Tuesday, October 13, 2015

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.


The Philadelphia faithful fully expected their club to take home the victory today.  It was in the bag.  Grover Cleveland Alexander was on the mound for the second time this series and there was no way Boston would take him down.  In Game One Alexander held the top-tier Red Sox offense at bay until the Phillies finally were able to score a few runs in the eighth to win the game.  A win today from Alex the Great meant the Phillies were in the drivers seat for the series, and, if one could dream, they would only need one more of the non-Alexander pitched games to take home their first championship.  But first they had to win today.

Their opponent was Dutch Leonard.  Do you remember when Leonard was mentioned in the Game Two recap?  Oh, he was just that guy that won 19 games and pitched to a 0.96 ERA (282 ERA+!) in 224.2 innings in 1914.  Yeah, that is the guy the struggling Phillies offense hoped to break out against.  The good news was that Leonard came back to Earth a little bit in 1915, but the bad news was it was not by much.  His ERA jumped to a still incredibly great 2.36 (119 ERA+) and led the league in strikeouts per nine and hits allowed per nine, so Leonard was still one of the best pitchers in the game. 

The game shaped up to be the third straight pitchers duel of the series, which didn’t bode well for the Phillies.  As we’ve chronicled, the Phillies offense was prone to prolonged streaks of ineptitude, and it sure looked like they fell into a pit of despair in the first two games.  Which was a real shame because the Phillies got two great pitching starts, one of which was wasted because of lack of support.  Game Three needed to be the time for the offense to finally shine.  Otherwise the Phillies were doomed.  Sure Alexander was known for superhuman feats on the mound, but to hold the Red Sox offense down for two or three times time in a week, especially without support from his teammates, was a tall task.  So it was important for the offense to actually show up for the first time in this series.

Starting lineups for Game Three:

Philadelphia                                        Boston
1. Milt Stock LF                                 1. Harry Hooper RF
2. Dave Bancroft SS                            2. Everett Scott SS
3. Dode Paskert CF                            3. Tris Speaker CF
4. Gavvy Cravath RF                         4. Dick Hoblitzell 1B
5. Fred Luderus 1B                             5. Duffy Lewis LF
6. Possum Whitted LF                        6. Larry Gardner 3B
7. Bert Niehoff 2B                              7. Jack Barry 2B
8. Ed Burns C                                     8. Bill Carrigan C
9. Grover Cleveland Alexander P        9. Dutch Leonard P

The game started swimmingly enough for the Phillies.  Milt Stock launched a deep fly to centerfield that Tris Speaker lost in the sun.  The ball dropped in and Stock made it all the way to second for a double.  Okay!  That’s a great start.  Bancroft bunted him over to third in the next at bat.  With one out and a runner on third, the Red Sox defense was able to play in to cut the chances of Stock scoring on a groundball.  Paskert stepped in with a great opportunity to put the Phillies up early and make the Sox play from behind against Alexander.  The first two pitches to Paskert were wide for balls.  He fought off the third pitch to make the count 2-1.  Leonard came up and in with the next pitch and knocked Paskert back off the plate.  On a 3-1 pitch, Leonard fooled Paskert into swinging early and the ball popped up to Larry Gardner for the second out.  It was disappointing, considering that Leonard was a bit wild and Paskert had the count in his favor, but those things happen in baseball.  Plus Cravath was up next, so no reason to get too down.  The slugger dug in and watched Leonard’s first pitch buzz by his eyes for ball one.  Despite having two outs, Leonard showed no signs of having command of his pitches early in the first.  The right thing to do would be to take a few pitches and see if Leonard pitches himself into trouble.  Cravath could wait until he gets a center-cut fastball and drive it deep into the cavernous outfield of Braves Field.  Instead, Gavvy fouled off the next two pitches, the first of which was below his knees.  On the 2-2 pitch, Cravath took a mighty hack at ball that was eye-level and missed completely.  With a runner on second and no outs, the Phillies failed to get a ball out of the infield.

