The Red Sox opened at New York’s Hilltop Park, playing the Highlanders (already being called the Yankees by some).2 That game ran even longer – an Opening Day record, at that time, of 14 innings – and ended in a tie. The Boston Herald characterized the crowd of 25,000 as “the largest and noisiest crowd to attend a ball game at American League Park.”3 The New York Times rhapsodized about the weather, the crowd, and the pregame festivities.4

New York had finished fifth in the American League in 1909, 23½ games behind the Detroit Tigers. Boston had finished third, 9½ games behind.

The starting pitchers were 22-year-old left-hander Hippo Vaughn for the George Stallings-led Highlanders5 and, for new Red Sox manager Patsy Donovan, 25-year-old righty Eddie Cicotte.6 Team captains were Hal Chase for New York and Harry Lord for Boston.

The Red Sox scored the top of the first. Second baseman Amby McConnell reached first when his counterpart, Jimmy Austin, fielded a grounder but threw high to first baseman Chase. McConnell was forced out on third baseman Lord’s comebacker to Vaughn, but center fielder Tris Speaker, who had celebrated his 22nd birthday 10 days earlier, doubled to deep right and Lord scored.

The Red Sox added two more runs in the third inning. Cicotte led off with a walk, moved to second on McConnell’s sacrifice, and scored easily on Lord’s triple to center. When Speaker hit a grounder to Eddie Foster at shortstop, Lord dashed for the plate. Foster threw home, but his throw went over catcher Ed Sweeney’s reach and Lord scored, too. It was 3-0, Red Sox.

New York got its first run in the bottom of the third. Sweeney led off with a double to center field. One out later, center fielder Charlie Hemphill singled to center, Sweeney scoring.

Boston grabbed back a three-run advantage in the fourth. Cicotte reached first safely on a ball that glanced off pitcher Vaughn’s glove. The Red Sox pitcher then ran to third on Sweeney’s passed ball. With two outs, Cicotte scored on Lord’s single.

It remained a 4-1 game until the bottom of the sixth. Chase’s one-out hit to left field went into the crowd for a ground-rule double. Left fielder Clyde Engle singled to center, sending Chase home.

The Highlanders tied the game with two runs in the bottom of the eighth. Hemphill doubled, a ball that Tim Murnane of the Boston Globe felt could have been caught if Red Sox right fielder Harry Niles had just stayed in place. Niles had taken off the sunglasses (“smoked glasses”) he had been wearing for the first seven innings. He initially ran in, but had misjudged Hemphill’s hit and had to backtrack, the ball glancing off the top of his upraised glove.7

Right fielder Harry Wolter singled, and the Red Sox brought in Smoky Joe Wood to pitch. Wood’s first pitch went past catcher Bill Carrigan for a passed ball, with Hemphill scoring and Wolter going all the way to third.

Hal Chase drove a ball so deep to center that, though Tris Speaker caught it, “Wolter had 20 minutes to spare” in tagging and trotting home with the tying run.8 The crowd went wild. “Men of dignity cast indifference to the winds, and threw their hats high into the air,” the New York Times reported. “They felt just the way any one would feel if they heard that a rich uncle had left them a barrel of money.”9

Both sides had opportunities as the game rolled on through the ninth and in extra innings through the 14th, but neither Vaughn nor Wood allowed another run. Wood allowed only two hits in his seven innings of relief.

Vaughn set down Boston in the 10th on three pitches. Wood then took only five pitches to get through the bottom of the 10th.10

Red Sox shortstop Heinie Wagner singled in the 11th. New York second baseman Earle Gardner singled in the bottom of the 11th. Save for Niles drawing a walk in the Boston 14th, neither side got a man on base in the final three innings. The final batter for each side struck out to end their respective halves of the 14th inning.

Vaughn struck out seven in all; Red Sox pitchers also struck out seven (Cicotte one, Wood six). Each side had 11 base hits in all. The three errors in the game were all by New York.

After the 14th inning was completed, the game was called by umpire Tom Connolly on account of darkness. “It was so dark that a ball sent into the air could hardly be seen. Mr. and Mrs. Fan and all the little Fans and Fannies were there and said it was the greatest opening ever.”11 It had taken 2 hours and 45 minutes to play the 14 innings.

The clubs split the final two games of the series. On Friday, April 15 Boston beat New York, 3-2, though the Red Sox’ Charlie Smith allowed seven hits to the five allowed by Jack Quinn. New York evened it up with a 4-2 win on Saturday, with John Frill beating Frank Arellanes.

New York finished second in the 1910 standings, but 14½ games behind the Philadelphia Athletics. The Red Sox were fourth, 22½ games back.12

The teams had, however, made their mark in baseball’s record books with what was then the longest Opening Day game in major-league history. Thirteen years later, the Philadelphia Phillies and Brooklyn Robins matched the Highlanders and Red Sox by going 14 innings to open the 1923 season with a darkness-halted 5-5 tie.13

Fourteen innings was the Opening Day record until 1926, when the Washington Senators beat the Athletics 1-0 in 15 innings at Griffith Stadium for Walter Johnson’s 398th career win. The Tigers and Cleveland Indians also played 15 innings on Opening Day 1960 at Cleveland Stadium, and Al Kaline’s two-run single in the top of the 15th gave Detroit a 4-2 win.

As of 2024, the lengthiest Opening Day game was between Cleveland and the Toronto Blue Jays at Progressive Field in 2012. Blue Jays catcher J.P. Arencibia (0-for-6 to that point in the game) hit a three-run homer in the top of the 16th inning for a 7-4 Toronto win.14

Acknowledgments

This article was vetted by John Fredland, fact-checked by Mark Richard, and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

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

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYA/NYA191004140.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1910/B04140NYA1910.htm

Notes

1 The Doves went on to finish last in the eight-team NL with a record of 53-100-4, 50½ games behind the pennant-winning Chicago Cubs.

2 See, for instance, the headline of the New York Times game story: “25,000 See Yankees Play Red Sox to a Tie,” New York Times, April 15, 1910: 10.

3 “Red Sox and Yankees Go 14 Innings to a Tie,” Boston Herald, April 15, 1910: 6. Attendance was given as around 25,000. The Doves drew just under 9,000. The Hartford Courant reported that about 6,000 of the Hilltop Park fans were accommodated on the field. It also noted that President William Howard Taft had thrown out the ceremonial first pitch at the game in Washington, the first time a president had done so. “President Taft Tosses First Ball,” Hartford Courant, April 15, 1910: 14.

4 “25,000 See Yankees Play Red Sox to a Tie.”

5 Vaughn finished 1910, his first full season in the majors, with a record of 13-11 (1.83 ERA).

6 Cicotte was starting his third full year. He had been 14-5 in 1909. He finished 1910 with a record of 15-11 and a 2.74 ERA.

7 T.H. Murnane, “Opening Is to 144, 067,” Boston Globe, April 15, 1910: 1, 2.

8 “Red Sox and Yankees Go 14 Innings to a Tie.”

9 “25,000 See Yankees Play Red Sox to a Tie.”

10 Herman Nickerson, “Red Sox Play Dashing Game Before Record Crowd in New York,” Boston Journal, April 15, 1910: 10.

11 “25,000 See Yankees Play Red Sox to a Tie.”

12 Two years later, in the first game ever played at Fenway Park, the Red Sox beat the Yankees 7-6 in 11 innings. The winner was Charley Hall. The loser was Hippo Vaughn.

13 Charles Segar, “Robins Begin Setting Records Early: Robbie’s Athletics and Phillies Battle Fourteen Innings to Tie,” Brooklyn Citizen, April 18, 1923: 4.

14 “MLB Game Length Records,” Baseball-Almanac.com, accessed January 12, 2024, https://www.baseball-almanac.com/recbooks/rb_gmlg.shtml.

The festive spring day was sunny and close to 70 degrees. The fans sang along to popular songs performed by a brass band. Philadelphia manager Connie Mack and Washington manager Jimmy McAleer walked over to where Taft was sitting and were introduced. The Senators took the field, looking sharp in their new white uniforms. Umpire Billy Evans brought a new baseball to Taft, and Taft made a strong throw to Walter Johnson, Washington’s 22-year-old pitcher, who was on the mound. It was the first time that a president had thrown out the ceremonial first pitch. Johnson tossed the ball to catcher Gabby Street, who stowed it away for safekeeping.

