April 23, 1915
Phillies vs. Boston Braves
Wrigley Field turned a year old today in 1915. Of course, it was not called Wrigley Field
and the Cubs would not be the park’s inhabitants for another year. In fact it wasn’t even an American or
National League park one hundred years ago!
The Chicago Whales (formerly the Chifeds) of the Federal League was the
original club to play in what was then called Weeghman Park. Even though the Federal League only survived
for two seasons, the Whales had a bit more success in the park than the Cubs
would over their next one hundred seasons because they, you know, actually won a championship. In The
New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, James writes that he believes
the 1915 FL pennant race, which the Whales won, to be one of the best in
professional baseball history, but we’ll explore this more as the season goes
on. Before the games started on April 23rd,
the Whales had the best record in Chicago at 5-3, good enough for second place
in the Federal League, the White Sox were battling the Athletics for the AL’s
basement, and the Cubs were 3.5 games back of the best team in baseball, the
Philadelphia Phillies.
The Athletics had the day off, so all attention was focused on the Baker Bowl for the Phillies second game of their series against the Braves. Though, to say the fans were expecting an eighth straight win from their National League club would be untrue. The Braves were bringing their top starter, Dick Rudolph, back to pitch for the reigning champions. Rudolph, remember, opened the season with a pitchers duel against Grover Cleveland Alexander and was no doubt looking to take some revenge on what he probably thought was a cheap loss. The Phillies jumped on Rudolph early that day and it proved to be enough to get the victory. But the task of defeating the second best pitcher in the NL becomes a lot harder when you don’t have the best NL pitcher going, and today the Phillies would have to win with Eppa Rixey on the mound.
Eppa Rixey came from an upper class family that had a long
history in Virginia. He went to the
University of Virginia for college where he lettered in both baseball and
basketball. The young collegiate star
graduated in 1912 with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and had planned to
retire from the game to devote his time to his career, but an economic downturn
had caused his father’s bank to lose money, which threatened to halt his
brother’s schooling. So, to make a quick
couple thousand dollars to help out his family, Rixey signed on to pitch for
the Phillies. He stayed in the majors
for 21 years. The young Virginian
quickly made a name for himself during his fantastic rookie season. Despite his mediocre win-loss record, Eppa
had a 2.50 ERA (144 ERA+) and 4.8 rWAR.
Sadly for the Phillies, Rixey wouldn’t start putting up consistently
great seasons until after he was traded to the Reds in 1920. To be fair, Rixey did miss the 1918 season because
he was serving in the Chemical Weapons Division in World War I. So while the Phillies didn’t really give him
a break for being unable to shake of the rust of war, maybe we should show more
compassion.[1]
Rixey was in his fourth season of what would become a Hall
of Fame career. He almost assuredly got
his plaque in Cooperstown because he held the record for most wins by a lefty
when he retired in 1933, a record that stood until Warren Spahn broke surpassed
him in 1959. My guess would be that if
we were redoing the Hall of Fame today Rixey would be bumped out. That’s not to say he didn’t have a fantastic
career, because he did, it’s just that it wasn’t extraordinary when compared
with the history of baseball since he left the game. He finished with 56.8 rWAR, which puts him 81st
all-time as a starting pitcher, in the same group as Bobby Matthews, CC
Sabathia, and Orel Hershiser. This is no
doubt a great group of pitchers to be compared to, but all of these guys are
considered to be borderline for the Hall of Fame at best.
Rixey and the Phillies found themselves in another pitching
duel with Rudolph on this day. Possum
Whitted smacked his first of three singles to lead off the second. Bert Niehoff smashed a ball off of the Baker Bowl’s
notoriously close right field wall for a double. Probably because the wall was only 279 feet
from home plate, the double by Niehoff only allowed Whitted to reach third
base. But Fred Luderus cleaned them up
with a double of his own. Why Luderus
was hitting 7th in the game, despite having a slash line of
.440/.500/.560, is unknown, but fortunately he was slotted so low because he
provided the only runs the club would get off of Rudolph.
Little offense was produced between the third and the eighth
innings. Rudolph calmed down and allowed
four more scattered hits. Rixey was
fantastic as he baffled the Braves through eight innings. In the top of the ninth, though, things got a
little shaky for the Phillies. The
Braves thought that Rixey was balking every time he threw over to first base to
check the runner. Inning after inning
the jeers from the opposing bench slowly wore down Eppa’s confidence. He began pitching too finely, taking too much
off his throws and either throwing them erratically or perfectly down the
middle where the batters could club them.
He pitched himself into a pickle when Rabbit Maranville jolted a double
and Hank Gowdy walked. Paul Strand pinch
hit for Rudolph and promptly singled Maranville home. The Braves were threatening with two runners
on, down by one, and the top of the order coming up. Phils’ catcher Bill Killefer slowly walked to
the mound to relax his young pitcher.
The calming presence must have helped Rixey because he retired the next
batter, Dolf Lugue, and the Phillies escaped with a victory.[2]
With this, their eighth straight victory to start the
season, the Phillies had the hottest start in Philadelphia history. They were also turning heads across the
country, as well. Baseball writers in
New York and Chicago and, obviously, Philadelphia were picking the Phillies as the
early favorites to take the National League pennant. They were second in the NL in runs scored
with 41 even though they had played less games that every other team. And their pitching had allowed only 10 runs
in eight games! In past years only Alexander
could be counted on to pitch like that.
Now the club was getting an Alex-like outing every single game. In fact, the Phillies had not even used a
relief pitcher during the first eight games of 1915! Tomorrow was a Saturday, which always gives a
nice bump in attendance, and Erskine Mayer was scheduled to take the mound in
front of what was expected to be a sold out crowd. With Mayer and Alexander scheduled to close
out the series with Boston, the Phillies were set up well, but could they pull
of the 10-0 start?
[1]
Jan Finkel, “Eppa Rixey,” SABR BioProjecct, accessed April 23, 2015, http://sabr.org/bioproj/person/0d7c2a69.
[2]
“Phillies’ Peppery Onslaught Crushes Spirit of Braves,” Evening Ledger, April 24, 1915, accessed April 23, 2015, http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045211/1915-04-24/ed-1/seq-13/#date1=1915&sort=date&date2=1915&words=PHILLIES+Phillies&sequence=0&lccn=&index=10&state=Pennsylvania&rows=20&ortext=&proxtext=phillies&year=&phrasetext=&andtext=&proxValue=&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=10.
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