May 25, 1915
Phillies vs. Chicago Cubs
Athletics @ Cleveland Indians
We are back after a substantial break in the action. The Phillies were rained out or had the day
off for four straight days. The
Athletics beat the Tigers on May 21st to momentarily escaped from
last place, but then lost the next two to reclaim the basement slot. Today they beat the Indians for the second
day in a row, but this was still not enough to pull them up to seventh
place. In fact, they had been in last
place for four days in a row, which, as we talked about in an earlier post, were
more days in last place than in their entire existence before 1915.
As for new from around the world, Italy finally officially
joined the war on May 23rd with their declaration against Austria-Hungary. Two days into the fighting and the Italians
were already proving to be a pest in the side of the Central Powers when they
drove the Austria-Hungarian forces out through Tyrol Pass and were poised to
take the city of Trent within the next couple of days. Today also marked the official end to the
Second Battle of Ypres. You know, the
Battle of Ypres that we talked about a month ago as the first time poison gas
was used by the Germans and how warfare was changed forever? Yeah, that battle has been going on almost
non-stop since then. During this month
both sides accounted for more than 100,000 casualties just in this section of
the Western Front line around Ypres; over 100,000 men dead, wounded, or missing
in a month that doesn’t even take into consideration the Russians and Germans
battling in the east, the fighting in the Balkans, or the Italians or Ottoman
sections of the war. It’s the equivalent
of full Beaver Stadium being gassed, bombarded, starved, machine gunned, and
tortured for an entire month. It’s a
kind of destruction whose scale is hard to even imagine or appreciate reading
about it in a blog 100 years later. But
as this is a baseball blog, we have to make one of those hard right-turn
transitions away from war and back to baseball.
The Phillies’ time off was actually detrimental to their
position in the standings. The Cubs beat
the Braves on May 21st to tie the Phillies for first place, and when
they won in Boston again the next day the top spot in the National League
belonged to Chicago. The Phillies were
at the trough of their season while the Cubs were cresting; Chicago was 15-6
since April 27th whereas the Phillies went 7-10. Roger Bresnahan, manager for Chicago, had
bragged to beat writers that he though his club would win the National League
for sure if he could just get his pitchers to throw at the highest level they
were capable of. Well, in May Bresnahan
got what he wanted from the bump and proved his baseball acumen.
Bert Humphries took the hill today at the Baker Bowl to face
off against Grover Cleveland Alexander.
Alex, as you may recall, pitched in the Phillies last game and took a
bad loss. Today he would have to
outpitch a hot Humphries, who had yet to allow a run so far this season. Bert was mostly a relief pitcher, but he did
have one start this year against the Giants where he shut them out after only
allowing five hits all game. Batters had
just a .343 OPS off of him this season, making the task for the Phillies to
break out of their most recent hitting slump seem all the more daunting. Even Fred Luderus’ return to the lineup today
could not refute the fact that today’s game was going to be a pitching
duel. It looked like it was going to
have to be Alexander that kept his team in the game until they could hopefully
squeeze a run or two past this great Cubs team.
Even this was no easy task as Alexander struggled to beat the Cubs more
than any other team on the circuit throughout his career for one reason or
another.
The game certainly lived up to the billing. Through five innings neither squad could get
much accomplished off of these great pitchers.
In the second inning Henie Zimmerman, a heel to the fans in
Philadelphia, reached base on an error.
He made his way to third base, but got cocky with his lead. Bill Killefer fired a pick off throw up the
line to Bobby Byrne, who put a great tag on Zimmerman, resulting in an out and
an end to the rally. Zimmerman, who was
known as a hothead that relished in arguing with umpires, calmly marched back
to the dugout despite the close play. He
knew his role in this game was important and to get himself tossed so early in
the match would kill his team’s momentum.
Phillies’ left fielder Beals Becker was not so smart about his decisions
when he was booted from the game for arguing a similar play with the
umpire. This goes to show the mind set
both teams were in for today’s game. The
Cubs had been winning so much that a mental mistake was nothing they couldn’t
overcome, but the Phillies were in a place where every mistake seemed like
another Everest to climb over. The
tension was only increasing as the innings were marked off on the scoreboard
with zero after zero.
The bottom of the sixth proved to be the decisive
frame. Byrne’s single was followed by a
double from Becker to put runners at second and third. Gavvy Cravath came and smashed what looked
like a ball in the gap off the bat, but it was run down and caught for an
out. Byrne scored and Becker took third
on the sacrifice fly. Later in the
inning Cubs’ shortstop Bob Fisher made his 13th throwing error of
the season allowing Becker to stride home.
From here out it was Alexander’s game.
He dominated the batters in the seventh for a much needed shutdown
inning and then drove in a run of his own in bottom half of the inning. Chicago was held hitless for the remainder of
game and Alexander redeemed himself for his previous bad outing.[1]
The win put the Phillies back into a tied for first
place. Alexander had his best game of
the season, notching his second shutout and ninth complete game in ten
starts. His record bumped to 8-2 while
his ERA dropped to 1.31. The bats didn’t
come back to life today, but they did just enough to get the job done. It was a very exciting game and a hard fought
victory for the Phillies. The schedule
had the squads facing off again tomorrow, but once again Mother Nature had the
last say, so the rubber match for first place was held on May 27th,
which is where we will pick up the story next time.
[1]
“Quality of Cubs Pitching Assures Look-In For Pennant,” Evening Ledger, May 26, 1915, accessed May 25, 2015, http://1.usa.gov/1ceAbGg.
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