October 9, 1911: Ben Houser has a one-of-a-kind game, hitting grand slam and sealing triple play

During the 1910 season, the American League champion Philadelphia Athletics relied on two natives of the City of Brotherly Love at first base: 15-year veteran Harry Davis, whose best days were behind him, and 26-year-old rookie Ben Houser. In addition to sharing a position and a hometown, Davis and Houser also had a common alma mater, after experiencing family tragedies early in their lives.

Both ballplayers lost their fathers while they were youngsters; Davis’s dying from typhoid when he was 5, and Houser’s killed by a falling tree before he was out of diapers. Their mothers each proved unable to cope with raising children alone. Davis’s overwhelmed mother sent him off to Girard Preparatory School, a Philadelphia boarding school for orphans and disadvantaged boys. A caring aunt did the same for Houser. The pair graduated from Girard nine years apart: Davis in 1891 and Houser in 1900.1

Houser, who did not appear in the A’s 1910 World Series triumph over the Chicago Cubs, saw his prospects brighten soon after, amid speculation that Davis – Philadelphia’s starting first baseman since the club’s AL debut in 1901 – might leave the A’s to manage the St. Louis Browns.2 Houser seemed destined to become the A’s everyday first baseman in 1911 alongside second baseman Eddie Collins, shortstop Jack Barry, and third baseman Home Run Baker. But during spring training, it became clear that a rejuvenated Davis wasn’t leaving for greener pastures. On the cusp of Opening Day, A’s manager and principal owner Connie Mack surprisingly asked for waivers on Houser.3

In forsaking Houser, Mack felt he was doing him a favor. “Captain Davis is surely good for several more years and says he wants to stay with us,” the Tall Tactician said. “That means that if I keep Houser, he would have to sit on the bench practically all the time. If he were a kid under 20 years of age, I would keep him. But Ben wants to play regularly and I will try to get him with a club where he can do that.”4

Mack unsuccessfully offered Houser and two unnamed others to the Washington Senators in exchange for their young 25-game winner, Walter Johnson,5 then sold Houser’s contract to the Indianapolis Indians of the American Association. The amount paid for Houser was undisclosed, but the Indianapolis News wrote that it was the highest for any big leaguer that year.6

In mid-June Mack changed course and replaced Davis, who was barely hitting over .200, with 20-year-old Stuffy McInnis, hitting over .430 filling in for Barry at shortstop. A month later, McInnis, Collins, Barry, and Baker were being called the A’s “$100,000 infield,” and Philadelphia was on its way to three more pennants and two more World Series championships in the next four years.7

While Mack’s infield was approaching celebrity status, Houser became the Indians’ regular first baseman and cleanup hitter. On September 1 the Boston Rustlers acquired him in the Rule 5 draft. The Indianapolis Star called Houser, the top hitting first baseman in the American Association,8 the prize of the draft, but labeled the jump from Indianapolis to lowly Boston “not much of an advancement.”9 The Boston press gave little indication that they believed Houser would change the docile leanings of the team formerly known as the Doves. Only the Fall River Evening News reported his selection.10

On September 17, player-manager Fred Tenney installed the left-handed-hitting Houser at first in place of an injured Hank Gowdy, then platooned the pair thereafter.11 Beantown cranks, though, wouldn’t get the chance to see Houser for themselves. The Rustlers were finishing their season with a 24-game road trip that began the day of his debut.12

Entering the final day of the season, Monday, October 9, Houser was hitting .210 for the last-place Rustlers (42-107), with one extra-base hit in 70 plate appearances.13 Philadelphia fans entering Baker Bowl that day were treated to a doubleheader not on the original schedule, with the teams moving up a game scheduled for the coming Thursday to add to one already planned for Monday. The crowd had a reason to be hopeful as the fourth-place Phillies had run roughshod over the Rustlers all season, winning 16 of 18 until Boston swept them in an October 4 twin bill.

Phillies manager Red Dooin sent rookie spitballer Toots Shultz to the mound under clear skies with temperatures in the upper 60s. One day shy of his 23rd birthday, Shultz was making his third start of the season, and second after a 4½-month demotion to the Buffalo Bisons. His 0-2 record and 6.68 ERA with Philadelphia suggested that a bumpy ride lay ahead.

It didn’t take long for the Rustlers to steal the lead, courtesy of the heretofore light-hitting Houser. In the top of the first, with the bases loaded and two out, Houser, who’d been warmly greeted by his fellow Philadelphians days earlier,14 connected for his first major-league home run, a grand slam.15

The beneficiary of Houser’s blast was Boston starting pitcher Orlie “Buck” Weaver. Not to be confused with Buck Weaver of future Chicago Black Sox infamy, Orlie had been obtained from the Windy City’s other team, the Cubs, in an eight-player June trade. With a record of 4-14, he was making his first start since August 30; his last seven appearances had all been in relief.

