August 14, 1915
Phillies vs. Boston Braves
Athletics @ New York Yankees
Riding high from their big victory yesterday over the
surging Boston Braves, the Phillies showed up to the ballpark today full of
confidence and determination. With the
team seemingly righting their path, and it being a beautiful summer Saturday,
those that ran the Phillies expected today to be the biggest crowd of the
season. This seemed to be a common
refrain: a large crowd was predicted only to have half the number show up. Well today followed that pattern. A crowd of 20,000+ was expected, but that did
not occur. Having said that, the crowd
that did attend today’s game was nothing to spit at. About 11,000 fans came to watch Al Demaree
continue his hot twirling against the champion Braves, making it the 15th
biggest crowd of the year. If
doubleheaders and games in which Grover Cleveland Alexander started are
removed, both well-known for abnormally high draws, today was the fourth
largest crowd the Baker Bowl held this season.
Demaree showed no signs that the crowd added any pressure to
his game. In fact the opposite might
have been true. The loud cheers and
undying support may have boosted the confidence that was already leaking out of
his uniform. See, Big Al lost only one
time since July 3 and pitched to a 2.27 ERA since then. He was cruising at a time when it seemed the
rest of his peers in the Phillies pitching staff were having trouble finding
the plate.
The first inning began with no runs for the Braves. Then Demaree went out and shut them out for a
second inning. And then another. At the end of the day he scattered 6 hits and
surrendered 4 walks to the Braves lineup, but did not allow a run to score. Today was Demaree’s eighth win and third
shutout of the season.
Of course, when teammates put up four runs in the first
three innings, the pitcher has a chance to settle in and find a groove. And when the score is 9-0 after six, well
Demaree probably had not a worry in the world for the rest of the day on the mound. Every Phillie except, ironically enough,
Gavvy Cravath performed great offensively.
Bobby Byrne had a double and scored two runs. Dave Bancroft hit two doubles and scored a
run. Hell, even Al Demaree got in on the
action with a double and run of his own.
But the player of the game was captain Fred Luderus. Not only did he get on base three times, not
only did he steal a base, but he was a single shy of hitting for the
cycle. That’s right, the big first
baseman smashed a home run, legged out a triple, and added a double for good
measure. His fourth time at bat resulted
in a strikeout that must have drove him batty.
To be so close to history and then have it fall apart must have been
heartbreaking. But in the end he
provided plenty of offense and had plenty of help from his teammates to bring
home the victory, and really that’s the most important part. Still, he probably muttered choice curses
under his breath when Cravath made the final out of the eighth, meaning Luderus
would not get a fifth chance for that single.
With the win securely under their belts, the Phillies went
into the clubhouse to do a little scoreboard watching. The last place Reds were in Pittsburgh
handing the Pirates their heads by sweeping them in a doubleheader. Not even two full days ago the Pirates looked
to be the underdog coming together at just the right time. They sat just 2.5 games back of the Phillies,
but now after losing three games in two days to Cincinnati it looked like
Pittsburgh was falling out of the race.
Even after losing to the Phillies today, the Braves actually caught the
Pirates for a tie of fourth place due to the inability to beat the basement
team. The Cubs didn’t do much better
against the seventh place Cardinals, but only because they played just one
game. In that game, though, St. Louis
routed the visitors by the score of 12-2.
So far those were two good results for the Phillies that dropped
Pittsburgh and Chicago into another division below the top teams in the
league. Up in Brooklyn the Dodgers took
on their cross-river rivals the New York Giants. The Phillies needed the Giants to win to put
some space between them and the second place Dodgers, but you can be sure that
there was at least some part that
hoped the Dodgers would smash the damned Giant out of the race all
together. Brooklyn was seen as a phony
contender to the National League pennant while the Giants were always
considered to be a scary team when it mattered most. So even though Brooklyn beat the Giants 5-1
and remained only a game back from first place, there was probably some relief
that John McGraw’s boys were now six games behind the leader.
In the American League, Walter Johnson of the Washington
Senators had his hands full with the on the rise Red Sox youngster Babe
Ruth. Not only did Ruth win the game
with nine innings of three-run ball, but he also smashed a RBI and scored a run
as well. In Chicago the Tigers defeated
the White Sox 5-3. All of a sudden the
White Sox were six games back of the Red Sox and quickly fading out of the
pennant race. The standings didn’t shift
much for either league today, but the top teams (Philadelphia and Brooklyn in
the NL, Boston and Detroit in the AL) separated themselves a bit from the rest
of the pack. Even though it was only the
middle of August, both leagues’ pennant races looked to boil down to just two
teams.
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