April 30, 1914: Binghamton, Utica combine for one hit on Opening Day

All through the winter of 1913-1914, the passionate baseball “cranks” of Binghamton and Utica, New York, longed for their favorite sport to return. When it finally did, they got a game for the ages.

On Opening Day of the 1914 New York State League season, Binghamton’s Festus Higgins and Utica’s Frank Oberlin staged an epic pitchers’ duel. For the first seven innings, neither man surrendered a hit. Oberlin yielded the game’s only hit in the eighth and its only run in the ninth, while Higgins retired the last six Utica batters to complete a season-opening no-hitter. League President John H. Farrell, who was on hand, called it “the most remarkable game of baseball I ever witnessed.”1

The New York State League operated at Class B, the middle tier of five minor-league classifications in the 1914 season.2 On its rosters, the occasional up-and-coming prospect3 mingled with career minor leaguers and older players who had already completed their time in the majors.

Right-hander Higgins, at 22, was in the third season of a 10-season pro career spent entirely in the minors.4 A childhood accident had shaped his career. In 1908 a pitch hit Higgins in the head during a game in his hometown of Minooka, Pennsylvania. Surgeons operated on him twice to relieve pressure on his brain. He recovered well enough to return to the sport but suffered from “weak spells” that periodically affected his playing throughout his life.5 Higgins had pitched for the Utica team the previous season, but was released at the end of July, about a month after suffering one of his stints of weakness.6

His mound opponent, Oberlin, was 38 and had begun his pro career in 1904. Also a righty, Oberlin made it into 46 games with the Boston Americans and Washington Nationals between 1906 and 1910, racking up a 5-24 record.7 Like Higgins, he’d overcome a serious health problem, cutting off the index finger on his pitching hand in a buzzsaw accident prior to reaching the majors. By one contemporary report, he “pitched better ball after it healed than before.”8

Jack Calhoun of the Bingoes and Mike O’Neill of the Utes were player-managers who had spent time in the big leagues, and they led their teams to near-identical records in 1914. Utica closed with a 77-55 record and a .583 winning percentage, while Binghamton ended at 78-56 and .582. They finished in third and fourth place, respectively, both 10 games behind first-place Elmira.

Former big-leaguers in the Opening Day starting lineups included Binghamton’s Calhoun at first base, Chick Hartley in center field,9 Bill Kay in right, and Bob Peterson catching. For Utica, O’Neill started in left field, while Ed McDonough – briefly a Philadelphia Phillie in 1909 and 1910 – caught.

Nearly 3,000 fans, shivering in seasonal windy cold described as “a near-pneumonia atmosphere,”10 sat through a ceremonial flag-raising, a players’ parade, and a performance by a band from Endicott-Johnson Corp., a shoe manufacturer and one of the Binghamton area’s largest employers.11 Endicott-Johnson’s owner, George F. Johnson, also owned the Bingoes. He’d built their home park, Johnson Field, which had opened the previous season in the Binghamton suburb of Johnson City.12

Umpires John F. McBride13 and William Leary finally got the game underway, and Higgins and Oberlin got down to work. Utica’s third batter, center fielder Gus Schwarz,14 provided some offensive excitement: He reached base on an error by Higgins, then moved to third on a wild pitch. But Higgins retired the next batter, first baseman Anthony Walsh, to end the threat.15 One news report blamed the error on Higgins’s “overanxiety” to field a ball that he could have “grabbed and given a dusting” before throwing to first.16

The next six innings of play saw virtually no offense. Higgins set down Utica’s hitters in one-two-three order from the second inning through the seventh. Oberlin faced the minimum 21 batters over the first seven frames, according to game accounts. The box score says he walked two batters, and game stories place one of those walks in the ninth inning, so it’s possible that he issued a walk at some point in the first seven innings and then induced a double play.17

Neither pitcher was overpowering – box scores credit Higgins with just three strikeouts and Oberlin with none at all – but game accounts record few if any close calls or near-hits over the course of the game. “Both pitchers were given grand little support and at no stage of the skirmishing were there any signs of rocking the boat,” the Utica Herald-Dispatch floridly summarized.18

Binghamton catcher Peterson had briefly been a teammate of Oberlin on the 1906 Boston Americans, though they never appeared in the same game.19 Peterson finally broke the hitless deadlock in the eighth inning, collecting a hard-hit single. The Bingoes could do nothing with it.20

Higgins roared through the ninth inning, striking out the first and last batters to complete nine innings of no-hit ball. First baseman Calhoun helped him by snagging a high throw from Peterson for one of the outs.21

As Oberlin returned to pitch the bottom of the ninth, it was still an open question whether Higgins would have to sustain his no-hitter into extra innings. Binghamton, however, mustered just enough offense to spare him the effort.

