May 12, 1915: Ernie Shore denies emery charge, throws complete-game win for Red Sox

The losing team accuses the winning pitcher of doctoring the ball. The winning pitcher shakes his head and avows his innocence. It’s a tale as old as time – or, at least, it goes back to the earliest days when scuffing a pitched baseball became illegal.

On May 12, 1915, Detroit Tigers manager Hughie Jennings and some of his players accused Ernie Shore of the Boston Red Sox of employing the emery ball – a ball scuffed with an emery board – in a game between the two teams at Detroit’s Navin Field. American League President Ban Johnson had prohibited the scuffing tactic the previous September after New York Yankees pitcher Ray Keating was caught using it in a game.1

Shore and Red Sox manager Bill Carrigan denied any wrongdoing. Nothing was proven, and Shore’s complete-game 4-1 win carried the day. It was the first of Boston’s 14 wins in 22 games against Detroit that season – a year in which the Red Sox held off the Tigers for the AL pennant by 2½ games and went on to win the World Series.

The Tigers, with Ty Cobb, Bobby Veach, and Sam Crawford manning the outfield and Harry Coveleski and Hooks Dauss leading the pitching staff, had jumped out to an 18-7 start and led the AL by 3½ games over the Yankees and Chicago White Sox. The Red Sox, with five games postponed due to weather, had a 9-9 record,2 which put them in fourth place, 5½ games back.

Detroit had won the first game of a four-game series between the teams the previous day as Dauss outdueled rookie left-hander Babe Ruth, 5-1. At the time, the 20-year-old Ruth had three big-league wins to his credit – two in 1914, one thus far in 1915 – and only one major-league home run, struck off the Yankees’ Jack Warhop on May 6. Ruth went on to win 18 games as a pitcher in 1915 against eight losses, and also hit four home runs.

Shore subsequently entered baseball lore permanently yoked to Ruth. On June 22, 1917, when Ruth was ejected after walking the first batter of a game against the Washington Senators and punching umpire Brick Owens, Shore relieved him and retired the next 27 Senators for an unusual combined no-hitter. In 1915, however, Shore proved himself an excellent pitcher on his own merits, going 19-8 with a 1.64 ERA in the regular season and winning Game Four of the World Series. Shore’s 19 wins tied him with Rube Foster for most on the Red Sox staff, and his 4.9 WAR ranked fourth-best on the team.3 The third-year hurler entered with a 2-2 record and a 3.03 ERA.

Opposing him for the Wednesday afternoon game was Coveleski, a 29-year-old from Pennsylvania coal country who, after showing early promise in the National League, had dropped back to the minors from 1911 through 1913. Picked up by Detroit for 1914, he’d rewarded the Tigers by going 22-12, leading the staff in wins. He was just beginning an equally strong season in 1915 in which he went 22-13 and led the AL in appearances with 50.4 Like Shore, the left-hander brought a 2-2 record into the May 12 game, along with a 2.53 ERA.

Only 4,185 fans turned out – “not much of a crowd for a perfect day and as good an attraction as Boston,” in the assessment of the Detroit Free Press.5 Shore and Coveleski matched shutout ball for the first three innings. The Red Sox mustered no hits in this period of play, while Detroit collected singles by Cobb and Crawford in the first and a walk by Donie Bush in the third.6

The controversy flared when Cobb struck out in the third. The eight-time reigning batting champ – whose two-hit game a day earlier had boosted his average to .407 – accused Shore of throwing an emery ball, and baserunner Bush claimed to have seen the ball move in unusual ways. Manager Jennings reportedly showed umpires Dick Nallin and Bill Dinneen a ball with a rough spot on it. The umpires took no action.7

The Red Sox collected their first baserunners in the fourth, to no avail. Harry Hooper hit an infield single and was doubled up on Heinie Wagner’s groundball to second. Tris Speaker then singled to center field and took second when Cobb misplayed the ball – or, in one news account, loafed after it. Either way, Speaker was stranded there by Duffy Lewis.8

The Tigers’ half of the inning began similarly, with a weak hit by Crawford and a force at second on a grounder by Veach. But Baby Doll Jacobson came through with a hit through the shortstop hole on a hit-and-run play that moved Veach to third. Another single by second baseman Ralph Young delivered Veach from third for a 1-0 Detroit lead.9

The Red Sox rebounded in the fifth. First baseman Del Gainer – claimed by Boston on waivers from Detroit in May 1914 – hit Coveleski’s first pitch for a game-tying home run, his only round-tripper of the season. The pitch was so hard hit that left fielder Veach, according to the Boston Globe, “declined to move from his tracks in left field to bid the sphere goodby.”10

Everett Scott followed by popping a single that fell between Veach and Bush. Rookie Mike McNally bunted; Coveleski threw poorly to second and both runners were safe. Hick Cady’s bunt down the third-base line went for a single, loading the bases. Shore grounded to Coveleski, who got the force at home, but Tigers catcher Del Baker threw wildly going for the double play at first. McNally and Cady scored for a 3-1 Boston lead and Shore took third. The Red Sox then ran themselves out of the inning on Hooper’s grounder: Shore was tagged between third and home, and Hooper was retired on the same play trying to sneak to second base.11

