April 22, 1915: Nap Lajoie makes 5 errors as Red Sox win home opener against Philadelphia  

The 1915 Red Sox won 101 games and the American League pennant, and needed only five games to beat the Philadelphia Phillies in the World Series, but they didn’t really get going until June. They had a losing record in April and were 15-15 entering the final day of May.

The Red Sox were 3-3 with one tie coming into their Fenway Park home opener on Thursday afternoon, April 22.1 They played the Philadelphia Athletics, whose bid for a fourth World Series title in five seasons had been denied by the Boston Braves in 1914. The Red Sox had opened the 1915 season by going 1-1-1 in a three-game series in Philadelphia, then splitting a four-game series with the Washington Nationals.

Red Sox manager Bill Carrigan’s battery for this game was Hick Cady, catching Ernie Shore. The Athletics’ Connie Mack started a right-hander, too – Weldon Wyckoff, pitching to rookie Wickey McAvoy.

Competition with the Federal League, pushing salaries beyond what Mack was willing and able to pay, had depleted Philadelphia. Starting pitchers Eddie Plank and Charles Bender, who had combined for 32 wins in 1914, had signed with the rival league. Two members of the Athletics’ “$100,000 infield” were also absent. Third baseman Home Run Baker was holding out to renegotiate his contract and second baseman Eddie Collins had been sold to the Chicago White Sox.

The day in Boston was “bright and clear, with a strong wind blowing from the west,” reported the Boston Globe.2 That wind may have played a role in the game-deciding play.

Massachusetts Governor David I. Walsh was present. There was a difference of opinion among the Boston papers as to whether Mayor James Michael Curley was there and who threw out the ceremonial first pitch.3 As the Globe observed, there were two bands in the stands: a “private band stationed in the right wing of the grand stand that tried to make a little noise at times, but it was simply outpowered” by the Royal Rooters booster club’s brass band in the left grandstand near third base.4

After the opening ceremonies, Shore and Wyckoff got to work. Neither team scored in the first inning, but Boston got one in the bottom of the second. Shortstop Everett Scott drew a one-out walk, then stole second base. Third baseman Hal Janvrin hit a hard single to third base and Cady hit one to left field, driving in Scott.5

Philadelphia scored four runs in the top of the third. Pitcher Wyckoff led off with a double to the left-field embankment, but Shore fielded third baseman Eddie Murphy’s grounder, whirled, and caught Wyckoff too far off second base. Left fielder Rube Oldring doubled down the left-field line. Right fielder Amos Strunk singled to center, driving in Murphy. Second baseman Nap Lajoie – purchased from Cleveland in the offseason to replace Collins – doubled to drive in two more runs.

The Athletics made it 4-1 after first baseman Stuffy McInnis singled and center fielder Shag Thompson doubled off second baseman Heinie Wagner’s shin, Lajoie scoring as the ball caromed into right field. It took Scott throwing out McInnis at the plate on Philadelphia shortstop Jack Barry’s grounder to keep it a three-run game.

The Red Sox loaded the bases with one out in the bottom of the third, but both Scott and Janvrin popped up. They scored a second run in the fourth on Cady’s single, Shore’s sacrifice, and right fielder Harry Hooper’s RBI double.

The Athletics expanded their lead with single runs in the fifth and sixth. Barry singled home McGinnis in the fifth. Oldring hit his third double of the game to drive in Murphy in the sixth. It was 6-2, Athletics, after six innings.

Red Sox right-hander Ralph Comstock pitched the final three innings, allowing four hits but no runs in his third and final appearance with the Red Sox.

Neither he nor Shore walked a batter all game long, but A’s pitchers walked 10 Red Sox. Three seventh-inning walks and an error led to Boston’s third run of the game. It followed the reported turning around of several floral horseshoes near the Red Sox bench, in hopes of improving Boston’s luck.6 Wyckoff began the inning by walking center fielder Tris Speaker. One out later, first baseman Dick Hoblitzell walked.