Alexander had no trouble with the Red Sox in the bottom of the first.  Two pop-ups and a strikeout and bing bang boom the Phillies were in the dugout, ready to hit.  Leonard, too, retired the Phillies in order in the top of the second.  Duffy Lewis smacked a single into left in Boston’s half of the second, but he was caught stealing for the second out.  The inning ended when the next batter, Larry Garnder, popped-up to left.

The third inning is when the game got interesting (if you like offense, that is).  The Phillies light-hitting backup catcher Ed Burns laced a ball over second baseman Jack Barry’s head to lead off the inning.  Alexander then tried to bunt Burns to second, but Hoblitzell mishandled Gardner’s throw and Alex was safe at first.  Meanwhile, nobody covered third when Gardner charged the bunt, so the quick thinking (certainly not the quick footed) Burns made it all the way to third on the play.  The Phillies had runners on first and third with no outs and the top of the lineup coming up.  Just a huge chance to blow this game open and even the series.  Stock came up and, as an example of Deadball Era strategy, sacrificed himself so that Alexander could get to second.  I don’t really understand that play, but that’s why I’m not managing a ball club in the 1910s.  It’s worth noting that the Evening Ledger said, “Stock sacrificed perfectly,” so obviously the play wasn’t out of the ordinary.  Today we would say the Phillies slightly lowered their chances to maximize their runs in the inning, but at this point in the series, considering the Phillies troubles at the plate, two runs might have looked like fifty runs to Pat Moran.  To him it might have been best to set up the runners, give the middle of the order at least two shots to drive in runs, and let Alexander do the rest.  Well Dave Bancroft made his manager happy when he drove the first pitch he saw into center for an RBI single.  Bancroft made it to second when Speaker threw home to keep Alexander from scoring, but still Philadelphia had the early lead.

Next up was Paskert.  Again he came up with runners in scoring position, one out, and a pitcher that was on the ropes.  And again Paskert let Leonard off the hook.  The over-eager centerfielder swung at the second pitch in the at bat, probably ball two, and popped it to shallow right field.  For a split second it looked as if it was going to drop, but Barry raced over from second base to make a remarkable runner grab.  He quickly turned and watched Alexander scamper back to third, unable to score.  Gavvy Cravath stepped in as the Phillies last chance to blow this game wide open.  He swung and missed at the first pitch and then watched a ball pass him outside.  Cravath took hold of the third pitch and sent it screaming into the Boston afternoon.  As he trotted to first, he looked back to see that he didn’t quite get all of the ball and it settled into the glove of Duffy Lewis for the third out, ten feet from the fence.  That’s it.  Cravath was ten feet from giving the Phillies the 3-0 lead, which was probably insurmountable with Alex on the mound.  But Braves Field had a gigantic outfield.  The 390-foot blast that fell ten feet short of the wall in Boston would have been fifty feet up into the bleachers at the Baker Bowl.  It was one of those quirks that happens in baseball due to unstandardized fields that, unfortunately, went against the Phillies.  And it would prove to haunt them in this game.

On the bright side, the inning ended with the Phillies in the lead.  All Alexander had to do was keep the Sox off the board.  Oh is that all?  Just keep the best offense in baseball off the board?  Okay.  Remember, though, twelve of his thirty-one wins this season were shutouts.  It wasn’t out of the realm of possibilities, but it would certainly take a monstrous effort on Old Pete’s part if the Phillies didn’t score any more runs.

Well it didn’t take long for the shutout to go out of the window.  With one out in the fourth, Tris Speaker sent a liner down the right field line for a triple.  Remember that the right field wall is 402 feet away, so once the ball got past Cravath, the only thing to be decided was whether Speaker would stop at third or turn it into an inside-the-park home run.  Cravath did a good job fielding it and kept Speaker at third.  Hoblitzell fought off a few good pitches from Alexander before hitting a single to center to tie the game at one.  The Phillies barely even had a chance to feel comfortable with a lead before it was snatched from their grasp. 

Alexander and Leonard apparently had enough of this offensive burst because they both turned into out machines.  I mean, like, nobody gets to have any offense.  The fifth, sixth, and half of the seventh saw every battered retired in order.  The Red Sox got a single in the seventh, but then went right back to being baffled by Alexander.  Nobody reached base in the eighth, either, and the Phillies went down in order in the ninth.  For those counting at home, the Phillies didn’t have a base runner since Bancroft’s single that scored Burns waaaaaaaay back in the third inning.  This hitting slump the Phils were in was just brutal.

