One reason for that reluctance was the sullied reputation of the team’s then-owner, Harry Frazee – the man who sold Boston’s beloved superstar, Babe Ruth, to the New York Yankees. Then there were the four World Series losses – 1946, 1967, 1975, and 1986 – each loss coming in the seventh and final game, reinforcing the image of the Red Sox as a team unable to win when it truly counted.

Over the last decade, the national sports media became obsessed with the idea that this chronic futility was caused by a beyond-the-grave curse. Indeed, media often reported with a straight face that the Boston franchise was cursed. The very year “1918” became a taunt at Yankee Stadium.

Taken together, one can well understand why many Red Sox fans wanted to forget the year 1918 altogether.

But winning a World Series championship is nothing to be ashamed of, and nothing to be brushed under history’s rug. 1918 was a fascinating season – not only for the Red Sox, but for major league baseball in general.

The United States had entered Europe’s Great War in April 1917, but few players enlisted that summer and the war had very little direct impact on the national sport. During the winter of 1917-18, however, dozens of major league players left their teams. They either enlisted in the military or accepted jobs in war-related industries, such as shipyards or munitions factories.

Some of the players the Red Sox lost were: manager/second baseman Jack Barry, left fielder Duffy Lewis (who led the team in batting and slugging in 1917), pitcher Ernie Shore, and utility infielders Hal Janvrin, Mike McNally, Del Gainer, and Chick Shorten.

As 1918’s spring training loomed, most owners bided their time, deciding to wait until the beginning of the season was closer and their needs became more certain. The one owner who was the most pro-active, who took the biggest and quickest steps to rebuild his team’s roster, was Red Sox president Harry Frazee. In December 1917 and January 1918, Frazee made two headline-grabbing deals with Connie Mack of the Philadelphia Athletics, sending a handful of players and the sizeable sum of $60,000 to Mack for pitcher Joe Bush, catcher Wally Schang, infielder Stuffy McInnis, and outfielder Amos Strunk.

In the wake of this wheeling-and-dealing, a January editorial in the New York Times expressed disgust at the “disorganizing effect” that Frazee and Chicago Cubs president Charlie Weeghman were having on the national game by “offering all sorts of money for star ballplayers”. (Weeghman had spent a small fortune to acquire the superb battery of pitcher Grover Alexander and catcher Bill Killefer from the Philadelphia Phillies.) The Times wrote: “The club owners are not content to wait for a few seasons while their managers develop a pennant winner, but have undertaken to accomplish in one year what other clubs have waited years to achieve.”

In other words, the Times was accusing Harry Frazee of trying to buy the American League pennant.

This view of Frazee as a free-spending, win-at-all-costs magnate clashes with his modern-day image. If baseball fans know Frazee’s name at all, it’s because he was the man responsible for selling Babe Ruth to the Yankees after the 1919 season. But in 1918, Frazee was intent on bringing another World Series title to Boston. The Red Sox won the championship in 1912, their first year at Fenway Park, then won back-to-back titles in 1915 and 1916. (The cross-town Boston Braves had swept the 1914 series.) After a second-place showing in 1917 – Boston won 90 games, but finished 10 games behind the eventual World Series champion Chicago White Sox – Frazee was determined to put the Red Sox back on top.

Boston was also fortunate in that most of its war-related personnel losses came well before spring training. Many other clubs started 1918 strong, but saw their lineups decimated as the summer went on.

In addition to the two deals with the Athletics, Frazee hired former International League president Ed Barrow to manage the team. Barrow had previously managed the Detroit Tigers in 1903 and part of 1904 (for a combined record of 97-117). Next, Frazee signed George Whiteman, a 35-year-old outfielder, to replace Lewis. Whiteman was a career minor-leaguer, though he did have cups of coffee with both the Red Sox (1907) and Yankees (1913). And a few weeks before Opening Day, Frazee traded for Cincinnati’s 34-year-old second baseman Dave Shean. Whiteman and Shean were both out of the draft’s age range (21-31).

Of the eight regulars in Boston’s Opening Day lineup, only two were holdovers from the previous year: right fielder Harry Hooper and shortstop Everett Scott.

The great Red Sox teams of the 1910s were built around excellent pitching and air-tight fielding. The team’s offense had been below league average in 1916 and 1917 (and would be again in 1918), so it was fortunate that the 1918 pitching staff remained largely intact. Anchoring the rotation were Babe Ruth and Carl Mays, a left-right tandem that had combined for 41 wins in 1916 and 46 wins in 1917. Dutch Leonard was another lefty and newcomer Joe Bush would take Shore’s spot as the fourth starter. After Leonard took a shipyard job in mid-season, right-hander Sam Jones took over. Those five pitchers – Mays, Ruth, Bush, Leonard, and Jones – would start all but six of Boston’s 126 games.

The roster upheaval caused by the war also gave plenty of marginal players the opportunity, however brief, to play in the major leagues. In Boston, a handful of players counted their time with the 1918 Red Sox as their only big league experience: Eusebio Gonzalez (seven plate appearances over three games) Red Bluhm (one at-bat as a pinch-hitter), George Cochran (.117 average), and Jack Stansbury (who slugged .149 in 20 games).

In 1918, a summer-long soap opera played out over whether the remaining players would receive a blanket exemption from the draft, as other entertainers such as stage actors enjoyed. At first, the National Commission – the sport’s ruling body, comprised of American League president Ban Johnson, National League president John Tener, and Cincinnati Reds owner August Herrmann – simply assumed that an exemption would be granted. When baseball was deemed “not essential”, the Commission scrambled to file requests for extensions, desperately hoping to finish the regular season.

The Commission bumbled its way through the summer, insisting to sportswriters that it would be happy to cancel the season because winning the war was the highest priority, then begging the War Department for a further extension, so owners wouldn’t lose as much money. The government finally set September 1, 1918 as the absolute deadline. The owners decided against continuing the season past that point with players either under or over draft age.

Not only did the regular season come to an early close, the World Series almost did, too. The 1918 World Series, played in early September, was nearly derailed by a furious off-field battle between the Red Sox and Chicago Cubs players, on one side, and the National Commission on the other, over what percentage of the gate receipts would be awarded to the winners and losers of the series.

In the three previous years, 1915-17, the shares were almost $4,000 for each player on the winning team and $2,500 for each player on the losing side. In some cases, those amounts were as much as a player’s annual salary.

Ticket prices for the 1918 World Series were reduced with the hope of boosting attendance. In 1917, box seats were $5.00, grandstand seats were $3.00, pavilions were $2.00, and bleachers were $1.00. For the 1918 series, box seats were reduced to $3.00 and the other ticket prices were cut in half.

The plan did not work. The crowds for the first three games at Comiskey Park were 19,274, 20,040 and 27,054 (the third game was on a Saturday afternoon thanks only to the rainout of Game One). The first two games of the 1917 World Series, also played at Comiskey, drew over 32,000 each.

The National Commission had also decided, for the first time, that players on the second-, third- and fourth-place teams in each league would get a cut of the World Series dough. The Commission also “volunteered” to donate some of the players’ shares to charity – without consulting the players. The players learned about all of this as the Series began. It looked like the shares could be cut by as much as 75%.

The Commission refused to meet with the players. The two teams, led by Red Sox captain Harry Hooper, decided to not take the field at Fenway Park for Game Five until the matter was resolved.

When Ban Johnson arrived at the park drunk, and with no intentions – or ability – to seriously discuss finances, and with nearly 25,000 fans waiting for the start of the game, the players reluctantly agreed to play that afternoon, and to finish the Series. A teary-eyed Johnson assured Hooper the players would not be punished for their one-hour delay of Game Five. One month later, Johnson broke his promise, as the Commission refused to award championship emblems, the equivalent of World Series rings, to the Red Sox. (The individual shares ended up being $1,100 for the Red Sox and $670 for the Cubs.)

1918 was also the summer that a young man from Baltimore, Maryland, began his unprecedented transition from ace pitcher to the greatest hitter in baseball history.

Babe Ruth had been one of baseball’s best pitchers in 1916 and 1917, but three weeks into the 1918 season, faced with a depleted roster, no reinforcements, and a need for more offense, Ed Barrow moved Ruth into the regular lineup, eventually playing him at first base and in left field.

Although Ruth’s potential as an everyday player had been an occasional topic in the sports pages since his rookie season of 1915, when he was actually out there, there was plenty of debate. Would Ruth’s weaknesses at the plate be quickly discovered and exploited by opposing pitchers? Would he ruin his arm making long throws from the outfield? Could he play every day and continuing pitching?

On May 6, 1918, in a game against the Yankees at the Polo Grounds, Ruth debuted at first base and batted sixth. He went 2-for-4, including a two-run home run. The next day, in Washington, Ruth was moved up to the #4 spot in the lineup – and celebrated the promotion with another home run, off Senators ace Walter Johnson. In the final game of the Senators series, on May 9, Ruth lost a 10-inning complete game on the mound, but also went 5-for-5 with three doubles, a triple, and a single. (That is still the major league record for extra-base hits by a pitcher in an extra-inning game.)

Oddly enough, Boston lost their first six games with Ruth in the field and slipped out of first place. Melville Webb Jr. of the Boston Globe was not impressed: “Putting a pitcher in as an everyday man, no matter how he likes it or how he may hit, is not the sign of strength for a club that aspires to be a real contender.”

