May 31, 1897: Fred Tenney leads Memorial Day parade with 6 hits

It was a cold, wet day in Boston. The morning half of the Memorial Day twin bill had been canceled because of a downpour, and the afternoon contest seemed in doubt until the rain tapered off shortly before game time. Although the outfield grass was soaked and slick and the basepaths muddy, the attendance-challenged Browns were anxious to get at least one game in and collect their visitor’s share of revenue from an anticipated holiday crowd.1 To the club’s chagrin, only 2,500 Bostonians braved the wet chill to pay their way into the South End Grounds, and by the time the game was over, the Browns were likely wishing it had rained all day.

After dropping both ends of a doubleheader in New York on May 29, the beleaguered Browns arrived in Boston deep in last place with a record of 6-25. Less than a week before, player-manager Tommy Dowd had been relieved of command and replaced by Hugh Nicol. So far Nicol had fared even worse than Dowd, losing his first three games, albeit with a team beset by illness and injury. Third baseman Fred Hartman had gone down with a sprained ankle, and second baseman John Houseman, picked up earlier in the month from a Chicago city league when veteran Lou Bierbauer was suspended for jumping ship, was bedridden with an undisclosed ailment. Adding tragedy to misfortune, pitcher Duke Esper had received a telegram with news of the death of his child and boarded a train for home. Stitching together a patchwork lineup, Nicol shifted Dowd from center field to second, placed catcher Klondike Douglass at third, and put reserve backstop Ed McFarland behind the plate. Pitcher Bill Hart, who’d played a few games in the outfield over five major-league seasons, was stationed in center field. Pitching for the Browns was seldom-used left-hander Bill Kissinger. By contrast, the healthy Beaneaters, despite stumbling out of the gate by losing five of their first six (with one tie), and under .500 as recently as May 15, had caught fire and won 16 of 23 behind a solid offense that propelled the club into fourth place.

Boston’s “Happy Jack” Stivetts, winner of 20 games or more in six of the last seven seasons, including a high of 35 in 1892, had reported this season overweight and ineffective. After a 10-5 loss to Baltimore in his first start, Stivetts was sent home to get back in condition. He rejoined the team three weeks later, playing right field. (A good hitter, Stivetts hit .367 that year.) Stivetts pitched in relief on May 18, then went down with a sore arm. Manager Frank Selee, satisfied that Stivetts was now fully mended, gave the right-hander the nod to start.

The skies still threatened as the game got underway. “It took several tons of sawdust and a good lot of muscle,” reported Tim Murnane, to get the field in passable shape to play.2 Exercising their option as the home team to bat first, the Beaneaters took a quick lead in the first inning. First baseman Fred Tenney doubled to left-center, and, perhaps slowed by the mud, advanced only to third on a double to left by shortstop Herman Long. Center fielder Hugh Duffy grounded to  third baseman Douglass, who threw Tenney out at the plate, but a single by right fielder Chick Stahl brought in Long with Boston’s first run. Boston added another run in the second to go up 2-0.

The Browns, hitless in the first, pounced on Stivetts in the bottom of the second. McFarland opened with a single. First baseman Morgan Murphy grounded to Long, who forced the runner at second. Stivetts walked Monte Cross. Kissinger smacked a double, driving in two runs to tie the game. Dowd reached first on a wild throw by Long, and left fielder Dan Lally smacked a single, scoring Kissinger and Dowd, to give the Browns a 4-2 lead.

In the third inning, the skies opened again and the rain fell hard. Umpire Hank O’Day, after giving some consideration to calling the contest, elected to wait out the rain. With the field further saturated and the basepaths a quagmire of mud and soaked sawdust, the game finally resumed with a walk to Duffy, a triple by Jimmy Collins, and a single by catcher Charlie Ganzel to knot the game at 4-4.

Boston grabbed the lead for good in the fourth when Tenney led off with a bunt single, Long doubled and Duffy walked to load the bases. Kissinger was pulled and right-hander Roy Evans, making only his second appearance with the Browns after being recruited from the Western League, was handed the ball. Stahl greeted the rookie with a double, clearing the bases, then scored on a subsequent out at first.

Tenney opened the fifth with a single, Long bunted safely, and Duffy walked to load the bases. Stahl forced Long at third, but Dowd’s wild toss home permitted Tenney to score. Bases still loaded, second sacker Bobby Lowe bounced one back to pitcher Evans, who tossed to the plate for the force out. Collins singled, scoring two more runs, before the Browns could shut down the Beaneaters.

The defensive play of the game occurred in the St. Louis half of the fifth. With one out, McFarland reached on a double, and Murphy walked. Stivetts then lost control of the wet ball. A diving Ganzel knocked down the pitch and fired to Tenney at first to catch Murphy.

From this point, the Browns threatened but once, putting a single run across the plate in the seventh inning, while the Beaneaters continued poking drives that had Browns defenders skating across the slippery outfield grass, and pushing bunts into the mud for base hits. Boston tallied four runs in the sixth on a walk and five singles, then batted around in the seventh for five more runs on another walk and five more singles. Boston tacked on five more runs in the eighth on singles by George Yeager, who replaced starter Billy Hamilton in center field, Tenney, Long, rookie catcher Mike Mahoney, his only major-league hit, and a double by Duffy.

Boston put up its only scoreless inning in the ninth, then mercifully retired the Browns to end the game. The final score: a staggering 25-5 victory for the Beaneaters.

In the sloppy proceedings, St. Louis logged six errors, handing Boston 11 unearned runs, while the Beaneaters made but two. The field conditions were no less tricky for baserunners. As Murnane observed, “At times the boys cut some highly interesting hieroglyphics as they went waltzing around the slippery base paths.”3

Regardless, the Boston juggernaut saw Stahl and Duffy cross the plate five times each; Collins and Long four. Of the Beaneaters’ 24 hits, Long collected five and Collins four. Duffy banged out only two hits but walked four times. But the batting star of the game was, by all measures, Tenney.

“Fred Tenney gave one of the most scientific batting exhibitions ever witnessed at the South End Grounds,” reported Murnane, “six hits in eight times at bat, including five in succession.”4 Tenney spread his hits in every direction, doubling to left, singling once to center and twice to right, and bunting safely to first and third.

Winning pitcher Stivetts pitched all nine innings for Boston, giving up 12 hits, walking four and striking out four; Kissinger took the loss for St. Louis. Evans, battered for 14 runs in five innings of relief, was given his release after the game.

Beginning with this game, the Beaneaters went on a tear, winning 17 games in a row before dropping one, 7-4 at Brooklyn, on June 22. The club would seize first place the next day and, but for falling briefly behind the Orioles in mid-September, would remain there for the rest of the season. 

Sources

In addition to the sources listed in the notes, the author also consulted the Boston Post, St. Paul Daily Globe, The Sporting News, and the Washington Evening Times.

Notes

1 “Alas and Alack, That It Did Not Rain All Day Monday,” St. Louis Republic, June 1, 1897: 5.

2 T.H. Murnane, “Batting Record Made,” Boston , June 1, 1897: 21.

3 Ibid.

4 Ibid.