Calhoun drew a leadoff walk, and Higgins tried to bunt him to second. Catcher McDonough fielded the bunt and threw to second baseman Walter Hardy covering first, but the ball got past Hardy; accounts of the game disagree on which of them was charged with an error.22 Calhoun and Higgins moved to third and second base respectively.

Left fielder Pete Curtis skied a fly ball to Utica right fielder Charles Moore. Calhoun came in to score, beating Moore’s throw, and the Bingoes pulled out a one-hit, 1-0 victory in 1 hour and 20 minutes of game time.23 “This ended one of the greatest games of ball ever played in Binghamton territory,” the Binghamton Press editorialized – and more than a century later, it’s hard to imagine that too many games since then stack up to it.

The Rochester (New York) Democrat and Chronicle added a mildly dissenting opinion, noting that poor weather had limited the hitters’ ability to train: “Without wishing to detract from the no-hit game that Higgins pitched against Oberlin’s one-hit game, it’s quite possible that the State leaguers, hampered as they have been by evil weather, have not had an opportunity to get a sight on the ball and the performances were made easier on that account.”24

No-hit hero Higgins pitched professionally through 1923, then played local semipro ball in his home region of northeast Pennsylvania. He pitched a one-hitter in the opening game of the Pittston (Pennsylvania) Suburban League in May 1924, and was reported to be ready to pitch in that circuit as late as September 27.25 But at the end of September and beginning of October, Higgins began to suffer hemorrhages that were believed to be connected to his earlier beaning. He died, just 32 years old, on October 4, 1924.26 Oberlin left the mound after the 1916 season and held a variety of jobs after baseball, including truck driver, electrician, and shipyard worker. He died in Indiana in 1952.27

Author’s note and acknowledgments

Some out-of-town newspapers printed game recaps that differed in significant ways. The May 1, 1914, Glens Falls (New York) Post-Star reported that “the only hit of the game figured in scoring the lone tally,”28 while the Scranton (Pennsylvania) Times-Tribune reported that the winning run scored on a walk by Peterson, two outs that advanced the runner, and a fly out by Curtis.29 This account relies on stories from Binghamton and Utica newspapers, which were more likely to have had their own reporters on the scene to watch the game firsthand. These stories generally agree on the events and conditions of the game.

This article was fact-checked by Gary Belleville and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources and photo credit

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for general player, team, and season data.

Neither Baseball-Reference nor Retrosheet provides box scores of minor-league games, but the May 1, 1914, editions of the Binghamton (New York) Press and Utica (New York) Herald-Dispatch published box scores.

Photo of Festus Higgins from the Scranton Times-Tribune, June 1, 1923: 39.

Notes

1 “Higgins Allows No Hits in Opener; Bingos Score 1 to 0 Win over Utes,” Binghamton (New York) Press, May 1, 1914: 21.

2 From highest to lowest, the classifications were Double A, Class A, Class B, Class C, and Class D.

3 Probably the most notable players in the 1914 New York State League who were on their way up were Irish Meusel, who hit .323 as a 21-year-old outfielder with Elmira; 22-year-old Wilkes-Barre infielder Frank O’Rourke, who went on to 14 seasons in the majors; and 22-year-old Wilkes-Barre pitcher Leon Cadore, who pitched in the majors for 10 seasons. Cadore, in particular, is remembered for pitching the full 26 innings (as did his mound rival, Joe Oeschger) in a tie game between the Boston Braves and Brooklyn Dodgers in 1920.

4 As of February 2023, Baseball-Reference credited Higgins with nine seasons of service and did not indicate that he pitched professionally in 1913. News clippings from that year indicate that Higgins played for teams in Scranton and Utica.

5 “Festus Higgins Dies; Victim of Accident on Diamond 16 Years Ago,” Scranton (Pennsylvania) Times, October 4, 1924: 21; “Ruptured a Blood Vessel,” Carbondale (Pennsylvania) Leader, July 22, 1908: 2. Minooka is a neighborhood of the city of Scranton.