As Ruth’s hitting began drawing more attention, his desire to pitch dwindled. This didn’t sit well with Barrow, especially after Dutch Leonard’s departure left the team without a left-handed starter. Ruth insisted his left wrist was sore; he and Barrow argued throughout June. After a dugout confrontation in Washington on July 2, Ruth quit the team, fleeing to his father’s house in Baltimore. 

Babe considered joining a shipyard and playing for the company team, but quickly learned that the shipyard would also want him to pitch. He’d also be taking a huge cut in pay. Ruth returned to the Red Sox a couple of days later, patching up his differences with Barrow. As the Red Sox got hot in the month of July, Ruth turned in what was arguably the greatest nine- or ten-week stretch of play the game has ever seen.

In one 10-game period (July 6-22) during a Fenway homestand, Ruth batted .469 (15-for-32) with four singles, six doubles, and five triples. Although he did not hit any home runs in July or August, Ruth was feared as a batter all year long. He was walked intentionally in the first inning as often as he was in the ninth inning. In mid-June, the St. Louis Browns gave him a free pass in five consecutive plate appearances over two games. As far as can be determined, that remains a major league record (Barry Bonds was also walked intentionally five straight times on September 22-23, 2004).

After returning from his Fourth of July defection, Babe took his turn on the mound every fourth day and proved that he was still one of the game’s top pitchers. Ruth made 11 starts and won nine of them (all complete games), including the pennant-clincher against Philadelphia. In his last 10 starts of the season, he allowed more than two runs only once.

Of the many nicknames Ruth earned during his Red Sox career — the Big Fellow, Tarzan, the Caveman, the Colossus — one was particularly apt. As the Colossus of Rhodes was believed to have straddled the entrance to the harbor of ancient Greece, his New England namesake towered over the national sport in 1918, one huge foot planted on either side of baseball’s pitching and hitting camps.

Imagine Johan Santana playing first base or DH-ing in every game he didn’t pitch. Then imagine Santana remaining a dominant pitcher while putting up a batting line to rival Barry Bonds or Albert Pujols. That was Babe Ruth in 1918.

Ruth wasn’t the first major leaguer to pull double duty, but almost all of the players who pitched and played the field in the early 1900s either had very short careers or their performances were unexceptional.

In contrast, Babe led both leagues in slugging average by a wide margin in 1918 – his .555 topped Ty Cobb’s second place finish of .515 in the AL and Edd Roush’s NL-best .455. His 11 home runs were more than the totals of five other AL teams. Ruth finished second in doubles, third in RBI, fifth in triples, and eighth in walks — all accomplished in 100 to 175 fewer plate appearances than his American League peers.

Ruth’s 2.22 ERA was eighth best in the AL. He allowed an average of only 9.52 hits and walks per nine innings, second only to the Senators’ Walter Johnson. Ruth had the third lowest opponents’ on-base average and fourth lowest opponents’ batting average.

In the World Series, Ruth beat the Cubs in Games One and Four, setting a new World Series record of 29.2 consecutive scoreless innings, a streak he began in 1916. Ruth set many records during his career, but that accomplishment was the one of which he was most proud. It would stand until the Yankees’ Whitey Ford broke it in 1961.

When lists are made of baseball’s top dynasties, the Red Sox teams of the 1910s are rarely mentioned. While they are not in the upper echelon of the 1906-12 Chicago Cubs (713-356, .667) or the 1936-42 New York Yankees (701-371, .654), their seven-year winning percentage from 1912-18 (632-406, .609) is better than the seven-year run of the 1996-2002 Yankees (685-445, .606).

In this book, 28 members of the Society for American Baseball Research have compiled the most in-depth look at the 1918 Red Sox. They have unearthed a wealth of information – much of it never seen before – about every one of the 32 players who suited up that year, from Harry Hooper and Everett Scott, who played in all 126 games, to Red Bluhm, who had one pinch-hitting opportunity.

For Red Sox fans, the life-changing events of October 2004 should forever remove any stigma attached to the 1918 club. And for all baseball fans, it will be a chance to travel back to a time when the Boston Red Sox were the kings of the diamond.

This is not revisionist history. A number of writers who covered the Series nominated Whiteman at the time for the honor. The Washington Post, for instance, offered as the subhead for its story on the sixth game: “Whiteman Hero of Contest.” J. V. Fitz Gerald of the Post declared that Whiteman “won the 1918 world’s baseball championship for the Red Sox.”

Before the World Series, the up-and-down Mr. Whiteman had only 258 major league at-bats – 12 in 1907 with the Red Sox, 32 more in 1913 with the New York Yankees, and 214 in 1918, again with the Red Sox. But when it came to the Series against the Chicago Cubs, manager Ed Barrow had him start in left field and bat cleanup in all six games. “Whitey” hit .250 with five hits in 20 at-bats, and scored two runs — unimpressive totals by today’s standards, perhaps, but this wasn’t a World Series noted for offense. Of all the batters with at least 10 at-bats, Whiteman’s batting average, hits, and runs scored all tied for his team’s lead.

Although Whiteman was the lone member of the Red Sox team to commit an error in the World Series, it was an inconsequential one. He contributed a number of key defensive plays (such as banging into the left-field bleacher wall in Chicago and robbing Dode Paskert of a long extra-base hit in Game Three) that helped hold the Cubs to their grand total of 10 runs scored over six games. The Red Sox scored only nine runs – but the Red Sox prevailed.

One way or another, Whiteman was involved in the rallies that brought in eight of the Red Sox’s nine runs. It was his “sizzling line drive” in the third inning (dropped for an error by Cubs right fielder Max Flack) that drove in both of Boston’s two runs in the clinching Game Six.

Whiteman’s final moment of glory came on defense, in the top of the eighth, when he made – again according to the Post – “one of the most sensational catches ever seen on a ball field to take a sure triple and possible home run from Turner Barber.” Whiteman wrenched his neck with his somersaulting catch and had to leave the game, but he did so to “one of the greatest ovations that has ever been accorded a world’s series player. Whiteman is the hero of the 1918 championship struggles.”

Hugh Fullerton’s nationally syndicated column ran in the Atlanta Constitution under the headline “Whiteman, Once Adjudged Failure, Becomes Star.” He termed Whiteman “the active principal in all four of the Red Sox victories.”

One could also make an MVP case for pitchers Carl Mays and Babe Ruth. Mays pitched complete game victories in Games Three and Six. In 18 innings, Mays allowed only 10 hits and three walks. The Cubs scored one run in each of his two starts which, of course, gave him an earned run average of 1.00.

Like Mays, Ruth was 2-0 on the mound, though with a slightly higher ERA and – with seven walks – somewhat less dominant (he was lucky to have allowed only two runs). Ruth was the only player on the team to have more than one run batted in; his triple in Game Four drove in two. It was Ruth who took Whiteman’s place in left after Whitey had hurt his neck. Prior to that, the only games in which Ruth played were those in which he pitched. It was Whiteman who played in each and every game and seemed to be a central figure in most of the plays that mattered.

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.

Hugh Fullerton, a sportswriter for the New York Evening World, looked at the Cubs–Red Sox match-up using a personal statistical formula – “Position Strength” – which included “hitting, waiting out pitchers, long-distance hitting, getting hit by pitched ball, speed” and defense.

Fullerton calculated “each man’s value and then figure[d] how his values, both in attack and defense, will be affected by the opposing team.” Fullerton concluded that the margin was “too small to indicate any marked superiority for either team,” but in his final analysis, he believed the Cubs would prevail in six games.

Many other writers agreed, including Henry Edwards of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Thomas Rice of the Brooklyn Eagle, Bill Phelson of Baseball Magazine, and George S. Robbins of the Chicago Daily News. New York syndicated writer Joe Vila gave the Cubs an edge because of its left-handed pitchers and the “yowling, heartless rooters” at Comiskey Park. (Cubs owner Charles Weeghman had decided to use Comiskey Park, which had a greater seating capacity.)

However, Philadelphia Athletics manager Connie Mack thought the schedule (three games in Chicago and the remaining contests at Fenway Park) gave Boston an edge. Eddie Hurley of the Boston Evening Record said the Red Sox “are the better defensive club” but questioned whether the team could score enough runs to win. Burt Whitman of the Herald and Journal said Boston would win in six games: “On paper, the Cubs figure ‘to beat’ the Red Sox . . . [but] this series will not be played on a typewriter.”

The Cubs had finished the regular season with a better record than Boston (84-45 to 75-51) and a superior team batting average (.265 to .249), on-base percentage (.325 to .322), and slugging percentage (.342 to .327). The Cubs had also scored more runs (538 to 474).

Rookie shortstop Charlie Hollocher led the National League in hits (161) and total bases (202), was second in on-base percentage (.379), third in stolen bases (26), and fourth in runs scored (72) and batting average (.316). He was the only Chicago regular to hit over .300.

Les Mann, Chicago’s 24-year-old left fielder, hit .288 and reached personal bests in doubles, stolen bases and walks. Center fielder Dode Paskert, at age 37, had his best season since 1912, batting .286 and finishing with 125 runs produced (RBI + runs scored – HR), second behind George Burns of the Giants (127).

Chicago’s team ERA was lower than Boston’s (2.18 to 2.31), although the Red Sox led the majors with 26 shutouts (the Cubs had 23). Both teams had the lowest opponents’ batting average in their respective leagues, Boston at .231 and Chicago at .239.

Chicago would rely heavily on its top left-handed pitchers, Jim Vaughn and Lefty Tyler. The Red Sox were 11-18 in games started by lefties.

