offensive firepower. The team’s .303 batting average was third in the league. On the mound, Urban Shocker led the league with 27 wins.

But would the Browns, and the rest of the American League for that matter, have enough heft to knock off New York in 1922? Indeed, the Browns and their AL brethren caught a big break as the season got under way. After the 1921 World Series, won by the New York Giants over the Yankees, Bob Meusel and Babe Ruth took part in a barnstorming tour. This was a common practice among players of the day to earn extra money during the offseason. However, members of the teams that played in the World Series were forbidden to barnstorm. Commissioner Kenesaw M. Landis fined Meusel and Ruth $3,362 apiece, which equaled the players’ shares from the World Series. In addition, each player was suspended for the first six weeks of the 1922 season. The Yankees would have to make do without their star players until May 20. The Yankees would still be a formidable foe to their opponents. But perhaps they were just a little less intimidating.

On April 22, 1922, the Browns hosted the Chicago White Sox at Sportsman’s Park. On the mound for the hometown heroes was Dixie Davis. The right-handed hurler won 18 games in 1920 and 16 in 1921. He also led the league in walks both years as well. It would not be going out on a limb to say that Davis’s lack of control was his Achilles’ heel. On the hill for the White Sox was José Acosta. The Havana native spent much of his career as a relief pitcher and spot starter. After posting identical 5-4 records for Washington in 1920 and 1921, Acosta was sent to the Philadelphia Athletics with Bing Miller in exchange for Joe Dugan. Then Philadelphia sold Acosta to Chicago. The starting assignment would be the only one of the season for the diminutive Acosta (5-feet-6, 134 pounds).

Tobin led off the home half of the first inning with a walk. Browns manager Lee Fohl put the sacrifice on and Ellerbe bunted back to the mound. Tobin checked into second base. Sisler followed with a single that plated Tobin. Then Williams came to the plate and launched a home run that cleared the bleacher seats and landed on Grand Avenue. The two-run blast was the left fielder’s first round-tripper of the season, and after one inning, the Browns had jumped out to a 3-0 advantage.

That lead held until the sixth inning. True to form, Davis had yielded four walks in the first five innings, but so far had surrendered only one base hit. He was the beneficiary of two double plays that nullified Chicago threats. Acosta righted himself after the first frame, keeping the three-run deficit a manageable one.    

But in the top of the sixth inning, the White Sox put two on base, on an error by Browns shortstop Wally Gerber and a walk to Eddie Collins. Harry Hooper, the former Red Sox star and future member of the Hall of Fame, deposited a Davis pitch into the right-field seats to tie the game at three.

But the Browns answered immediately when Sisler led off the bottom of the frame with a single to center field and Williams followed with his second homer. This time, the home run was of the line-drive variety. But the Browns were not done, as a single by Severeid was followed by back-to-back doubles by Gerber and Marty McManus. The Browns were in front 7-3 and Acosta’s afternoon was over. 

With two outs in the bottom of the seventh, Sisler again reached base with a single to left off reliever Lum Davenport. Sisler stole second base, and went to third on a throwing error by Chicago catcher Ray Schalk. Williams followed with a mighty clout into the right-field stands to set a new American League record with three home runs in a game.

St. Louis scored an unearned run in the bottom of the eighth inning, and with a 10-3 lead in hand, the Browns looked to be on Easy Street. Not so fast, as the top of the ninth inning proved to be quite adventurous. Davis fell into his old bugaboo of the free pass, and walked the first three batters he faced. With one out, Ernie Johnson singled to right field, and the score became 10-5. After Hervey McClellan popped out to third base, Collins walked to again load the bases. With a 2-and-0 count on Hooper, Fohl finally had seen enough. He removed the starter and summoned Shocker from the bullpen. The old spitballer Shocker was used mostly as a starter and was the ace of Fohl’s staff, but he lost Hooper to make the score 10-6. The walk was charged to Davis, who surrendered a career-high 11 bases on balls in the game. Johnny Mostil followed in the Chicago lineup and Shocker issued him yet another free pass. St. Louis was leading 10-7 and the go-ahead run was coming to the plate, but Bibb Falk ended the suspense, grounding to Gerber, who threw to third base to force Hooper. The Browns won to raise their season record to 5-4.

Attendance at the game was reported at just over 3,000. No doubt they left the park that day following the 1:42 affair happy, and maybe a bit relieved.  