In the top of the first inning, Johnson retired the first three Philadelphia batters by groundouts to the infield. Eddie Plank, the Athletics’ 34-year-old left-hander, took the mound in the bottom of the inning. With one out, Washington’s Germany Schaefer hit a ball that bounced over the crowd in the outfield and over the fence. On a normal day, it would have been ruled a home run, but special rules were in effect with fans in the outfield, and Schaefer’s hit was declared a ground-rule double. Jack Lelivelt followed with a drive to right field that landed in the crowd near the fence. It, too, was a ground-rule double and scored Schaefer to give the Senators a 1-0 lead.

Over the next three innings, Johnson did not allow a hit, while Plank gave up four hits but no runs. Plank was aided by a solid defense. In the third inning, second baseman Eddie Collins dove to stop a groundball and threw to first base while lying on the ground. In the fourth inning, third baseman Frank Baker retrieved a sharply hit ball that had caromed off Plank, and fired to first base in time to retire the batter.

Johnson continued his no-hitter in the top of the fifth inning. The Athletics were overwhelmed by his fastball. He led off the bottom of the fifth by driving the ball to the center-field fence; again, the ground rules came into play and he was held to a double. Clyde Milan beat out a bunt, and then Schaefer placed a double into the crowd in right field, which scored Johnson. Lelivelt’s fly ball to right field was caught by Danny Murphy. Milan scored on the sacrifice, but Schaefer was thrown out at third base by a beautiful throw from Murphy to Baker. After five innings, Washington led 3-0.

There was no scoring in the sixth inning. With his no-hitter intact, Johnson got Rube Oldring to pop out and Collins to ground out in the top of the seventh. Baker then lifted a fly ball to deep right field. This would normally have been an easy catch for Doc Gessler, but as he went back, he collided with a spectator, and all three – Gessler, the spectator, and the ball – fell to the ground. Baker had a double and broke up the no-hitter. Johnson retired the next batter, Harry Davis, on a popup. In the bottom of the seventh, the Senators loaded the bases on two singles and a hit batsman but failed to score. Neither team got a hit in the eighth inning.

Topsy Hartsel led off the ninth inning with a walk. Johnson struck out Oldring and then got Collins to ground into a force out at second base for the second out. It looked like smooth sailing for the Washington ace until he walked Baker and threw a wild pitch to Davis, which put runners on second and third. The crowd was quiet and tense. With the count full, Davis rapped a ball that was snared by Bob Unglaub at first base, and Unglaub touched the bag to end the game. The final score was Washington 3, Philadelphia 0. Johnson struck out nine batters and walked three in his brilliant one-hitter. Taft stayed for the whole game. “Johnson is a bully pitcher,” he said, meaning superb.

The next day Johnson sent to the White House the ball that Taft had thrown to him, with a request for the president to autograph the ball. Taft put his signature on the ball along with this inscription: “For Walter Johnson, with the hope that he may continue to be as formidable as in yesterday’s game.”

Johnson earned his 33rd career victory that day. He won 384 more games in his formidable career.

Sources

In preparing this article, the author relied on the April 15, 1910, issues of the Washington Post and the Washington Herald, and the April 23, 1910, issue of Sporting Life.

Following mediocre seasons in 1909, when both the White Sox and Naps finished at least 20 games behind the AL champion Detroit Tigers, each club looked for a fresh start in the young 1910 season. Cleveland took two of three from Detroit to start the season, while Chicago disappointingly split a two-game series with the lowly St. Louis Browns. In the first game of the series between the Naps and White Sox on April 19, Cleveland’s Heinie Berger outlasted Chicago’s Frank Smith in a 2-1 game that took 12 innings.

A day later, on a chilly Wednesday afternoon, the two teams were set up for another pitchers duel. Cleveland sent to the mound the 30-year-old Joss, who had been roughed up in his first start of the season at Detroit, when he surrendered seven runs. But he was coming off a dominant 1909 season in which his 1.71 ERA was tied for fourth in the AL.1 Chicago started 31-year-old lefty Doc White, who was making his first start of the year after a great 1909 season in which he was just a tick behind Joss with a 1.72 ERA.

The two starting pitchers stood taller than 6 feet and were relatively thin,2 which led Chicago Tribune columnist Sy Sanborn to call the matchup “the battle between the Human Slats.”3

The Naps opened the contest threateningly in the first. After left fielder Art Kruger was retired, third baseman Bill Bradley poked a ball into left field for Cleveland’s first hit. Bradley stole second and advanced to third on a groundout by second baseman Terry Turner. White stifled the threat by getting Cleveland first baseman Nap Lajoie to ground to third.4

From the start, the White Sox were unable to make hard contact against Joss, who retired the first four batters he faced. The game’s sole controversy came in the second when White Sox center fielder Freddy Parent hit a weak grounder to Bradley, who bobbled the ball and was unable to throw out Parent at first.

According to the Cleveland Press, the play was initially ruled a hit by most of the scorers in attendance, but as it continued to loom as the only White Sox hit, Chicago and Cleveland writers covering the game got together to find the official scorer and ask him to change the hit to an error.

The group of writers, who were part of the Base Ball Writers’ Association of America, discovered that White Sox owner Charles Comiskey had not appointed an official scorer, and all agreed Bradley had a better than even chance to make the throw had he not bobbled the ball.5

After Joss stranded Parent on first in the second, he walked White in the third, but once again got out of the inning without the runner advancing. Joss then set down Chicago’s 2-3-4 hitters—Rollie Zeider, Chick Gandil, and Cuke Barrows, who was playing in the seventh game of his 32-game career—in order in the fourth.

Chicago got a runner into scoring position for the only time in the game in the fifth. Parent reached base for the second time via a walk and got to second on a sacrifice by Billy Purtell. He advanced to third on a groundout by rookie shortstop Lena Blackburne to Joss—one of Joss’s 10 assists in the game. White Sox catcher Fred Payne squandered the chance to score Parent by popping out to Cleveland shortstop Neal Ball.

While Joss took all the headlines for keeping Chicago out of the hit column, White also had an impressive outing, highlighted by two pickoffs of Cleveland baserunners. Naps catcher Jay Clarke got aboard on a walk in the second inning and moved up a base on a groundout before White picked him off at second to end the inning. With one down in the top of the fourth, Turner hit a ball in front of the plate that White was unable to get to, resulting in an infield single.

During the next at-bat, White threw over to first once with Turner retreating safely, only to fire the ball back with Turner just off the base, his attention turned away. The Cleveland Plain Dealer remarked that White made Turner, who finished his career as Cleveland’s all-time leader in games played, “look like a two-year-old.”6

The only run of the game came on a couple of big hits by Cleveland in the sixth. With one down in the inning, Kruger singled on a soft liner over second. After White retired Bradley, Turner skied a slow pitch from White just over the head of Barrows in left, the ball glancing off his glove as he dove for it. Kruger had been off and running with two outs and scored easily from first. Turner rolled into second with a double.7

Lajoie, still Cleveland’s all-time franchise hits leader as of 2025, grounded out, leaving Turner on second. The Naps threatened again in the seventh by way of a Clarke single and a Joe Birmingham hit-by-pitch with one out, but Ball and Joss failed to bring home an insurance run.

Luckily for the Naps, it did not matter that they also left a runner on in the eighth, and Clarke popped up a sacrifice bunt attempt that turned into a double play in the ninth. Joss had his best stretch of the game in the final four frames, not allowing a single baserunner.

After Joss made two putouts to start the ninth, the South Side crowd cheered against their White Sox for the first time that afternoon in hopes of seeing history.8

Joss induced a groundout to Bradley to complete the 11th no-hitter in AL history, the first time a pitcher no-hit the same team twice. Joss stood alone in that category for 104 years until San Francisco Giants right-hander Tim Lincecum no-hit the San Diego Padres in 2013 and 2014.

“It’s pretty nice to get credit for a no-hit game, but I would rather it had been so clean that there would have been no chance for a moment’s hesitation by the scorers,” Joss said after the game, referencing the debated Bradley error in the second.9

Sanborn wrote that if Parent’s weak grounder on that play had been an intentional bunt, the decision may have been different.