The bottom of the ninth started with a Harry Hooper single and I think you can see where this is going.  Hooper went to second on a sacrifice.  Speaker was then intentionally walked and Hoblitzell grounded to second, moving the runners to second and third with two outs.  This is how the obviously disappointed Evening Ledger nonchalantly described the final plays of the game: “Hoblitzell sacrificed, Niehoff to Ludy, and Lewis shot across a clean single, scoring Hooper with the winning run.  One run, two hits, no errors [in the inning].”[1]  

This was a big loss.  This one really hurt.  Alexander once again pitched his heart out and put his team in a position to win the game only to have the offense sputter and stall.  It was the second great pitching effort wasted due to a poor performance at the plate.  But this one hurt more because it was Alexander’s game that was wasted.  It was a no-brainer win in the minds of the Phillies fans, and yet here we sit with a big L next to Alexander’s name.  Fans thought if the Phillies were to have a chance in this series, it would have to be Alexander winning at least twice, probably three times, and maybe he comes in late in the series for a big multi-inning save.  But now Alex wasn’t so invincible, which meant the Phillies were not invincible.  There is monumental anxiety when the inevitable doesn’t come to pass, when faults and weaknesses can no longer be ignored.  Philadelphia thought they could grit and grind their way passed the best team in baseball, but now that they trailed by one game despite giving Boston everything they had, the Phillies had to face the reality that were all but defeated.  They no longer had their ace to buoy their confidence.  Quite the contrary, they failed their ace and now were adrift without a leader.  If this sounds like a lot of doom and gloom for a team that only trails 2-1, Philadelphians were feeling the pressure in 1915.  The first sentence of the analysis of Game Three said that, after the result of yesterday’s game, the Red Sox would most likely be the world champions.  And that’s in a Philadelphia paper.  The cartoon that runs at the bottom of the Evening Ledger’s sports page sums it up perfectly.  It shows the regular stick-figure man yelling and running after his stick-figure friend.  “Tommis,” the man says in a Philadelphian accent to his friend, “I think Alexanwnder lost!”  Tommis replies, “You know dumbed well he did!”  They then fainted.  The last panel of the strip is a four-leaf clover inside a horseshoe with “Let Us Hope!” as the caption.  With Alexander neutralized and the bats asleep, all there was left to do was hope.

October 11, 1915

World Series Game Four
Phillies @ Boston Red Sox

The fourth game of the 1915 World Series saw Ernie Shore return to the mound for Boston to face off against George Chalmers.  You may remember Chalmers as the British-born pitcher that had the best season of his professional life this year with the Phillies.  His 2.48 ERA shows how great he pitched, even if his 8-9 record speaks to the contrary.  With the season on the line, it is surprising that Pat Moran didn’t go with Erskine Mayer in Game Four when you consider that Mayer was the second best pitcher the Phillies had behind Grover Cleveland Alexander.  But after the taking the loss in the second game, maybe Moran finally lost faith in the up-and-down Mayer.  Or maybe Moran was looking for a spark from nowhere to fire his team up.  Whatever the reason, Chalmers took the mound with the weight of the season on his shoulders. 

For the most part Chalmers did not disappoint.  There were only two innings in which Boston mounted any kind of threat.  After a walk to Jack Barry to start the bottom of the third, Hick Cady dropped a bunt looking to sacrifice himself, but Chalmers made a great diving stop and had plenty of time to get the out of his choice.  The only problem was every other Phillies fielder started to charge what looked to be a troubling bunt, so no one was there to cover a base to get an out.  Ernie Shore did his job sacrificing Barry and Cady up a base.  Then Harry Hooper sent a chopper to second that got over the head of Bert Niehoff and allowed Barry to score from third, giving Boston the early 1-0 lead.  Chalmers’ other troubling inning came in the bottom of the sixth.  After a groundout to second from Tris Speaker, Dick Hoblitzell singled into center.  Duffy Lewis followed up with a double over the head of Milt Stock and Hoblitzell scored all the way from first to make the score 2-0.

