October 4, 1908: Mordecai Brown prevents Pirates from clinching pennant, helps Cubs regain first place

The Pittsburgh Pirates were one win from capturing the 1908 National League pennant. All they had to do was beat the Chicago Cubs on October 4 in the last scheduled regular-season game for both teams.1 But a Pittsburgh loss would put the Cubs in the driver’s seat and keep the idle New York Giants, who had their appeal of the Merkle Game ruling still outstanding and three more games to play, on the outskirts of the three-team race.

The defending World Series champion Cubs, winners of two straight NL pennants, had been white hot down the stretch. After a midseason swoon had them on the verge of dropping into fourth place on August 18, the team rebounded to reel off wins at a blistering .809 pace in its next 47 games.2

The Pirates had been in first place several times during the season, including an extended run from July 15 until August 24, snapped by a four-game series sweep by New York. When the Pirates lost both ends of a September 18 twin bill against the Giants to fall five games out of first place, they too looked as if they might be finished. But Pittsburgh won 13 of its next 14 games, largely against the league’s bottom feeders,3 to pull a half-game ahead of the Cubs and 1½ games in front of the Giants heading into its regular-season finale.

Player-manager Fred Clarke and his Pirates were a confident group going into their pivotal battle against the Cubs.4 Clarke had wisely held back his ace, Vic Willis, for this showdown.5 The 32-year-old righty came in with a 23-10 record and 2.06 ERA,6 and he had tossed three shutouts in his six starts against Chicago in 1908. Willis had been on a roll of late, going 7-2 with three shutouts and a save since August 31.

Chicago player-manager Frank Chance countered with his top starter, Mordecai Brown (27-9). The 31-year-old was looking for revenge against Willis, who had beaten him 1-0 on September 4 in a 10-inning pitchers’ duel. Brown was running on fumes as the season wound down; he was making his third start in six days, including a four-hit shutout two days earlier against the Cincinnati Reds. He finished the season with a 1.47 ERA, second best in the National League behind Christy Mathewson’s 1.43 mark.

Not surprisingly, the bugs (fans) in both cities were whipped into a frenzy. The largest crowd in Cubs franchise history − 30,247 – crammed into the West Side Grounds, overflowing onto the playing field.7 Thousands more were turned away.8 A throng of fans 12 deep completely encircled the field,9 forcing outfielders to play shallower than usual and making it more difficult to reach popups in foul territory.10

In Pittsburgh, tens of thousands of Pirates fans gathered downtown, blocking streetcar traffic.11 People congregated at bulletin boards at three newspaper offices to get updates on the game transmitted via telegraph, and Smoky City newspapers added extra phone lines so fans could call in during the game to get the score.12

It didn’t take long for the fans on the field to have an effect on the game. Jimmy Sheckard opened the bottom of the first by lofting a fly ball that would have normally been caught by Pirates center fielder Roy Thomas, but the ball went into the crowd on the outfield grass for a ground-rule double.13 After Johnny Evers sacrificed Sheckard to third, Frank Schulte singled up the middle to put the Cubs out front, 1-0. Chicago loaded the bases with two out before Willis escaped the inning by retiring Joe Tinker on a popup to catcher George Gibson.

Brown scattered three hits and a walk in the first five innings to preserve Chicago’s slim lead.14

With two outs in the bottom of the fifth, Evers hit a groundball up the middle; Honus Wagner made a nice play to get to the ball, but his ill-advised throw sailed six feet over the head of first baseman Alan Storke, allowing Evers to take second. Schulte followed with another hard single up the middle and Evers raced home for a 2-0 Chicago lead. “Hats, canes, and everything within reach flew in the air” at the West Side Grounds, while outside the Pittsburgh Press office, Pirates fans let out a groan when the news was delivered.15

In the top of the sixth, Wagner redeemed himself for his throwing error. With two outs and Thomas on third, Wagner pulled a 2-and-2 curveball over the bag at third for an RBI double. After Brown’s wild pitch advanced him to third,16 he came home on an infield single by Ed Abbaticchio and the score was tied, 2-2. Moments later, “a roar went up from the crowd [outside the Pittsburgh Gazette Times office] that could have been heard, like the guns at Bunker Hill, the whole world round.”17

With two out in the bottom of the sixth and Tinker on second, the Pirates decided to intentionally walk the dangerous Johnny Kling to get to Brown, a career .186 hitter.18 The move backfired, as Brown hit a clean single to short right field, sending Tinker home with the go-ahead run.19

In the bottom of the seventh, Wagner made his second costly error of the game when he booted Sheckard’s grounder to open the inning. After a sacrifice, an intentional walk, and an infield single loaded the bases, Del Howard’s short fly ball drove Sheckard home and Chicago led, 4-2.20

Howie Camnitz replaced Willis on the mound in the bottom of the eighth.21 He retired the first two Cubs batters before giving up singles to Brown and Sheckard.22 An RBI double by Evers − his third hit of the game – gave Chicago a 5-2 lead.