6 “Small Portions of Baseball Served from Bub’s Platter,” Scranton (Pennsylvania) Tribune-Republican, July 31, 1913: 10; “Higgins Ill; Is Resting Up at Home in Minooka,” Scranton (Pennsylvania) Truth, June 26, 1913: 8.

7 His total of 46 games included 44 pitching appearances, and one appearance each in the outfield and as a pinch-hitter.

8 Bill Nowlin, “Frank Oberlin,” SABR Biography Project, accessed February 9, 2023; “American League Notes,” Sporting Life, February 2, 1907: 7.

9 Hartley played a single game in the majors with the New York Giants in his first recorded pro season, 1902. He continued playing through the end of the 1914 season but never returned to the big leagues.

10 “Utica Victory Expected To-Day,” Utica (New York) Herald-Dispatch, May 1, 1914: 16. A scheduled Opening Day game between Syracuse and Elmira, to have been played that day in Elmira, was canceled because of cold weather. “Game Is Called Off,” Binghamton (New York) Press, May 1, 1914: 21. Other news accounts set the attendance at 2,500 to 2,600.

11 “Higgins Allows No Hits in Opener; Bingos Score 1 to 0 Win over Utes.”

12 Kurt Blumenau, “Johnson Field,” SABR Biography Project, accessed February 9, 2023.

13 Neither umpire made the majors. McBride’s Sporting News umpire card includes the droll comment: “Lost an eye (no barrier for an ump) but, retired after the ’28 season.”

14 His name is spelled “Schwartz” in the Binghamton newspaper’s box score and game story, but Baseball-Reference identifies him as Gus Schwarz.

15 “Higgins Allows No Hits in Opener; Bingos Score 1 to 0 Win over Utes.”

16 “Utica Victory Expected To-Day.”

17 The box scores of both the Binghamton and Utica papers credit Utica center fielder Schwarz and first baseman Walsh as combining on a double play at some point during the game. It also says that second baseman Walter Hardy committed two errors. An apparent discrepancy regarding errors committed by Utica is detailed in Endnote 22.

18 “Utica Victory Expected To-Day.”

19 Oberlin made four starts for the Americans between September 20 and October 5, 1906. Peterson appeared in games on September 15 and October 6, so the two men must have been on the roster at the same time. Oberlin and Peterson also both played for the 1907 Americans – but Oberlin was sold to Washington on August 5, while Peterson didn’t play his first game with Boston until September 26.

20 The Utica Herald-Dispatch characterized Peterson’s hit as “solid,” and the Binghamton paper did not indicate any controversy or dispute surrounding it.

21 “Higgins Allows No Hits in Opener; Bingos Score 1 to 0 Win over Utes.” The story doesn’t specify whether the high throw from Peterson to Calhoun was the result of a bunt attempt, a grounder chopped in front of the plate, or a dropped third strike.

22 The Utica Herald-Dispatch reported that McDonough threw low to first base, and the box score in that paper lists one error apiece (at some point in the game) for both Hardy and McDonough. In contrast, the Binghamton paper said Hardy let the ball get past him, and the box score from Binghamton credits Hardy with two errors and McDonough with none.

23 “Higgins Allows No Hits in Opener; Bingos Score 1 to 0 Win over Utes;” “Utica Victory Expected To-Day.” The box score in the Binghamton paper gives the game time as 1 hour 20 minutes, while Utica’s box score says 1 hour 40 minutes.

24 “One Allows No Hits, His Rival Yields but One,” Rochester (New York) Democrat and Chronicle, May 1, 1914: 27.

25 “Pittston Beats Avoca in Opener,” Scranton (Pennsylvania) Republican, May 5, 1924: 14; “Suburban League,” Pittston (Pennsylvania) Gazette, September 27, 1924: 7.

26 “Festus Higgins Dies; Victim of Accident on Diamond 16 Years Ago.”

27 Nowlin, “Frank Oberlin.”

28 “Season Opened by No Hit Game,” Glens Falls Post-Star, May 1, 1914: 6.

29 “Festus Higgins Hurls No-Hit No-Run Game,” Scranton Times-Tribune, May 1, 1914: 25.