Let’s make a wager.  You know the Phillies are losing 2-0 in the bottom of the sixth.  From reading about the previous games in this series, you’d probably bet that the Phillies had maybe two hits, couldn’t get on base, and had trouble squarely hitting the ball, right?  Well, you’d be wrong, though only slightly.  The Phillies had four hits and four walks due to Ernie Shore pitching uncontrollably.  Their problem was the BABIP Gods bit them in the ass.  There were plenty of hard hit balls that would have drove in runs, but the Red Sox seemed to always be standing in the perfect position to turn them into outs.  For instance, in the top of the third, right before Boston took the lead, Cravath sent another shot to deep left field that would have been out in most stadiums, but for Braves Field it went down as a F7.  Newspaper accounts of the game said that the ball would be bouncing around Lehigh Avenue if the game were at the Baker Bowl and the Phillies would have had a 2-0 lead.  Who knows, maybe if the drive leaves the park it gives the club a confidence boost to continue smacking the snot out of the ball.  But ifs don’t matter much, I guess.  The game was in Boston and Cravath’s monster slam was only a long out.

The Phillies were unable to break through on Shore until the top the eighth.  After Bancroft flew out on a great running catch by Duffy Lewis and Paskert popped-up to third, Gavvy Cravath stepped in determined to break his team’s slump.  He saw a strike, fouled another off, and then watched three bad balls from Shore fly by.  On the 3-2 pitch, Cravath soaked the ball way over Speaker’s head and to the sign in deep centerfield that read 550.  Boston made a great play defensively to get the ball back into the infield before Cravath could turn the smack into a home run.  With Cravath being the first Phillie to make it past second base today, the team was finally in business with some power coming up in the lineup.  Fred Luderus was next.  The captain had a rough three games to open the series, only getting two hits in ten at bats.  But Game Four was a breakout for Luderus.  He singled in two previous at bats and was primed to be the hero.  Shore threw a pitch that was right in Luderus’ zone and the ball flew to center on almost the exact same path Cravath’s had taken the at bat before.  This time, though, Speaker was ready for it.  Instead of the ball sailing to the wall for what certainly would have been a two-run home run for the speedy-enough Luderus, Speaker was able to sprint after the liner and fully extend himself on a jump to knock the ball out of the air.  Unfortunately for the Phillies, the ball landed right at Speaker’s feet and he relayed the ball to second to keep Luderus’ smash to a long, disappointing single.  The Phillies hopes for tying this game in the eighth crumbled in the amount of time it took Speaker to jump and reach.  Seeing that time was running out, Moran pinch-ran Oscar Dugey for Luderus.  Dugey promptly stole second, putting the team in yet another position where a hit would do wonders for their chances of winning the series, but Possum Whitted chopped a weak grounder back to Shore to end the threat.[2] 

The Phillies failed to get a man on in the ninth and lost Game Four of the World Series by the score of 2-1.  It was the third game in a row to end 2-1 in Boston’s favor.  The Phils had to wonder what it was going to take to pull out one of these low-scoring games.  Actually, they knew what it would take.  Everyone in the world knew what it would take.  The fact was that the Phillies were incapable of getting the hit that in a clutch situation.  Their pitching did a great job holding the Red Sox to surmountable leads, but pitching alone does not win a World Series.  Every game so far was winnable, only time after time the Phillies found a way to blow it.

October 13, 1915

World Series Game Five
Phillies vs. Boston Red Sox

After two straight debilitating defeats in Boston, the scene of the World Series made its way back to Philadelphia where, on a chilly fall day, the Phillies clung to the hopes that they could win the final three games.  Twenty thousand fans filed into the Baker Bowl to witness a funeral.  They didn’t know for sure yet if the body was cold, but by the end of the afternoon they paid their respects.