For a moment, it looked as though the Pirates might stage a late rally. Wagner singled to open the ninth inning. The next batter, Abbaticchio, hit a ball into the crowd in right field that would have put runners on second and third with nobody out – but home-plate umpire Hank O’Day called it a foul ball.23 The entire Pirates team came out to argue the call, but their protests changed nothing.24 Abbaticchio eventually got back into the batter’s box and was caught looking at a fastball for strike three.25 Heartbroken Pirates fans complained about the disputed foul ball for years.26

Brown retired the next two batters on force outs, ending the pressure-packed game. One of the wildest and most exciting pennant races in National League history continued.

An ecstatic crowd swarmed onto the field as the Cubs “scurried to their clubhouse lest they be engulfed by the surging mob of devotees which would wring their hands and slap their shoulders back and blue.”27

The Pirates reacted as if they had been eliminated from the race.28 Clarke and Pittsburgh owner Barney Dreyfuss paid a visit to the Chicago clubhouse to offer their congratulations.29 Within hours many of the Pirates headed home, including Clarke, who returned to his ranch in Winfield, Kansas.30

Wagner finished the season with a .354 average, earning his sixth of eight batting titles. The 34-year-old had a career year − as of the end of the 2022 season it remained the best season ever by a shortstop in the National or American League.31 Despite carrying the Pirates all season long, Wagner was criticized for his two errors in the crucial contest. He “played the field all afternoon much like a cheese sandwich without mustard,” wrote the Associated Press.32

On October 5 the Giants beat the sixth-place Boston Doves, 8-1, to pull to within one game of the Cubs and a half-game behind the Pirates. Just before noon the next day, the National League board of directors announced that they were upholding the decision of President Harry Pulliam and the umpires: The Merkle Game was a tie, to be replayed at the Polo Grounds on October 8.33

Despite the verdict, the Pirates were still not eliminated. One win by the Doves in their two remaining games against the Giants and a Cubs loss on October 8 would create a three-way tie atop the National League standings.34

But it was not to be. Back-to-back complete-game victories by Hooks Wiltse and Red Ames of the Giants eliminated the Pirates and set up a winner-take-all matchup in the replay of the Merkle Game.

In that historic rematch, the Cubs roughed up Mathewson for four runs in the third inning and Brown pitched 8⅓ gutsy innings of relief for a 4-2 Chicago win. In just over four days, Brown had prevented pennant-winning victories by the Pirates and Giants, helping the Cubs claim the National League flag for the third consecutive season.35

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Kurt Blumenau and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org. Unless otherwise noted, all play-by-play information for this game was taken from the article “Near Third Triumph” on page 6 of the October 5, 1908, edition of the Chicago Daily News.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CHN/CHN190810040.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1908/B10040CHN1908.htm

Photo credit

Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Notes

1 The Pirates had a half-game lead on the Cubs and were 1½ games ahead of the New York Giants on the morning of October 4. The Giants had three games remaining against the sixth-place Boston Doves on October 5-7. They were also waiting to hear from the National League board of directors on their appeal of the ruling by league President Harry Pulliam that the Merkle Game between the Cubs and Giants on September 23 would be treated as a tie. Few people expected the National League board of directors to overturn Pulliam’s decision and award the Merkle Game to New York. Most onlookers expected the game to remain a tie and not be replayed. This meant a Pirates win on October 4 would be a pennant-clinching victory. On October 6 the board of directors ordered the (tied) Merkle Game to be replayed, although there is no guarantee they would have made the same determination had the Pirates won on October 4. Cait Murphy, Crazy ’08 (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2007), 237, 253; “All Pittsburgh Rooting for One More Victory and the Championship,” Pittsburgh Gazette Times, October 4, 1908: 1.

2 On August 18 Chicago was in third place, 5½ games behind Pittsburgh. The Philadelphia Phillies were only a half-game behind the Cubs. Coming into the October 4 matchup with the Pirates, Chicago had gone 38-9 in its previous 47 contests.

3 Of the 14 games the Pirates played between September 19 and October 3, six were against the eighth-place St. Louis Cardinals, three were against the seventh-place Brooklyn Superbas, and three were against the sixth-place Boston Doves.

4 “All my men are in perfect condition, and [Vic] Willis has been primed for the battle of his life,” said Clarke. “Whoever may be [Frank] Chance’s choice, in all probability [Mordecai] Brown, we are confident that we can beat him. We will go into the contest with the utmost confidence that we can beat Chance’s men.” “Clarke Predicts Victory Today,” Pittsburgh Gazette Times, October 4, 1908: 1.

5 Willis was pitching on three days’ rest.

6 Willis finished the season with a 2.07 ERA. Only two of the four runs he gave up in his seven innings of work on October 4 were earned.

7 Some newspapers incorrectly claimed that the crowd was the biggest to ever see a big-league game; others mistakenly believed it was the most to ever witness a ballgame in Chicago. The New York Giants had already drawn crowds of 35,000 fans to five games in 1908. The Chicago White Sox had 30,900 fans in attendance for their first-place battle with the New York Highlanders on August 12, 1906. The Cubs’ attendance record lasted less than a year. It was broken on September 16, 1909, when 35,000 fans came out to see Mordecai Brown lose, 2-1, to Christy Mathewson and the New York Giants in front of President William Howard Taft.

