June 17, 1915
Phillies @ Cincinnati Reds
Athletics vs. Chicago White Sox
In a fun twist of fate, the first and last place teams in
the American and National Leagues faced off today and both involved teams from
Philadelphia. It was a sad reunion at
Shibe Park as Eddie Collins, former Athletic and the greatest second baseman of
the era, made his first trip back to his former home park since Connie Mack sold him
to the White Sox for $50,000. It was
unfortunate for Philadelphia because Collins was the leader of the great
Athletics teams that won four pennants and three World Series in five years, a
real baseball hero for this town, but he would forever after been known as a
White Sox. I’d be surprised if the average sports fan on the street even knew the Collins was an instrumental part to the city’s
first really great team. Mack’s
financial situation and paranoia with the Federal League after the 1914 season cost this city a
legend. But I digress. Collins mixed a little nostalgia for the fans in with his
revenge on Mack in his first game back by really taking it to his former club. He was three for three with a double, walked,
run scored, RBI, two stolen bases, and was involved in getting 10 of the 27
outs. That, my friends, is a hell of a
game. Chicago won the game 3-0 and
maintained their one-game lead over the Tigers for first place.
The other first place club was in Cincinnati this
afternoon. The Reds and Phillies were
supposed to have played a series at the Baker Bowl in late May but Mother
Nature had other plans, limiting the action to one game in which the Reds beat
Grover Cleveland Alexander, 6-2. The Reds
would face Alexander tomorrow, but today was Erskine Mayer’s game. Mayer, as I’ve discussed, was simply on fire. In his last 56 innings, he was 6-0 with a
save and a 2.09 ERA. The combination of
Mayer followed by Alexander had resulted in six wins in the last fourteen days
for Philadelphia, proving they were the hottest pitching tandem in professional
baseball in June. Now they were going to
get the chance to do a little one-two action on the team with the second fewest
runs scored in the baseball.
Cincinnati had Fred Toney on the mound and, stop me if
you’ve heard this one before, he was having the best season of his career. There must have been something about the
National League’s offenses this year because it seems every pitcher, no matter
how pedestrian, put up huge, outlier numbers, especially in the WAR
department. Toney’s rWAR in 1915 wound
up at 7.9; his total in his other 11 seasons was 19.8, or an average of 1.8 per
year. Red’s manager Buck Herzog had used
Toney only as a relief pitcher so far this season, but he excelled at the job,
putting up a 0.79 ERA over 11 and a third innings. His reward was a start against the Phillies,
his first since 1913.
Both pitchers lived up to their billing. Inning after inning the clubs went down with
futile efforts. There were some chances,
though; in many of their turns at bat each club would get a man on base,
occasionally even two, but that just made the pitchers concentrate harder to
get out without any damage. Mayer was
assisted in the third, fourth, and fifth innings by double plays to retire the
Reds. It wasn’t until the sixth inning
when a run was put on the board. Possum
Whitted, who had been relatively silent since his return to the lineup from
injury, hit a one out single off of Toney and then stole second base. Bert Niehoff then drove Possum in to give
the Phillies the 1-0 lead. Then, just as
if the run never happened, Toney went back to dominating the Phillies lineup.
The Reds weren’t doing much better until Mayer seemingly
began to tire in the eighth. A one-out
single by Ivy Olsen gave the Reds their chance.
The next batter was a pinch hitter that was, amazingly, also named
Ivy. Well, Ivey. Ivey Wingo.
And it was Ivey Wingo that scored Ivy Olsen when he smacked a single to
right that was too much for Gavvy Cravath to handle smoothly. The error cost Mayer and the Phillies lead,
but not the game, yet. But Philadelphia was unable to find a way to break Toney in the top of the ninth. Tommy Leach led off the bottom of the ninth for the Reds
with an out, Tommy Griffith followed the same, and Mayer was one out away from
extra innings. But then Buck Herzog whacked
a triple that rattled the Phillies pitcher.
As fatigued as he was, all Mayer needed to do was settle down and get
Red Killefer out to strand Herzog at third, but he couldn’t get it done. Killefer walked off with a single and Mayer
took the hard luck loss.[1]
This made two days in a row that expert pitching baffled the
Phillies lineup. One would hope that the
hitters had found a groove at the tail end of this road trip, but the last two
days proved otherwise. While it
certainly wasn’t time to panic, the effort was extremely disappointing. The Phillies were given a chance to expand
their lead over the rest of the NL with these two series against Pittsburgh and
Cincinnati, two of the scrubs of the league, and managed to lose two of the
first three games. In a coincidence,
earlier in the year when the Phillies beat the Cubs to secure first place, they
went on to lose seven of their next eight games against subpar opponents. Now, after taking two of three from the Cubs
in Chicago, it wasn’t out of the realm of possibilities that the Phillies would
repeat this descent. Adding to the
frustration and disappointment of the day, the Cubs beat the Dodgers in a
19-inning marathon to take first place away from the Phillies. Once again the Phillies would have to fight
to reclaim their place, and despite Alexander’s turn in the rotation coming
tomorrow, it would be a long time before Philadelphia would again top the
National League standings.
[1]
“Phils Lose Close Game; Reds Win By Score Of 2-1,” Evening Ledger, June 17, 1915, accessed June 16, 2015, http://1.usa.gov/1cYLLpp.
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