Vaughn led the National League in wins (22), shutouts (8), ERA (1.74), strikeouts (148), and lowest opponents’ batting average (.208) – the best season of his 10-year career. And while he had a hard fastball and good control, Vaughn also carried a reputation of buckling in important games.

The ERAs of the four Red Sox starters were all between 2.11 and 2.25. Joe Bush had the lowest ERA on the staff, but bad luck and poor run support left him with a 15-15 record. In the season’s last month, Bush had gone 1-6; four of those losses were by scores of 2-0, 1-0, 2-1, and 1-0.

In the 15 years since the National and American Leagues had begun playing a post-season series, a team from either Boston or Chicago had been involved 11 times, but never during the same year.

Thursday, September 5
Comiskey Park, Chicago
Game One: Red Sox 1, Cubs 0

Rain had pushed the start of the series ahead one day. The National Commission’s original schedule had included no weekend games, which puzzled the players on both teams, but now, thanks to the postponement, Game Three would be played on Saturday.

Early rumors were that either Carl Mays or Joe Bush would start for Boston, but manager Ed Barrow went with Ruth in the opener. This was Ruth’s second World Series start. In Game Two of the 1916 series, he beat Brooklyn 2-1, pitching all 14 innings (still the longest World Series game by innings).

Babe had been batting in the cleanup spot since early May, but for the World Series, Barrow put him back down at the bottom of the order.

Ruth got two quick outs in the bottom of the first, before Les Mann singled and stole second. Dode Paskert followed with a single and Fred Merkle walked. With the bases loaded, Ruth got Charlie Pick to fly out to George Whiteman in left-center field.

Whiteman opened the top of the second with a single and was bunted to second by Stuffy McInnis, but Everett Scott and Fred Thomas couldn’t advance him.

Ruth retired the bottom three of the Chicago order in the second and worked around a leadoff single in the third.

Vaughn had control problems early on, going to full counts on several Boston batters and allowing a hit in each of the first three innings. He began the fourth by walking Dave Shean. Amos Strunk attempted to sacrifice him to second, but popped up the first pitch to Vaughn.

Whiteman singled to left – Cubs shortstop Charlie Hollocher seemed out of position – and Shean moved up to second. With McInnis at the plate, Barrow called for a hit-and-run. Stuffy smacked Vaughn’s 1-0 pitch to left field. The ball rolled slowly on the soggy grass and Les Mann’s hurried throw to the plate was not in time.

With a 1-0 lead, Ruth settled into a rhythm, retiring the Cubs in order in the fourth and getting two quick outs in the fifth before hitting Max Flack with a pitch. Hollocher flew out to center to end that inning.

Paskert and Merkle both singled with one out in the bottom of the sixth, and Barrow told Sam Jones and Joe Bush to start loosening up. Charlie Pick moved the runners up to second and third with a ground ball to first base and when Ruth started Charlie Deal off with two balls, the Chicago crowd started to make some noise.

Ruth battled back and Deal fouled off three straight pitches before swinging at what was probably ball four and flying out to Whiteman in left center.

Both teams went down in order in the seventh and eighth innings. The Red Sox tried to get an insurance run in the ninth when Shean lead off with a walk. Strunk sacrificed him to second, but Whiteman struck out and after McInnis was intentionally walked, Everett Scott grounded back to the mound.

Ruth retired the first two batters in the bottom of the ninth – Merkle flew to left and pinch-hitter Bob O’Farrell popped to third – but Deal reached on an infield single. Bill McCabe pinch-ran. Cubs catcher Bill Killefer swatted the ball to deep right field. Harry Hooper caught it on the run and Boston had taken Game One. 

It was the first shutout in a World Series opener since 1905, and only the second 1-0 World Series game in 13 years. Coupled with his victory in 1916, Ruth had now pitched 22 1/3 consecutive scoreless World Series innings. Christy Mathewson’s record of 28 innings was within reach in his next start.

Shean reached base three times (two singles and a walk) for Boston and scored the game’s only run. Whiteman singled twice, and made five catches in left field, three of which were tough chances on a windy afternoon. Ruth went 0-for-3, lining out to center and striking out twice.

The crowd of only 19,274 was roughly 13,000 fewer fans than had attended the first game of the 1917 Series, which had also been played at Comiskey Park.

Friday, September 6
Comiskey Park, Chicago
Game Two: Cubs 3, Red Sox 1

Ed Barrow went with Bullet Joe Bush in the second game, figuring that Carl Mays’s submarine delivery would baffle the Cubs and either put Boston up by three games or break a Series tie.

The weather was perfect — clear skies, 70 degrees — but the turnout was only slightly larger than the day before — a crowd of 20,040. One sportswriter counted fewer than 100 women in attendance, quite low for a World Series game.

Bush and Tyler had faced each other in Game Three of the 1914 World Series at Fenway Park, Tyler for the Boston Braves and Bush for the Philadelphia Athletics. In that game, Bush’s 12th-inning error allowed the Braves’ winning run. Seven players from that Series were in uniform today, including Mann, Charlie Deal, Stuffy McInnis, Wally Schang, and Amos Strunk. Cubs manager Fred Mitchell had been the Braves’ manager in 1914.

Facing another lefty, Barrow again started George Whiteman in left field, which left Babe Ruth was on the bench.

There had been some heckling in the opener, but things got much more intense in Game Two. In the first inning, when leadoff batter Harry Hooper tried to steal second base, Dave Shean stepped across the plate, bumping catcher Bill Killefer’s right arm with his bat. Shean was called out on strikes and Hooper ruled out on Shean’s interference. In the bottom of the first, the Cubs believed Amos Strunk intentionally dropped a popup in shallow center to force speedy Charlie Hollocher at second base, leaving a slower runner on first.

Bush had trouble controlling his fastball, so he relied more on his curve, which was not his best pitch. He walked Fred Merkle to start the second inning, then gave up a bunt single to Charlie Pick. After Charlie Deal popped out, Killefer drilled a first-pitch double down the right field line, scoring Merkle. With the Red Sox infield playing on the grass, Tyler grounded a ball up the middle. Shortstop Everett Scott dove to his left, but it scooted past him. Pick scored and Killefer rounded third. Strunk’s throw home was too late to get Killefer, so Sox catcher Sam Agnew came forward towards the mound, got the ball on one hop and fired to second. Scott slammed a hard tag on Tyler.

Otto Knabe, the Cubs’ first base coach, had been yelling at Bush throughout the three-run rally. Knabe had also baited Babe Ruth the previous day. At the end of the second inning, as the Red Sox left the field trailing 3-0, Heinie Wagner walked across the infield to take his spot in the third base coaching box; he met Knabe going in the same direction, towards the Cubs dugout. It is not clear exactly what was said, but both men started cursing. Wagner pointed to the alleyway leading to the Cubs clubhouse — challenging Knabe to a fight.

Once the men were in the Cubs dugout, Wagner grabbed Knabe’s arm and tried dragging him along the floor. Knabe quickly subdued Wagner, and Jim Vaughn apparently knocked Wagner down before he, Knabe, Claude Hendrix, and a few others started punching. Wagner later claimed Knabe had also kicked him while he was on his back. “I wouldn’t mind it if I was hit with a fist,” he later said.

When Wagner finally emerged from the dugout, his hair was a mess, his face pale and bruised, the back of his uniform torn and muddy. The umpires did not get involved. Afterwards, third base umpire Hank O’Day, who had been close to the Cubs dugout, said he hadn’t seen or heard anything.

After this incident, Bush began pitching almost exclusively inside — way inside. After Hollocher grounded out, Bush buzzed a fastball near Mann’s head. Mann cursed Bush, then pushed a bunt up the first base line. Stuffy McInnis made the play unassisted, but when Bush dashed off the mound to cover the bag, he tried tripping Mann on his way to first. Then Bush made the next batter, Dode Paskert, duck away from a beanball before retiring him on an infield pop-up.

Tyler walked the Red Sox leadoff batter in each of the first three innings, but the Red Sox were unable to exploit his lack of control. They didn’t force him to throw strikes, swinging early in the count and chasing poor pitches.

Chicago had an opportunity to widen its lead in the sixth when Hollocher tripled into the right field corner. With the infield in, Hollocher could not score when Mann grounded out. Agnew tried to pick off Hollocher, but his throw got under Fred Thomas’s glove. Thomas deliberately tangled himself up with Hollocher, so the runner couldn’t get up and advance. Already in a foul mood, the crowd howled at Thomas.

Hollocher broke for home when Dode Paskert chopped a grounder to short. It was a foolish play, perhaps borne of frustration, as Scott’s throw to Agnew was in plenty of time for the out.

Boston had very little luck against Tyler. Over the course of 20 batters, from the second inning to the end of the seventh, the Red Sox managed only one hit. In the eighth, Wally Schang pinch-hit for Agnew and singled. After Bush flew out, Hooper singled to right. Schang tried to go to third, but Max Flack made a perfect one-hop throw to Charlie Deal and Schang was cut down. It was a crucial mistake — instead of runners at first and second and one out, Boston had a man at first and two outs. Shean bounced to first and the threat vanished.

With the Red Sox down to their last three outs, Amos Strunk led off the ninth with a triple over Flack’s head in right. Whiteman followed with another triple, this one over Paskert’s head in center. Chicago’s lead was now 3-1 and the potential tying run (Stuffy McInnis) was at the plate.

