October 16, 1911: Home Run Baker’s bash knots World Series in Game 2

The World Series returned to Philadelphia for the second year in a row in 1911, and 26,286 baseball fans swarmed a wet Shibe Park on October 16, 1911, for Game Two of the 1911 World Series between the New York Giants (99-54) and Philadelphia Athletics (101-50). Despite their losing Game One, 2-1, at the Polo Grounds, the Evening Bulletin reported that the Athletics were favored 6 to 5 to win Game Two.1

The starting pitchers for the game were Rube Marquard for the Giants and Eddie Plank for the Athletics. Marquard had been purchased by the New York Giants in 1908 from the Indianapolis Indians for a record $11,000, leading many to dub him the “$11,000 Beauty.” Marquard struggled in his first two full seasons in the big leagues, and compiled a 9-17 record with a 3.14 ERA. He struck out 161 and walked 113. He was then dubbed the “$11,000 Lemon.” But Marquard turned doubters into believers in 1911 when he went 24-7 in 45 games with a 2.50 ERA, striking out 237 and walking 106. Marquard pitched 16 more seasons for the Giants, Dodgers, Reds, and Braves before retiring in 1925 at age 38. His career record was 201-177 and he had a 3.08 ERA in 536 games with 1,593 strikeouts and 858 walks. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1971.

Philadelphia Athletics owner-manager Connie Mack signed 25-year-old Eddie Plank to a contract in 1901. Plank was enrolled at Gettysburg Academy and played for the Gettysburg College baseball team. He joined the Athletics in Baltimore in May 1901 and at the end of the season, he had a 17-13 record in 33 games with a 3.31 ERA. In 1911 Plank went 23-8 with a 2.10 ERA at age 35. He retired after the 1917 season at age 41 after 17 seasons in the major leagues and finished with a 326-194 record and a 2.35 ERA.

The Evening Bulletin noted that “seats for the game were as rare as aeroplane visits to the moon.”2 Female fans began to enter the park at 11 A.M. and made their way to the right-field bleachers. New York fans, fearing limited seating, arrived en masse at noon while droves of fans rushed on-field police officers and found standing room all around the outfield. Athletics President John Shibe stationed several men around the ballpark to gather foul balls. He even secured an injunction against 20th street property owners for failing to secure proper permits in an attempt to prevent the sale of seats on top of row houses, but it did not matter. Many fans who did not have tickets to the game were still able to buy tickets for a rooftop bleacher seat. Factories in the neighborhood shut down at noon, allowing workers to watch the game from factory windows.3 A constant buzz was in the air prior to first pitch and even caused one overexcited man to be taken out of the grounds on a stretcher to the Woman’s Homeopathic Hospital.4

A hush overcame the crowd as Plank delivered the first pitch of the game at 2:02 P.M. and subsequently struck out Giants leadoff man Josh Devore looking, to the delight of the local fans. Larry Doyle was up next and he sent a long fly to Athletics left fielder Bris Lord. Fred Snodgrass was hit by a pitch on a two-strike count and became the Giants’ first baserunner. But Red Murray lined out to second baseman Eddie Collins to conclude the top half of the first inning.

In the Athletics’ half, leadoff man Lord knocked a 2-and-1 pitch to right field and took second on Murray’s error. Rube Oldring’s sacrifice advanced Lord to third. With Collins at bat, Marquard unleashed a wild pitch that allowed Lord to score the first run of the game. Collins singled past Giants third baseman Buck Herzog but Marquard gathered himself as he struck out Frank Baker and got Danny Murphy to fly out to left field to end the inning.

Fred Merkle led off the second for the Giants and grounded out to third base. Herzog smashed a 1-and-2 pitch over third baseman Oldring’s head for a double and advanced to third on Art Fletcher’s groundball to Collins. Catcher Chief Meyers, a Native American who was the Giants’ best hitter in 1911, drove Merkle in with a single to left field, tying the game, 1-1. Plank then struck out Marquard to end the inning.

Only two men reached base between the bottom of the second inning and top of the sixth – the A’s Jack Barry got to second base in the second inning on an error by left fielder Devore, and the Giants’ Snodgrass singled in the top of the third. Otherwise the 36-year old Plank and the 24-year-old Marquard mowed down the opposing batters with few balls leaving the infield. The Athletics finally broke the stalemate in the bottom of the sixth inning. Marquard retired Lord and Oldring on fly balls. With two out and none on, Eddie Collins slashed a double down the left-field line. Frank Baker stepped to the plate next.

Giants manager John McGraw, an expert at the mental game, had chided Baker from the dugout while the Athletics were in the field in an attempt to break Baker’s concentration. “You’re a quitter,” the New York manager cried. “[Hughie] Jennings and the whole Detroit club told us so.”5 It was a reference to a game earlier in the year when Detroit’s Ty Cobb spiked Baker sliding into third base. Baker was mild-mannered and McGraw sought to leverage this alleged weakness, despite the fact that Baker slashed .334/.379/.508 and led the league with 11 home runs in 1911.

Before the game, McGraw had told Marquard to stay away from the strike zone when he pitched to Baker. Marquard struck out Baker on three straight curveballs in the first inning and got him out on a weak grounder to second base in the fourth. But in the sixth, the pitcher ignored McGraw’s advice when Baker refused to offer at a nibbling breaking ball outside the zone. “…I had one strike on him and he had refused to bite on another outcurve which was a little too wide,” Marquard said in an article under his byline in the New York Times. “I thought to cross him by sending in a fast high straight ball the kind that I know he liked. Meyers had called for a curve, but I could not see it [due to the sun], and signaled a high fast ball,”6 Marquard suggested that Collins had relayed the signal to Baker from second base. Baker sent Marquard’s fastball over the right-field wall, and the Athletics led 3-1.

According to Connie Mack biographer Norman Macht, “Delirium erupted within Shibe Park, in the windows and along the rooftops of Twentieth Street, and downtown on Broad Street, where the action was being recreated. … The howling, stomping, whistling, and cheering had begun at 3:20 and went on for a full five minutes. Fans sitting behind the visitors’ dugout banged on its tin roof with canes and bottles and feet.”7

Marquard was pulled after the seventh inning and replaced by 23-year-old Doc Crandall, who set down the Athletics without a hit in the eighth. Marquard had surrendered only four hits but Baker’s blast proved fatal to the Giants. The Series was now tied. The Athletics’ Plank pitched a complete game and surrendered five hits, struck out eight, and allowed only one run. The game was a true pitchers’ duel but Baker’s home run stole the headlines and was a catalyst for his future identity as Home Run Baker.

SOURCES

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author accessed Retrosheet.org, Baseball-Reference.com, Newspapers.com, and SABR.org.

NOTES

1 “Plank Opposes Marquard in Second Great Struggle of World’s Series Contest,” Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, October 16, 1911.

2 Plank Opposes Marquard in Second Great Struggle of World’s Series Contest.”

3 Plank Opposes Marquard in Second Great Struggle of World’s Series Contest.”

4 “Fan Overcome by Excitement,” Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, October 16, 1911.

5 Lew Friedman, Connie Mack’s First Dynasty: The Philadelphia Athletics, 1910-1914 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2017), 83.

6 Rube Marquard, “Giants Beaten by Home Run Hit,” New York Times, October 17, 1911.

7 Norman Macht, Connie Mack and the Early Years of Baseball (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2007), 525.