But Ken Williams was just getting started. Between April 22 and 29 he smashed nine home runs in seven games. His power surge prompted L.C. Davis of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch to write this tribute to the slugger:

Whose name is on every tongue? Ken Williams
Whose praises are now daily sung? Ken Williams
Who is the rooter’s joy and pride?
Who gives the pesky pill a ride?
And separates it from its hide? Ken Williams

Who is our most admired youth? Ken Williams
Who makes the fan forget Babe Ruth? Ken Williams
Who is the guy so calm and cool?
Who swings his trusty batting tool?
And knocks the pellet for a gool? Ken Williams.1

Comparisons between Williams and Babe Ruth began to pour from writers’ pens in national magazines. But Williams refused to buy into the debate. “I have never made any claim that I could equal Babe Ruth as a home-run hitter,” he said. “On the other hand, I know I am not his equal. No player in the game could hope to match Ruth over a full season’s course. I have done my best. But I have never had in mind trying to beat Babe for I know it can’t be done.”2

Ken Williams indeed lived in anonymity when compared to Babe Ruth, or even with some of his teammates on the Browns. The baseball correspondent who covered the St. Louis clubs for The Sporting News illustrated the point with the following anecdote: “A photographer was told to go out and get a picture of Ken Williams swinging at the plate – and the well meaning camera artist proceeded to shoot Bill Jacobson. … Imagine the text and illustration that would have been incident to Babe Ruth hitting three home runs in one ball game! Sporting editors would have wired every syndicate in operation to rush story and photographs. But Ken hits three of them and a photographer on the ground doesn’t even know which is Ken or Bill Jacobson. …”3

This article appears in “Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis: Home of the Browns and Cardinals at Grand and Dodier” (SABR, 2017), edited by Gregory H. Wolf. Click here to read more articles from this book online.

Notes  

1 Roger A. Godin, The 1922 St. Louis Browns: Best of the American League’s Worst (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 1991): 50.

2 John J. Ward, “A Rival for Babe Ruth?”  Baseball Magazine,  July, 1922: 359-360.

3 Godin, 47.

Reports that day are conflicting, but a St. Louis newspaper reported that 22,000 attended the afternoon matchup.1 The Tigers were operating without the services of player-manager Ty Cobb, who was dealt an indefinite suspension that morning by American League President Ban Johnson for reportedly “trying to pulverize umpire Frank] Wilson’s feet”2 the day before as Cobb kept stepping on Wilson’s toes as he argued umpire decisions multiple times. Outfielder Harry Heilmann suffered the same fate for his role in the contentious debate, so neither was eligible for the Memorial Day contests.

The Browns sent Urban Shocker to the mound. The Browns ace was making his eighth start in the month of May; just three days earlier he had hurled 9⅓ innings in a 2-1 loss at the Chicago White Sox. Shocker, a spitball artist who won 187 games in his major-league career, already had nine wins under his belt in the first two months of the season.

Cobb’s Tigers countered with John “Red” Oldham, a Maryland-born southpaw starting his seventh game of the 1922 campaign. Oldham had saved the morning game for Detroit, inducing a game-ending groundout by future Hall of Famer and 1922 American League Most Valuable Player George Sisler to salvage a 6-5 win.

Sisler posted his first of four hits in game two when he drove a high fly over the head of Tigers left fielder Bobby Veach in the bottom of the first, but he had to settle for a long single when he missed the bag on the turn at first base. It was the most excitement recorded in the early innings, as Shocker and Oldham scattered a total of three hits in the opening three innings.

Frank Ellerbe, in his second season with the Browns after arriving in exchange for Earl Smith of the Washington Senators a year before, put St. Louis on the scoreboard in the bottom half of the fourth when he doubled to left-center to drive in Ken Williams. It was the second hit of the inning and only the fourth off Oldham, but it staked the always-tough Shocker to a lead.

With Cobb sidelined, coach Dan Howley took the reins of the Tigers, although his role was mostly that of messenger, with Cobb watching the game and calling the shots from a box just in the rear of the Tigers’ bench.3 (Howley, along with Browns trainer William Bierhalter, would exercise more influence in a game less than two months later when the two were pressed into action as umpires in a Browns-Tigers matchup in Detroit after the scheduled arbiters missed a train connection from Buffalo and did not arrive for the game.4)

Shocker marched on unscathed through the middle innings. A great stop by second baseman Marty McManus in back of second left two Tigers runners on base in the top of the seventh, and after eight innings Shocker had relinquished only five hits while striking out five.

The last inning of regulation told a different story. With the Tigers still trailing 1-0, Bob Jones started a Detroit rally with one out by beating out a roller to third. Ira Flagstead followed, but with a 1-and-1 count on him, Larry Woodall came on to pinch-hit and popped out to Sisler. Down to their last out, the Tigers finally put something together. Topper Rigney’s single sent Jones to third and then Johnny Bassler singled to right, driving in Jones with the equalizer. The game moved to extra frames when Shocker set down Oldham on three pitches.