The 40-year-old Lajoie had committed an error in the first inning and two more in the fifth inning, but Wycoff had stranded those runners. This time, however, the Red Sox capitalized on another Lajoie error. Scott reached on Lajoie’s errant throw, loading the bases, and Del Gainer, batting for Janvrin, walked to force home Speaker. A double play started by Lajoie spared Wyckoff further damage, but it was a 6-3 game.

The Red Sox rallied for two more runs in the eighth inning. Comstock led off by reaching on Lajoie’s fifth error of the game, and Hooper singled off McInnis’s shin. Wagner walked and then Wyckoff granted his eighth free pass, giving Speaker a run-producing base on balls. Mack had seen enough. He brought in Bob Shawkey to relieve. Left fielder Duffy Lewis struck out, and Comstock scored when Hoblitzell hit into a 6-4 force play.

Boston kept it a one-run game by erasing another Athletic from the bases in the ninth. After one out, Thompson singled but was thrown out on an attempted steal, and thus McAvoy’s triple to center field did not drive him in. Shawkey struck out.

The game headed to the bottom of the ninth. The Royal Rooters’ band played “Tessie,” as they had done “over and over again for the last six innings, while the Red Sox players were at the bat,” reported the Boston Globe.7

Cady drew a one-out walk and Wally Rehg pinch-ran for him. Pinch Thomas pinch-hit for Comstock. He, too, was given a base on balls.8 Harry Hooper was called out on strikes. He argued, to no avail, but the two – Rehg and Thomas – pulled off a double steal on the full-count pitch, putting both in scoring position with two outs.

Fans started leaving their seats. On a 0-and-1 count, Heinie Wagner hit a high fly ball to Murphy at third base. While the ball was in the air, according to the Globe, “the Rooters’ band, including the drum, led in a mighty chorus around the park.”9

It looked as though the game was over, but as the ball came down, recounted the Boston Herald, the “wind slightly shifted its course and Murphy, who was under it, wavered, and after the horsehide landed in his glove, dropped it and the Red Sox had won.”10

Tim Murnane wrote in the Boston Globe, “As the ball came down, it seemed to curve away, and with a plunge [Murphy] tried to get the ball. But it hit the side of his glove and fell to the ground, while the fans cheered like madmen.”11

Not only had Rehg scored from third, but so had Thomas, who had run hard, all the way from second base, quickly enough to score before Murphy could grab the dropped ball and throw home. This, to the Globe’s Melville Webb, demonstrated a never-quit approach.12

Some suggest that incessant playing of the song “Tessie” rattled Lajoie, much as it may have rattled the Pittsburgh Pirates during the 1903 World Series.13 After the game, hoarse Red Sox owner Joseph Lannin – sitting in a box in front of the Royal Rooters – called for three cheers for “the most loyal band of ball fans in the world.” He went so far as to declare that “it was the Rooters and ‘Tessie’ won the game, and not the Red Sox. He also said that if the Sox win the pennant he would charter a special train for them” to attend away games in the World Series.”14

Murnane wrote, “Certainly the crowd worked much more vigorously than the Boston players.”15 The Boston Journal’s front-page headline read, “‘Tessie’ Brings Victory to Red Sox in Opening.”16 Webb gave the team more credit, highlighting Thomas’s hustle that resulted in the winning run.

Despite 13 runs being scored, it was a game of missed opportunities. The Athletics left 12 men on base and the Red Sox left 14. Each team had only one half-inning when there was no one on base at the time of the third out.

The Athletics outhit the Red Sox, 18 hits to 9 (the 18 hits included seven doubles and one triple) but committed six errors – including Lajoie’s five – to Boston’s two and walked eight Red Sox batters while Boston pitchers walked none.

