October 10, 1913: A’s rejoice in ‘the mighty shout of victory’ after Game 4

No matter how much the residents around Shibe Park loved the Athletics, their proximity to the ballpark was a mixed blessing the night before the fourth game of the 1913 World Series. Not long after Philadelphia won the third game in New York and took a two-games-to-one lead, fans started gathering outside the ticket windows. Around midnight an estimated 2,000 people were not only waiting, they were helping themselves to the residents’ doormats, eggs, milk, and newspapers. By 10:00 A.M., the crowd had become a “howling mob” of 8,000, waiting impatiently for 4,000 bleacher seats to go on sale. Not surprisingly, fights broke out over places in line.1 When the ticket windows finally opened, the lucky purchasers rushed inside, making “a sound similar to that of a cattle stampede.” The less fortunate had to turn to the same put-upon local residents, who more than made up for their losses by raising the price for a rooftop view from 50 cents to a dollar.2

Regardless of whether they were inside or outside the ballpark, the fans speculated about the identity of the A’s starting pitcher especially when Connie Mack kept everyone guessing by having all his pitchers “strung out in a row and warming up” just 15 minutes before game time.3 While the “dopesters and fans” thought Mack would save Chief Bender for Saturday or Monday, the Tall Tactician had other ideas. “Just a few minutes before game time,” Bender appeared in front of the grandstand, ready to take the mound.4 No such deception was practiced by John McGraw, who called on his “last pitching hope,” Al Demaree, to make his first World Series appearance.5

The game began with three “closely fought” innings that saw Philadelphia take a 1-0 lead.6 Stuffy McInnis got things going in the A’s second with a hit that fell safely primarily because the injured Fred Snodgrass couldn’t reach it. After Amos Strunk grounded out on a bunt, Jack Barry hit a foul that Fred Merkle, playing on “a bandaged ankle,” got his hands on, but couldn’t hold. The missed opportunity cost the Giants when Barry’s double drove in the game’s first run.7 According to the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, Barry reached second in spite of “Rough-neck Merkle,” who “threw both arms around Barry,” an infraction missed by all four umpires.8 There was no more scoring and after three innings Philadelphia led 1-0.

The A’s resumed the attack in the bottom of the fourth when with one out Strunk hit one “wickedly” toward third. Giants third baseman Buck Herzog “threw himself at the ball,” but had no play at first. Barry then singled Strunk to third and advanced to second on the throw.9 Next up was rookie catcher Wally Schang, who, although he had hit a home run the day before, “had evidently not impressed McGraw” since he had Demaree pitch to Schang even though Bender was up next.10 After “awful lunges at [two] slow balls,” Schang hit the third one beyond the “superhuman efforts” of Larry Doyle and Art Fletcher, driving in two runs.11 After Schang went to second on the throw and advanced to third on a passed ball, Bender hit a grounder toward first. Merkle couldn’t come up with it, Schang scored and the Giants first baseman was charged with an error.12 The star-crossed Merkle received some sympathy from the Philadelphia newspapers, especially the Evening Bulletin, which claimed Merkle couldn’t have fielded the ball “if he had had seven gloves and a lot more hands.”13 Trailing 4-0, the Giants understandably “looked disheartened when they came to the bench.”14

Disheartened or not, McGraw’s men rallied when Red Murray walked and Larry McLean “hit a vicious grounder back of second base.” Eddie Collins “made a sensational attempt to get the ball,” but “accidentally kicked” it into left field, sending Murray to third. Looking for speed on the bases, McGraw inserted Claude Cooper as a pinch-runner for McLean.15 After Merkle struck out, Harry McCormick, the “king of the pinch hitters,” batted for Demaree.16 Before pitching, Bender, with remarkable foresight, moved his left fielder, Rube Oldring in 10 to 15 feet. McCormick hit a 2-and-1 pitch “on a dead line, low and hard into left,” but Oldring charged in with “his hands cupped at his shoe tops” and made a run-saving catch. Bender celebrated his “sheer wizardry” by jolting “an imaginary uppercut into the air.” Desperate to salvage something, the Giants tried a double steal, but Cooper was thrown out, keeping the Giants scoreless.17

Rube Marquard took over for Demaree in the fifth and after getting two quick outs walked Strunk and gave up a double to Barry. Once again the Giants had the opportunity to walk Schang and pitch to Bender; once again, they chose not to; and once again, the rookie catcher singled in two runs. With a Philadelphia victory seeming almost certain, the Inquirer declared that “the saddest sight of all was a certain crumpled up man on the Giants bench.” Although McGraw’s teams had won five pennants, the almost certain loss of three straight World Series left him “huddled in a suffering heap.” Marquard allowed no more scoring and both sides went out quickly in the sixth.18

Although many Philadelphia fans doubtless thought the game and the Series were over, the Giants suddenly came from behind “like a long lean thoroughbred reserving his speed for the stretch.”19 It began innocently in the Giants seventh when George Burns tried to get out of the way of a pitch, but the ball hit his bat, it rolled to shortstop, and he reached first. It didn’t seem significant when Tillie Shafer popped out to Collins, but Murray got a new life when Schang dropped his foul tip and Red singled to left. Catcher Art Wilson, who had come into the game with Marquard, struck out, but Burns and Murray pulled a double steal. Once again, the Giants were lucky as Burns would have been out, but Frank Baker dropped the throw from Schang.20 Both missed opportunities proved costly when on a two-strike pitch, Bender “lobbed up a semi-speedy one right where Merkle loves them.”21 Bad ankle or not, the Giants first baseman hit a “long sharp drive to left center” which in spite of Oldring’s “desperate effort,” took “one high bound” into the stands for a home run that got the Giants back in the game.22 Perhaps stunned by the blow, the A’s went out on just seven pitches in the bottom of the seventh.