“But it wasn’t even a bunt, and there wasn’t anything else in the White Sox outfit which even made noise like a base hit, except one or two which Slat Joss mercilessly stabbed in midair,” Sanborn wrote.10

Bradley took the blame for the error, saying, “If ever a man pitched a no-hit game, Addie is that man and Wednesday was the day.”11

Although Joss had etched his name in baseball history once again in his storied career, he remained humble.

“But remember this: the credit is due to the grand support I got,” Joss said. “And on top of that I was lucky. A man is always lucky to get those no-hit games at any time and against any team.”12

Neither the Naps nor White Sox came close to competing for an AL title in 1910, each finishing more than 30 games behind the eventual World Series-champion Philadelphia Athletics. Chicago’s .211 team average in 1910 was the worst of any AL or NL team.

Joss pitched only 11 more games in 1910 due to a torn ligament in his throwing arm that caused him to miss significant time in June and ended his season in July. His no-hitter marked the last scoreless outing he ever pitched, as he died from tubercular meningitis before the 1911 season the following April.

The day after the game, Wisconsin sportswriter Ray Speer reflected in the Eau Claire Daily Leader on Joss’s rise from humble origins in rural Wisconsin to a major-league great in what would be his final season. Speer wrote how Joss was unlike the ordinary people Thomas Gray described in his poem Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.

“He became a hero,” Speer wrote. “If you doubt my word consult manager Duffy of the Sox and I dare say you will have another think coming.”13

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Larry DeFillipo and copy-edited by Mike Eisenbath.

Photo credit: Addie Joss, Trading Card Database.

Sources 

The author relied on Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for pertinent information, including the box score. The author drew play-by-play information from game coverage in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Cleveland Press, and Chicago Tribune newspapers.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CHA/CHA191004200.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1910/B04200CHA1910.htm

Notes

1 The Tigers’ Ed Killian also had a 1.71 ERA. Harry Krause of the Philadelphia Athletics led the AL with a 1.39 ERA.

2 During their playing careers, Doc White was 6-foot-1 and weighed 150 pounds while Addie Joss was 6-foot-3 and weighed 185.

3 Sy Sanborn, “No Hits, No Runs, Joss Blanks Sox,” Chicago Tribune, April 21, 1910: 8.

4 Cleveland’s regular starting first baseman for the 1910 season, George Stovall, started the year on the bench until becoming the starter on April 27. Lajoie was the primary starting second baseman from that point on.

5 “No Hit Game Won by Joss,” Cleveland Press, April 21, 1910: 12.

6 “New Record for Tall Addie Joss,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, April 21, 1910: 8.

7 “New Record for Tall Addie Joss.”

8 “Notes on the White Sox,” Chicago Tribune, April 21, 1910: 8.

9 “No Hit Game Won by Joss.”

10 “No Hits, No Runs, Joss Blanks Sox.” 

11 “No Hit Game Won by Joss.”

12 “No Hit Game Won by Joss.”

13 Ray Speer, “As You Like It,” Eau Claire Daily Leader, April 21, 1910: 2.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sources

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

Notes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“That is what Comiskey has been doing for the last two or three months, when it became evident that through failure to bat at the right time, accidents and other unforeseen contingencies, the Sox were not destined to land very high in the official standing at the end of the season,” Chicago Inter Ocean reporter Frederic North Shorey wrote in a Sunday Magazine cover story on August 29, 1909. “The numerous tips that had been received were carefully collected and compared … and Comiskey commenced to pull the strings that will bring him a team which he hopes will win the pennant.”3

Chicago’s contingent featured a mix of new and returning players – such as pitcher Fred Olmstead, who had appeared in nine games for the White Sox between 1908 and ’09 – and when Comiskey’s club reported to spring training in San Francisco with three dozen players,4 excitement swept through the franchise. 

“The American League pennant will come back to Chicago this year,” manager Hugh Duffy declared, encouraging fans who last celebrated a championship in 1906. “This is my prediction. I do not hesitate to state that with a pitching staff which is called the best in the world and a wonderful collection of infielders and inside ball players … the White Sox will show the way to the wire in October.”5

And while Olmstead, who won 24 games as the ace for the Minneapolis Millers of the American Association before the White Sox purchased his contract for the final month of the 1909 season, did not carry the same name recognition as teammates Ed Walsh, Frank Smith, and Doc White, when Duffy gave him a chance to shine against the Washington Senators on June 13, he took advantage – producing one of the bright moments in what became a dud of a season for Chicago.

Washington starter Walter Johnson came into that game at Chicago’s South Side Grounds with plenty of momentum on his side. He had won six of his last seven starts, and four days earlier he had become the first major-league pitcher of the season to reach 100 strikeouts. In his fourth big-league season, the 22-year-old Big Train seemed primed for a big breakout and eyed the White Sox as his next victim.

Meanwhile, the White Sox limped into the game. Senators pitchers Dixie Walker, Doc Riesling, and Bob Groom had each hurled shutouts in the first three meetings of the four-game series, and overall, Chicago had not scored since the fifth inning against the Boston Red Sox on June 9. No AL team had ever been shut out in all four games of a series,6 but with Johnson taking the hill that afternoon, ending the dismal streak likely felt like a monumental task for White Sox hitters. Even Duffy seemed to consider losing an inevitability, as he countered with Olmstead, who had not pitched since May 23, instead of Walsh, his well-rested spitballing ace.

“[Duffy] preferred to save Walsh for another day, figuring that if Johnson was good, he might beat anybody,” wrote Washington Post reporter Joe S. Jackson, “especially the way the Sox are hitting.”7

Olmstead, a 28-year-old making his eighth career start, did not seem intimidated by Johnson or the prospect of getting sparse run support from Chicago’s punchless offense.8 He struck out a career-high nine batters and outwitted Washington’s rising ace over 13 innings in a 2-1 victory before 3,800 hometown fans, who likely let out a collective sigh of relief when the White Sox finally pushed across a run in the fourth inning – ending the club’s 33-inning scoreless streak.

The Senators came into the afternoon with a vastly improved 21-26 record9 and looked to keep up their winning ways by jumping into the lead in the first inning. Jack Lelivelt scorched a one-out single, went to second on Doc Gessler’s grounder, and scored when Bob Unglaub doubled to center. But over the next 12 innings, Washington collected only three more hits as Olmstead settled in for the longest start of his career.

“[N]o doubt,” wrote a local account of Olmstead’s outing, “Fred’s name will appear more frequently in the sporting column.”10

Johnson racked up five strikeouts in the first two innings, but Chicago’s offense got on the board in the fourth even as he displayed “bewildering speed” and “flawless control”11 from the slab. Johnson cost himself a chance at his fourth shutout of the season with a walk and an erratic throw that inning. Patsy Dougherty, who had singled in the second, drew the free pass, and Chick Gandil followed with a hard smash back to the pitcher’s mound. Johnson did not field the ball cleanly, and his rushed throw to first sailed well beyond the reach of Unglaub at first base.

Dougherty “gave an imitation of [automobile racer] Barney Oldfield,” circling the bases with tremendous speed to tie the game at 1-1.12 According to the Chicago Tribune, the run scored at 4:12 P.M., and had it come 10 minutes later, the club’s scoring drought would have reached 96 hours.13

Olmstead appeared close to faltering in the sixth, issuing one-out walks to Lelivelt and Gessner, but he struck out Unglaub and George McBride to end the inning. Olmstead also fanned Wid Conroy and Red Killefer to open the seventh, on his way to nine strikeouts – a tally that matched the combined total of punchouts from his previous four outings, which covered 28⅓ innings.

The Senators again rallied in the ninth. McBride reached on an error to open the inning and advanced when Conroy’s attempted sacrifice turned into an infield single. Killefer, who had struck out in three straight at-bats, failed to drop a sacrifice, and his grounder to third, Gabby Street’s fly out, and Johnson’s grounder ended the inning.

The White Sox, who had collected only four hits in the first 12 innings, got a leadoff double in the 13th from Gandil, who smashed a solid drive over Clyde Milan’s head in center field. After a failed sacrifice attempt, Lena Blackburne drew a walk – Johnson’s second of the game – and Gandil came around to score the winning run on Fred Payne’s sharp single up the middle.14

“[The Senators] took three in four from Chicago, and that’s pretty satisfying,” Jackson wrote in the Post. “There would be no vain regrets if the team had been handed a good beating. It’s losing one that might have gone the other way so easily that stings.”15

Even though the White Sox finished the day in seventh place in the AL standings at 16-26, there was still enough time for Comiskey’s crew to turn the season around, but Chicago never got more than four wins in a row until September. Comiskey’s new ballpark opened to great fanfare on July 1, but overall the campaign ended with a disappointing 68-85 record and a sixth-place finish in the standings – the team’s worst showing since 1903 and a drop of 10 wins from the previous season.