Full of confidence to go along with the talent seeping out of their ears, the Red Sox sent their little ace Rube Foster to the mound.  In Game Two, Foster baffled the Phillies and allowed just a single run.  Of course, at the time, no one could have guessed that baffling the Phillies this series would be easy, but credit for the dominating performance goes to Foster.  And now in Game Five, with the World Series on the line, the Sox couldn’t have asked for a better man to be on the mound.

The Phillies started off hot, though, loading the bases with the first three men at the plate and giving Gavvy Cravath a glorious chance to give his team the early lead.  He had to be thinking about the three bombs he hit in Boston that went for two outs and a triple, and how close he had been to turning this series around, because Cravath took a huge, overconfident swing at Foster’s pitch and sent it right back to the mound on a few dribbles.  Foster started the ol’ routine 1-2-3 double play.  I can’t imagine a worse way to start the game.  Just when it looks like the Phillies get a break, their best hitter goes and loses all the momentum with one tiny infield double play.  But wait! Where Cravath failed, the captain Fred Luderus came through.  Luderus doubled to left-centerfield and drove in two runs, giving the Phillies their first first-inning runs of the entire series.  It was also their most productive inning of the entire series with two runs, three hits, and a hit by pitch.  While the club had to have been high from the excitement of an early lead, the specter of Cravath’s double play would hang over the field for the remainder of the game.

Mayer started for the Phillies and didn’t look to have his stuff today.  The first inning went as well as it could go after Harry Hooper singled to lead off the game (that’s the third time Hooper lead off a game in Philadelphia by getting on base).  But given two runs from his previously non-existent offensive, Mayer should have been able to dig deep and hold the lead for a little while.  But, sorry for the Phillies sake, the Red Sox tied the game up with a Jack Barry RBI in the second and a Harry Hooper home run in the third.  The Phillies momentum lasted two whole innings. 

Mayer was replaced after an incredibly disappointing 2.1 innings where he gave up six hits and two runs.  Eppa Rixey took over with the difficult task of keeping the Red Sox off the board long enough to give his teammates a chance to score.  It didn’t take too long, actually, because in the bottom of the fourth, they did just that.  Fred Luderus, who over the past two games really come to life, launched a home run over the shallow right-field wall to retake the lead and send the Phillies faithful into a frenzy.  Three batters later Ed Burns drove a single into right that scored Bert Niehoff from first base and just like that the Phillies had their second two-run lead in the game.

The excitement grew after each inning that Rixey retired the Red Sox.  He was in trouble in the fifth, but worked a pop-up to second to end the threat, delighting the crowd in his expert work.  In the sixth the Sox threatened again but were once more retired with men in scoring position and no runs scored.  Rixey retired the Red Sox in order in the seventh, the first time they had done so in the game.  The crowd was roaring with each pitch at this point.  They could all feel the win in their grasp.  And, hey, you win today and maybe Alexander pitches twice in a row.  He was certainly capable of winning two straight games.  A win today could mean a win of the series!  But let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves.  There’s still the final two innings to play.

The top of the eighth started when Del Gainer, who replaced Dick Hoblitzell earlier in the game, smacked a single back through the box.  Okay, no big deal, as long as you don’t let Duffy Lewis smack a long home ruuuuuuuohhhhhh no.  Lewis hit a home run.  Rixey let up a two-run shot to Lewis and now the game was tied.  Man oh man what does this Phillies team have to do to win a game?  Either the pitching or hitting has failed them in each game of this series.  And now Boston has the Phillies right they want them: in a position where Philadelphia has no idea how they are going to climb out of yet another hole.  The only people making any noise in the stadium had to have been the Red Sox dugout and the small contingent of Royal Rooters that made their way down from Boston.  Everyone in that stadium knew how games like these turn out. 

To their credit, the Phillies did not lie down and die.  They continued to fight hard after being dealt another monumental blow.  In the bottom of the eighth Cravath walked and went to second when Luderus was hit by a pitch.  With two outs and the winning run in scoring position, and possibly the final hope for the Phillies, Possum Whitted did the most Phillies-in-the-World-Series thing ever: he grounded back to the pitcher for an easy out. 

