October 17, 1910: Charles Bender baffles Cubs in World Series opener

Skipper Connie Mack was tired of waiting. Eleven days after his Philadelphia Athletics (102-48) played their last regular-season game, they finally took the field for Game One of the World Series.1 The delay was caused by the National League, which had concluded its regular season just two days earlier with the juggernaut Chicago Cubs (104-50) capturing their fourth pennant in five seasons. Frank Chance’s squad was a nominal favorite to win its third title in that span, despite losing the coin toss to determine which team would enjoy home-field advantage.2

The City of Brotherly Love was baseball-mad about the Athletics, who became first team to eclipse the century mark in victories in the 10-year history of the American League. On a warm and sunny Monday afternoon with temperatures in the low 70s, Shibe Park, baseball’s first steel and concrete ballpark, was packed with an overflowing crowd of 26,891 spectators, more than three times the A’s regular-season (and the major-league highest) game average of 7,550.3

The carnival-like atmosphere at the intersection at 21st Street and Lehigh Avenue had begun the night before with hundreds of fans camping out for a chance to buy a general-admission ticket. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that the throng was 7,000 strong by 7 A.M. on the day of the game and grew to more than 20,000 people.4 Rowhouse rooftops along 20th Street and Somerset Street across from the ballpark had been converted into makeshift viewing stands despite orders from the Bureau of Building Inspectors forbidding it.5

The Athletics and Cubs were evenly matched, balanced teams each of which led its league in ERA and came within a handful of runs in pacing its circuit in runs scored. The Cubs’ advantage was their World Series experience: They fielded essentially the same team that had won a major-league record 622 games over the previous six seasons (still the record as of 2022). Chance took a gamble on his starting pitcher. Instead of his ace, Mordecai “Three Finger” Brown (25-14, 1.86 ERA), he called on right-hander Orval Overall, known for his “oxlike strength,” gushed Windy City sportswriter Harry Daniel.6 Overall had won just 12 games in an injury-plagued campaign; however, he was 82-38 since his acquisition in mid-1906 and even better in the World Series, in which he was 3-0 and sported a stellar 1.12 ERA in 48⅓ innings.

There was considerable speculation about whom Mack would send to the mound in Game One. Many figured the Tall Tactician would go with Jack Coombs, who burst on the scene with one of the greatest seasons in AL history, leading the league with 31 wins and 13 shutouts. However, two of the few remaining players from the A’s 1905 pennant winners warmed up prior to the game: Eddie Plank and Charles Albert “Chief” Bender.

Mack chose right-handed Bender against the Cubs’ righty-heavy lineup. The 26-year-old Native American, who hated the racist monikers the press gave him, boasted a 125-76 slate, including 23-5 with a 1.58 ERA in 1910, but hadn’t pitched since he won his final start on September 7. With the pennant effectively wrapped up in mid-August, Mack had given his cerebral hurler time to overcome some nagging injuries. Bender, however, was far from idle. He had scouted the Cubs during their series against the Phillies in Philadelphia in mid-September. None of the A’s were rusty, though, as Mack’s troops played a three-game series (October 11-13) against Jimmy McAleer’s All-Stars, a barnstorming team consisting of AL stalwarts.7

Bender had two more advantages: He was the only A’s player with a World Series victory, having tossed a four-hit shutout in Game Two against the New York Giants in 1905; and he was the only A’s pitcher to have beaten the Cubs. The two teams had played an exhibition game the previous October and Bender blanked the Cubs and Overall on two hits.8

Scheduled to start at 2 P.M., the game was delayed by 14 minutes as Chance and Mack wrangled with the four-man umpiring crew about the ground rules. Both managers objected to still and movie cameramen on the field behind home plate; they were dispatched to the grandstand. More disconcerting were the thousands of spectators standing in right field and left field cordoned off by rope, the first time that was required since Shibe Park opened in 1909.9

Armed with various noisemakers, the crowd was “wild with enthusiasm” when Bender took the mound, reported Chicago sportswriter Harry Daniel.10 Leadoff hitter Jimmy Sheckard sent Bender’s first pitch sailing over the left-field bleachers, but it was a foul. It was also the hardest hit ball off Bender the entire afternoon. Three pitches later, Bender fanned Sheckard. The Cubs’ most dangerous hitter, Frank “Wildfire” Schulte, whose 10 home runs tied Fred Beck of the Boston Braves for the NL lead, followed with a single, but was caught stealing. Solly Hofman was retired on a grounder. The A’s managed one single against Overall in the first, and, like Schulte, Eddie Collins was caught stealing.

After Bender set down the Cubs in order in the second, Frank “Home Run” Baker led off with a smash to left field that “pulled up in the crowd” for a ground-rule double, and moved to third on Harry Davis’s sacrifice.11 Danny Murphy’s single drove Baker home. With two out and Murphy on third and Ira Thomas on first via a walk, Bender hit a “vicious” chopper to second baseman Heinie Zimmerman, who had replaced Johnny Evers, sidelined with an ankle injury.12 (No slouch at the plate, Bender had batted .269 and knocked in 16 runs in 1910.) The ball “bounded out of his hands” and into center field, plating Murphy.13 No error was given to Zimmerman, who “should have cleanly made the assist,” argued sportswriter Fred J. Hewitt.14

The A’s tacked on another run in the third when Bris Lord led off with a deep shot into the crowd in right-center field for a ground-rule double. Collins sacrificed him to third, then Baker singled to left to make it 3-0.