The Philadelphia Inquirer observed that the Athletics were playing with Murphy and without Home Run Baker.17 The paper also noted a “forty-knot wind storm” and declared that Lajoie and his five errors were “more responsible for the defeat than Murphy.”18 The Athletics went on to finish 43-109-2, easily the worst record in either league.

Mack continued to make moves, including selling Jack Barry to the Red Sox on June 2. Going 82-31 from June through September, Boston won the 1915 AL pennant, and the World Series, which began the Red Sox run of three championships in four seasons from 1915 through 1918.

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.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS191504220.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1915/B04220BOS1915.htm

Photo credit: Napoleon Lajoie, Trading Card Database.

Notes

1 Boston’s starting pitcher in the 6-6 tie game on April 16 was 20-year-old Babe Ruth, whose rights had been purchased a season earlier by Joseph Lannin, the club’s new sole owner. Ruth had appeared in six games for the Red Sox prior to the 1915 home opener. He had pitched just once in 1915, giving up five earned runs in four innings on April 16, a game that ended in a 6-6 tie in Philadelphia. As a batter, the first home run of his career came the following month, on May 6. He hit four homers in 1915, more than he hit in 1916 or 1917.

2 T.H. Murnane, “Red Sox Open with Freak Win,” Boston Globe, April 23, 1915: 1.

3 The Globe said he was there and had thrown it out. The Boston Journal said he wasn’t and hadn’t. The Journal said the entire state legislature was seated in the stands, attending on passes. The Boston Herald reported official attendance, as 10,937.

4 Murnane.

5 The Journal ascribed Janvrin reaching base as due to an error by third baseman Eddie Murphy. The other papers disagreed.

6 Before the seventh inning had begun, “a young lady called on Secretary Eddie Riley at the offices of the Red Sox and beseeched him to have the several floral horseshoes that were near the Red Sox bench turned up the other way. The horseshoes were hung corks down. … As everyone knows, luck just pours off the horseshoes in that particular pose. Without asking the lady’s name, the genial secretary sent out orders that the set pieces be upset and inverted. A few minutes later the Sox were on their way to the astonishing victory.” So read, almost in its entirety, a sidebar in the Boston Journal. “Red Sox Will Be More Careful How They Hang Up Their Horseshoes,” Boston Journal, April 23, 1915: 11.

7 Murnane.

8 Tim Murnane wrote of Thomas, “Ordinarily he is the weakest kind of a man for such an emergency, but this time he was patient and drew a pass.” Murnane.

9 Murnane.

10 “Red Sox Open Their Season Successfully,” Boston Herald, April 23, 1915: 11.

11 Murnane.

12 Melville E. Webb Jr., “There Were Real Baseball Records Made in That Game at Fenway Park Yesterday,” Boston Globe, April 23, 1915: 7.

13 Even decades after the 1903 World Series, Pittsburgh third baseman Tommy Leach said, ‘I think those Boston fans won the Series. … We beat them three out of four games, and then they started singing that damn Tessie song. … Sort of got on your nerves after a while. And before we knew what happened, we’d lost the Series.’” See Lawrence Ritter, The Glory of Their Times (New York: Harper, 1992), 27. For an extended study of “Tessie” and other Red Sox songs, see Chuck Burgess and Bill Nowlin, Love That Dirty Water (Burlington, Massachusetts: Rounder Books, 2007). For more on the Royal Rooters, see Peter J. Nash, Boston’s Royal Rooters (Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia, 2005).

14 The Rooters said they would decline the offer and pay for their own transportation. “Lannin Says ‘Tessie’ and Rooters Won Game,” Boston Journal, April 23, 1915: 9.

15 Murnane.

16 R.E. McMillin, “‘Tessie’ Brings Victory to Red Sox in Opening,” Boston Journal, April 23, 1915: 1.

17 Baker sat out the entire 1915 season because of his contract dispute with Connie Mack.

18 “Murphy’s Misjudge Gave Sox Victory; 5 Bulls by Larry,” Philadelphia Inquirer, April 23, 1915: 12.