1917 Red Sox: ‘An Off-Year’

The Red Sox were coming off back-to-back World Championships in 1915 and 1916. From 1910 through 1916, the American League pennant had either been won by Philadelphia or Boston. No one else.

Early in January 1917, and after several entreaties that he stay, manager Bill Carrigan reaffirmed his earlier announcement that he would not be back as manager of the Red Sox. President Harry Frazee, who’d purchased the team right after the 1916 World Series, had earlier traveled to Lewiston, Maine to try and sign the popular Carrigan for another season, but it was not to be. Tim Murnane of the Boston Globe noted that second baseman Jack Barry and right fielder Harry Hooper had been mentioned as possible skippers, but added that Frazee probably hadn’t given the matter much thought, so determined was he to re-sign Carrigan.

Renowned sportswriter Grantland Rice said Boston would be “as hard to beat in 1917 as they were in 1915 and 1916.” He foresaw another Giants/Red Sox World Series, reprising their classic from 1912.

On January 4, though, Carrigan definitively declared he would remain in Maine and not return to skipper the Sox.

Frazee was ready with a replacement and on January 5, he named Jack Barry to manage, and continue as the team’s second baseman. Barry accepted the job, saying, “I know that no cleaner living, more loyal fellows ever put on spikes and I am sure I will have hearty support from every man on the Red Sox team.” Murnane predicted that the White Sox could give Boston a run for its money. The Red Sox, though, planned to bring back pretty much the same team that had done so well the previous two years – and that was a good thing.

Pitcher Smoky Joe Wood wouldn’t be back, though. On February 24, Frazee sold him to Cleveland for $15,000. There was some wrangling over pay between Frazee and some of the players. Though Dave Fultz was trying to organize the Players’ Fraternity – an early attempt at what might be called unionization – Frazee succeeded in signing most of the players in early February. Carl Mays balked at signing and was informed that he could pay his own way to spring training if he had not signed before the time to report.

Anticipating U. S. entry into the World War, Frazee said he would have his players drill for a full hour each day, starting in spring training. On March 3, the Red Sox party left Boston for Hot Springs, Arkansas, departing from Track 13. On March 6, the players had a light workout and took a hike over a mountain trail. Some of the holdouts came into camp one at a time over the next week or two. On May 18, the Sox played their first opponent, the Brooklyn Robins, losing 7-2. The team got in their games, despite a few rainouts, and closed out March with a beauty, keyed by Jack Barry pulling a squeeze play to beat Brooklyn. The exhibition schedule brought the Red Sox north through Davenport, Indianapolis, Toledo, and other cities, arriving in New York on April 9, ready to play the Yankees on Opening Day.

The season began with Babe Ruth pitching Boston to a 10-3 win over New York. Dutch Leonard beat the Yankees, 6-1, the following afternoon. After playing their first seven games on the road, the Red Sox came home for Opening Day with a 5-2 record. They beat the Yankees 6-4 in the Fenway Park opener but lost the next two, one of them a 2-1 loss in a no-hitter thrown by George Mogridge. Nonetheless, when Babe Ruth won his fifth start in a row on April 30, they closed out the month sporting a 9-4 record. They were in first place, a half-game ahead of the White Sox.

Ruth ran his record to 7-0 with a two-hit 1-0 shutout against Washington and Walter Johnson on May 7 and a 2-1 win over Detroit on May 11. The Red Sox lost consecutive games to the White Sox on May 18 and 19, and actually dropped to third in the standings, percentage points behind the Yankees and White Sox. A 2-1 win by Carl Mays the next day put the Red Sox back in first, but Jack Barry suffered a serious knee injury during the game.

The Red Sox continued to play well, sweeping the Senators in back-to-back doubleheaders on May 29 and 30. They ended the month in first place, a game and a half ahead of the White Sox, with a record of 27-10. At this point the Red Sox had won 10 games in a row (there was one tie game in the midst of the stretch) and were, in the words of a Globe headline, “not stopping to tie their shoelaces.”

Oops. On June 1, the Indians shut them out, on only one hit – the first time the Sox had been shutout in 1917. Then Cleveland shut them out again the next day. The Red Sox hit a stretch where they were shut out four more times and lost seven out of eight games, dropping to second place, a full 3 1/2 games behind Chicago. The bats had gone quiet, hitting below .200 as a team during most of the first half of June. On the year, they were hitting .236 as of Bunker Hill Day.

