September 24, 1897: Boston rooters flock to Baltimore to see crucial pennant race victory

Several hundred loyal Boston rooters blew their tin horns, banged their noisemakers, and cheered themselves hoarse against the roar of 12,000 Oriole fans. They had followed their team to the showdown series of the 1897 pennant race and had come prepared for a party unlike any other. The trip seemed such a unique and spectacular thing that Boston’s competing newspapers vied to shower the travelers with trinkets like special medals and documented their movements with columns of newsprint.1

Two series remained in the season but these three games between the two contenders would surely decide who took the flag. The teams had stalked each other throughout the spring and summer and now fall had arrived with scarcely a hair’s breadth separating them. On the morning of Friday, September 24, the defending champion Baltimore club had a winning percentage of .707, .001 better than the trailing Beaneaters. The Orioles had taken three straight pennants but had never been in a fight like this and the often ambivalent Baltimoreans had rallied to the cause and shown up in droves.

Hundreds of fans had lined up to buy tickets to the first game at 75 cents per reserved seat. Precautions such as limiting purchases to two seats at a time unless the patron was known to team management were taken to discourage scalpers. Yet so great was the demand that all manner of tricks were used to get around those very precautions. The age-old dodge of finding small boys to wait in line was applied and men were desperate enough to try disguising themselves by switching coats and hats. Baseball fever was raging and even a heavy downpour on the 23rd could not dampen the fans’ spirits.2

Game day dawned fair and clear and soon Oriole Park was filled as the swelling crowed spilled over the stands and onto the field, necessitating special ground rules for balls hit into the throng.3  Then disaster struck the Beaneaters as the teams warmed up. Nineteenth-century infields were a far cry from the pristine diamonds of the future and a grounder hit a rock and struck Boston’s Jimmy Collins over his left eye.4 The blow opened up a cut that quickly swelled and impaired his vision. Faced with the loss of his star third baseman, manager Frank Selee sent a boy to a nearby druggist for leeches that drained the wound and left Collins able to see and play.5

Boston’s Kid Nichols and his 29-11 record faced Oriole Joe Corbett, who had posted a 24-6 mark, but Baltimore initially appeared to have the future Hall of Famer on the mound. Orioles third sacker John McGraw led off for the home nine and drew a walk on five pitches. Willie Keeler fouled out to Collins at third but McGraw stole second and scored on Hughie Jennings’s single to left. Joe Kelley belted a ball over Hugh Duffy’s head in center and Jennings scored. Four batters in and it was already 2-0. But Nichols stemmed the tide by getting Jake Stenzel to foul out and striking out Jack Doyle. Baltimore had missed a chance to score more runs and that theme continued throughout the day.

McGraw singled to lead off the third and Keeler bunted him over, but was thrown out at first on a fine play by Collins. The runner was stranded as neither Jennings nor Kelley could bring him in. Stenzel opened the fourth with a liner to center that Billy Hamilton tried for and missed as the ball shot through his legs, and the Orioles center fielder motored in to third. But when the runner broke for home on Doyle’s slow roller, Collins gunned him down at the plate. Doyle took off for second and Marty Bergen nailed him stealing, and another threat had passed.

Meanwhile Corbett had retired the first 10 Boston hitters. Fred Tenney was number 11 and he walked after taking a pair of strikes. Bobby Lowe then doubled to center for the Beaneaters’ first hit and Doyle muffed Chick Stahl’s grounder, allowing the run to score. Corbett managed to escape further damage, but the magic of the first three innings was gone. Like a skilled boxer, Boston began to jab away, scoring enough to control the game but never delivering a knockout blow.

The visitors tied the game in the fifth when Herman Long singled and Bergen doubled him home. Nichols failed to get down a bunt and Corbett rallied to fan Hamilton. The Baltimore pitcher had a chance to wriggle off the hook but he walked Tenney again and, after getting two strikes on Lowe, he crossed up catcher Wilbert Robinson and the Beaneaters second baseman placed the ball along the right-field line to make it 3-2.6

By this time Nichols had settled in and easily retired the Orioles in the fifth and sixth innings. The jubilant Boston fans produced ditties like the popular “Hit her up, hit her up, hit her up again! B-o-s-t-o-n!” which was repeated incessantly.7 The Beaneaters hurler helped his own cause by singling to lead off the seventh and benefited from sloppy Orioles fielding when Corbett threw Hamilton’s grounder into the crowd and then compounded the error with a wild pitch. Nichols scored and Hamilton took third and then scored on Tenney’s safe bunt. Corbett survived the inning but was replaced by Arlie Pond, who would give up another run but finish the game.

Baltimore bats finally came alive in the bottom of the eighth. Hamilton muffed Pond’s liner and McGraw walked, but Keeler swung at a 3-and-0 pitch and popped to second.8 Jennings then hit a sharp grounder but luck frowned on the Orioles as it hit Pond, who was called out. Nichols pitched carefully to Kelley and walked him, loading the bases for Stenzel. The Baltimore center fielder already had a triple and he rocketed a ball that seemed destined for left-center field and a sure two runs until Long made a leaping grab to end the inning. The Boston rooters howled in delight and showered the shortstop with silver coins as he returned to the bench.9

Boston stranded a pair of runners in the top of the ninth and took a 6-2 lead into the bottom of the frame when the Orioles made one last charge in the gathering twilight. Doyle led off with a single and went to third when Heinie Reitz matched him. Robinson hit another to drive in a run and Joe Quinn batted for the pitcher. Nichols got him to fly to center to briefly quiet the crowd. Up stepped John McGraw. The Baltimore third baseman already had a hit and a pair of walks, and had stolen two bases. Now he slashed another single and Reitz trotted home to cut the lead to 6-4.

It was loud in Oriole Park and the fans roared as Keeler came to the plate. A man who would hit .424 could not have too many bad days but this was one of Wee Willie’s. He had popped to Collins in the first, been thrown out by the Boston third sacker on a bunt attempt in the third and hit another popup in the eighth. Even his leadoff base hit in the sixth was spoiled when he was caught stealing second by Bergen. Now he stood in as the winning run in the heat of the pennant race against a laboring Nichols. The Boston hurler wound up and released a curve which the impatient Keeler swung at and lined toward short. Long took in the ball and continued on to second to step on the base and double off Robinson for the final out as the stunned home fans fell silent.

The 6-4 decision flipped the top spots in the standings and left the Beaneaters with a .007 lead. They had outplayed the defending champions by stellar fielding and timely hitting, and now needed only to split the remaining two contests to be in the driver’s seat for the pennant. The Boston rooters were anything but subdued as they marched back to their rooms at the Eutaw Hotel. The Baltimore Sun huffed, “Several hundred Boston ‘rooters’ were in attendance, and were hilarious at the result of the game, but it will be well for them to remember that ‘he who laughs last laughs best.’”10 At least for one night, it was the Beaneaters doing the laughing.

Notes

1 Bill Felber, A Game of Brawl (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2007), 222-223.

2 “They Are Ready for It,” Boston Globe, September 24, 1897: 2.

3 “On the Baseball Field,” New York Times, September 25, 1897: 4.

4 “Boston Now Leads the Race,” Boston Journal, September 25, 1897: 1.

5 Felber, 225.

6 “Outplayed by Boston,” Baltimore Sun, September 25, 1897: 6.

7 “Boston Now Leads the Race.”

8 “On the Baseball Field.”

9 Felber, 228.

10 “The Ball Field,” Baltimore Sun, September 25, 1897: 4.