April 28, 1915
Phillies vs. Brooklyn Dodgers
Athletics @ Washington Senators
The Evening Ledger
used to run a “movie” everyday at the bottom of their sports page. It was a comic strip with stick figure men
and women usually making silly puns or small jokes about topical events. For today’s movie, a stick figure man is
running after his girlfriend, begging her to wait up so he can ask her an
important question. He gets down on one
knee and whispers sweet terms of endearment to her as visions of wedding rings
dance in her thought bubble. Finally he
pops the big question: “Will Frank Baker ever come back?”
Spoiler Alert: Frank “Home Run” Baker would not come back to
the Athletics. He sat the entire season
out because he felt like Connie Mack was trying to low-ball him, which, to be fair, he probably was. Baker doesn’t play major league baseball until
he is traded to Yankees in 1916. But we
see the state of the Athletics in this comic strip. Had Connie Mack been the miracle worker many
thought him to be, no one would care what Baker was up to or which farm he was
playing for in whatever godforsaken independent league. This wasn’t the case because the A’s were
routinely losing. Baker became the
savior of the club in the eyes of the fans.
Only by coming back could he reassert the magic that got the club four
pennants and three world championships.
Desperation can make the banal look gorgeous. And A’s fans were desperate.
Today the club would put on a good showing versus the
Senators. Mack, who gave the ball to
Weldon Wyckoff, would get a second straight day of good pitching. Unfortunately, it still wouldn’t be good
enough for a win. Danny Moeller started
the game off with a walk for the Sens. With Eddie
Foster at the plate, Senators’ manager Clark Griffith called for the
hit-and-run, which was executed perfectly when Foster smashed the ball through
the vacated spot that shortstop Jack Berry would normally inhabit. Moeller showed some guts on this play, testing
Rube Oldring’s arm from left field.
Rube’s throw beat the runner by a few steps for what should have been
the first out of the inning, only third baseman Sam McConnell dropped the ball. Moeller was safe at third and scored when
Clyde Milan hit a sacrifice fly.[1]
This wound up being the only run scored on the day. After Moeller crossed home plate in the bottom
of the first, everyone had to have had the passing thought that it would be the
game winner. The A’s were facing Walter
Johnson, after all. Johnson, “The Big
Train,” was in the middle of ten consecutive years of winning at least 23
games. He would lead the league in
strikeouts twelve times in his career.
He holds the record for most career shutouts with 110, which is a record that will never ever ever ever be broken. The next closest guy to Johnson, who just
happens to be Grover Cleveland Alexander, had 90. Johnson threw 20 more shutouts than the next
closest guy! To put that in perspective, Roy Halladay had 20
shutouts in his career! So suffice it to
say the A’s were really up against it when that first run came across.
Connie Mack’s boys put up a good fight by getting seven hits
off the big righty, but they couldn’t string them together to plate a run. Johnson only struck out 4, but he didn’t have
to have his A+ game to silence Philadelphia.
It’s a shame that they wasted Wyckoff’s great outing, and the second
great outing in a row. For a club that
struggled to prevent runs for the first few weeks of the season, to see two
great performances go down in the loss column really stings. The good news was staff “ace” Herb Pennock
was scheduled to take the mound tomorrow.
Maybe he could continue to the great pitching and allow the offense
enough of chance to earn a win, if he didn’t completely meltdown first. With Herb, both scenarios were equally likely to happen.
Before the Philles game against the Dodgers, umpire and
former pitcher for the Phillies Al Orth decided he was going to play
Nostradamus by predicting that Grover Cleveland Alexander would have his career
short by injury if he didn’t stop throwing his curveball so much. Orth declared that Nap Rucker had lost his
fastball because he threw a curve too much and therefore Alexander should be
careful. It should be known that when
Orth pitched in Philadelphia his nickname was “Curveless Wonder,” which is
hilarious in and of itself. Poor guy
definitely got the raw deal on that nickname. Also, maybe he had some sort of anti-curveball agenda. Obviously, as we know, the Curveless Wonder was, like many
prognosticators, completely incorrect.
The opening paragraphs of the recap of the Phillies game from the Evening Ledger was dedicated to Orth’s
prediction and Alexander didn’t even play in the game! It struck me as another example of
Philadelphia’s suspicion that there was doom around every corner, especially
when the going is good. And this club
was playing great ball.
On this day the Phillies faced Ed Appleton, Brooklyn’s young
pitcher that was not destined to stick around in the major leagues. Poor Ed probably got hammered more by his own
team than by the Phillies in today’s game.
Apparently Dodger’s first baseman Jake Daubert was feeling extra
encouraging today because he walked over to the mound every time a ball was
thrown to tell the pitcher how to correct his form. No doubt this made Appleton feel like he was
under a microscope and he certainly pitched that way. Dave Bancroft started off the first with a single, followed by Beals Becker and Gavvy Cravath walks that loaded the bases. And who should come to the plate but our boy
Possum Whitted! And what does Possum
Whitted do? Possum knocks runs in! This time it was with a long sacrifice fly
that allowed both Bancroft and Becker to tag up. The Phils scored their second run of the
inning when Becker and Cravath executed a perfect double steal.[2]
The Phillies ended up winning the game 3-0. Erskine Mayer put together probably his best
pitching performance so far this year, notching his first shutout and earning
his third win of the young season.
Becker made three great catches in the outfield, including robbing
George Cutshaw of a clear triple to help contribute to the shutout. But it was not all good news for the
Quakers. Bert Niehoff, the Phillies
second baseman, tore a ligament in his leg in yesterday’s game and was replaced
by Oscar Dugey. The papers say torn
ligament, but that probably wasn’t the case.
He would miss only a week of games.
Nonetheless, this would be the Phillies first big test. The papers and fans wondered if the team
would collapse once an injury occurred to a starter, and now here it was
happening. In game one without the
regular lineup, the Phillies passed with flying colors. But it would still be a few more days until
Alexander could pitch and there were concerns that maybe this is when the
season starts to go to hell.
[1]
“Many Stars Shine In 1 To 0 Victory,” The
Washington Times, April 29, 1915, accessed April 27, 2015, http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84026749/1915-04-29/ed-1/seq-12/#date1=1915&sort=date&date2=1915&words=athletes+Athletic+Athletics&sequence=0&lccn=&index=18&state=District+of+Columbia&rows=20&ortext=&proxtext=athletics&year=&phrasetext=&andtext=&proxValue=&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=58.
[2]
“Curve Ball Ruining Alexander, Say Pitcher-Umpire Orth,” Evening Ledger, April 29, 1915, accessed April 27, 2015, http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045211/1915-04-29/ed-1/seq-12/#date1=1915&sort=date&date2=1915&words=Phillies+PHILLIES+Philly&sequence=0&lccn=&index=2&state=Pennsylvania&rows=20&ortext=&proxtext=phillies&year=&phrasetext=&andtext=&proxValue=&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=11.
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