The Senators finished seventh with two fewer wins (66-85), but that marked a 24-win improvement over 1909. Much of that had to do with Johnson’s emergence, as he closed 1910 with a 25-17 record in 45 appearances with a 1.36 ERA and a league-leading and career-high 313 strikeouts16 (in his first three seasons, he went a combined 32-48 with a 1.94 ERA and 395 strikeouts in 90 appearances).

The victory also helped turn the tide for Olmstead, who became a regular pitcher for the White Sox throughout the remainder of the season and mixed together opportunities as a starter and reliever to finish with a 10-12 record and a 1.95 ERA. He hurled four shutouts – tied for seventh in the AL – and proved his versatility by landing as one of 11 major-league pitchers to finish nine games and complete at least 14 starts in 1910.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Bill Marston and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted the Baseball-Reference.com, Stathead.com, and Retrosheet.org websites for pertinent material and box scores. He also used information obtained from news coverage by the Washington Post, the Washington Herald, the Chicago Inter Ocean, and the Chicago Tribune.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CHA/CHA191006130.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1910/B06130CHA1910.htm

Notes

1 Former players and other contacts from Comiskey’s years in the game primarily conducted his nationwide search by sending him letters with tips about players they had discovered. None of those tips “went unheard,” and they resulted in dozens of acquisitions. Frederic North Shorey, “Comiskey’s $100,000 Ball Team,” Chicago Inter Ocean, August 29, 1909: M1.

2 Shorey.

3 Shorey.

4 “White Sox Due to Arrive Tonight,” San Francisco Call, March 1, 1910: 10.

5 “Size Up Fight in American,” Rock Island (Illinois) Argus, March 26, 1910: 11.

6 Two AL teams had gone four straight games without scoring – the 1906 Boston Red Sox and Philadelphia Athletics – but both scoreless droughts had come against two opponents. Through 2023, no AL team has ever lost all four games of a series without scoring.

7 Joe S. Jackson, “Sporting Facts and Fancies,” Washington Post, June 14, 1910: 9.

8 In the three previous shutouts, the White Sox hit a collective .163. Coming into the game, the White Sox had scored a major-league-worst 97 runs and had racked up six or more runs in only three games. Four teams, the Detroit Tigers (214), New York Giants (200), St. Louis Cardinals (198), and Philadelphia Athletics (194), had scored at least twice as many runs.

9 Washington was off to its third-best start in history and best season-opening sprint since 1902, when the Senators stood at 22-25 over the first 47 games of the season.

10 “Fred Olmstead Some Pitcher,” Wagoner County (Oklahoma) Record, June 16, 1910: 1.

11 “Nationals Lose in Thirteenth,” Washington Herald, June 14, 1910: 8.

12 I.E. Sanborn, “Victory for Sox in 13 Innings, 2-1,” Chicago Tribune, June 14, 1910: 12. Oldfield and his “Blitzen Benz” race car made headlines in March 1910 by driving over 131 mph for a new world speed record.

13 “Notes of the White Sox,” Chicago Tribune, June 14, 1910: 12.

14 Payne’s game-winning hit was set up by unfortunate circumstances – an injury to starting catcher Bruno Block. In the ninth, Street’s foul tip deflected off Block’s throwing hand. Block, a rookie who initially broke into the majors as one of Washington’s six catchers in 1907, did not return to action until June 21.

15 Jackson.

16 Rube Waddell had been the only other AL pitcher to accumulate 300 strikeouts in a season (302 in 1903 and 349 in 1904).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sources

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

Baseball-reference.com.

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

Retrosheet.org.

Notes

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

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

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

4 Ibid.

5 “Commy to Greet.”

6 “Big Army of Fans.”

7 Ibid.

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

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

10 With a minimum of 1,000 innings pitched.

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

12 Daniel.

13 Ibid.

14 Ibid.

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

16 Daniel.

17 Ibid.

18 “Big Army of Fans.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sources 

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

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

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

Notes

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

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

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

4 “World’s Champions Have Easy Time.”

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

One out later, third-string catcher Frank Roth poked a pinch-hit single into left field, driving in pinch-runner Ward Miller with the winning run. The clutch hits by McLean and Roth made a winner of starter Jack Rowan and gave the Reds their fifth victory in six games, nudging them four games over the .500 mark.

McLean had joined Cincinnati late in the 1906 season; by the following spring, he was the team’s starting catcher.4 The Fredericton, New Brunswick, native had a breakout 1909 campaign in which he had established himself as one of the best catchers in the big leagues.5 McLean had also taken on a leadership role with the Reds, filling in as team captain for six weeks in 1909 when Hans Lobert was out of the lineup.6 McLean even piloted the team for a three-game series against the Pittsburgh Pirates after manager Clark Griffith was suspended for a heated argument with umpire Bob Emslie in late July.7

McLean’s 1909 season ended abruptly when Roy Thomas of the Boston Doves fractured his kneecap in a nasty home-plate collision on August 15, forcing him to miss the last 52 games.8 “[McLean] is undoubtedly the greatest throwing catcher in the business today and there is no better backstop, to say nothing of his hitting, which is powerful,” wrote Jack Ryder in the Cincinnati Enquirer.9

Ryder was not alone in his assessment of McLean’s abilities. In the fall of 1909, Griffith was asked to select a major-league all-star team that he thought could beat the one chosen by Cap Anson in a recent edition of Collier’s magazine.10 Anson had selected George Gibson of the Pirates as his starting catcher, but Griffith was adamant that McLean was the best of them all. “Gibson is faster on his feet, but excels McLean in no other department of the game,” he opined. “McLean throws to bases better than Gibson.”11

The 1910 season got off to a rocky start for the 28-year-old McLean. One night during spring training in Hot Springs, Arkansas, McLean went out drinking and didn’t return to the team’s hotel until 4 A.M.12 The Reds, citing the “anti-drink clause” in his contract, voided the agreement.13 The club had him sign a new contract with a much smaller monthly salary and a sizable bonus at the end of the season for staying sober.14 The Reds also suspended him without pay for the first week of the regular season.15

A repentant McLean penned a letter of apology to the Cincinnati fans. “I am in perfect condition and ready to catch every game in which I am needed,” he wrote. “I want the fans to understand that I mean business in this statement, and have made up my mind to make this the best year of my career.”16

The Reds had finished at least 26 games out of first place in the previous five seasons, although it looked as though they might finish closer to the top in 1910. Cincinnati came into the July 9 contest – the opener of a lengthy 18-game homestand − tied with the Pirates for third place, eight games behind the first-place Chicago Cubs.17

Brooklyn, a second-division team for the previous seven seasons, was in sixth place with a 30-37 record, 13 games out of first.

The Superbas sent veteran George Bell to the hill. Bell had won his last three starts, raising his record to 6-10.18 He faced another righty, the 24-year-old Rowan, for the third time in 1910. Rowan had tossed shutouts in both of his previous starts against the hard-luck Bell, winning by scores of 1-0 and 3-0.19 The Reds hurler had a 5-2 mark in 11 starts and 8 relief appearances.

Early in this game, Rowan was the pitcher with the bad luck. He gave up two unearned runs in the first inning on a Texas Leaguer, a bunt single, two errors, and a fly ball.20 Brooklyn added another unearned run in the second on a two-base error by first baseman Dick Hoblitzell, his second error of the game, and an RBI single by rookie Jack Dalton.

The Reds cut into the three-run deficit in the bottom of the second. An infield single by Dode Paskert and a walk to third baseman Tom Downey, playing for an injured Lobert, put a pair of runners on base for McLean.21 On a hit-and-run play, McLean singled to drive in Paskert and advance Downey to third. The next batter, Tommy McMillan, flied out to center field, allowing Downey to tag up and score. Brooklyn led, 3-2.

Cincinnati left fielder Bob Bescher opened the bottom of the fifth with a walk, the fourth issued by Bell in the game. Bescher stole second – his league-leading 33rd steal of the season – and one out later he took third on a groundout.22 Slugger Mike Mitchell, who finished second in the National League with 88 RBIs, tied the game with a two-out double to left.

