June 20, 1915
Phillies @ Cincinnati Reds
The Phillies and Reds played their final game of the series
today. Interestingly enough, this was
only the second game the Phillies played on a Sunday all year. Pennsylvania’s Sunday Blue Laws, enacted in
1794, prevented “vice and immorality, and of unlawful gaming, and to restrain
disorderly sports and dissipation.” So,
that meant no baseball in Philadelphia on the Lord’s Day. Connie Mack had called for the legalization
of Sunday baseball since 1911 because he believed that the club could make
about $20,000 for each game. Mack and
the Athletics were never wealthy, so that extra cash flow would really help
keep the club afloat. You can imagine
what the pro-blue laws crowd though of Mr. Mack’s appeal for Sunday games for
purely financial reasons. It didn’t go
over well. They also preached that
Sunday games would cause noise and commotion in the neighborhoods around the
park, making it difficult for devotees to peacefully pursue their religious
practices. Mack used other cities as
examples of successfully enacted Sunday games (Cincinnati was one; they
repealed their blue laws in 1902).
Still, with the legislation packed with blue law supporters and almost
zero help from the Phillies (who weren’t exactly raking in the money, either,
yet seemed ambivalent about making tens of thousands of extra dollars a week),
bans on Sunday baseball remain in Philadelphia.
By 1919, most cities in professional baseball allowed for
Sunday games. Cincinnati, St. Louis, and
Chicago lifted their ban in 1902. They
next wave of reversals was in 1918 when Cleveland, Washington, and Detroit
allowed for Sunday play. New York
followed suit in 1919, leaving only Boston, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh with effective blue laws on the books. You would think that after 70% of the clubs
in both leagues starting operating Sunday games with no souls lost amongst the
citizenry that Massachusetts and Pennsylvania would fall in line, but, man, you
would be wrong. Boston didn’t legalize
it until 1929, ten years later, and even then left a law on the books that
forbid ball playing within a thousand feet of a church, which forced the Red
Sox to play their Sunday games at Braves Field until 1933. But Pennsylvania, oh stubborn Pennsylvania,
held out even longer, waiting until 1934 to finally
allow baseball to be played on Sundays.
Twenty-three years after Connie Mack first held the flag for the repeal
of the blue laws and 140 years after they were enacted, the Athletics and
Phillies played the first legal game of Sunday baseball on April 8th. Who won?
We all did. Just kidding, the
Phillies won 8-1.[1]
[2]
Now, back to the game in 1915. As you’ve read, Cincinnati was one of the
three heathen cities to allow Sunday baseball as far back as 1902. The Phillies lost their only other Sunday
game in St. Louis on June 6, probably because God was mad that they
participated. Hopefully today He would
was a feeling slightly less wrathful.
The Reds sent Cy Young, I mean, Gene Dale to the mound to start the
game. Dale was out of baseball by 1917
after playing four bad years in the big leagues, only posting a positive WAR
once. Can you guess what year it was? Yep, 1915!
Because he was having the Best Year Of His Career (BYOHC), just like
everyone else that pitched that season.
In three of his four seasons his total rWAR was -3.6, but somehow he
managed a 3.1 in 1915. Go figure. Against the Phillies he might as well have
been God because they managed nothing against him.
Because of the lack of Sunday reporting on baseball, it’s
hard to really piece together the game action.
But what I do know is that the blurbs I could find on the game don’t
mention that Dale pitched well, which is they normally go out of their way to
do if a pitcher was even remotely successful, so I’m going to assume the Phillies spent the afternoon getting themselves
out. There were only two hits through
the first eight innings for the Phillies, and they went like this: Fred Luderus
hits a single and Bill Killefer grounds into a double play. Gavvy Cravath hits a single and Possum
Whitted grounds into a double play.
That’s the sum total of Philadelphia’s offense through eight
innings. Dale struck out four batters,
so it wasn’t as though he was overpowering the hitters; he was just at the
lucky crossroad of having good command, great defense, and a horribly slumping
Phillies lineup.
Philadelphia did pose a threat in the ninth, however. Luderus lead off with a triple, making him
the first Phillie to get past first base all day. He was driven in on Ed Burns’ one-out
pinch-hit single. Dave Bancroft’s single
proved that Dale was laboring and if Reds manager Buck Herzog didn’t do
something soon, he would flirt with waking the sleeping dragon that is the Phillies
offense. So with runners on first and
second, Dale was replaced with Rube Benton, who promptly hit Bobby Byrne with a
pitch to load the bases with the middle of the order coming up. This was a real chance for the Phils! Dode Pasker pinch-hit but couldn’t figure
Benton out and went down on strikes.
Gavvy Cravath, the team leader in home runs and RBIs, stepped to the
plate with the chance to be the hero, but his out put the Phillies out of their
misery. Phillies lost 2-1.[3] [4]
Al Demaree was on the hill for the Phillies, the third tough
luck loser in the past four games. He
pitched really well, but somehow he faced only four more batters than the
minimum and still lost this game. He did
give up six hits and two walks, but two double plays and two stranded runners
meant Cincinnati couldn’t mount much of an attack. In the sixth and seventh innings, the Reds
did manage to push two runs across the plate at Demaree’s liability, but two
runs over nine innings would make for a great ERA, so we can hardly blame the pitching in this one. No, the blame for this loss goes
squarely on the heads of the hitters.
Well, nothing you can do about a game like this except get
on the train to Pittsburgh and try again tomorrow. The lineup was killing this team, managing
only eleven runs in the five games since they left Chicago. How they could look the pitchers in the eyes
in the locker room is beyond me. Today
was the team’s third loss in a row by the score of 2-1; those aren’t score that
indicate the pitching was the problem.
Hitting has been the team’s bugaboo all year, fluctuating between best
in baseball and frustratingly futile, and would need to find consistency if the
team was going to go anywhere this year.
And, as we know, they do go somewhere, so the hitting will come. But much like their counterparts on the 2015
club, the 1915 Phillies offense could just be offensive to watch.
[1]
Bob Warrington, “The Fight for Sunday Baseball in Philadelphia,” Philadelphia
Athletics Historical Society, July 30, 2001, accessed June 18, 2015, http://bit.ly/1dMm2B7.
[2]
Albert J. Menendez, “The Fight for Sunday Baseball,” Liberty (October/September 2007), accessed June 18, 2015, http://bit.ly/1Lhwvmo.
[3]
“Benton Saves Dale’s Scalp,” The Sun,
June 21, 1915, accessed June 18, 2015, http://1.usa.gov/1K0HVcq.
[4]
“A Close Call For Reds,” New York Tribune,
June 21, 1915, accessed June 18, 2015, http://1.usa.gov/1L2XBNa.
No comments:
Post a Comment