June 3, 1915
Phillies @ Brooklyn Dodgers
Today the State Department announced it would arrange
transportation for Americans in Mexico suffering in the current famine to
return to the United States. The
American Red Cross was also sent south of the border to distribute food to
starving Mexicans. President Woodrow
Wilson stated his belief that, as Americans, it was their duty to help those
that were suffering. When asked if the
US would intervene militarily in the relief effort, the president and Secretary
of State William Jennings Bryan both stated that any reports of American army
and navy being used to help the Mexican people was overblown. They said that there were capable leaders in
Mexico right now and if they would stop fighting long enough to set up an
interim government there would be no need for intervention. The president and his cabinet were going to
let these leaders figure out how to organize their government on their own, but
if it took more than two weeks the US would step in to act as a catalyst. This was probably some maneuvering on the
part of Wilson to set the US up as the good guys in the potential
conflict. Reports were slowly trickling
back east that as many as six Americans were killed on their own land by
Mexican troops. A source from the White
House later reiterated the administration’s desire to stay neutral but added a
veiled threat that if Americans on the border kept getting murdered by roving
bands from these Mexican rebels, the US would not hesitate to take their pound
of flesh as retribution.[1]
President Wilson also received praise from a former
president who was giving a speech in Bryn Mawr.
President William Howard Taft gave the commencement speech at the
college today in which he laid out his plan for preventing conflicts like the
Great War in the future. He declared
that “If we had a jingo in the presidential chair who did not realize the
responsibility of plunging the country into war, a war might have been brought
on,” which not only publicly backed President Wilson’s cautious approach to
joining the war but attacked his former colleague Theodore Roosevelt, who had
been clamoring for America to basically man up and fight since the war
began. Taft’s plan was to set up a
Congress of Nations (of which he meant eight or nine powerful European nations)
that would agree to maintain peace with each other. They would set up an international court
system of sorts that would arbitrate grievances between nations. If war still broke out, the nations that had
not declared the war would band together to fight the one that had. Taft wasn’t naïve enough to believe his plan
would ring in world peace, but he did believe whole-heartedly that it would
stop a major war like the one raging in the Europe from happening ever again.[2]
Up in Brooklyn a pitchers duel broke out between the
Phillies Erskine Mayer and the Dodgers Ed Appleton. This was the duo’s second head-to-head
matchup of the season, the first coming on April 28th when Appleton
didn’t make it out of the fifth inning and Mayer threw a complete game
shutout. Both pitchers kept their
opponents off the board for eight of the nine innings today, but that one
inning was enough to decide it. Beals
Becker lead off the fourth inning with a shot that was too tough for shortstop
Ollie O’Mara to handle, allowing him to reach on an error. Appleton that planted a pitch in the dirt
that escaped catcher Otto Miller’s grasps and Becker went all the way to third. Gavvy Cravath then walked but was forced out
at second on a groundball hit by Bert Niehoff.
Becker scored on the play. Fred
Luderus grounded out but Niehoff was quick enough to evade an out and took
second. Bud Weiser then struck out on
another ball in the dirt that bounded by Miller, forcing the catcher to chase
after it in order to throw Weiser out at first.
But Miller’s throw was way too high for first baseman Jake Daubert and
Niehoff scored all the way from second on a strikeout. So, two runs scored on zero hits and a whole
bunch of miscues from Brooklyn. This was
the second game in a row that all of the Phillies runs were unearned. Outside of the fourth, Appleton didn’t allow
more than one hit in an inning and only one Phillies player made it as far as
third base the rest of the game. These
two runs were a gift to an offense that looked a lot like the batsmen wearing
the same uniform 100 years later.
In the bottom of the inning Erskine Mayer did his best to
give this game away. Hi Myers and
Daubert lead off the inning with back-to-back walks. Casey Stengal attempted a hit and run that
would have worked perfectly if only his hit hadn’t been a hard bouncer through
the box that happened to find Mayer’s glove.
Not rattled by the prize he found in his glove, Mayer turned and got the
out at third base. Next up was Zack
Wheat, the hero of the first game of this series when he drove in the game
tying and winning runs in the late innings.
It looked like fortune would once again shine on Wheat as he drove a
screaming liner to center field that surely would have scored at least two had
it not been for Weiser’s amazing running catch.
Daubert and Stengal had to rush back to their bases to avoid being
doubled up. Mayer lost all control for
the next two batters, walking both on eight straight balls, which forced home
Brooklyn’s first run in the form of Daubert.
A huge sigh of relief came from the Phillies when Otto Miller made the
final out of the inning. As lucky as the
Phillies were to score two runs they were just as lucky to not have a rally
pinned on them in their defensive half inning.
Four walks and two screaming line drives usually result in much more
than one run. But it was just that kind
of day for the Phillies, a day when signs of the jinx reversing were all around
them. In the sixth Niehoff made a
fantastic play to double-up the Dodgers and end a potential rally. Dave Bancroft had his feet knocked out from
under him in the eighth as he made a great catch on another hard hit ball by
Wheat and had the presences of mind to throw behind him to get a wandering
Stengal. Whether by luck or skill or a
combination of both, the Phillies left Brooklyn with a win by a score of 2-1.[3]
A cartoon in the New
York Tribune had all the club’s characterizations pantomiming something to
express their seasons to date. The Cubs
and White Sox were drawn riding a black horse, a nod to their current state of
being dark horses. The Braves player was
standing in the background saying “Avoid the early sprint, boys,” in reference
to their historic second half comeback the season before. The Athletics player was huddled on a box,
the only player not in motion, saying “Tis bitteh, bitteh cold,” which is
pretty grim now that I think about it.
Underneath the poor dying Athletics player it read, “Who would have
thought it.” As for the Phillies, their
representation was a player hanging from a single string and saying, “I can’t
keep this up.” While this was true and
every Phillies fan probably believed they would falter, the win today showed
something of the heart this club had. In
the past month the Phillies would not have made these plays, which would have
resulted in yet another throttling by the Dodgers and the relinquishment of
second place. The defense, maybe the
weakest part of this team, made a grand showing and deserves a lot of credit
for the win today. Mayer’s one bad
inning was an aberration and he proved it through eight great innings. The defense was coming around and the
pitching remained great, the final piece of the puzzle was to get the bats
going. As we saw early on in the season,
this club could hit. It wasn’t a matter
of if but when they would start scoring runs again in bunches. Once that occurred there was no stopping this
club. So, yes, the Phillies were indeed
hanging on to pennant hopes by a thread, but the win today was their first step
to hauling themselves back up to the top of the National League.
[1]
“Wilson May Ignore Fighting Chieftains In Mexican Plan,” Evening Ledger, June 3, 1915, accessed June 3, 2015, http://1.usa.gov/1Icdo9z.
[2]
“’War Possible If Wilson Was Jingo’-Taft,” Evening
Ledger, June 3, 1915, accessed June 3, 2015, http://1.usa.gov/1Icdo9z.
[3]
“Dodgers Not Lucky, So Slip Down A Peg,” The
Sun, June 4, 1915, accessed June 3, 2015, http://1.usa.gov/1M4AyzA.
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