October 7, 1925: Walter Johnson and Washington Nationals beat Pittsburgh in World Series opener

The teams meeting in the 1925 World Series arrived from different perspectives. The Washington Nationals entered the Series as the defending champions, having defeated the New York Giants one year earlier in a thrilling seven-game series. Meanwhile, the Pittsburgh Pirates were the new challengers, having come off the last four seasons as close also-rans behind the Giants.

The Nationals followed their championship year with another great season in 1925. Taking sole possession of first place in the American League standings on August 20, they never looked back, finishing a comfortable 8½ games ahead of the Philadelphia Athletics. The team had solid hitters, but the strength of the Nationals was a superb pitching staff led by two experienced future Hall of Famers in Walter Johnson and Stan Coveleski, along with a young bullpen ace, Firpo Marberry. The team’s 3.70 ERA was the AL’s lowest, compared with a 4.39 league average. They also boasted strong defense, led by league MVP Roger Peckinpaugh at shortstop, and catcher Muddy Ruel. Third baseman Ossie Bluege finished 10th in the MVP voting.

The Pirates arrived at the Series having been frustrated for the past four years. Particularly distressing was 1921, when with the exception of one day, they led the NL from May through August. Despite leading by as many as 7½ games in August, the Pirates fell apart at the end of the season. Sure of winning the pennant, owner Barney Dreyfuss ordered the construction of temporary bleachers in the Forbes Field outfield for the World Series.1 As it turned out, the Pirates were swept in a crucial late-season five-game series by the Giants at the Polo Grounds and never recovered.2 They finished those seasons in either second or third place to their archrival Giants, who took home four straight National League crowns as well as World Series championships in 1921 and 1922.

Owner Dreyfuss was hungry to reverse that trend in 1925. He engineered a trade to finally get the Pirates over the hump. Just after the 1924 season, ended, the Pirates traded first baseman Charlie Grimm, second baseman Rabbit Maranville, and all-time franchise wins leader Wilbur Cooper to the Chicago Cubs. Maranville and Grimm were popular with the fans, but Dreyfuss thought their off-field shenanigans were distractions that resulted in a lack of seriousness on the field.3 He told writer Fred Lieb after the trade that he “got rid of my banjo players.”4

For the Pirates the trade’s return, which included 15-game winner Vic Aldridge and first baseman George Grantham, supplemented a heavy-hitting team boasting seven regulars hitting over .300, with right fielder Kiki Cuyler leading the way with a .357 average. Only a .403 season by Rogers Hornsby of the St. Louis Cardinals kept Cuyler from winning the league’s MVP award. Cuyler finished second in the voting, while Pirates shortstop Glenn Wright, third baseman Pie Traynor, and center fielder Max Carey were 4th, 8th, and 11th respectively. After sweeping a doubleheader on August 3 against the Philadelphia Phillies, they took over first place and remained there to win their first NL pennant since the World Series-winning Honus Wagner team of 1909. They finished 8½ games ahead of the Giants.5 The team’s .307 batting average led the league, and they were also tops in runs scored, stolen bases, and other hitting categories.

In addition to personnel changes, two permanent expansions were added to Forbes Field prior to the 1925 season. The double-deck grandstand was extended down the right-field line, wrapping around right field. Also, more box seats were added behind home plate, reducing the distance to the backstop from 110 feet to 85 feet.6 The additions gave Forbes about 12,000 new seats, pushing capacity to over 40,000.7 For the World Series, temporary stands were installed in the outfield once again.

The teams had similar regular-season records: 95-58 for the Pirates and 96-55 for the Nationals. In predicting the Series winner, the small edge in winning percentage and World Series experience made the Nationals slight favorites with the critics and writers.8 Both teams expressed confidence heading into the series. Washington owner Clark Griffith and star pitcher Johnson praised the Nationals’ skills and cohesiveness.9 Meanwhile, Pirates bench coach and former manager and player Fred Clarke said he thought the Pirates were the city’s best team ever.10

Along with Pennsylvania Governor Gifford Pinchot, Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis and both league presidents, Ban Johnson and John Heydler, were among the crowd of 41,723 at Forbes Field.11 Several baseball greats covered the game as syndicated columnists, including John McGraw, Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, and local hero Honus Wagner.12

Under an overcast sky,13 the starters were right-handed veteran Lee Meadows (19-10) for Pirates manager Bill McKechnie and 37-year-old righty Johnson (20-7), tapped by manager Bucky Harris for the Nationals.

After a scoreless first inning, the Nationals got the scoring started in the second when Joe Harris launched a home run into the temporary right-center-field stands, giving the Nationals a 1-0 lead.

