June 13, 1910: White Sox end three-game scoreless skid by beating Senators, Walter Johnson

Chicago White Sox owner Charles Comiskey seemed determined to make 1910 a season to remember for baseball fans on the city’s South Side. In preparation for the opening of White Sox Park (later known as Comiskey Park) that July, the trailblazing owner used his “army of scouts”1 to scour minor leagues across the country for talent. He spent upward of $100,000 securing potential players to build a championship-caliber roster for 1910.2

“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).