April 17, 1915
Phillies @ New York Giants
Athletics vs. New York Yankees
On this day 100 year ago the Phillies played their first
game of the season versus their hated rivals, the New York Giants. Everything about the Giants made them perfect
for the scorn of Philadelphians.
Philadelphia has always had an inferiority complex towards the Big Apple
(shh…don’t tell any Philadelphians I said that). Over the nineteenth-century New York took over
as the number one city in America in all the areas where Philadelphia had once
held the crown. As I discussed in a
previous article, Philadelphians became shut off from the rest of the world,
relying on tradition for self-importance, even as the nineteenth-century drew
to a close and the city was noticeably falling behind the times. New York and
Philadelphia were the biggest cities in the United States when the Phillies and
Giants both joined the National League in 1883, but the teams, much the cities
they represented, went in opposite directions.
New York’s baseball team was phenomenal whereas the Phillies
were mediocre. The Giants had finished
in the first division since 1903 and, lead by Christy Mathewson, the best
pitcher in the NL during the 1900s, they won the 1905 World Series as well as
three consecutive pennants from 1911 to 1913.
The Phillies were always in the middle of the standings. Even New York’s winning could be tolerated to
a degree; in truth it was the winning combined with the Giant’s manager, an out
and out son-of-a-bitch named John McGraw, that really cemented the disgust
coming from Philly. Actually, come to
think of it, everyone hated McGraw, but I know Philadelphia’s grievances best.
In 1901 he was hand picked by Ban Johnson to manage
Baltimore’s American League team, the same year Connie Mack was chosen to be
Philadelphia’s manager. It wouldn’t be a
stretch to think of these men as foils for each other; it goes show that there
is more than one way to win at baseball because these two diametrically opposed
men found themselves as the top two winningest managers of all-time. Mack was the upstanding gentleman that wore a
suit in the dugout during games. He was
very competitive but not so much that he would cheat or tolerate poor character
to win. McGraw was loud, violent, and
angry. He was always riding umpires and
playing mind games with opposing players to gain whatever advantage he could. His temper as so bad that Johnson often
suspended him over the two years he spent in Baltimore; there were even
suggestions that McGraw was purposely extra agitating towards umpires because
John knew Johnson held them in special esteem.
To be clear, McGraw was such a jerk that rumors that he purposefully
tried to piss his boss off for fun were commonplace. Eventually he had enough of Johnson’s American
League and left the Orioles to take the Giants’ job in New York. But don’t put it past old John McGraw to talk
some shit on his way out the door! One
infamous line he gave to reporters, amongst many others bashing the American
League, was that the club in Philadelphia was real problem, a white
elephant. Connie Mack took the barb in
stride and actually made the white elephant the A’s mascot, a tradition the
Oakland Athletics continue to this day. The Athletics and Giants had a history
on the field, too. Mack and McGraw’s
clubs faced off against each other in the 1905, 1911, and 1913 World Series,
with the A’s winning two of the three.
When the Giants faced the Phillies it wasn’t uncommon for players, or
fans and players for that matter, to get into fights. There once was a small-scale riot outside of
the Baker Bowl. McGraw’s personality was
so repugnant that it was hard for the Philly faithful to resist the urge to
bash his face in. Still, McGraw and the
Giants always had the last laugh when it came to the Phillies, though, because
New York was much more successful.
As for this game in April 1915, it would be the Phillies
that took the prize. Grover Cleveland
Alexander took the mound three days
after his Opening Day shutout of the Braves to do battle with Mathewson. Since he broke into the majors in 1900,
Mathewson was the only legitimate claim to the best pitcher in baseball. He put up 88.0 fWAR by 1914; the next closest
player was Cy Young with 69.1 (side note- Rube Waddell with 58.7 and Eddie
Plank with 57.8 were third and fourth on the list, both played for the Athletics). Christy famously threw three complete game
shutouts in the 1905 World Series helping the Giants beat the Athletics 4 game
to 1. You can only imagine the buzz
around the Polo Grounds as Matty faced off against Pete.
An article in New York’s The
Sun sums up the Phillies day as such: “Alexander is peerless in his
profession and yesterday was one of his most peerless days.”[1] He only allowed 6 hits and 1 walk through his
second complete game win of the season.
The fielding behind the great ace was superb enough to be mentioned in
the papers. Where the Giants were sloppy,
committing six errors in the game, the Phillies were not and it helped keep the
New Yorkers to one run in nine innings.
Meanwhile the Phillies batters continued their trend of
jumping out to an early lead. In the
first, Phillies’ third baseman Bobby Byrne led off the game with a single into
center field. Mathewson retired Dave
Bancroft and Beals Becker, bringing Gavvy Cravath to the plate. On an 0-2 pitch Cravath smashed a fastball
over the right field wall for his first home run of the season and the only
runs Alexander would need to get the victory.
The Phillies continued to pound the ball, though, chasing the vaunted
Mathewson from the game after only three innings of work. The final score was 7-1 Philadelphia; the
Phillies remained undefeated.
The Athletics did not fare as well against their New York
opponents. Actually it was almost the
total opposite of the Phillies match.
Weldon Wyckoff started for the A’s and was chased in the second after
surrendering two runs, five walks and a hit.
Mack hoped to get more accuracy and control of the game when he went to
Rube Bressler to calm everyone down, but all he got was more walks and more
runs. Bressler just couldn’t get the job
done. The Yankees ended up winning the
game 9-1 after walking thirteen times. If that seems like a lot, wait until we get
to June and Bruno Haas takes the mound for the A’s. Let’s just say Haas wishes he only walked thirteen batters. I told you the A’s were really hitting the
skids.
The Phillies’ win put some distance between them and second
place. Their 3-0 record put them 1.5
games up on the pack that shared a 2-2 start (this group includes the New York
Giants, Cincinnati Reds, St. Louis Cardinals, Chicago Cubs, and Pittsburgh
Pirates). The Athletics, however, sat in
the basement of the American League. But
they were only one game out of first place and the great thing about baseball
is that there is always a tomorrow to right the ship. Except for in 1915. Tomorrow would actually be two days away
because both the Phillies and A’s were off on April 18, 1915. We’ll meet back up on April 19th.
[1]
“Phillies Show Why They Lead Pennant Race,” The
Sun, April 18, 1915, accessed April 17, 2015. http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030272/1915-04-18/ed-1/seq-13/#date1=1915&sort=date&date2=1915&words=PHILLIES+Phillies+PHILLY&sequence=0&lccn=&index=11&state=New+York&rows=20&ortext=&proxtext=Phillies&year=&phrasetext=&andtext=&proxValue=&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=5
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