Cubs manager Fred Mitchell had Phil Douglas and Claude Hendrix in the bullpen, but he stayed with Tyler. Instead of squeezing the runner home, McInnis swung away. He tapped a weak grounder right back to Tyler, who checked the runner and threw McInnis out. Tyler then walked Everett Scott.

Barrow thought about sending Babe Ruth up as a pinch-hitter, but opted for another pitcher: Jean Dubuc, who batted right-handed. It was an odd choice. If Barrow was intent on having a pitcher at the plate, Carl Mays, whose .357 on-base percentage was fourth best on the team, would have been a wiser choice.

Dubuc fell behind in the count 1-2, then fouled off four consecutive pitches before swinging and missing a curve about a foot off the plate. Schang was next, and Ruth waited on the dugout steps, black bat in hand, ready to hit for Bush if Schang could keep the inning alive.

Considering how hard Tyler had worked to get Dubuc, Schang should have looked at a few pitches. But he swung at the first one he saw, and popped it up. Hollocher moved a few steps to his right, made the catch, and ran quickly off the field, disappearing into the dugout with the baseball still in his glove. The Series was tied at one game apiece.

For the Red Sox, it was a game of missed opportunities. Boston’s leadoff batter had reached base in five of the first eight innings. The Boston sportswriters were dumbfounded by Barrow’s ninth-inning strategy. Eddie Hurley of the Boston Evening Record thought letting Ruth watch the entire inning from the bench was “nothing but criminal”.

Saturday, September 7
Comiskey Park, Chicago
Game Three: Red Sox 2, Cubs 1

The Red Sox were convinced that spitballer Claude Hendrix would pitch for Chicago, so they were shocked when Jim Vaughn came back to pitch on one day’s rest. The fans were also surprised, and they gave Vaughn a standing ovation as he walked to the mound. (Another Cubs lefty on the hill also meant Babe Ruth remained on the bench.)

A light rain started to fall in the top of the second inning. Home plate umpire Bill Klem saw no reason to pause the game, and it drizzled off and on all afternoon.

Boston drew first blood with one out in the fourth inning. Vaughn worked Whiteman inside and hit him in the back. McInnis tried to hit-and-run on the first pitch, but fouled it off. When he swung and missed the next pitch, Whiteman was trapped off the bag. Catcher Bill Killefer hesitated for a moment before throwing to first baseman Fred Merkle, and that slight pause allowed Whiteman to dive back safely.

Vaughn’s 0-2 pitch was high and inside and McInnis punched it into left field. Schang followed with a single to center; Whiteman scored and McInnis raced to third.

Ed Barrow was not a fan of the suicide squeeze, but with Scott, a good bunter, at the plate, the play was on. Scott dropped the first pitch right in front of the plate — a beautiful bunt — too far out towards the mound for catcher Bill Killefer to field it. Vaughn grabbed it, but when he tuned to throw to first, he saw that Merkle also had run in on the bunt and second baseman Charlie Pick hadn’t covered first. McInnis scored and Boston led, 2-0.

Thomas followed with a single to right field, his first hit of the Series. Heinie Wagner wanted Schang to stop at third, which would have loaded the bases and kept Vaughn on the ropes, but Schang ran through the stop sign. Max Flack’s throw was perfect and Schang was easily tagged out. Mays lined out to center field and Vaughn escaped with minimal damage.

Carl Mays was well-rested – he hadn’t pitched since his back-to-back wins against Philadelphia a week earlier – and he was nearly perfect. After walking the first hitter he faced, Mays set down 10 in a row, breezing through the third inning on only five pitches.

Facing Mays for the second time, however, the Cubs had a better read on his delivery and hit him hard. Les Mann doubled with one out in the fourth. Paskert whacked a fly ball to deep left center that looked like it might carry into the bleachers. Whiteman sprinted back, until he was literally against the wall — and grabbed the ball with a leap at the fence.

After his near-disastrous fourth inning, Vaughn was untouchable. He kept the ball in the infield in both the fifth and sixth innings, and at one point retired 13 Red Sox batters in a row. Meanwhile, his teammates repeatedly threatened to come back against Mays.

Charlie Pick’s fifth-inning grounder slipped under Everett Scott’s glove and slowly rolled into center field. By the time Amos Strunk got it back to the infield, Pick was on second. One out later, Killefer banged a single off Scott’s bare hand into left. Whiteman charged in, but there was no play to make. Pick scored, cutting Boston’s lead to 2-1. Killefer, perhaps thinking the Red Sox defense was unnerved, broke for second on Mays’s 2-0 pitch to Flack. Schang’s throw was low, but Scott dug it out of the dirt and put the tag on Killefer’s foot as he slid into the bag.

Mann and Paskert both singled with two outs in the sixth, but were stranded when Merkle struck out swinging. With one out in the seventh, Deal reached on an infield hit to third. All of Chicago’s six hits had come within the last 14 batters — nearly every other Cub was reaching base. Mays battled back: Killefer bounced back to the mound and Vaughn flew to left.

In the eighth, Mays retired the top of the Cubs lineup in order and got the first two batters in the bottom of the ninth. Facing the daunting prospect of needing to win three games at Fenway Park, Chicago tried to rally.

Charlie Pick was safe on an infield hit to second. Left-handed hitter Turner Barber pinch-hit for Deal. Mays’s first offering was ball one. On the next pitch, Pick sprinted to second. Wally Schang’s throw was right on the money — but Shean bobbled it. Pick made a great slide and the Cubs were still alive.

Barber smacked a line drive that landed about six inches foul down the third base line, then Schang set up outside. But Mays threw too far outside. The ball glanced off Schang’s mitt and rolled a few yards to his left behind the plate. As Pick ran to third, Schang fired a throw to Fred Thomas. Pick and the baseball arrived at almost the same time. Umpire George Hildebrand began calling Pick out, then saw Thomas hadn’t held onto the ball. He spread his arms: “Safe!”

Thomas and Pick were tangled in the dirt. Pick had overslid the bag and was on his stomach, trying to crawl back and touch the base with his hand. Thomas was yelling at Hildebrand, arguing that Pick had kicked the ball out of his glove. Cubs manager Fred Mitchell, coaching at third base, shouted at Pick to run home.

The ball had stopped rolling about 20 feet away in foul territory. Pick took off. Thomas finally ran over and grabbed the ball. He had no time to set himself, but his throw was straight and true. Pick slid in, spikes high, and Schang tagged him in the ribs a foot or two from the plate. The game was over – and the crowd exhaled a huge, collective groan. The Cubs had come close, but Boston’s razor-thin victory gave them a 2-1 lead in the Series, with all remaining games at Fenway Park.

Sunday, September 9 – Traveling from Chicago to Boston

Before the 1918 season began, the National Commission decided to allow the top four teams in each league to share some of the gate receipts of the first four World Series games. This decision, coupled with low attendance and reduced ticket prices, meant that the shares for the winning and losing teams could be 75% smaller than they had been in 1917.

During the train ride to Boston, players on both teams discussed whether anything could be done. Some felt the Commission was deliberately exploiting them and wanted to abandon the series immediately. Eventually, the players came up with two proposals: either guarantee shares of $1,500 and $1,000 or postpone the revenue-sharing plan until after the War. Harry Hooper and Dave Shean of the Red Sox and Les Mann and Bill Killefer of the Cubs tried meeting with Commissioner August Herrmann on Sunday afternoon, but he refused to see them, saying that he couldn’t make any official decisions without the other commissioners present. Herrmann and the players agreed to meet in Boston on Monday morning.

Monday, September 9
Fenway Park, Boston
Game Four: Red Sox 3, Cubs 2

On Monday morning, the full Commission refused to speak to the players, saying they needed to know what the actual revenues from the fourth game would be, and suggested getting together after that afternoon’s game.

Game Four was the Red Sox’s first World Series game in Fenway Park since 1912. Their home games in 1915 and 1916 had been played at Braves Field, which had a larger seating capacity.

Babe Ruth took the mound with yellow iodine stains visible on his left hand. He had injured his pitching hand the night before fooling around with fellow pitcher Walt Kinney on the train. Ruth was trying to break Christy Mathewson’s record of 28 consecutive scoreless World Series innings (his streak was at 22 1/3).

Left fielder George Whiteman was again batting cleanup and Ruth was hitting sixth. Babe had been in the sixth spot only once before all season — back on May 6, the day he debuted at first base. Barrow gave no explanation for the switch.

It was obvious from the first inning that Ruth had difficulty getting the proper spin on his curveball. Chicago put men on base in each of the first three innings, but was turned back by Ruth’s gutsy pitching and Boston’s airtight infield.

The game was scoreless in the fourth when Tyler walked Dave Shean. With right-handed  hitters George Whiteman and Stuffy McInnis coming up, Amos Strunk tried to bunt. After two failed attempts, he lined out to center field. Shean took advantage of Tyler’s leisurely windup and stole second without a throw. The Fenway crowd stomped its feet in unison, clamoring for a run. Tyler couldn’t find the strike zone and walked Whiteman. The roar increased as Claude Hendrix came out of the third-base dugout and began warming up.

McInnis hit the ball right back at Tyler. The pitcher grabbed it, then paused for a split second before throwing to Deal at third base and forcing Shean. His slight delay meant the relay to first was late. Boston now had runners at first and second with two outs — and Babe Ruth was up.