The A’s three runs were more than Bender needed as he delivered “one of the most marvelous exhibitions of pitching in the history of baseball,” gushed Daniel.15 He baffled the Cubs with his array of fastballs, curveballs, and his nickel curves (proto-sliders). His delivery was mesmerizing, too. “[H]is long, wiry arm would swing through the air,” explained Daniel. “Twice it would circle around like a great revolving wheel. Then his left leg would go up and the arm of steel would flash around with a dazzling side-arm movement.”16 Through eight innings Bender faced the minimum 24 batters. Schulte walked in the fourth, but was again gunned down trying to steal second on another bullet from catcher Ira Thomas.

“Wild and weak” through three innings, Overall was replaced by spot starter Harry McIntire.17 Sportswriters from around the country suggested the next day that Chance had thrown in the towel with this decision instead of calling on Brown, King Cole (20-4), or Ed Reulbach. However, the 31-year-old right-hander McIntire mystified the A’s with a confusing underhand motion and kept the Cubs in the game. He held the A’s hitless from the fourth inning through the seventh, yielding only walks to Amos Strunk in the fifth and Thomas in the seventh.

The A’s added an insurance run in the eighth. After Eddie Collins drew a two-out walk, McIntire tossed nervously over to first, hoping to pick him off rather than face the dangerous Baker at the plate. Coming off an AL-record 81 swipes in 1910, Collins was finally caught napping, but McIntire’s toss flew past first base and Collins reached third. Baker smashed a line drive “splintering the right field fence,” which dropped into the crowd for his second ground-rule double and resulted in another run.18

Bender suffered some bad luck in the ninth, but kept his cool and remained the “very embodiment of confidence,” opined the Inquirer.19 Joe Tinker received a second chance when Thomas muffed his popup behind the plate by grounding the next pitch past second, then took second when center fielder Strunk fumbled the ball. It was the Cubs’ first hit since the first inning. Johnny Kling followed with another single to plate Tinker (unearned run), then gave way to pinch-runner John Kane, who advanced a station on pinch-hitter Gene Beaumont’s grounder. After Sheckard fanned, Schulte drew a walk to bring the tying run to the plate. With the count 1-and-2, Hofman grounded to Baker, who stepped on third for the final out, ending the game in 1 hour and 54 minutes and securing the A’s victory.

Home Run Baker was the batting hero of the game, collecting three of the A’s seven hits and driving in two runs, but this game was about Bender. Praised for his “phenomenal speed, accurate control, and magnificent head work,”20 Bender went the distance for the 26th time in 29 starts of the season, fanned eight and walked two in an overpowering victory that “turned much baseball calculation topsy-turvy,” wrote Chicago’s Inter Ocean.21 The A’s emerged as the new Series favorites.

SOURCES

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

NOTES

1 The A’s played their final game on October 6; the final day of the regular season in the AL was October 8.

2 A’s owner Ben Shibe won the coin toss from Cubs owner Charles Webb Murphy several days before the beginning of the World Series; however, it was not without controversy, as Tom Swift explains. AL President Ban Johnson flipped the coin, which had apparently rolled off a table. Under the rules the two owners had agreed upon, the flip should have been nullified. Tom Swift, Chief Bender’s Burden: The Silent Struggle of a Baseball Star (Lincoln: Bison Books, 2010), 144.

3 “Local Weather Report from U.S. Weather Bureau,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 18, 1910: 2.

4 “Doors Are Opened Early for Vast Bleacher Throng,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 18, 1910: 13.

5 “Spectacle of Brilliant Crowd Rarely Equaled at Any Event,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 18, 1919: 13.

6 Harry Daniel, “Indian’s Wonderful Pitching for Athletics Costs the Cubs the First Game of the World Series,” (Chicago) Inter Ocean, October 18, 1910: 1.

7 The McAleer All-Stars had some of the biggest names in the AL, including Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, and Walter Johnson. See “All Stars Here to Battle With Mackies,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 12, 1910: 10; Jim Nasium, “Pick of A.L. Teams Clean Up Mackies,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 12, 1910: 10.

8 Ring Lardner, “Redskin Tames Overall’s Cubs,” Chicago Tribune, October 20, 1909: 12.

9 “Spectacle of Brilliant Crowd Rarely Equaled at Any Event.”

10 Daniel: 1.

11 Frank J. Hewitt, “Bender Invincible and Cubs Lose First,” (Chicago) Inter Ocean, October 18, 1910: 2.

12 Daniel: 2.

13 “Story in Detail of Victory Over Cubs of Chicago,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 18, 1910: 12.

14 Hewitt.

15 Daniel: 2.

16 Daniel: 2.

17 Daniel: 1.

18 Hewitt.

19 The Old Sport, “Frank Baker’s Timely Hits Big Factor in Mackmen’s Victory,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 18, 1910: 1

20 Daniel: 1.

21 Daniel: 1.