8 Ralph S. Davis, “Pirates Finally Eliminated from Great Race for Pennant,” Pittsburgh Press, October 5, 1908: 12.

9 Harvey T. Woodruff, “Cubs Jump to Top, Beating Pirates,” Chicago Tribune, October 5, 1908: 1.

10 Catcher Johnny Kling was unable to catch two foul popups in the top of the fourth inning because of the fans on the field. “Near Third Triumph,” Chicago Daily News, October 5, 1908: 6; Charles Dryden, “Pirates, Fighting, See Glories Go,” Chicago Tribune, October 5, 1908: 2.

11 “Moving Pictures of Joy and Grief on Streets,” Pittsburgh Gazette Times, October 5, 1908: 1.

12 “Moving Pictures of Joy and Grief on Streets”; “Bulletin Boards Attracted Crowds,” Pittsburgh Press, October 5, 1908: 12; “Race Still Undecided; New York Will Have to Win All Three Games to Even Get a Tie,” Pittsburgh Daily Post, October 5, 1908: 7.

13 It is unclear if the crowd in the outfield prevented Thomas from making the catch or if the ball went over his head because he was playing shallower than usual.

14 Associated Press, “Pirates Lose to Champions,” Pittsburgh Daily Post, October 5, 1908: 1, 7.

15 Woodruff, “Cubs Jump to Top, Beating Pirates”; “Bulletin Boards Attracted Crowds.”

16 Associated Press, “Pirates Lose to Champions.”

17 The allusion in this instance was incorrect; the “shot heard round the world” was the opening shot of the Battles of Lexington and Concord. The phrase was coined by Ralph Waldo Emerson in his poem “Concord Hymn.” “Moving Pictures of Joy and Grief on Streets.”

18 Brown had a career .186 average coming into the game. He retired after the 1916 season with a .206 career batting average. Woodruff, “Cubs Jump to Top, Beating Pirates.”

19 “Cubs Jump to Top, Beating Pirates.”

20 “Must Win Them All to Tie with Chicago,” Syracuse Herald, October 5, 1908: 15.

21 Rookie Jim Kane pinch-hit for Willis in the top of the eighth inning. He grounded out in what was the 166th and final plate appearance of his big-league career. Kane played in the Class A Western League until 1915.

22 Brown beat out an infield single.

23 O’Day was the umpire who called Fred Merkle out for not touching second base in the Merkle Game on September 23. Woodruff, “Cubs Jump to Top, Beating Pirates.”

24 Murphy, 252.

25 Associated Press, “Pirates Lose to Champions.”

26 Murphy, 252.

27 Woodruff, “Cubs Jump to Top, Beating Pirates.”

28 The Pirates behaved as if they were eliminated from the race on October 4 because of two key assumptions. First, few people expected the National League board of directors to go against Pulliam’s ruling and award the Merkle Game to New York. Second, if the Cubs and Giants finished with identical records, most expected the two teams to play a three-game playoff series to determine the league champion. The first assumption proved true; the second was false, as the board of directors ordered the Cubs and Giants to replay the Merkle Game on October 8. “All Pittsburgh Rooting for One More Victory and the Championship”; Woodruff, “Cubs Jump to Top, Beating Pirates.”

29 “Cubs Jump to Top, Beating Pirates.”

30 Davis, “Pirates Finally Eliminated from Great Race for Pennant”; Dryden, “Pirates, Fighting, See Glories Go.”

31 Wagner compiled 11.5 Baseball-Reference Wins Above Replacement (bWAR) and 11.8 Fangraphs Wins Above Replacement (fWAR) in 1908. Cal Ripken Jr. had the second-best season: He collected 11.5 bWAR and 10.6 fWAR in 1991. Wagner led the majors in most offensive categories in 1908, including batting average (.354), on-base percentage (.415), slugging percentage (.542), on-base plus slugging (.957 OPS), hits (201), total bases (308), doubles (39), RBIs (109), stolen bases (53), adjusted OPS (205 OPS+), and extra-base hits (68). “Player Batting Season & Career Stats Finder,” StatHead Baseball, https://stathead.com/tiny/mD0nC, accessed November 25, 2022.

32 Associated Press, “Pirates Lose to Champions.”

33 Murphy, 253; “Disputed Game a Tie,” New York Tribune, October 7, 1908: 5.

34 A win by the Doves in both of their remaining games combined with a Cubs loss on October 8 would eliminate the Giants and create a first-place tie between the Pirates and Cubs.

35 The Pirates got revenge on the Cubs in 1909 when they won 110 games and ended Chicago’s three-year reign as National League champion. As of the end of the 2022 season, the 1909 Pirates still held the franchise record for most wins in a season. Pittsburgh went on to defeat the Detroit Tigers in seven games in the 1909 World Series. The Pirates (1901-03, 1909), Cubs (1906-08, 1910), and Giants (1904-05, 1911-13) won every National League pennant between 1901 and 1913.