With the first major-league night game still 13 years away,5 natural sunlight provided the only illumination of the day. With a 3:00 P.M. first pitch the game ambled toward dusk as no serious scoring threat occurred in the 10th or 11th inning, and Oldham was stranded at third in the top of the 12th. The next two innings showed no change in the score, and both starters had completed 14 innings.

With one out in the top of the 15th, Detroit leadoff hitter Fred Haney singled to left. Several Browns players surrounded umpire Brick Owens, voicing their displeasure over his rulings on balls and strikes to Haney, and it culminated with the ejection of Shocker and right fielder Jack Tobin. Harry Bullion of the Detroit Free Press described it this way: “Shocker became so enraged over what he thought was a strike on Haney in the fifteenth that he threw a bat Haney left at the plate after hitting safely with a crash against the grandstand, and was invited to stay out of the festivities. Tobin supported Shocker so vociferously that he, too, got the gate.”6

The next morning Ban Johnson informed manager Lee Fohl that Tobin was suspended indefinitely. He would sit for five games before returning to the lineup on June 6.  Johnson’s telegram made no mention of Shocker.7

With Shocker done for the day, Fohl substituted former University of Missouri left-hander Hubert “Hub” Pruett, making only the seventh appearance of his major-league career. Pruett struck out George Cutshaw and Danny Clark, the Tigers’ second- and third-place hitters, and the threat was averted.

With one out in the bottom of the 15th, Ken Williams of the Browns started a rally with a double down the right-field line. Oldham, who had allowed just one run in 14⅓ innings, was replaced by Ole Olsen, a rookie whose major-league career would last just two seasons. Of the pitching change, the Free Press said: “Instructions were given to Howley by Manager Cobb, who was hidden from view near the rear entrance to the dugout, to insert Olson sic], a right hander, against Ellerbe, who bats the same way.”8 Olsen was successful in closing out the inning, striking out Ellerbe and, after intentionally walking McManus, retiring the opposing pitcher, Pruett, on a liner to end the frame.

The fateful 16th started with Pruett, who fanned two in relief of Shocker the inning before, continuing his dominance by striking out Veach and Jones before Bert Cole, now playing center field in Flagstead’s original spot in the batting order, grounded to third baseman Ellerbe for the third out. The top of the Browns’ lineup awaited Olsen.

When Tobin was granted his departure in the 15th inning, Cedric Durst quietly replaced him in right field. A left-handed hitter, Durst was making his major-league debut. His leadoff infield single was one of only 12 at-bats during the season.

Wally Gerber sacrificed Durst to second. After intentionally walking Sisler, Olson got Baby Doll Jacobsen, 0-for-8 in the game, to fly out deep to center field. Next came Tharon Patrick “Pat” Collins. The seldom-used backstop had only seven previous plate appearances in 1922, but three of them resulted in safeties. He continued to make the most of his opportunities, driving an Olsen offering to center field and scoring Durst with the game-winner.

The victory left the Browns just 2½ games behind the Yankees in a pennant chase that wasn’t decided until just two days remained in the season, with the Browns ultimately finishing one game off the pace.

Shocker and Oldham both toiled for 14⅓ innings, neither of them posting a decision. Oldham allowed one run and 15 hits and struck out four. Shocker was a touch better, allowing one run and11 hits while striking out eight.

George Sisler posted four hits in six official at-bats, and walked twice to boost his average to .426, on his way to a staggering final mark of .420.

And for Cedric Durst, his major-league debut featured the most efficient stat line of all.

One at-bat. One hit. One run scored.

The game-winner.

This article appears in “Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis: Home of the Browns and Cardinals at Grand and Dodier” (SABR, 2017), edited by Gregory H. Wolf. Click here to read more articles from this book online.

Sources

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

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/SLA/SLA192205302.shtml

http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1922/B05302SLA1922.htm

Notes

1 St. Louis Star and Times, May 30, 1922.

2 Harry Bullion, “Intentional Walk Is Costly to Cole,” Detroit Free Press, May 30, 1922.

3 “Tales of the Tigers,” Detroit Free Press, May 31, 1922.

4 Harry Bullion, “Bengals Twice Get Five in One Inning,” Detroit Free Press, July 24, 1922.

5 “MLB Holds First Night Game,” https://history.com/this-day-in-history/mlb-holds-first-night-game.

6 Harry Bullion, “Bengals Grab First but Fail in Second,” Detroit Free Press, May 31, 1922.

7 “Johnny Tobin Draws Indefinite Suspension; Shorten Replaces Him,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 31, 1922.

8 Harry Bullion, “Bengals Grab First but Fail in Second.”