Weaver surrendered an unearned run in the bottom of the first on a pair of Boston errors and a run-scoring fly out by Phillies slugging first baseman Fred Luderus. Boston took back that run in the second inning on a single by Bill Rariden, a passed ball, and a double by ballplayer-turned-actor Turkey Mike Donlin to take a 5-1 lead.

Dooin sent up a pinch-hitter for Shultz in the second and brought in former Rustler Cliff Curtis to pitch.16 After Curtis held Boston scoreless in the top of the third, Luderus clubbed a three-run home run over the right-field fence to pull Philadelphia within a single run. Silent John Titus followed with a one-out single but was erased on a “fast double play.”17

The Phillies threatened again in the fourth. After leadoff batter John Quinn reached on an error by second baseman Bill Sweeney, he took second on Curtis’s single. With the count full to leadoff batter Otto Knabe, Dooin put both runners in motion. Knabe hit Weaver’s offering on the nose, but right at rookie shortstop Scotty Ingerton. Ingerton doubled up Quinn on a throw to Sweeney, who then relayed to Houser in time to punch out Curtis and end the inning.18

The triple play was the first turned by the Boston NL franchise since July 7, 1905, when Tenney made the second putout of a 5-2-3-2 triple play against the Cincinnati Reds. The last triple play at the Baker Bowl had also been turned by a visiting nine, the Brooklyn Superbas, on a ball hit by Dooin in 1909.19

Energized by the dramatic end to the Phillies’ nascent rally, Boston scored four in the fifth inning on doubles by Ingerton, Rariden, Sweeney, and Donlin, “sandwiched in” with walks to rookies Ed McDonald and Jay Kirke.20

With Boston up 9-4, Weaver put up goose eggs through the middle innings. The Boston lead grew another two runs in the eighth on singles from Ingerton, Houser, and Sweeney, and a wild pitch from the Phillies’ third pitcher of the game, Buck Stanley. Subbed for Curtis after the disastrous fifth, Stanley was making his fourth and final major-league appearance.

Philadelphia managed a meaningless run in the bottom of the ninth, making the final score 11-5. Houser came away with the first four-hit game of his career, and Weaver with his first victory in three months.21

Boston rustled up another victory over the Phillies in the nightcap, scoring in double figures in back-to-back games for the first time all year. Houser was a quiet 1-for-4.

Newspaper summaries of game one highlighted the Rustlers’ triple play but reported Houser’s slam unevenly. The Boston Journal wrote that only two were on base when he homered, while the Boston Herald made no mention of baserunners.22

The rarity of Houser both hitting a grand slam and participating in a triple play was lost on all who wrote about the game. Through 2022 he is the only major leaguer in the modern era to hit a grand slam and record a putout or assist in a triple play in the same game. Seven other teams have both turned a triple play and recorded a grand slam in the same game, but not once did another grand slammer participate in a triple play.23

October 9 proved to be last day for the Rustlers name as well as their season. After finishing with a winning percentage lower than that of any NL team since the dreadful 1899 Cleveland Spiders, the franchise was sold to Tammany Hall chieftain James Gaffney and renamed the Braves.

Houser finally became an everyday major-league first baseman in 1912. Two years later, the Miracle Braves shocked the baseball world by defeating the A’s in the World Series, but without Houser. By then he was at the tail end of an alliterative odyssey that took him from Boston to Baltimore, Buffalo, and then Class B Binghamton.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Joseph Wancho and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Ralph Berger’s SABR biography of Ben Houser, Mike Grahek’s SABR bio of Harry Davis, Mark S. Sternman’s SABR biography of Fred Tenney and game summaries reported in the Boston Herald, Boston Globe, Boston Journal, Philadelphia Inquirer, and Washington Evening Star. Baseball-Reference.com, Retrosheet.org, and statscrew.com also provided pertinent material, as did the box scores noted here:

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/PHI/PHI191110091.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1911/B10091PHI1911.htm

Notes

1 Also known as Girard College, the school produced several future major leaguers before Davis and Houser, most notably nineteenth-century Athletics stalwarts Lon Knight and Jocko Milligan.

2 “Ben Houser, Former Eastern Leaguer, Who May Succeed Davis,” Newark Evening Star, November 2, 1910: 12.

3 “Athletics Drop Recruits,” Chicago Examiner, April 9, 1911: 22.

4 “Mack to Take Care of Smiling Ben Houser,” Scranton Tribune-Republican, April 11, 1911: 11. A few months earlier, Mack was first described in the press as the “tall tactician of the diamond,” a term that once shortened and capitalized came to be his moniker. “Connie Mack Coming Home,” Dayton (Ohio) Herald, January 20, 1911: 21.

