Phillies 100 Years Ago: The Phillies Lose The 1915 World Series To Red Sox

October 11, 1915

World Series Game Three

Phillies @ Boston Red Sox

The scene of the grandest contest in professional baseball shifted north to Boston for Game Three, but in an ironic twist the Phillies were the club most familiar with the ballpark.  Due to the demand for World Series tickets, the Boston Braves graciously loaned Braves Field to their American League neighbors.  Fenway Park had a seating capacity of about 27,000 for the 1915, while the newly completely Braves Field was the first baseball stadium to hold more than 40,000 people.  In a second ironic twist, the previous World Series that saw the Braves take on the Philadelphia Athletics was played in Fenway Park while Braves Field was being built.  How about that?!  Well, it was a good thing the Red Sox procured Braves Field because 42,000 fans attended Game Three, the largest crowd ever to watch a baseball game.

Phillies 100 Year Ago: Phillies Make Simple Mistakes In Pitcher's Duel; Boston Evens Series 1-1

October 9, 1915

World Series Game Two

Phillies vs. Boston Red Sox

The National League fans in Philadelphia have always felt that their club was cursed.  From a pre-World Series article in the Evening Ledger: “The Phillies have always been hounded by various species of the genus ‘jinx.’”  There was the case of Charlie Ferguson, the absolute phenom pitcher that was to lead the lowly Phillies to their first pennant in 1888.  Ferguson’s had 24.0 pitching rWAR from 1885 to 1887, including a 10.7 during the 1886 season.  And that was just for pitching.  He also managed 6.1 rWAR at the plate during that stretch.  But, less than two weeks into the 1888 season, Ferguson died from typhoid fever at the age of twenty-five.  Since his death the jinxed Phillies developed a reputation as a club that shoots off to an early season lead only to lose steam towards the finish line before finally blowing the pennant escalating levels of futility. 

Phillies 100 Years Ago: Game One of the 1915 World Series

October 8, 1915

World Series Game 1

Phillies vs. Boston Red Sox

Finally!  Here we are!  Game One of the 1915 World Series!  It was a tough road for the Phillies, but they waded through all of the slumps and sketchy pitching (by everyone except Grover Cleveland Alexander, of course) and stayed atop the league to snatch the first pennant in the club’s history.  The situation wasn’t so certain on September 7 when the Phillies lost three games in a row to the second place Dodgers.  With the league lead trimmed to just one game, the Phillies went on a monumental run to sure up the title.  Starting September 8, Philadelphia ripped off seven wins in a row, sweeping the Giants and taking three of four from Pittsburgh.  In the week following the disaster in Brooklyn, the Phillies extended their lead to five games.  But they didn’t stop there!  Philadelphia won fourteen of their final twenty games, laying down a pace that the other contenders were unable to keep.  On September 28 the rival Dodgers hosted the Phils at Ebbets Field and were defeated, officially eliminating them from the National League race.  The very next day the pseudo-Miracle Braves played host to the NL leaders, needing to sweep the Phillies just to keep their heads above water.  But Alexander was on the mound that day and he would not be beat.  After a quick hour and thirty-five minutes game, Alexander blanked the Braves and the Phillies were National League Champions.

American League Wild Card Game: Astros Show They Are Ready For The Big Time

Now that the 1915 Phillies season is wrapping up, I'm going to start doing a few different things with the blog.  I want to do some shorter projects about sports and history, but I also want to write about current sporting events.  Today is a recapped of the playoff baseball game from last night.  Enjoy!

Last night’s American League Wild Card game was a contrast of styles.  You could say the Houston Astros represent the new way of team building while the New York Yankees are a team of a bygone era, but to say the new school is better than the old school is a simplification.  In a one game playoff, or a One And Done, as the ESPN hype team repeatedly billed it, there is so much variance that proclaiming one style to be better than the other is ignorant.  Still, the way each team was constructed played a significant role in the outcome of the game.