It was still a one-run game when Harris opened the fifth with an infield single, followed by two straight singles to left field by Bluege and Peckinpaugh to load the bases with no one out. After Meadows struck out Muddy Ruel and Johnson, future Hall of Famer Sam Rice grounded a single up the middle, scoring Harris and Bluege and extending the lead to 3-0.

The Pirates bounced back with a run in their half of the fifth inning, as future Hall of Famer Traynor led off the inning with a home run into the temporary stands in right-center field. It was the third of only five hits for the Pirates.

The pitchers traded zeros for innings six through eight. Meadows retired all nine batters and Johnson allowed just one hit, by catcher Earl Smith in the eighth. Pinch-runner Carson Bigbee stole second, but Johnson cut short any Bucs rally by getting Eddie Moore to ground out to Bluege.

Johnny Morrison relieved Meadows in the ninth and the Nationals closed out the scoring with a run. Future Hall of Famer Goose Goslin opened with a single to right and moved to second on a sacrifice by Joe Judge. One out later, Bluege singled Goslin home for the final run and sealed the opening win for Washington, 4-1. The Pirates brought the tying run to the plate with one out in the ninth on a hit batsman and a single, but Johnson retired Traynor and Wright to end the game.

Johnson had a dominant performance. The aging superstar went the distance, striking out 10, walking one, and hitting two batters. Traynor’s home run was the lone blemish. Meadows took the loss despite pitching respectably, giving up six hits, no walks, and one hit batter. American League umpire Billy Evans wrote in his syndicated column that Johnson “unquestionably pitched the best game he has worked this year.” He added, “Johnson had all his stuff which he used with uncanny skill.”14

The headline in the next day’s Pittsburgh Post said it all. It quoted injured Pirates infielder Johnny Rawlings as saying, “you can’t win ’em on five hits in (a) fight like that.”15

Despite the opening contest between two great teams, baseball was saddened to learn that one of its greatest legends, Christy “Big Six” Mathewson, had died at age 45 that evening in Saranac Lake, New York.16 While Game Two would go on as scheduled, Judge Landis announced that an appropriate tribute would be paid to the longtime Giants’ pitching star.17

The Pirates saw a dominating Johnson again in Game Four, when he blanked Pittsburgh, 4-0, to give the Nationals a commanding three-games-to-one lead. But after that, the Pirates turned things around with three straight victories to take the championship. They faced Johnson yet again in Game Seven, but this time finally solved him by scoring 9 runs (5 earned) on 15 hits. 

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Carl Riechers and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Walter Johnson, Trading Card Database.

Sources

In addition to the sources included in the Notes, the author also consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/PIT/PIT192510070.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1925/B10070PIT1925.htm

Notes

1 Lyle Spatz and Steve Steinberg, 1921: The Yankees, the Giants & the Battle for Baseball Supremacy in New York (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2014), 244-245.

2 Frederick Lieb, The Pittsburgh Pirates (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1948), 190-191.

3 Brian Martin, Barney Dreyfuss: Pittsburgh’s Baseball Titan (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Co, 2021), 167.

4 Frederick Lieb, The Pittsburgh Pirates, 202.

5 Ronald T. Waldo, The Battling Bucs of 1925 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Co., 2017), 133-140.

6 David Cicotello and Angelo J. Louisa, Forbes Field, (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Co., 2012), 130-131.

7 Martin, Barney Dreyfuss, 167.

8 Lieb, The Pittsburgh Pirates, 205.

9 Walter Johnson, “Club Spirit is Best in History,” Washington Times Herald, October 7, 1925: 1.

10 “Pirates Best Team Ever, Says Clarke,” The Sporting News, October 8. 1925: 1.

11 Edward F. Balinger, “Baseball Moguls Here for Opening of Fall Classic,” Pittsburgh Post, October 6, 1925: 13.

12 Waldo, The Battling Bucs of 1925, 151.

13 “Drizzle for Opener of Series,” Pittsburgh Post, October 7, 1925: 1.

14 Billy Evans, “Billy Evans Says Johnson Pitched Beautiful Game,“ Washington Daily News, October 8, 1925: 16.

15Johnny Rawlings, “‘You Can’t Win ’Em on Five Hits in Fight Like That,’” Muses Johnny Rawlings,” Pittsburgh Post, October 8, 1925: 11.

16Associated Press, “Famous Pitcher, Hero of Many World Series, Passes Away Suddenly,” Pittsburgh Post, October 8, 1925: 1.

17 Associated Press, “McGraw Stunned by Matty’s Death, Lauds Ex-Pitcher,” Pittsburgh Post, October 8, 1925: 12.