Both pitchers cruised through the next four innings. Bell allowed two hits and Rowan just one, with neither pitcher issuing a walk in the four frames. The game went into extra innings tied, 3-3.

Brooklyn loaded the bases in the 10th on a leadoff single, a two-out hit-by-pitch, and an intentional walk, Rowan’s first free pass of the game.23 Rowan escaped the jam by retiring rookie Bill Davidson on a popup.

Cincinnati put runners on the corners with two out in the 10th, but the inning ended when Bescher was thrown out attempting to steal home.

Brooklyn threatened again in the 11th after Rowan issued a pair of one-out walks. He quickly recovered and set down the next nine batters he faced.

The Superbas’ 33-year-old spitballer Irvin “Kaiser” Wilhelm,24 who came on in relief of Bell in the 11th,25 limited the Reds to a single in each of his first three innings of work.

McLean led off the 14th inning with a steady rain falling and little daylight remaining.26 He slammed a Wilhelm offering deep into left-center field for a triple, putting the potential winning run on third base with nobody out. The speedy Miller ran for McLean and one out later the rarely used Roth, pinch-hitting for Rowan, ended the game with a solid single between the shortstop and third baseman.27

Rowan earned his sixth win of the season, three of which had come against Brooklyn. He held the Superbas to three runs − none of which were earned – on eight singles, three walks, and two hit-by-pitches in 14 innings. He struck out four batters. “If Mr. Rowan had only the Brooklyns to pitch against he would make Mordecai Brown look like a minor leaguer,” quipped the Cincinnati Enquirer.28

The win pulled Cincinnati to within seven games of the first-place Cubs, but the Reds went a disappointing 8-10 on their homestand and fell out of the pennant race in late July. Cincinnati finished in fifth place with 75-79-2 record, leaving the team a whopping 29 games behind the NL champion Cubs.29

McLean followed through on the commitment he made in his letter of apology to the Cincinnati fans in early April. He was indeed ready whenever Griffith called upon him. After his suspension for the first four games of the season, McLean played in 127 of the Reds’ final 150 games. He also had the best season of his career, finishing ninth in the NL with 71 RBIs and 12th in the batting race with a .298 average, and flashing elite defense for the second consecutive season.30 His 4.1 Baseball-Reference Wins Above Replacement (bWAR) led all major-league catchers in 1910. (Gibson was second with 3.2 bWAR.)

McLean had another good season in 1911, although there were rumors that his drinking issues had resurfaced.31 He finally wore out his welcome in Cincinnati in September 1912 when he got into a heated argument with first-year manager Hank O’Day after missing an exhibition game in Syracuse.32 McLean was suspended indefinitely and his contract was sold to the floundering St. Louis Cardinals in the offseason.33 He continued to struggle with his use of alcohol and was out of baseball by the summer of 1915.

Despite his alcohol issues, McLean was still one of the best catchers in the NL during the Deadball Era.34 In his peak five years (1907-11), he accumulated 12.7 bWAR, more than all major-league catchers other than future Hall of Famer Roger Bresnahan.35 From 1901 to 2024, McLean ranks sixth all-time in bWAR among Cincinnati Reds catchers.36

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Laura Peebles and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com, Retrosheet.org, Stathead.com, Seamheads Ballparks Database, and the SABR biographies of Larry McLean and Irvin “Kaiser” Wilhelm. Unless otherwise noted, all detailed play-by-play information for this game was taken from the article “Brooklyns Lose to Reds in Fourteenth Inning” in the July 10, 1910, edition of the Brooklyn Standard Union.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CIN/CIN191007090.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1910/B07090CIN1910.htm   

Photo credit

The photo of Larry McLean is courtesy of the Trading Card Database.

Notes

1 “Notes of the Game,” Cincinnati Enquirer, July 10, 1910: 19.

2 McLean threw out Jack Dalton in the second inning and 22-year-old Zack Wheat in the third; both were attempting to steal second base. There were no more stolen-base attempts by Brooklyn in the game.

3 Palace of the Fans was a triples haven. According to the Seamheads Ballparks Database, its one-year park factor for triples was 175, the highest in the majors. But the Palace of the Fans was the NL’s most difficult park in which to hit a homer – its one-year park factor for homers was 42. Jack Ryder, “Stickers,” Cincinnati Enquirer, July 10, 1910: 19.

4 McLean had previously played in nine major-league games for the Boston Americans in 1901, one game for the Chicago Cubs in 1903, and 27 games for the St. Louis Cardinals in 1904. The Reds purchased his contract from the Portland Beavers of the Pacific Coast League late in the 1906 season.

5 Despite McLean’s missing the final 52 games of the 1909 season with an injury, only two major-league catchers amassed more Baseball-Reference Wins Above Replacement (bWAR) than McLean’s 2.9 bWAR: George Gibson of the Pittsburgh Pirates (4.7 bWAR) and Bill Carrigan of the Boston Red Sox (3.4 bWAR).

6 Lobert was out of the lineup from June 17 to July 3 with malaria and again from July 18 to Aug 11 with a sprained ankle. Jack Ryder, “Long Bob,” Cincinnati Enquirer, June 19, 1909: 8; Jack Ryder, “Lobert,” Cincinnati Enquirer, July 20, 1909: 8.

7 The argument occurred in Philadelphia in the second game of a twin bill on July 24, 1909. Griffith was suspended for the three games in Pittsburgh on July 26-28. “Notes of the Game,” Cincinnati Enquirer, July 27, 1909: 4; “Phillies Share Up With the Reds,” Philadelphia Inquirer, July 25, 1909: 20.

8 Jack Ryder, “Our Boys,” Cincinnati Enquirer, August 16, 1909: 8.

9 Jack Ryder, “Double-Header Briefs,” Cincinnati Enquirer, August 16, 1909: 8.

10 “Old Cap Anson Picks an All-American Ball Team,” Butte (Montana) Evening News, October 14, 1909: 3.

11 Griffith chose only one other position player from his team: right fielder Mike Mitchell. The other seven position players selected by him were first baseman Hal Chase, second baseman Johnny Evers, shortstop Joe Tinker, third baseman Tommy Leach, center fielder Tris Speaker, and left fielder Fred Clarke. “Clark Griffith Picks All-Star Team Which He Says Is Better Than Cap Anson’s,” Cincinnati Post, October 20, 1909: 6.

12 Jack Ryder, “Larry Is No Longer a Red,” Cincinnati Enquirer, March 27, 1910: 18.

13 “‘I Wouldn’t Give Thirty Cents for McLean,’ Says Dreyfuss,” Cincinnati Post, March 28, 1910: 6.

14 The Cincinnati Enquirer suggested that if McLean stayed sober for the remainder of the season, he would be paid the same amount as in his original contract. “Notes of the Game,” Cincinnati Enquirer, April 10, 1910: 18.

15 McLean missed only four games because three contests in the first week of the season were rained out.

16 “Notes of the Game,” Cincinnati Enquirer, April 9, 1910: 8.

17 Cincinnati had a record of 36-33 and one tie.

18 Bell finished the 1910 season with a major-league-leading 27 losses despite posting a 2.64 ERA (114 ERA+). He won only 10 games.

19 Rowan tossed a two-hit shutout in the 1-0 win on June 6 and a six-hit shutout in the 3-0 win on May 14. Bell threw a complete game both times.

20 The runs scored on an error by Cincinnati first baseman Dick Hoblitzell and a fly ball by Bill Davidson. Ryder, “Stickers.”

21 Lobert injured his wrist on June 4. He did not return to the starting lineup until August 16. Unlike in 1909, McLean did not fill in for Lobert as team captain; that role was given to Mike Mitchell. Jack Ryder, “Hard Week Ahead for the Redlegs,” Cincinnati Enquirer, June 6, 1910: 8; Ryder, “Stickers.”

22 Bescher added two more stolen bases in the game: he swiped second base in the seventh inning and third base in the 10th.

23 Rowan walked John Hummel to get to rookie Bill Davidson. “Superbas Lose to the Reds in Great 14-Inning Game,” Brooklyn Citizen, July 10, 1910: 5.