The Tigers mounted their own bases-loaded, none-out rally in the sixth. Shore hit Jacobson with a pitch, then gave up singles to Young and Baker. Shore and his teammates rose to the occasion: He struck out Coveleski, then turned Bush’s grounder back to the mound into an inning-ending pitcher-to-home-to-first double play. “Instead of crossing the plate in droves, the home folks didn’t get so much as one man to the pay window,” the Free Press lamented.12

Shore also gave himself an insurance run in the top of the seventh. With two away, Cady drew a walk and Shore drove him in with a double to make the score 4-1, Red Sox. The Detroit Times noted this as a trend in recent games: “Pitchers are hitting the ball hard at Navin Field this season. Hardly a game passes but some hurler, usually a visiting one, clouts the apple for extra bases.” One of the examples cited in the article came from the previous day’s game, in which Ruth had prevented a shutout against the Red Sox by hitting a run-scoring double.13

Only one Tiger reached base after the sixth inning. With two out in the eighth, Jacobson reached when Gainer mishandled Scott’s throw on his grounder. Shore retired the next hitter to end the inning. The Red Sox briefly threatened in the ninth on McNally’s walk and Cady’s single, but McNally overran second and was trapped off for the out.14

The game wrapped up in 1 hour and 46 minutes, with both starters going the distance and surrendering eight hits and two walks. Shore struck out three hitters, Coveleski two. Only two of Boston’s four runs were earned.

After the game, Jennings vowed to mail the baseball to league President Johnson, but the Free Press commented, “The Red Sox are probably not much worried over Ban’s possible wrath.”15 The Detroit paper also observed that the roughened spot on the baseball was located near a seam, “which was not where a pitcher who was using the emery would put the work on it.”16

Red Sox manager Carrigan responded to the emery-ball dispute by saying Shore didn’t need any illicit help to win in the majors. He also dismissed an earlier accusation of ball-scuffing by Washington Senators manager Clark Griffith: “I caught him rubbing a ball on the concrete down in the tunnel and later he showed that same ball to the umpire as proof that my pitcher had been putting something over. We just laughed at him because his work was so raw.”17

Acknowledgments and author’s note

This story was fact-checked by Kevin Larkin and copy-edited by Len Levin. It is part of a project by the author to write stories on all eight American, National, and Federal League games played on May 12, 1915.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author used the Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org websites for general player, team, and season data and the box scores for this game.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/DET/DET191505120.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1915/B05120DET1915.htm

Photo credit: Ernie Shore, SABR-Rucker Archive.

Notes

1 Gary Belleville, “September 12, 1914: Yankees Hurler Ray Keating Caught Red-Handed; American League Bans Emery Ball,” SABR Games Project, accessed February 2024, https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/september-12-1914-yankees-hurler-ray-keating-caught-red-handed-american-league-bans-emery-ball/.

2 And one tie.

3 He trailed Tris Speaker (7.1 WAR), Smoky Joe Wood (5.7), and Foster (5.6). Ruth was sixth with 4.1.

4 He also led the AL in hits surrendered (271 in 312⅔ innings) and led all three major leagues in hit batsmen (20).

5 “Told About the Tigers,” Detroit Free Press, May 13, 1915: 11.

6 “Shore Has Too Much on Ball for Tigers,” Boston Globe, May 13, 1915: 7; E.A. Batchelor, “Shore Has the Tigers on His Hip,” Detroit Free Press, May 13, 1915: 10.

7 “Shore Has Too Much on Ball for Tigers.” Nallin was working behind the plate and Dinneen – himself a former Red Sox pitcher and star of the 1903 World Series – was working on the basepaths. The Boston Globe wrote that Jennings challenged Shore “on the theory that no one could whiff Tyrus [Cobb] without cheating.”

8 Batchelor, “Shore Has the Tigers on His Hip.” “Loafed” description from “Shore Has Too Much on Ball for Tigers.”

9 Batchelor.

10 “Shore Has Too Much on Ball for Tigers.”

11 Batchelor, “Shore Has the Tigers on His Hip”; “Shore Has Too Much on Ball for Tigers.”

12 Batchelor.

13 Harold V. Wilcox, “Pitchers Are Hitting Ball Hard at Navin Field This Summer,” Detroit Times, May 13, 1915: 6.

14 “Shore Has Too Much on Ball for Tigers.”

15 Batchelor, “Shore Has the Tigers on His Hip.”

16 “Manager Carrigan Laughs at the Tigers’ ‘Emery Ball’ Complaints,” Detroit Free Press, May 13, 1915: 10.

17 “Manager Carrigan Laughs at the Tigers’ ‘Emery Ball’ Complaints.”