Tyler looked over at his dugout, waiting for a sign from his manager. Should he walk Ruth intentionally, loading the bases for Everett Scott (who was 1-for-11 in the Series)? Should he pitch to Ruth? Was Hendrix coming in?

All summer long, Ruth had been walked in situations like this, often as early as the first inning. Ruth hadn’t faced Tyler in Game Two and he had yet to hit safely in a World Series game, wearing an 0-for-10 collar dating back to 1915.

Mitchell decided Tyler should pitch carefully to Ruth, and hope the Big Fellow would chase a bad ball. Max Flack was at normal depth in right field; he had been much deeper on Ruth in the second inning, but Babe had grounded out, and now he stayed where he was.

Tyler’s first three pitches were low and outside, well off the plate. Ruth was patient and everyone could see this was an “unintentional intentional walk.” Then Tyler slipped a slow curve on the inside corner. Ruth took a big swing and missed, spinning nearly all the way around.

Ruth thought Tyler’s next pitch was too high and a bit outside. He tossed his bat aside and started jogging to first. “Strike two!” Brick Owens yelled above the din. Ruth glared at Owens and kicked the dirt.

Killefer called for a curveball — Tyler’s strongest pitch and Ruth’s weakest — but the lefty came back with another fastball, and this time it remained belt high. Ruth pulverized it, sending it screaming into right field. Flack took a half-step forward, not seeing the ball clearly until it rose out of the shade of the grandstand. By that time, it was too late. He turned, ran back towards the bleachers. It was a triple, and Whiteman and McInnis scored easily. Boston led 2-0.

Everett Scott tried twice to squeeze Ruth home before flying to center for the third out. The Fenway crowd never stopped roaring as Ruth ran back to the dugout, grabbed his mitt, and returned to the mound.

Ruth began losing his control in the sixth inning —the iodine on his finger was rubbing off on the ball, causing it to sail — and it was only Boston’s strong infield that saved his lead. Tyler walked to start the inning. Flack grounded straight back to Ruth. He turned and fired to second base, but it was a poor throw that got by Scott. Shean, however, was positioned only a few feet behind the base. He was on his knees when he gloved Ruth’s errant toss, then crawled on his stomach in the dirt, tagging the bag with his mitt just ahead of Tyler’s foot.

The next two Cubs grounded out and it was official: Ruth had set a new World Series record of 28 1/3 consecutive scoreless innings.

But in the seventh, Ruth’s control got worse, as he walked Fred Merkle and Rollie Zeider with one out. Joe Bush began warming up. Pinch-hitter Bob O’Farrell hit the ball hard up the middle. Scott raced over, scooped it up, and flipped to Shean, who fired to first for an inning-ending double play.

After Ruth’s triple, Tyler retired the next seven Boston hitters and prayed his teammates would rally. Killefer walked to open the eighth, Ruth’s third walk to his last four batters, his fourth free pass in two innings. Bush, still warming up, was joined by Carl Mays.

Claude Hendrix, a right-handed hitting pitcher, batted for Tyler. Hendrix had hit .264 in 1918, with three triples and three home runs. Mitchell’s move paid off when Hendrix singled to left. Killefer stopped at second. Flack bunted the first pitch foul, then Ruth threw one in the dirt. It skipped past Agnew’s glove for a wild pitch, and the Cubs had men at second and third.

The Cubs bench was heckling Ruth from the dugout and anxious Red Sox fans were poised on the edge of their seats. Flack bounced the next pitch to first and McInnis gloved it along the line and tagged Flack for the first out. Hendrix must have thought Killefer broke from third on the play because he was halfway to third before he realized his mistake. Everett Scott yelled for the ball, but Hendrix was able to get back to second.

Cubs manager Mitchell noticed the gaffe and even though he had wanted Hendrix to pitch the eighth inning, he yanked him and sent in Bill McCabe as a pinch-runner at second.

Charlie Hollocher, slumping at 1-for-13 in the Series, hit a sharp ground ball to Shean. The second baseman might have had a shot at Killefer at home, but he opted for the sure out at first. Killefer scored and Boston’s lead was 2-1. Les Mann singled to left and McCabe’s run tied the game at 2-2. Ruth avoided further trouble when Paskert grounded out to third. Ruth’s scoreless innings record ended at 29 2/3.

When the Red Sox batted in their half of the eighth, they faced a right-handed pitcher – Phil Douglas – for the first time in the Series. Wally Schang, a switch-hitter batting for Sam Agnew, singled to center and took second on a passed ball. Harry Hooper bunted to the third base side of the infield. Douglas’s throw to first was wild and sailed down the right field line. Schang scored to give Boston a 3-2 lead. Douglas then retired the next three hitters: Shean flew out to left, Strunk flew out to center, and Whiteman grounded to third.

In the top of the ninth, Ruth was three outs away from his second victory in the Series, but he was clearly out of gas. When Merkle singled to left and Zeider walked, Barrow decided he had seen enough. Barrow double-switched, bringing in Bush to pitch and sending Ruth (who would bat second in the bottom of the ninth inning, if necessary) out to left field.

Bush’s first batter was Chuck Wortman, who bunted. McInnis raced in from first and fired the ball to third. Merkle was forced by about 30 feet. Next, Turner Barber came up to hit for Killefer. Barber lined the ball on the ground towards Scott. The sure-handed shortstop flipped the ball to Shean, who threw to first for a game-ending double play. Bush had saved the win for Ruth, and the Red Sox were one victory away from their fifth World Series title.

Tyler pitched a much better game than Ruth, allowing only three hits in seven innings, but had no luck or support. Babe gave up seven hits and six walks, and threw one wild pitch, but the game had been a litany of missed opportunities by the Cubs. Much of Chicago’s inability to bring those runners home could be chalked up to the phenomenal play of Everett Scott. The Deacon handled 11 chances flawlessly, several of which robbed the Cubs of hits up the middle. Scott also started two double plays in the final three innings.

The outlook for the Cubs was grim, but back in the 1903 World Series, Boston had trailed Pittsburgh 3-1 before winning four games in a row. However, that had been a best-of-nine series — no team had come back from a 3-1 deficit in a seven-game series.

That evening, Harry Hooper, Everett Scott, Les Mann, and Bill Killefer went to the Copley Plaza Hotel to meet with the National Commission. However, they were told the commissioners had stood them up and gone to the theater instead.

Tuesday, September 10
Fenway Park, Boston
Game Five: Cubs 3, Red Sox 0

The players were finally able to meet with the National Commission on Tuesday morning, but the discussion was fruitless. The commissioners promised to render a final decision after the game, but the players knew if the Red Sox won, the Series would be over and any leverage they held would be gone. So they decided to wait in their locker rooms until a decision was announced. When two of the commissioners showed up at Fenway drunk and in no shape to discuss financial matters, the players again had a choice to make. With nearly 25,000 fans waiting in the stands, they decided to play the game.

Because of the delay, the game began one hour late. Sam Jones hadn’t pitched in eight days and was a little rusty (or perhaps nervous). Max Flack walked on four pitches to start the game and Charlie Hollocher followed with a hard-hit single up the middle. Carl Mays began warming up.

Les Mann bunted the runners to second and third. The Red Sox infield played back, willing to concede an early run. Dode Paskert’s sinking liner to left was caught on the run by George Whiteman. Without stopping to set himself, Whiteman fired the ball to Dave Shean at second base. Hollocher, thinking the ball would drop for a hit, had taken off for third base and was doubled up for the inning’s third out with Flack still 20 feet from the plate.

After pitching complete game losses in the first and third games, Jim Vaughn was once again on the hill. After a leadoff single by Harry Hooper, Vaughn retired seven batters in a row.

In the third, Hollocher walked on four pitches. He took a long lead off first, daring Sam Agnew to try and pick him off. It worked — the Boston catcher called for a pitchout, McInnis took the throw from Agnew and turned towards the bag — but he swiped at nothing but air. Hollocher was safe at second with a stolen base.  

Mann followed with a double into the left field corner, scoring Hollocher and giving Chicago a 1-0 lead. After 21 innings in the series, Jim Vaughn was finally pitching with a lead.

It was a dull first three innings for the home fans: Hooper’s first-inning single and Jones’s walk in the third was the extent of the Red Sox offense. The Fenway crowd cheered as Amos Strunk led off the fourth inning with a double to deep right. But the rally fizzled when Whiteman popped up a bunt attempt and McInnis lined into a double play to first base, with Strunk being doubled off second.

In the fifth, Vaughn was likely tiring: he was pitching his 23rd inning in six days. The Red Sox began hitting him hard, but for all their line drives, Boston came up empty.

Jones pitched well through five innings, having allowed only two hits and one run. In the sixth, Hollocher singled and Paskert walked. Merkle singled to left, but George Whiteman was able to gun Hollocher out at the plate to keep the score at 1-0.

Babe Ruth came out to coach first base in the bottom of the seventh, and the crowd roared, hoping his presence on the field might spark a rally. With one out, Whiteman singled, but another double play, the third turned by the Cubs in the last four innings, killed any hope of a run.

Flack drew his second walk of the game in the eighth and Hollocher dropped down a perfect bunt. Jones and Fred Thomas watched the ball roll slowly along the third base chalk line. It struck a small rock, veered in about three inches and stopped. It was Hollocher’s third hit of the game, and with minimal effort Chicago had runners at first and second with nobody out.

Carl Mays and Jean Dubuc were busy in the bullpen as Jones retired Mann on a pop-up. Paskert whacked a double off the wall in left-center and two runs scored.