24 In his rookie season with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1903, Wilhelm helped set a NL/AL team record of 56 consecutive scoreless innings. Wilhelm had been fighting typhoid fever for most of the 1910 season. He pitched in only two more games for Brooklyn. The Superbas learned of his typhoid fever diagnosis near the beginning of August. Typhoid fever is highly contagious. “Phillies Take Final Game; Two Games To-Day with Cardinals,” Brooklyn Standard Union, August 2, 1910: 6.

25 Bell was removed in the top of the 11th for a pinch-hitter. He gave up three earned runs on six hits and four walks in 10 innings. He struck out just one batter.

26 Ryder, “Stickers.”

27 Roth made only 31 plate appearances in 1910. His walk-off single on July 9 was the last hit and RBI of his six-year career in the majors. Roth went 0-for-12 for the rest of season and never played in the big leagues again. Ryder, “Stickers.”

28 Rowan shut out Brooklyn again on August 24. He finished the season with a 5-1 record vs. the Superbas and 9-12 against the other NL teams. Ryder, “Stickers.”

29 Brooklyn finished the season in sixth place with a 64-90-2 record.

30 In 1910 McLean was second in the NL fielding percentage for a catcher (.983) and caught-stealing percentage (53 percent). He tied for the major-league lead in double plays by a catcher (18).

31 “Reds a Disappointment,” Cincinnati Enquirer, May 28, 1911: 6; “Along the Base Lines,” New Castle (Pennsylvania) Herald, August 8, 1911: 2.

32 O’Day umpired in 3,985 regular-season games in the majors between 1884 and 1927. He was on his first of two one-year umpiring hiatuses in 1912. O’Day also managed the Chicago Cubs in 1914.

33 O’Day suspended McLean for insubordination. Jack Ryder, “Long Larry Through with the Reds,” Cincinnati Enquirer, September 11, 1912: 8.

34 McLean’s 12.9 bWAR between 1901 and 1920 ranks him seventh among NL players who appeared in at least 50 percent of their games at catcher. Bresnahan led with 42 bWAR.

35 Bresnahan accumulated 17.7 bWAR from 1907 to 1911.

36 The top six Cincinnati Reds catchers, as measured by total bWAR from 1901 to 2024, were Johnny Bench (75.1 bWAR from 1967 to 1983), Ernie Lombardi (26.0 bWAR from 1932 to 1941), Ed Bailey (18.7 bWAR from 1953 to 1961), Bubbles Hargrave (16.8 bWAR from 1921 to 1928), Ivey Wingo (13.8 bWAR from 1915 to 1929), and Larry McLean (13.7 bWAR from 1906 to 1912). Wingo was above replacement level (i.e., his bWAR was greater than zero), but had a Wins Above Average (WAA) that was zero or negative in five of his 13 seasons with the Reds. As measured by WAA, McLean was the fifth best Reds catcher between 1901 and 2024. McLean had 6.2 WAA with Cincinnati, while Wingo had just 2.7 WAA.

“Ah, young Denton,” they probably would say. “That boy is always throwing something.”

When combined with strength-building chores like crop-harvesting and wood-splitting, young Denton’s lunch-break throwing evolved into superb pitching, and stories of a Tuscarawas County farmer turned “Cyclone” pitcher caught the attention of major-league clubs as Cy Young took to the mound for semipro clubs in the region in the mid-1880s.1

A quarter-century later and just a few weeks shy of the 21st anniversary of Young’s debut appearance with the Cleveland Spiders of the National League, he reached a milestone that has never been matched and likely never will – a testament to the hard work and diligence he learned as a young farmhand. On July 19, 1910, the 43-year-old Young took the mound for the Cleveland Naps in the second game of a doubleheader against the Washington Senators. Though it took him 11 innings, he walked away from the mound at Washington’s American League Park with his 500th major-league victory.

Young was the oldest major leaguer with a regular playing role in 1910, his second season with Cleveland after a February 1909 trade from the Boston Red Sox, and he saw no reason he would not continue his success. He said splitting logs, making repairs, chopping wood, and looking after the stock on his Peoli, Ohio, farm kept him from growing “fat and soft” in the offseason,2 and despite a substandard record, he showed flashes of his old self in the first half of the season.3 Young had earned win number 499 in a two-hit, 5-0 shutout of the St. Louis Browns on June 30, but the Detroit Tigers, Red Sox, and New York Yankees foiled his first three tries at number 500.

Heavy rains in the nation’s capital had caused a postponement of the Naps-Senators series opener, necessitating the doubleheader on July 19. Knowing Young would try for history in the second game, 7,132 fans gathered on a Tuesday afternoon – a significant uptick at Washington’s turnstiles.4

The Senators treated those patrons to a dominant 7-0 victory in the afternoon’s opening game. Dolly Gray allowed only four hits in his first career shutout and supported his own cause with a career-high three hits at the plate.

Washington carried that momentum into Game Two, taking the lead with a run in the bottom of the first. Clyde Milan drew a leadoff walk and moved to second on Jack Lelivelt’s single. Milan went to third after Young hit him with a pickoff attempt, and he scored on a close play at the plate on Wid Conroy’s infield bouncer.

Meanwhile, Cleveland’s offense remained sluggish, failing to score against Doc Reisling over the first eight innings.5 Cleveland nearly scored in the fifth, but Washington catcher Gabby Street held onto the ball in a collision at the plate with George Stovall. Street left the game with an injury to his left wrist and did not return to action until August 1.

The Naps, however, were determined to bring Young his 500th victory, and Jack Graney drew an inning-opening walk in the ninth to spark a rally. Terry Turner laid a bunt up the first-base line and beat first baseman John Henry’s throw to the bag, and Nap Lajoie reached on a bunt of his own to load the bases. Ted Easterly and Stovall followed with back-to-back fly balls to give Cleveland a 2-1 lead.

Young trotted out to the mound to try to finish off the milestone victory with what would have become his fifth career two-hitter, but the Senators seemed intent on sweeping the doubleheader. After Milan drew a one-out walk, he advanced to third on Lelivelt’s single to right and scored the tying run on Conroy’s single to center. Young intentionally walked Doc Gessler to load the bases, and escaped the jam by retiring George McBride and Red Killefer, who went a combined 0-for-8 during the game.

After a scoreless 10th, the Naps broke through with another rally in the 11th. Harry Niles and Graney drew back-to-back walks, and Turner beat out a bunt up the third-base line to load the bases to open the inning. Bob Groom, who relieved Reisling in the 10th, walked Easterly on four pitches to let in the tiebreaking run, and Stovall followed with a two-run single to left.

Washington tried to respond in the bottom half, but after Milan’s leadoff single, Young retired the next three batters in order to secure his 500th victory and 731st complete game, crediting “the simple life” for his success in brief remarks after the game.6

“Denton T. Young, to my mind, is the greatest man who ever stepped upon the baseball diamond,” wrote longtime sportswriter Harry Neily. “He was a star in the days when catchers stood behind the plate bare-handed; he was a star when they used small finger gloves; he was a star when they developed the big mitt; and he is a star today.”7

“There is not a baseball fan nor a player in the country who does not rejoice today that Cy Young, the grand old man of the national game, has annexed his 500th victory in the big leagues,” the Cleveland Plain Dealer observed. “It is a mark that probably will never be equaled, for Cy is a freak in a way.”8

Young, who had won 20 or more games in 16 seasons, stood at 500-303 after the victory, well ahead of both Pud Galvin, second on the all-time wins list (365), and Christy Mathewson, second among active pitchers (252).9 By 1910, no pitcher had ever enjoyed a longer career than Young, and he had pitched 175 more games and thrown 1,173⅔ more innings than any other hurler in history after securing his 500th win. Cleveland sportswriter Henry P. Edwards used an estimation of 124 pitches per start to suggest that Young threw more than 100,000 pitches to compile his 500 victories.10

“It is a double pleasure to make this conspicuous mention of pitcher Young’s career – first, because of uniqueness; second, because of the personal worth of the performer,” said Sporting Life. “Throughout his long base ball career, he has been all that a good citizen and model ball player should be; a credit to himself, to his family and to the game; a striking illustration of the value of sobriety and right living; and shining example for the players of the past, present, and future generations. No greater, better, or more remarkable ball player than pitcher Young ever lived or lives now, and it is not likely that his professional record will ever be equalled; and it is still less likely that it will ever be excelled.”11

With the victory, Young’s season-long record stood at an uncharacteristic 3-7, but the milestone seemed to rejuvenate him. Young followed with four straight complete games to even his record at 7-7, though Cleveland continued to sit fifth in the American League at 34-40.12 The Naps closed the season with a 71-81 record, 32 games behind the eventual World Series champion Philadelphia Athletics. With the loss, Washington fell to 31-48, and the Senators closed the campaign in seventh place at 66-85 – the franchise’s 10th straight losing season.