If the Giants needed proof that the game was turning in their favor, it came in the eighth when Herzog, who was up to then hitless in the Series, “surprised himself, the crowd and Chief Bender” by getting a hit.23 Larry Doyle followed with a potential double-play ball to Collins, but the second baseman slipped and was only able to force Herzog. Fletcher quickly resumed the assault with a “wicked line” drive off Bender’s pitching arm. The A’s pitcher recovered the ball and threw “wild and hard” to second, but fortunately Barry, “by a great effort,” caught it and forced Doyle for the second out. It was, to put it mildly, “decidedly timely” because Burns ripped a double to right, followed by Shafer’s triple that incredibly and improbably brought the Giants to within one run of tying a game that seemed lost.24 The crowd, which had been so gleeful earlier, was now “stunned with fear,” when it wasn’t shivering “with palpitation.”25 Fortunately for Philadelphia, Murray, with the tying run a mere 90 feet away, “lunged at the first ball” and grounded out to second.26

By this point Bender was “in evident distress” and the batboys worked him over with towels like a prizefighter preparing for the final round.27 Marquard again shut down the A’s in the eighth and the Giants came to bat in the ninth before “a timid quiet crowd.”28 Doc Crandall pinch-hit for Wilson, but grounded out to Collins, bringing up Merkle. Any Giants fan hoping for a repeat performance was quickly disappointed when he flied out to right field on the first pitch as Philadelphia fans “gave vent to a big gasp of relief.”29 The Giants put their last hope on Eddie Grant, who hit for Marquard. With the count full, Grant “lunged forward with might and main,” but hit a foul fly “straight up in the air” which Schang caught easily.30 With Philadelphia now up three games to one, the New York Tribune predicted that the Giants chances were “about as good as a plugged nickel in the Waldorf.”31 The sentiment was shared by the Philadelphia fans, who let out “a shout that echoed and re-echoed around the concrete confines of Shibe Park and rolled away in reverberation for squares. It was the mighty shout of victory.”32

SOURCES

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author relied on Baseball-reference.com and Retrosheet.org.

NOTES

1 “Overflow Crowd Fights for View,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 11, 1913: 13.

2 Bozeman Bulger, “Giants’ Shortstop Fined for Row with the Umpire Over Decision on Shafer,” New York Evening World, October 10, 1913: 2.

3 Bozeman Bulger, “Athletics Win Fourth, Hitting Demaree and Marquard with Ease,” New York Evening World, October 10, 1913: 1.

4 “Victory Today Will Win Championship and Head Off Criticism,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 11, 1913: 12.

5 “Athletics Win Again, Choking Off Giant Rally,” New York Times, October 11, 1913: 1.

6 D.L. Reeves, “Athletics Bats Again Triumph,” Philadelphia Public Ledger, October 11, 1913: 1.

7 “How the Game Was Played,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 11, 1913: 13.

8 “How the Game Was Played”; “Bender Toyed with Giants,” Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, October 11, 1913.

9 “How the Game Was Played.”

10 “Athletics Win Again and Now Loom Up as Baseball Champions of the World,” New York Tribune, October 11, 1913: 6.

11 Reeves: 12; “How the Game Was Played.”

12 “How the Game Was Played.”

13 “How the Game Was Played”; “Bender Toyed with Giants.”

14 “How the Game Was Played.”

15 “How the Game Was Played.”

16 “Breaks of the Game Were with Athletics,” New York Tribune, October 11, 1913: 6.

17 “Bender Again Beats Giants,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 11, 1913: 12; “How the Game Was Played.”

18 “Bender Again Beats Giants”; “How the Game Was Played.”

19 Reeves: 1.

20 Reeves: 12; “How the Game Was Played.”

21 Hugh Fullerton, “Luck Big Factor,” New York Times, October 11, 1913: 3.

22 “How the Game Was Played”; “Breaks of the Game Were with Athletics.” Balls hit into the stands on a bounce were home runs until 1930 in the American League and 1931 in the National, baseballhall.org/discover/inside-pitch/al-lopez-hits-last-bounce-home-run.

23 “How the Game Was Played.”

24 “How the Game Was Played.”

25 Reeves: 12; “Bender Again Beats Giants.”

26 “How the Game Was Played.”

27 “Housetops Remain a Haven for the Fans,” New York Tribune, October 11, 1913: 6.

28 Reeves: 1.

29 “How the Game Was Played.”

30 “How the Game Was Played.”

31 “Athletics Win Again and Now Loom Up as Baseball Champions of the World.”

32 Reeves: 1.