Scott, Thomas, and pinch-hitter Wally Schang went down in order in the eighth. With one inning left for the Red Sox, trailing 3-0, Hack Miller batted for Jones. He smashed the ball to deep left. Mann ran up the embankment, then slipped and fell. But even though he was sitting on the slope, he managed to catch the ball in his lap. It was a tough break for their team, but the Red Sox fans applauded the unlikely play.

Hooper popped to short left field. It looked like it would drop for a hit, but Hollocher, his hands outstretched, raced back and grabbed it. Instead of a double and a single, Boston was instead down to its last out.

Shean singled into the shortstop hole, but Vaughn zipped three pitches past Strunk for his fourth strikeout and the final out of the game.

Wednesday, September 11
Fenway Park, Boston
Game Six: Red Sox 2, Cubs 1

The players’ committee met with Harry Frazee, Charles Weeghman, and several shareholders of both clubs shortly before 11:00 AM. There were rumors that the owners promised the players a little more money from the gate receipts, but nothing was confirmed.

A morning temperature of 48 degrees and rumors that the sixth game would not be played had left Fenway Park half full.

Barrow selected Carl Mays to pitch, telling Joe Bush that he’d start the seventh game, if it was necessary. Fred Mitchell sent Lefty Tyler back to the Fenway mound and so George Whiteman was in left field and Babe Ruth was on the bench.  

Mays was in peak form and retired the first four Cubs on ground balls. Charlie Pick singled, but Mays picked him off first base. Eight of the first nine outs were recorded by the Boston infield.

Tyler faltered in the bottom of the third when he walked Mays on four pitches. After Harry Hooper bunted Mays to second, Tyler walked Dave Shean. Amos Strunk fouled off four pitches before grounding out, putting runners at second and third with two outs. Whiteman’s line drive to right field should have been the final out of the inning, but the ball caromed off Max Flack’s glove for an error. Both Mays and Shean scored easily to give the Red Sox a 2-0 lead.

Flack tried to atone for his error by singling up the middle to start the fourth inning. With one out, Mays hit Les Mann in the leg with a pitch. Catcher Wally Schang recorded a crucial out when he picked Mann off first base. Mays walked Paskert and Flack stole third on ball four. Fred singled to left, scoring Flack and cutting Boston’s lead to 2-1. Pick followed with a hard drive to short right field, very similar to Whiteman’s liner to Flack. Harry Hooper raced in and grabbed it for the final out.

After his stumble in the fourth, Mays regained control and kept the ball down in the strike zone and the Chicago batters hit ground ball after ground ball after ground ball.

In the fifth, Deal and Killefer grounded back to the mound. In the sixth, Mays speared a hot shot headed up the middle and threw to Shean for a force play. The other Red Sox were just as sure-handed. McInnis robbed Hollocher of a hit in the fifth and Schang threw Mann out at second to end the sixth. Fred Thomas knocked down Merkle’s smash in the seventh with his bare hand, recovered the ball in foul territory, and fired a strike across the infield to McInnis.

Cubs manager Fred Mitchell went to his bench in the eighth. Turner Barber lined the ball over shortstop. From the third base dugout, the Cubs could see that the sinking liner was going to drop in front of Whiteman for a single. But just as the ball was about to hit the ground, Whiteman dove forward, stuck his glove out in front of him and snagged the ball a few inches off the grass.

He landed head first and turned a full somersault, bouncing back to his feet with the ball securely in both hands. Whiteman was staggering a bit, but he was also grinning. He tossed the ball in to Everett Scott, who whipped it around the infield. The Fenway crowd leapt to its feet and hollered for a full three minutes.

The next batter, pinch-hitter Bob O’Farrell, popped up to short left field. There was no way Whiteman could reach this one — but Scott glided out and made a difficult catch look almost routine. At that point, with two outs, Whiteman jogged in to the Red Sox bench, rubbing his sore neck. As he crossed the infield, the crowd rose to its feet and applauded again. He was replaced by Babe Ruth.

Mitchell’s third pinch-hitter of the inning, Bill McCabe, lifted a foul ball near the third base stands. Scott caught that one, too, and the inning was over.

The first three hitters in Chicago’s lineup were due up in the ninth and Mays retired them without incident. Flack fouled out to third, Hollocher hit a routine fly to left (when the fans roared, Ruth took a graceful bow), and Mann grounded out to second.

With a 2-1 win, the Red Sox were World Series champions for the third time in four years, and the first franchise to win five World Series titles.

Carl Mays faced only three batters over the 27-man minimum. Chicago hit the ball out of the infield only twice in the last five innings and no Cub reached second base.

Max Flack was immediately compared to Fred Snodgrass, who dropped a routine fly ball that helped the Red Sox beat the New York Giants in the 10th inning of the final game of the 1912 World Series.

Many of the post-game wrap-ups concentrated on how lucky the Red Sox had been.

The Washington Post: “The Red Sox have often been called the luckiest ball club in the world. They lived up to their reputation again today.” Hugh Fullerton also believed “the best team did not win” and that if the Series were played over again, “the majority of the experts who have watched all of the games would wager on Chicago.”

Fred Mitchell was more magnanimous. “All the glory that goes with winning the world championship belongs to Boston. The pitching on both sides was the best in years. It was a tough series to lose. The scores of the games prove that. … I’m not trying to detract anything from the Red Sox. They are a great team and proved it. But I’d like to play the series over again if such a thing were possible. … I shall always contend that with an even break, we would have won. That’s all I have to say on the subject.”

The Red Sox batted only .186 in the series and slugged .233. The Cubs were not much better, batting .210, though Chicago did score 10 runs to Boston’s nine.

Wally Schang led the Red Sox with a .444 average (4-for-9). Both Whiteman and McInnis hit .250 (5-for-20). For Chicago, Charlie Pick was 7-for-18, .389. Merkle, Mann, and Flack each had five hits.

Each team used only four pitchers. For the Cubs, Vaughn and Tyler pitched 50 of their team’s 52 innings.

The winning shares turned out to be $1,108.45 per player, the lowest amount ever awarded to the World Series champions. The Cubs’ losing share was $671 per player.

Towards the end of January, the Red Sox received word that Jack Barry would not be relieved from Navy duties for at least several months and was effectively lost for the season. Frazee again approached Bill Carrigan, with no success. On February 11, Ed Barrow was named as Jack Barry’s replacement as manager of the Red Sox. One of Barrow’s first pronouncements was that players would be prohibited from bringing their wives to spring training. Former Cubs star infielder Johnny Evers was hired as a coach, possible second baseman, and a “general strategy man.”1

Assembling a team was far more difficult than usual, given the number of players who were either gone to service or likely to be called. Barrow and Frazee had to constantly consider the depth of their roster and the replacements that could be brought to bear if this player or that player left for war-related work or to enlist in one of the service branches. Hanging over it all was the question as to whether the season itself might be curtailed at some point. Even as late as early March, the Sox roster was – to put it mildly – a little unsettled. It wasn’t exactly clear who might play second base and Barrow was considering playing first baseman Stuffy McInnis at third base. Other teams faced similar situations.

On March 8, the Red Sox left for spring training in the Ozarks, returning again to Hot Springs, Arkansas. A snow storm caused a delay of several hours in the trainyard outside Buffalo, and the Sox party missed their connection, costing them the first full day of practice. Soldiers on board the train sought out conversations with a gregarious Babe Ruth. The party heading south also included team secretary Larry Graver, attorney Thomas Barry, trainer Dr. Martin Lawler, and scout Billy Murray.

On March 11, Barrow met with his charges and “made it plain to them in a 15-minute talk that discipline more rigid than has ever been exercised before” would be a feature of the camp and throughout the season. No player was to be seen in the breakfast room after 9:30 in the morning. Moreover, poker was too be “confined strictly to the 10-cent variety and all games must end promptly each night at 11 o’clock.” The same rules applied to newspapermen, rooters, and others associated with the team. Not one player failed to conform the first day; two who worked out so intently they had to be told to end their day were Johnny Evers and Babe Ruth. After three hours of working out, the players walked the two miles back to the hotel. “Barrow refused to allow his men the luxury of a ride either to or from the park.” [Boston Post, March 12 and 13, 1918] As for Barrow, he had cut a bit of a stern image sitting in the bleachers and watching the men work out without saying a word. Harry Frazee was in town and finalized contracts with Sam Agnew and Carl Mays. A couple of days later, Barrow decided to drop mountain climbing from the exercise program; only if it was too wet to work out on the ballfield would the players be compelled to take mountain hikes.

Early in camp, a strange thing happened: despite some initial nervousness, 18-year-old prospect Mimos Ellenberg of Chuckey, Tennessee (some accounts say Mosheim), who Ed Barrow had proclaimed “may be another Hornsby,” impressed the Red Sox so much that they wanted to sign him. They couldn’t find him; he simply disappeared. It was later determined he’d become quite ill and, come March 17, he was sent home.

On March 16, several more of the squad turned up in town: Everett Scott, Amos Strunk, Fred Thomas, George Whiteman, and Paul Smith. Dick Hoblitzell arrived on the 19th – and four days later Ed Barrow named him as team captain. Dutch Leonard turned up on the 21st. McInnis was working out at third base, fielding bunt after bunt, while Fred Thomas “ostensibly recruited as a third sacker, is developing into a likely second baseman.” Pitcher Rube Foster said he wanted more money, then found Frazee telling him not to bother coming to Hot Springs unless he was to pay his own way, and was ultimately traded (on April 1) to Cincinnati for Dave Shean.