5 “Sporting Notes,” Pittston (Pennsylvania) Gazette, April 10, 1911: 12.

6 “Ben Houser, Athletic Star, to Join Indians,” Indianapolis News, April 19, 1911: 12.

7 “Drinks Coca Cola,” Fitchburg (Massachusetts) Sentinel, July 10, 1911: 5.

8 “Baseball Bits,” Fall River (Massachusetts) Globe, September 18, 1911: 3.

9 “Pick Four Players in Baseball Grab,” Indianapolis Star, September 2, 1911: 9. Many Indianapolis fans were hoping Houser would make an impact similar to what the prize of the 1910 Rule 5 draft was making. One-time Indianapolis Indians hurler Grover Cleveland Alexander, assigned to the Philadelphia Phillies from the Syracuse Stars in that draft, and was on his way to an NL-leading 28 wins when the 1911 draft was held. St. Paul (Nebraska) Howard County Herald, September 8, 1910: 1.

10 “Walsh Drafted by the Cubs,” Fall River (Massachusetts) Evening News, September 2, 1911: 3.

11 “Baseball Bits.” The 39-year-old skipper, one of the AL’s top fielding first basemen in his heyday, had been the Rustlers’ only first baseman through the third week in July, but with his team firmly cemented into last place, recognized it was time to see what his newer/younger players could do.

12 The grueling road trip consisted of eight series against seven opponents in six cities, with two stops in Philadelphia.

13 One of Houser’s plate appearances came in Cy Young’s final game, a loss to Brooklyn in the first game of an October 6 doubleheader at Washington Park in Brooklyn.

14 “Rustlers Win Twice,” Boston Globe, October 5, 1911: 7.

15 “End Season in a Riot of Batting,” Boston Globe, October 10, 1911: 7.

16 Curtis began the season with Boston, went to the Cubs in the June eight-player deal that brought Weaver to the Rustlers, then in mid-August was acquired by Philadelphia. In that June deal, Chicago sent Weaver, catcher Johnny Kling, pitcher Hank Griffin, and outfielder Al Kaiser to the Rustlers for Curtis, outfielder Bill Collins, pitcher-turned-outfielder Wilbur Good, and catcher Peaches Graham.

17 “Heps Defeat Quakers Twice,” Boston Herald, October 10, 1911: 4.

18 “Heps Defeat Quakers Twice.”

19 “SABR Triple Plays database,” https://sabr.org/tripleplays, accessed June 10, 2023.

20 By walking, Kirke had reached base in 18 of the 19 games he’d played with Boston. A hard hitter throughout a career that spanned four decades, Kirke had, like Houser, come to Boston in the September 1911 Rule 5 draft; from the Southern Association champion New Orleans Pelicans.

21 The win proved to be the last of Weaver’s brief major-league career. He never played another game as a major leaguer.

22 “Triple Play Features the Boston Nationals’ Victory,” Boston Journal, October 10, 1911: 8; “Heps Defeat Quakers Twice.”

23 Based on the author’s review of box scores for every game in which a triple play was recorded between 1901 and 2022, as listed in the SABR Triple Play database. The seven instances identified by the author since 1901 include Game Five of the 1920 World Series when the Cleveland Indians’ Elmer Smith hit a grand slam and second baseman Bill Wambsgnass pulled off an unassisted triple play; the New York Giants on September 6, 1924, when shortstop Travis Jackson hit his second grand slam in two days and the Giants executed a game-ending 4-4-3 triple play to win a 16-14 barn-burner over the Philadelphia Phillies; the Philadelphia Athletics on May 8, 1948, when pitcher Carl Scheib hit a grand slam for his first major-league home run and the A’s pulled off a 4-6-3 triple play in a 16-1 demolition of the Chicago White Sox; the Toronto Blue Jays on September 7, 1979, when designated hitter Rico Carty’s grand slam and the Jays’ around-the-horn, 5-4-3 triple play were overshadowed by the Cleveland Indians’ ninth-inning comeback from a five-run deficit; the New York Mets on May 17, 2002, when catcher Mike Piazza hit the 13th grand slam of his career two innings after a Mets 5-4-3 triple play; the Detroit Tigers on September 8, 2017, when right fielder Nick Castellanos broke a scoreless tie with his grand slam three innings before the Tigers turned a 5-4-3 triple play; and the Chicago White Sox on May 22, 2019, when right fielder Charlie Tilson hit a slam for his only major-league home run three innings after the White Sox turned a 5-4-3 triple play. “SABR Triple Plays database.”