They took two from Chicago on June 18th to close the gap. Two days later, Babe Ruth won his 12th game of the year. In his next start, against the Senators, Ruth walked the first batter of the game on four pitches but disagreed with umpire Owens about two of the calls. Ruth punched the umpire and was thrown out of the game, dragged off the field by a few policemen; Ernie Shore came in and retired 27 consecutive men – the first one being the runner on first who was cut down trying to steal second. Retiring 27 in a row is a perfect game, regardless of how Major League Baseball might choose to define it. When June ended, the Red Sox remained in second, 1 1/2 games behind Chicago.

After winning the final five games of three back-to-back-to-back doubleheaders from the visiting Athletics, Boston was a half-game out of first, briefly taking first place on July 7. They then balanced the scales by dropping five of their next six. Visiting Chicago was a disaster. Boston won one, tied a game that ran 15 innings, but lost four, and left Comiskey Park for home with their tails between their legs, 4 1/2 games behind the White Sox as of July 23.

Back in Boston, the Red Sox reeled off seven wins in a row, the last two against the visiting White Sox and worked their way into a tie atop the standings as of July 31. It was too good to last; they dropped the next two games to Chicago. Things went wrong. Rube Foster threw a one-hitter against the Indians, and lost 2-0. The following day, the Sox made five errors and lost that one, too. The two Sox teams kept pace with each other. August 17 saw the Red Sox up by percentage points over the White Sox, but the Chicagoans picked up the pace and won 13 of 15; by month’s end, they had restored their 4 1/2 game lead.

The White Sox didn’t cool down; they kicked off September taking 12 of their first 14 games. That 25-4 run was a torrid pace that the Red Sox couldn’t match. By September 10, Boston was seven games behind. By the 20th, they were 9 1/2 games out. The very next day, September 21, Chicago took a 2-1 game from the Red Sox after 10 innings at Fenway, clinching the 1917 pennant. The Red Sox would not repeat as World Champions.

Frazee sent a telegram of congratulations to Chicago’s Comiskey. Several days later, he declined to play the Braves in a postseason exhibition City Series, saying that the fans just weren’t interested. That was an understatement. On September 28, the Boston Globe reported that only 356 fans came out to watch the Red Sox drop a game to the St. Louis Browns. Boston finished the season with a very good 90-62 record, but were nine games behind the White Sox. Red Sox pitchers allowed the fewest runs of any team in the league, but Chicago batters scored the most runs of any team. The White Sox won the World Series, defeating the New York Giants in six games.

On November 1, Jack Barry reported for duty in the Navy, as did Duffy Lewis, Ernie Shore, Chick Shorten, and Mike McNally. The war in Europe was on in earnest and would greatly impact the coming 1918 season. Hal Janvrin enlisted in the Signal Corps on December 1. More than 50 major league ballplayers had enlisted in military service, and 11 of those were from the Red Sox – clearly the team most affected. In the Navy were: Lore Bader, Jack Barry, Del Gainer, Duffy Lewis, Mike McNally, Herb Pennock, Ernie Shore, and Chick Shorten. Jack Bentley, Jim Cooney, and Hal Janvrin were serving elsewhere. Sam Jones had been accepted for service and awaiting orders, and Dick Hoblitzell was working to get into the Dental Reserve Corps. Another draft was expected to follow, which would scoop up more players. Harry Hooper, for one, was ready to go.

On at least two occasions, Harry Frazee denied he was planning to sell the team. On the contrary, he was hoping the war would be wrapped up by Opening Day and vowed to have a strong team when it did. On December 14, he pulled off a major trade with the Athletics, sending them Pinch Thomas, Vean Gregg, Manny Kopp, and a reported $60,000 in cash (yes, Frazee spent some serious bucks on at least one occasion), acquiring pitcher Bullet Joe Bush, catcher Wally Schang, and outfielder Amos Strunk. The Globe called it “one of the biggest baseball deals that has been pulled off in years.” The newspaper expected it would make the Red Sox a very strong contender in 1918. He hoped to have Jack Barry back as manager and to add Ed Barrow to his executive staff. As events transpired, the war would continue and contribute to a shortened season.

BILL NOWLIN is national Vice President of SABR and the author of nearly 20 Red Sox-related books. Bill is also co-founder of Rounder Records of Massachusetts. He’s traveled to more than 100 countries, but says there’s no place like Fenway Park.