The first exhibition game came on Sunday, March 17 and Red Sox batters bombed Brooklyn pitching for 16 hits at Majestic Park, and won 11-1. Babe Ruth hit two home runs for the 2,500 assembled, matching his total for the entire 1917 regular season. It was one of only two games the Red Sox played in their Hot Springs home. As it happened, both the Brooklyn Robins and the Red Sox trained at Hot Springs in 1918, Brooklyn working out at Whittington Park. The two teams played 11 games, with Boston winning seven. After six days of workouts in the “Valley of the Vapors”, the two teams played another couple of games and then took their show on the road and proceeded to play five games at Little Rock, before heading on to three cities in Texas, as well as New Orleans, Mobile, and Birmingham.

Just a few days after the first game, however, there was a bizarre incident that could have ended the team’s pennant hopes before they had even really begun. Hooper, Ruth, Schang, Joe Bush, and Everett Scott had hired a car to take them from the race track back to the Hotel Marion. The driver tried to let them off short of the hotel, demanding payment, so he could run back to the track and pick up another fare. The Sox quintet called a policeman who ordered the driver to continue on to the hotel. The enraged driver shouted, “I will tip you all out first” and then tore off at such speed that he “banged a jitney aside, knocked a horse down and busted up a wagon.” Hooper’s threat regarding the chauffeur’s nose brought an end to the affair. [Boston Globe, March 21, 1918]

After the March 17 opener, the two teams didn’t play another game for a week. Nevertheless, despite being a war-shortened season, the number of exhibition games was not diminished. The spring season comprised 14 games, more than any year since 1911.  (During the season, they added three more. None of them were fundraisers for the war effort; this became widespread practice during the Second World War. The Red Sox hadn’t played postseason games since 1910, though some of the players toured after the World Series – and paid a stiff price for doing so.)

The weather failed to cooperate. Several players developed colds, and there were almost no intrasquad scrimmages. The Sox and Dodgers finally got in another game on the 24th, and Babe Ruth hit a grand slam home run as part of a six-run third inning that sank the Trolley Dodgers, 7-1. Mays and Ruth pitched; both Ruth and Dutch Leonard played right field. With two outs and the bases loaded in the third, Ruth swung at the first pitch and the ball “cleared the fence by about 200 feet and dropped in the pond by the alligator farm.” In Little Rock, the second-string Boston Yannigans clobbered the Brooklyn Rookies, 18-8. 

The following day, too many players were under the weather, so Barrow had the men work on signals, leads off first base, sacrifice bunts, and a number of fundamentals. Too many lame arms among the pitchers resulted in the following day being one devoted to batting practice.

On March 27, the two teams matched off for two games in Little Rock. The games were held at Fort Pike; the first was played in front of 700 or 800 soldiers who saw the Brooklyn regulars beat the Red Sox, 3-2. The Post‘s Paul Shannon noted several situations where Red Sox players didn’t seem to have their heads in the game, and lost opportunities as a result. Thomas was charged with two errors. The Red Sox regulars beat the “Agnews” the following day, 2-1. Prospect Lona Jaynes threw a complete game three-hitter for the Regulars and Dick McCabe allowed the first stringers only six hits.

On March 29, the Red Sox learned that Majestic Park would be demolished later in the year so that railroad tracks could be laid through the property. The Sox signed a five-year option on Fordyce Park in Hot Springs as their new spring home, but it was a revocable deal and Frazee commented that he might move the team to another location, one that did not have a racetrack. He felt the ballplayers sometimes seemed a little too ready to end practice early and head out to the track.

Sam Jones arrived in camp at this point; the Red Sox had thought he was due to be inducted at Camp Sherman, and had placed him on voluntary leave, but he had instead been placed in Class B and was hurriedly offered a 1918 contract. Frazee said he might seek an extra infielder but otherwise believed he had the men he needed.

On March 30, the Red Sox beat the Dodgers at Little Rock, 4-3, scoring twice in the eighth and twice in the ninth – on Ruth’s home run. It was his fourth home run in four games against Brooklyn.

On the last day of March, the Red Sox again won the game in the ninth inning, scoring five times to come from behind and take the honors, 7-4. On the first day of April, the Sox did it yet again, scoring the run that broke a 2-2 tie with one out in the bottom of the ninth. Strunk walked, stole second, took third on McInnis’s sacrifice. After Hoblitzell was walked intentionally, Whiteman singled Strunk in with the game-winner.

The two teams traveled to Texas and played their first game on April 2, a dramatic 16-inning affair in Dallas that began with the Red Sox scoring four times in the top of the first. Tied 4-4 after nine, both teams scored twice in the 15th, the tilt going in Boston’s favor in the 16th when newly-arrived Dave Shean doubled and then took third on a bad pickoff peg. He scored on Strunk’s sacrifice fly for a 7-6 Boston victory. Ruth was so angry at striking out his first time up that he flung his bat “half way to right field” and then batted right-handed his second time up (he whiffed again). The teams traveled to Waco on April 3 and the Dodgers won 2-1, but not without some ninth-inning suspense, as Shean, the potential tying run, was stranded at second to end the game.

And for the third game in a row, Shean shone. Playing in Austin at the University of Texas (most of the crowd being military aviation students), Boston beat Brooklyn, 10-4. Shean had himself a 5-for-5 day. Harry Hooper had three hits, including a triple and a home run. Boston lost in Houston on the 5th, 5-3, with two McInnis errors proving very costly. Shean drove in two runs. It might have been spring training, but the Boston Herald reported that the Sox manager gave the men a “merciless tongue-lashing…a full hour of the ruthless criticism that big Ed Barrow knows how to hand out.”

The two teams squared off for 13 innings in New Orleans on April 7. Some 5,000 fans saw the Dodgers’ Jim Hickman triple, then score on Clarence Mitchell’s single for a 4-3 Brooklyn win. Moving on to Mobile, the teams played 13 innings again, but this time darkness brought an end to a game knotted 6-6. Each team scored once in the 14th frame. Playing the following day in Birmingham, the temperature dropped 50 degrees and Brooklyn beat Boston, 3-1, the game called after seven innings due to darkness.

There was an odd twist on the two Alabama dates in that men from both teams joined together to play as the “Supersox” (derived by combining the old Brooklyn Superbas name with the Red Sox) for a couple of extra games. On April 7, the “Brooklyn-Boston” team (as it was shown in box scores) played the Southern Association team at Mobile and suffered a 2-0 one-hit shutout. The combined team was composed of “second team” players, by and large. On April 9, at Birmingham, the Barons beat the combined team by, again, a score of 2-0 in another “Supersox” game. The regular game was played in frigid conditions and both teams rushed through the work, completing the entire seven-inning game in 35 minutes.

The game scheduled for Chattanooga on April 10 was called off due to cold weather after both teams arrived at the ballpark. Several of the players visited a nearby internment camp for German prisoners of war. Earlier hopes to play in Louisville and Pittsburgh, or Richmond, on the way north had come to naught. That evening, the Red Sox took the 10:30 train out of town and headed for Boston with a three-hour layover in Cincinnati. The Red Sox had won the series of games, 8-5, with one tie. There was also the game the Red Sox second team crushed Brooklyn’s Yannigans. Scott, Strunk, and Hoblitzell were all hobbled with foot and ankle injuries and, in general, as Paul Shannon wrote in the Post, “The Red Sox did not put up the brand of ball toward the end of the series that they did at first. There is a lot of room for improvement in their work.”

The team arrived home on April 12. Groundskeeper Jerome Kelley was to have had Fenway ready for an afternoon workout on Saturday the 13th, but the city was blanketed with snow. Those who boarded at Put’s (a hotel where many players dwelled) checked in there; the others made their way to their various apartments/abodes.

Coach Hugh Duffy arranged for the use of the Harvard cage – the first time major leaguers had worked out there – and after four days of inactivity the ballplayers “raced around the cage like a lot of colts let out to pasture.” [Boston Herald] Harry Frazee told the Herald, “You can say that I am well pleased with the club’s prospects for the coming season.”

The Boston Post‘s Paul Shannon wrote a long piece the day before the season opened, headlined “Red Sox Feel All Set to Go After Another World’s Title This Season.” He began the article, “Barring the absence of a strong utility string, hitherto one of the traditional features of a Boston Red Sox team, the newly constructed American League outfit, an organization that hovered on the verge of disruption only to be rebuilt with marvelous rapidity will take the field…Monday.”

The war had taken many, Carrigan was no longer manager, others had been traded away…all told, it was “practically a new team.” Shannon gave new manager Barrow credit for having “moulded a team well worthy of supporting Red Sox tradition and repeating Red Sox triumphs.” 

And triumph was, of course, the tradition for the Boston Americans who had won the pennant in five of the preceding 15 years. Credit must go, of course, to Harry Frazee, who hired Barrow and funded the acquisitions that seemed to Shannon to set the team up for a strong season. Frazee was not an absentee owner but, despite his other responsibilities in the theater world, an engaged and energetic owner.

Shannon detailed the various positions. Even at this late date, two players that he expected to make strong contributions never did: Johnny Evers and Paul Smith. But all in all he saw “an array of congenial, hard-working players with confidence in their own ability and supreme confidence in the judgment and ability of their new manager. A brainy, well-behaved set of players who will pull hard for victory all the time, because they see the vision of another pennant and regard their amalgamation that union of veterans with newly purchased stars as a remodeling, which may assure them of first honors for more than one year. No jealousy mars their good fellowship and harmony is the keynote of this crowd. Small wonder that Barrow is contented.”

