May 28, 1915
Phillies @ Boston Braves
Phillies @ Boston Braves
Athletics vs. Boston Red Sox
The magnates that owned the professional baseball clubs 100
years ago were beginning to get restless.
It was now more than a month into the season and attendance was nowhere
near where it had been in previous years.
That fact that the decline was ubiquitous across all leagues meant that
the Federal League couldn’t be blame for diluting the product. There had to be another reason that fans were
not willing to come out to the ballparks.
Ban Johnson, President of the American League, believed that he had the
answer: rainouts. Nineteen-fifteen
happened to have more rainouts in the first month of the season than any other
in the recorded history of the game; between the three major leagues 79 games
had been rained out. The Phillies were
involved in eight cancellations thus far, three in the past week, while the
Athletics had been relatively lucky to only miss four scheduled games. All of these games needed to be made up,
obviously, which meant doubleheaders, both a blessing and a curse to the
magnates. Fans could watch two games for
the price of one, which meant the clubs missed out on a game’s worth of profit,
but it was also true that fans were more likely to show up to a mid-week
doubleheader than a single game. For
example, say the usual weekday game drew 5,000 fans (which would be a good
day), the doubleheader might draw two or three times that, meaning the club
would profit in the long run. So, for
the owners, the short-term plight of rainouts would be a long-term gain in
doubleheaders. An interesting side note,
the author of the recap of the A’s and Phillies games in the Evening Ledger said that Philadelphia
fans “generally tire of double-headers.”
He provides no explanation, maybe it was common knowledge to his readers,
but I haven’t found an answer as to why Philadelphia fans didn’t like
doubleheaders. Sucks for them, though,
because the Phillies had a lot of
games to make up.
Like today, for instance, the Phillies played a doubleheader
against the Braves in Boston to make up a game that was rained out earlier in
the season and in three days they would do it all over again. In all, the clubs would play five games in
four days, with one off day to honor the blue law banning baseball on
Sundays. Unfortunately for the Phillies,
their first doubleheader of the year got their extended road trip off to an
inauspicious start. The Braves started
George “Lefty” Tyler, who was, obviously, a lefty. As we’ve discussed, the Phillies had been
hitting lefties like mad so far this season, so it must have been a shock to
their system when they went down without a run through the first five
innings. Grover Cleveland Alexander,
ever the ace that prided himself on keeping his club in the game until the
offense could break through, did just that.
He allowed a run in the second and the fourth, surely not a deep
hole. Otherwise he was fantastic at
holding the Braves off the bases. The
Phillies came back with a run in the sixth and another in the seventh on Gavvy
Cravath’s 26th RBI of the year.
At this point it was no harm no foul.
The team hadn’t played well but now at the end of six and a half it was
a brand new ballgame. That is until
Alexander did something very un-Alexander like: he let two runs in during what
should have been a shutdown inning. At
this point it was too late for the Phillies to mount a second comeback and they
fell to a lefty for the first time this season.
Tyler tried like hell to give the game to the Phillies by walking 11
batters, but the Phils just couldn’t hit him.
Three times Tyler got himself out of a based loaded jam. It was a forgetful game between Alexander’s
mediocre pitching and the Phillies anemic offense. Time to put it behind them and try again in
the next game.
Philadelphia had much more success at the plate in game two,
but still it was a 0-0 tie through the first four innings before the Phillies
finally broke through with two runs in the fifth. Eppa Rixey looked like he was in line to
completely shut down the Braves as he threw phenomenally through five. But then in the sixth he started showing
signs of strain by walking batter after batter.
With men on base his defense didn’t help out, committing three errors in
the field that contributed to three runs.
Rixey was pulled for George Chalmers after surrendering the lead with
two out in the seventh. The Phillies
lineup picked up their pitcher in the eighth by scoring two runs of their own
that put them back on top 4-3. The club
was fighting, and even though they only managed four runs on 13 hits, it looked
like that would be enough to take the split with the Braves. But, sadly, Bad George Chalmers took the
mound in the eighth and promptly gave the lead right back to Boston. Chalmers and the Phillies took the L.[1]
The two losses were demoralizing, especially considering they
were in the games until the end and were done in by the pitching, which had
been the strength of this team throughout the entire season. But, at the same time, the losses didn’t hurt
too badly in the standings. The Cubs had
the day off, meaning they gained a full game, but the Phillies still had a
better winning percentage. Technically
they were tied, but finishing the day with the “1-t” next to their name in the
newspaper had a much nicer mental effect than if it had been a “2”. The road trip hadn’t started as the team had
hoped, but there was still plenty of time to turn this thing around. The problem was that it wasn’t going to get
any easier than at the beginning when they were fresh and ready to play. By the end of next week the Phillies will
have played nine games in seven days in two cities before they took the
950-mile train ride to St. Louis to begin the lengthy western portion of the
trip. To make it easy on themselves the
Phillies should really try to take as many games now as they can because once
they get out west fatigue will really set in and winning will be tough. They’ll have their chance tomorrow against
Boston to get things right.
[1]
“Postponed Games Real Jinx of Baseball; Mack’s Cripples,” Evening Ledger, May 29, 1915, accessed May 28, 2015, http://1.usa.gov/1HxZXOB.
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