Many within the baseball world rejoiced after Young’s milestone victory.

“Of all pitchers past and present, I admire Cy Young most,” Mathewson said. “He is the best example I know of the clean-living American athlete who is a model for the youth of the country. Young has lived the normal, natural out-of-door life. Never a teetotaler, he has been temperate in all things. As a result, he finds himself with his pitching arm unimpaired and his health perfect at 43. I can pay the veteran no greater compliment than to say that I have set my heart on being a second Cy Young [with 500 wins] pitching for New York in 1920. I heartily congratulate the Ohio farmer for winning 500 games in the big leagues, and my best wishes go with him in his determination to stay in the big show until he is 50 years old.”13

While Young did not play until age 50, he spent another season in the majors in 1911, splitting time with the Naps and the Boston Rustlers and adding seven more wins to his ledger to bring his career total to 511.14 Young earned his place in the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1937 as a member of the second induction class.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Kevin Larkin and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Trading Card DB.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted the Baseball-Reference.com, Stathead.com, and Retrosheet.org websites for pertinent materials and the box scores. He also used information obtained from Reed Browning’s 2000 biography, Cy Young: A Baseball Life, and Ralph H. Romig’s 1964 biography, Cy Young: Baseball’s Legendary Giant, as well as news coverage by The Sporting News, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Washington Post, and the Washington Herald.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/WS1/WS1191007192.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1910/B07192WS11910.htm

Notes

1 Young’s hometown of Gilmore sits about 100 miles south of Cleveland.

2 Tip Wright (United Press), “What Makes Cy Young Star Pitcher,” Montgomery (Alabama) Times, March 17, 1910: 8.

3 Young pitched 14 innings in his third start of the season – a game against the St. Louis Browns that ended in a 3-3 tie due to darkness – and he struck out nine Yankees in a loss on June 15.

4 Prior to the game, the biggest Tuesday afternoon home attendance for the Senators came on May 24, when 5,209 fans joined President William Howard Taft in watching Washington defeat the Detroit Tigers 3-2 in a six-inning, rain-shortened game. One week before Young’s historic start, only 480 fans attended a game against the St. Louis Browns, which was twice interrupted by rain and ended in a 4-4 tie after eight innings because of darkness. Washington did not host a larger Tuesday crowd until more than a year later, when 8,000 fans showed up to watch the Tigers on July 25, 1911.

5 Cleveland’s 17-inning scoreless streak seemed modest compared to a seven-game August series against the Senators August 9-12. The Naps failed to score in four of those games, including a 23-inning scoreless stretch over three games.

6 United Press, “Simple Life Did It for Cy,” Wilmington (Delaware) Evening Journal, July 21, 1910: 8.

7 Harry Neily, “Will Pitcher Ever Equal Mark of 500 Victories Set by Young?” Detroit Evening Times, July 20, 1910: 4.

8 “Cy Young Has to Work Twenty-One Years to Win Five Hundred Big League Games,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 20, 1910: 6.

9 Mathewson also won on July 19, pitching 11 innings in a win over the Cincinnati Reds. By the end of his career in 1916, he had compiled 373 victories.

10 Henry P. Edwards, “Cy Young Witnesses the Passing of Hosts of Famous Pitchers,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 24, 1910: 16.

11 “Stands Alone!” Sporting Life, July 30, 1910: 4.

12 From May 17 until the end of the season, Cleveland stood fifth in the standings, except for the 18 days the Naps spent in sixth place.

13 “Christy Mathewson Hopes to Be a Second Cy Young,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 21, 1910: 9.

14 In addition to the career wins record, Young also tops the major-league leaderboards with 315 losses, 815 starts, 749 complete games, and 7,356 innings pitched. No player will likely ever surpass any of those marks.

In Ford’s next start, the 27-year-old native of Brandon, Manitoba,1 took a no-hitter into the ninth inning against the St. Louis Browns. He was only two outs away from throwing the first no-hitter in Highlanders/Yankees franchise history and the first by a Canadian-born hurler. But a flare off the bat of Danny Hoffman was misjudged by the Highlanders’ rookie shortstop, ending Ford’s no-hit quest.2

The reason behind Ford’s dominance was a closely guarded secret. He had been a good minor-league pitcher, relying mainly on a spitball, which was perfectly legal at the time. When he accidentally discovered the effects of scuffing the baseball in 1908 with the Class A Atlanta Crackers, his career trajectory was inexorably altered.3

Ford made the Highlanders out of spring training in 1909, only to be demoted to the Eastern League’s Jersey City Skeeters after a poor relief outing in his major-league debut on April 28. He continued to experiment with scuffing the baseball while at Jersey City, eventually hiding a piece of emery paper in his glove. Ford began using the trick pitch in games and suddenly he was a big-time prospect.4 The emery ball was born.

Ford kept the secret to himself, fearing the pitch would be banned if word got out.5 To prevent detection, Ford continued to go through the motions of loading up a “spitter” just before unleashing his emery ball. The ruse worked like a charm.

The Highlanders purchased his contract from Jersey City in July 1909, although he didn’t report to the parent club until the next spring because of an infected heel.6

Boosted by Ford’s brilliance, the much-improved 1910 Highlanders came into their July 19 matchup against the Browns in third place with a 46-32 record, 7½ games behind the first-place Philadelphia Athletics.7 The Highlanders had been in the thick of the race until the beginning of July, when they lost five of six games to the powerful Athletics, with eventual 31-game winner Colby Jack Coombs defeating Ford in the first and last games of the series.8

The cellar-dwelling Browns sported a 24-51 mark, leaving them a distant 28 games out of first. They sent veteran right-hander Jack Powell to the mound, a four-time 20-game winner. After starting the season 0-7, the 36-year-old side-armer had gotten back on track by winning his last four decisions.

Ford was victimized for an unearned run in the top of the first. Leadoff batter George Stone walked and took off for second as Roy Hartzell bunted to the left side of the infield. Third baseman Frank LaPorte threw Hartzell out at first and Stone, seeing third base unguarded, kept running.

Shortstop Roxey Roach was slow to cover third, so first baseman Hal Chase’s throw across the diamond got by him as he tried to make a running catch, allowing Stone to trot home with the game’s first run.9 It was by no means the last mistake of the game by Roach, who was playing in his first season above Class B ball.

Ford walked the next batter, Hoffman, before settling into a groove and retiring the next 19 St. Louis batters.

Powell kept the Highlanders off the scoresheet until the fifth. One run came home on a single by Birdie Cree, an error by second baseman Frank Truesdale on Roach’s grounder, and an RBI single by Ed Sweeney.10 With two out and a light rain falling, Sweeney took off for second and Truesdale, attempting to take the throw from the catcher, slipped on the wet grass and fell.11 The ball ended up in the outfield and Roach waltzed in from third base, giving New York a 2-1 lead.

The Highlanders put the game on ice in the sixth. Chase led off with a hard comebacker, but Powell’s toss to first was dropped by Pat Newnam for an error.12 New York sent nine men to the plate in a messy half-inning that also included several infield hits, three stolen bases, and an RBI single by Ford. By the time Powell finally got the third out of the stanza, the Highlanders led 5-1.

Ford’s string of 19 consecutive outs was snapped when he walked right fielder Al Schweitzer with two outs in the seventh. He retired the next four batters, taking his no-hit bid into the ninth inning.

Ford opened the ninth by issuing his fourth free pass of the game and second to Stone. The next batter, Hartzell, hit into a force play at second for the first out of the inning. Hoffman, who had walked and struck out twice in his three previous plate appearances, hit an opposite-field blooper in the direction of Roach at short.

“Roach took a step or two out, then stopped, and the ball curved gently over his head, not having been propelled hard enough to roll after it struck the hard ground,” wrote the New York Sun. “Catching the ball wouldn’t have been a hard feat if Roach had played it properly. His halting try for it queered the no-hit performance.”13

The next batter, Newnam, hit another ball to Roach.14 The rattled rookie was charged with an error, although it was deemed an “excusable” one by the New York Tribune.15 Suddenly the Browns had the bases loaded and the potential tying run at the plate with only one out.