No team can go through an entire season in harmony, however, but the Red Sox did begin the 1918 season on April 15 with a 7-1 win over the Philadelphia Athletics.

Notes

1 Burt Whitman, “Boston Clubs Look Like New,” Boston Herald, March 3, 1918: 17.

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.

As we see in perusing the many individual biographies, and in considering the timeline, Ed Barrow and Harry Frazee were wheeling and dealing throughout the entire season. Players were called off to war; others signed up for war-related work to preempt conscription. Unusual for the era, there were 10 players who only appeared in six or fewer games for the Red Sox.

Using earned run average as a rough measure of a pitching staff’s performance, the Red Sox (2.31) were distinctly better than most teams, second in the American League to the Washington Senators (2.14). In third place was Cleveland with a 2.64.

The Red Sox allowed the fewest runs (with 381, they were the only team under 400) and the fewest earned runs (287 – Washington, with 292, was the only other team under 300). Boston’s 105 complete games overshadowed the second-place Athletics, who had 80.

A full 26 of the Red Sox’s games (more than 20% of the schedule and more than 1/3 of the team’s wins) were shutouts. Only two other teams reached double digits in shutouts. Eight of Boston’s shutouts were by a 1-0 score. And, if that wasn’t remarkable enough, Bullet Joe Bush won five of those eight 1-0 shutouts. Sad Sam Jones won two and Carl Mays won one. Bush’s five 1-0 shutouts set a major league record; the final two of them were extra-inning affairs: July 9 (12 innings) and July 22 (10 innings). Bush led the Red Sox starters with a 2.11 ERA, but poor run support gave him a year-end record of only 15-15.

Carl Mays led the league with 30 complete games — his eight shutouts also led the league. Bush was second with seven shutouts.

In addition to the eight 1-0 shutouts, the Red Sox won 16 additional games by a margin of just one run.

It was pitching where the Sox excelled. It certainly wasn’t batting. The team batting average was .249, the same as Detroit (who finished in seventh place, 20 games out of first place). The only team with a lower average was Philadelphia at .243. The team ranked more or less in the middle of the pack in on-base percentage and slugging average, and even in runs batted in (four teams had an equal or higher number of RBIs, and three teams a lower number).

The 15 home runs hit by the team as a whole was still a smaller total than Philadelphia’s 22 and New York’s 20. Interestingly, the Red Sox had the fewest at-bats of any team – the only team with fewer than 4000 at-bats – but that’s a function of winning so many home games in which they led after 8 1/2. There were 38 games in which the Red Sox never needed to bat in the bottom of the ninth. There were 11 additional games in which the Red Sox won in a walkoff and thus made fewer than three outs in the bottom of the final inning, whatever inning that might be. Of these, twice the winning run scored before they made any outs, six times there was only one out, and three times there were only two.

The Red Sox were the best fielding team in the league overall with a .971 fielding percentage, and concomitantly the fewest errors (the number of errors per team ranged from their 152 up to 228 – an average of more than one per game was typical during an era where fields were still rougher and gloves more primitive than those of today.) The two positions at which they were strongest were at first base and shortstop; they led the league in fielding at both positions. They were weakest at catcher; Boston catchers were tied for the lowest fielding percentage at that position. Carl Mays recorded 122 assists, still the most ever for a Red Sox pitcher. It was a record he’d built on two years in a row: in 1916, he set the record with 117 and in 1917 he had 118 assists.

It was friendly Fenway for the 1918 Red Sox. They were 49-21 at home, for an outstanding .700 winning percentage at Fenway Park. They were 26-30 on the road. Note that because of the truncated schedule, the Red Sox ended up playing 70 games at home and only 56 on the road (they would have spent much of September on the road). Playing 55% of their games at home favored their chances of success. Even with all the one-run games they played (several of which were on the road), they outscored their opponents 272-165 in Boston.

Against the second-place Indians and the third-place Senators, the Red Sox played .500 ball overall. They beat up on the Browns (14-5) and the Athletics (13-5), and had a losing record against only one team (they were 6-11 against the Yankees, who finished a distant fourth in the standings.)

Of the 26 shutout victories, 18 were at home and eight on the road. The shutouts were mostly clustered in two months, June and July, with nine in each month, with only four prior to June 1 and four after July 31. Boston was shut out 12 times.

The Red Sox jumped out to an 11-2 start in April and really never looked back. They were 0-6 on the road in May, swept by New York and then by Washington on a six-game road trip, but the experience obviously didn’t sink them. There were only 12 days throughout the season when they were not in first place. On nine of those days, they trailed by percentage points. On one day, they were 1/2 game behind the leader. On only two days (June 28 and July 4) were they as much as one game behind. After July 5, they were never out of first place, despite playing .500 ball (16-16) in their last 32 games. The race was never a foregone conclusion, though, as Cleveland ended the season only 2 1/2 games out and Washington was four games behind.

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.

A contract was sent to Heinie Wagner in February of 1918, but abruptly, and much to the dismay of the sports reporters and fans, the aging player, coach and “right eye” of Bill Carrigan was unceremoniously handed his unconditional release. Manager Barrow
said he was looking for young blood to fire up the team, as he and Frazee announced that John Evers, of Chicago’s Tinker to Evers to Chance fame, and also late of the 1914 World Champion Boston Braves would replace Heinie; the young blood was a mere 10 months younger than his predecessor.

When Opening Day arrived, Dave Shean presided over the second bag while Johnny Evers, feeling abandoned, stood bereft in the grandstand, and Heinie Wagner was called back to resume his place as coach. Red Sox management remained mum on the subject saying only that they’d heard a rumor that the Newark club, and a few other clubs not named, were interested in his services and they would not stand in his way as he considered alternate plans for his future, please and thank you. The sports reporters were less kind, and had predicted Evers would have a hard time with teammates forced to endure his diatribes and sarcasm. One of the players declared Evers was so smart that he was incapable of understanding why they were all so stupid and had constantly harangued them when they made what he considered mistakes.

But now, Heinie was back, and a good thing, too, according to the fans. And a good thing, too, as it turned out in July, 1918 when Babe Ruth complained he was bored out there in the outfield and desired more time on the pitcher’s mound, jumped the team, called it quits when Barrow accused him of not keeping in condition, and ran off to Baltimore where he intended to play ball and build ships in the Steel League. Ruth vowed he has done with the Red Sox and done with major league ball, and the money offered by the industrial league was pretty good.

Frazee and Barrow, realizing that losing the Babe would be a huge blow to the team, and what with his contract and the reserve clause and the threat to future gate receipts and the run for the American League pennant, they came to their senses and concluded that offering Ruth some time pitching as well as playing the outfield was a small price to pay — but how to get him back in the fold? This was easy. Send Heinie Wagner, the Great Conciliator and Peacemaker to the rescue! And so it was done, and Heinie had his way-ward charge returned to the team in three days’ time.

Manager Barrow had been at the bottom of the argument that caused Ruth to quit the team, and was busy managing the rest of the team, so he could not possibly serve as the posse. Harry Frazee had no patience for actors nor ball players who did not live up to their contracts. What if, instead, John Evers had still been around and had made that trip to Baltimore?

Baseball history might have been very different. During spring training Evers reserved some of his best verbal beatings for the Babe. Seeing his face at his door would not have smoothed the way for a return to Boston. The Babe might well have stayed in Baltimore despite threats by Evers delivered from Barrow and Frazee, threats that might not have intimidated him in the least, and could rather have strengthened his resolve to stay away from Boston.

The Sporting News, in a scathing editorial published after Ruth’s brief hiatus, called for a blacklist of players who jumped their major league contracts to play for the shipbuilding leagues during the war. What if all that had happened?

Thank you, Heinie Wagner. There are many who need to line up and offer you their undying gratitude. For one thing, the Red Sox would not have won the 1918 World Series, and Yankees fans instead would have had to chant “Nine-teen Six-teen!” in 2004. The Babe would not have been available as trade bait for Harry Frazee in 1920.

The New York Yankees must give credit to Heinie Wagner for their glut of World Series rings. Following the Black Sox Scandal of 1919, Babe Ruth was instrumental in regenerating interest in the America’s National Pastime by his larger than life public image, and his ability to hit home runs that, according to Frederick Lieb, “revolutionized baseball, creating what seemed to be an entirely new game.” Major League Baseball’s career home run record contenders would now be chasing the Double X, aka the “Beast” – Jimmie Foxx – instead of Babe Ruth. There would be no Babe Ruth League for young players, no Babe Ruth movies, far fewer baseball books, and much less roar in the Roaring Twenties. American lexicographers and Paul Dickson’s Baseball Dictionary would be minus one adjective of colossal proportions: “Ruthian.”

So thank you, Heinie Wagner. You changed the course of baseball history and all of this might have happened if you had not been around to make that trip to Baltimore in July 1918.

JOANNE HULBERT is a co-chair of the SABR Boston chapter and is also co-chair of the SABR Arts committee. She regrets, despite spending countless hours accumulating 19th century and dead ball era poetry, and although finding poetry for all the other players on the 1918 Red Sox team, she has yet to find a masterpiece dedicated to Charles “Heinie” Wagner, truly an unsung hero. She has not given up the quest.