June 11, 1915
Phillies @ Chicago Cubs
Athletics vs. Cleveland Indians
The Phillies and Cubs renewed their battle for first place
in the National League today after having the day off yesterday. The standings in the NL were crowded;
Philadelphia came into today with a half game lead over the Cubs, but Brooklyn,
St. Louis, Boston, and Pittsburgh were all within three games of first, leaving
only the New York Giants and Cincinnati Reds as second division teams. In a fit of irony or arrogance, perhaps both,
Giants’ manager John McGraw was given space in The Evening World to discuss his thoughts on NL season, saying,
“More sand lot baseball has been played in the National League this season than
I have ever seen since breaking into the Big Show…It is criminal – criminal,
that’s all, that the Giants haven’t cinched the pennant now.” I mean, for him to say that while his club sat
in seventh place in an eight-team league takes some real balls. He then meandered through some erroneous
“they don’t play the game like the used to” rhetoric about how players in 1915
are paid too much money and they don’t hustle and that if they have a hangnail
they spend a week at the hospital when guys when he used to play would go out
there with one leg and on and on and on in this nonsensical fashion. I bring this up just to show that this cliché
is as old as baseball; people of the older generation always told the current
generation they were doing it wrong. Eventually,
more than half of his column later, he got to his point that the league is
prime to be taken by a dark horse this year.
McGraw believed that he Cubs would fail because they “haven’t the pepper
to cop the flag.” The Phillies, however,
had a real shot at the pennant according to Little Napoleon. He complimented Grover Cleveland Alexander as
a great pitcher leading the best staff in baseball while also giving credit to
Dave Bancroft for solidifying the infield in his rookie season. His prediction about the Phillies wound up
coming true, proving that McGraw did know his baseball when he didn’t act like
an arrogant horse’s ass.[1]
Today’s game would prove difficult on both clubs because it
rained last night in Chicago and the clouds that hovered over the West Side
Grounds all morning did not allow for the field to dry out. Whether the wet field made hitting more
difficult is hard to say, but the pitchers duel that ensued seemed to indicate
that this was the case. The twirlers
that controlled the day were Bert Humphries for the Cubs and Eppa Rixey for
Philadelphia. Humphries actually broke
into the big leagues with the Phillies in 1910 at the age of 29. After 50 and two-thirds innings over two
seasons in Philadelphia he managed only a 4.26 ERA, good enough to get him
shipped to Cincinnati for a bit player named Fred Beck. But, as the old trope goes, when players leave
Philadelphia they somehow find the greatness that was buried within; this was
apt in Humphries’ case. In four and half
seasons spent with the Reds and Cubs he put up 8.4 rWAR and a 2.69 ERA. C’est la vie.
Today he would prove to his former club that they made a big mistake
dismissing him so early in his career.
The Phillies started the game off with a single from Dave
Bancroft, but he was involved in the first leg of Bobby Byrne’s groundball
double play and nothing materialized in the first. The bottom of the first was a little more
interesting for Rixey and company.
Wilbur Good lead off by getting hit by a pitch and then moved up to
second on a wild pitch by Rixey. Next
up, Bob Fisher worked out a walk. Yikes,
first and second, both of whom received free passes, no outs, and the middle of
the lineup coming up. Luckily, Rixey got
Frank Schulte to pop up to third baseman Byrne, who must have made a terrific
throw back to second to get the wandering Good for the unconventional P5/5-4
double play. Another pop up from Heinie
Zimmerman and the Phillies were out of the first inning jam.
Bancroft’s single wound up as the only hit either team got
in the first four innings. The Phillies
defense did allow the Cubs to start a threat in the bottom of the third when
both Bert Niehoff and Dave Bancroft fumbled easy groundballs, but Rixey
performed admirably to work around his teammates’ deficiencies. Of the five men that reached base in the
first half of this game for both teams, none of them made it beyond the second
base bag. Humphries and Rixey matched
each other’s greatness as the tension built inning after inning.
Gavvy Cravath whacked a single to start the fifth but had to
watch as his teammates went down one after the other, stranding him at
second. Rixey lost his no-hit bid in the
bottom of the inning when Good returned a ball back through the box with one
out. The Phillies then lost the shutout
and the lead when Fisher took a Rixey pitch to deep left field for an RBI
double. Okay, no big deal. This rolling Phillies offense were a threat
to put multiple runs in any inning off of any pitcher. But Philadelphia went down in order in the
sixth. In the seventh Beals Becker made
it to second on his two-out hit to right, but Cravath’s pop up to shortstop
made it a poor effort to get the runner home.
Time was running out and Humphries was pitching too well to fool around
with pop ups when runners were in scoring position. He did get uncharacteristically wild in the
eighth and ninth inning when he walked three batters, but it didn’t matter
since the Phillies could not square up his pitches to get the much needed
hits. Fisher scored an unnecessary
insurance run for the Cubs in the eighth after a double, a wild pitch, and a
sacrifice fly from Zimmerman to give Chicago the 2-0 victory.[2]
The Phillies run in first place was over after just one
day. Humphries proved to be too much for
his former club, allowing only six base runners in his second complete-game
shutout of the season. His performance
today brought his already low ERA down to an absolutely mind-boggling
0.94. Oh, no, I’m sorry, that was his
WHIP so far this season. His ERA was
actually 0.59. Ain’t no shame when you
get dominated by the hottest pitcher in baseball, especially when he was
probably pitching with revenge on his mind.
It wasn’t going to get much easier for the Phillies tomorrow afternoon
when the two clubs would play the rubber match of the series because Chicago
was sending George Pierce with his 6-0 record and 2.51 ERA to the mound. But Erskine Mayer was no slouch and would be
going for his sixth win in a row. The
two best teams in the National League were set up nicely for an elite
performance to decide who would leave the field in first place.
[1]
“Giants Ought To Have Pennant Cinched Now, Declares, McGraw,” The Evening World, June 12, 1915,
accessed June 11, 2015, http://1.usa.gov/1IJwRBK.
[2]
“Cubs Draw First Blood In Battle With The Phils,” Evening Ledger, June 11, 1915, accessed June 11, 2015, http://1.usa.gov/1HvLZks.
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