But Highlanders left fielder Bert Daniels made a nice running catch of Schweitzer’s fly ball in foul territory for the second out of the inning.16 The Browns’ backup first baseman and primary pinch-hitter, Dode Criss, batted for Truesdale. Ford ended the game by striking out the left-handed-hitting Criss for his 11th punchout of the contest.

Ford settled for a one-hitter, raising his record to 12-4. But Roach was distraught at having let his teammate down. In an interview 44 years later, Ford recalled that Roach left the field with tears in his eyes.17

The honor of throwing the first no-hitter in Highlanders/Yankees franchise history eventually went to lanky southpaw George Mogridge in 1917. More than 35 years after Ford’s near-miss, Toronto native Dick Fowler – shortly after being discharged from the Canadian Army at the end of World War II − became the first Canuck to toss a no-hitter in the major leagues.

The Highlanders continued to play solid baseball for the remainder of the season, finishing in second place with an 88-63-5 record. Almost all of their 14-win improvement could be attributed to Ford and his mysterious trick pitch.18 He won his last 12 starts of the season, giving him a 26-6 record, a 1.65 ERA, and 209 strikeouts.

As of the end of 2022, Ford’s 11.9 Baseball-Reference Wins Above Replacement was the highest such figure by an American or National League rookie since 1901,19 and he was one of only three rookie pitchers to win at least 20 games and strike out at least 200 batters.20 Ford’s eight shutouts also set a rookie record.21

Ford had an outstanding sophomore season in 1911, going 22-11 with a 2.27 ERA. Arm troubles brought him back to earth in 1912 and 1913, and when the Yankees wanted him to take a $2,000 pay cut, he jumped to the Federal League for a substantial raise.22

He rode his emery ball to another great season, going 21-6 with a 1.82 ERA for the Buffalo Buffeds in 1914. But Ford’s major-league career was about to go off the rails.

Ford’s secret eventually got out. His teammate in Jersey City (1909) and New York (1910-12), second baseman Earle Gardner, had figured out what Ford was up to and told Cy Falkenberg about the pitch.23

The 33-year-old Falkenberg used the emery ball to win 23 games for Cleveland in 1913. His breakout season earned him a lucrative contract with the Federal League’s Indianapolis Hoosiers, and he and Ford were two of the circuit’s top pitchers in 1914.24

News of Ford’s innovation continued to spread and by 1914 the emery ball had become commonplace in the American League.25 In late September AL President Ban Johnson banned the pitch.26 The Federal League followed suit for the 1915 season and Ford struggled without his secret weapon.27 He was released by Buffalo in late August of 1915. Ford spent two more seasons in the minors before retiring at the age of 34.

As of the start of 2023, Ford had the lowest ERA (2.54) of any Highlanders/Yankees pitcher with at least 40 starts for the team.28 His 2.59 career ERA was the lowest for any Canadian pitcher with at least 40 big-league starts.29

Ford finally admitted that he threw the emery ball in April 1935 when he wrote a tell-all piece in The Sporting News. But he held off identifying Gardner as the source of the leak until 1954, more than 11 years after his old teammate’s death.30

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Kurt Blumenau and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org. Unless otherwise noted, all play-by-play information for this game was taken from the article “Giants Bat Red Pitcher Hard; Browns’ Error Said the Yanks,” on page 1 of the July 19, 1910, edition of the New York Evening Telegram.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYA/NYA191007190.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1910/B07190NYA1910.htm

Photo credit

Photo of Russ Ford courtesy the Library of Congress.

Notes

1 Ford’s family immigrated to the United States when he was 3 years old. T. Kent Morgan and David Jones, “Russ Ford,” SABR BioProject, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/Russ-Ford/, accessed March 13, 2023.

2 “Hoffman Only Brown to Get a Hit and That a Fluke,” Boston Globe, July 20, 1910: 4.

3 Morgan and Jones, “Russ Ford.”

4 Morgan and Jones, “Russ Ford.”

5 Russell W. Ford, “Russell Ford Tells Inside Story of the ‘Emery’ Ball After Guarding His Secret for Quarter of a Century,” The Sporting News, April 25, 1935: 5.

6 Ford, “Russell Ford Tells Inside Story of the ‘Emery’ Ball After Guarding His Secret for Quarter of a Century.”

7 The Highlanders had finished in fifth place in 1909 with a 74-77-2 record.

8 The Philadelphia Athletics won three World Series in a four-year period from 1910 to 1913.

9 Several news articles claimed that LaPorte failed to catch the return toss from Chase, although the New York Sun and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch both said it was Roach. Given that LaPorte fielded the bunt, it is more likely that Roach was the one who attempted to catch the relay to third. “Ford Near a No-Hit Game,” New York Sun, July 20, 1910: 6; “Wray’s Column,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 20, 1910: 9.

10 The Boston Globe attributed the error to rookie shortstop Tommy Mee, but the New York Times, New York Evening Telegram, and New York Tribune all reported the error was made by Truesdale. “Hoffman Only Brown to Get a Hit and That a Fluke,” Boston Globe, July 20, 1910: 4; “Ford Holds Browns to One Hit and Run,” New York Times, July 20, 1910: 10; “Giants Bat Red Pitcher Hard; Browns’ Error Said the Yanks,” New York Evening Telegram, July 19, 1910: 1; “One Lone Hit Off Ford,” New York Tribune, July 20, 1910: 5.

11 “Hoffman Only Brown to Get a Hit and That a Fluke.”

12 “Ford Holds Browns to One Hit and Run.”

13 “Ford Near a No-Hit Game.”

14 The ball hit to Roach was described as a “drive” by the Boston Globe and a “roller” by the New York Sun.

15 “One Lone Hit Off Ford.”

16 “Hoffman Only Brown to Get a Hit and That a Fluke.”

17 Roach and Ford were also teammates on the Federal League’s Buffalo Blues in 1915. By that time, Roach had improved to become a slick-fielding shortstop. Dan Daniel, “Over the Fence,” The Sporting News, September 15, 1954: 1.

18 Ford amassed a figure of nearly 12 Baseball-Reference Wins Above Replacement.

19 Ford’s 11.9 Baseball-Reference Wins Above Replacement (bWAR) figure also included the value accrued from his batting. Ford hit .208 and knocked in seven runs in 1910. Mike Trout had the second-best rookie season in the AL/NL from 1901 to 2022 (10.5 bWAR in 2012).

20 The two other rookie hurlers in the AL/NL to win at least 20 games and strike out at least 200 batters were both Hall of Famers: Christy Mathewson (1901) and Grover Cleveland Alexander (1911).

21 As of the start of the 2023 season, Ford shared the record for rookie shutouts with Reb Russell of the 1913 Chicago White Sox and Fernando Valenzuela of the 1981 Los Angeles Dodgers. Valenzuela would likely have broken the rookie shutout record had it not been for the 50-day players strike that limited him to only 25 starts.

22 Ford, “Russell Ford Tells Inside Story of the ‘Emery’ Ball After Guarding His Secret for Quarter of a Century”; Morgan and Jones, “Russ Ford.”

23 Daniel, “Over the Fence.” Gardner and Falkenberg both played for the Toledo Mudhens in the Double-A American Association in 1912. Falkenberg went 25-8 for Toledo that season.

24 Eric Enders, “Cy Falkenberg,” SABR BioProject, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/Cy-Falkenberg/, accessed March 13, 2023.

25 Ford, “Russell Ford Tells Inside Story of the ‘Emery’ Ball After Guarding His Secret for Quarter of a Century.”

26 “Ban Bars Emery Ball,” Fall River (Massachusetts) Globe, September 21, 1914: 7.

27 Ford also had a sore arm in 1915. Morgan and Jones, “Russ Ford.”

28 “Player Pitching Season & Career Stats Finder,” Stathead.com, https://stathead.com/tiny/9slRc, accessed March 13, 2023.

29 “Player Pitching Season & Career Stats Finder,” Stathead.com, https://stathead.com/tiny/Bwl1p, accessed March 13, 2023.

30 Ford, “Russell Ford Tells Inside Story of the ‘Emery’ Ball After Guarding His Secret for Quarter of a Century”; Daniel, “Over the Fence.”