The death knell came from a familiar name; Harry Hooper smashed his second home run of the game into deep centerfield to give the Red Sox what wound up being the series-winning run.  Eppa Rixey was given the task of putting out the fire and holding onto a lead and he failed at both.  Not that he is to blame for losing the series or anything even close to that, but in a game when the flaky hitting finally came around he was not up to the challenge that the Boston Red Sox posed. 

The Phillies bottom of the ninth, the last inning of their glorious 1915 season, was as tiny a whimper as could be.  Bert Niehoff struck out.  Then Ed Burns grounded out to first.  Bill Killefer, the leader and starting catcher whose injury kept him out of the final month of the season, got to pinch-hit for Eppa Rixey.  But there was no late-inning Kirk-Gibson-esque magic to be had in Philadelphia; Killefer grounded out to shortstop to end the series and the season.

The loss to the Red Sox was such an unfulfilling end to the best season the Phillies had had since Grover Cleveland Alexander’s namesake was the President of the United States (1887, for the few of you who don’t know when Grover Cleveland was in his first term in office).  Not just because they lost the series (they ultimately were the second best team that year), but because they had the Red Sox on the ropes and off balance in all five games.  The championship was there for the taking and they just made more mistakes than the Red Sox did.  It wasn’t that they didn’t have the talent to be world champions; it’s that they didn’t take advantage of situations that would have made them world champions.

After “following” this club since April, I have to say that, even though I knew the outcome of the season, it is disappointing to have to write about this team losing the World Series.  There was something special about this team from the jump.  The Athletics dominated the press to start the season with barely a word left for the Phils.  And why shouldn’t the A’s get all of the columns after coming off their fourth World Series appearance in five years?  But then the L’s piled up next to the A’s name in the standings and the Phillies rattled off eight wins in a row.  Who would have thought that could happen?!  And the best was they didn’t slow down.  April turned to May and the Phillies were still in first place.  Their pitching was the best in baseball and their offense made it look easy.  It was late May when the whispers about a pennant first started to form.

Then there was the late-May swoon when it was almost impossible for the Phillies to score a run let alone enough runs to win the game.  And if Alexander wasn’t on the mound, it rarely was a victory.  Many fans bailed on the prospect of them winning the National League, but this club proved resilient.  They had faith in each other and were never overwhelmed with their own history of failing late in the season.  Instead they continued to work hard and scratch out close victories.  On July 13, the Phillies regained first place and didn’t let it go for the rest of the season.  Sure there were some close calls, like when they were swept by the Dodgers in Brooklyn and held only a single game lead, or when the Boston Braves did their best impression of the Miracle Braves from the season before, but in all cases the Phillies stood tall and won. 

The 1915 Phillies are the perfect embodiment of a Philadelphia sports team.  They didn’t have the best players, but they did have the biggest hearts.  They had talent, sure, but they also had the fortitude to go out day after day, no matter what the situation, and try their hardest.  Other teams in the NL probably were more talented than the Phillies, but none could overcome their tenacity.  To folks in 1915 this Phillies club was something to be proud of.  They came mediocrity and ended up in the World Series for the first time in their history.  Fans 100 years ago probably thought this club would be a perennial pennant-winning squad.  They had home-run champ Gavvy Cravath and the captain Fred Luderus and three or four great starting pitchers, led by the 30-game winner Grover Cleveland Alexander, but we know now that this team fades into obscurity, swallowed by the many, many losing seasons to come.  We know that when the Phillies “celebrate” this team in 2015 their own television broadcast mostly make fun of the players’ names.  And that’s what is the most disappointing about the missed chances to take down the Red Sox in the World Series: this team had the talent and personalities to be revered in Philadelphia forever, a team that won as the underdog in a city that loves long shots, but now they are all but forgotten.  I hope you enjoyed looking back and celebrating the Phillies first pennant-winning season as much as I did. 


                                                       




[1] Chandler D. Richter, “Red Sox Defeat Alexander; Lewis Drives In Winning Run, Handing Phils 2 To 1 Setback,” Evening Ledger, October 11, 1915, accessed October 13, 2015, http://1.usa.gov/1MoN37Z.
[2] Chandler D. Richter, “Red Sox Trounce Phils, 2-1, Making Series Three To One,” Evening Ledger, October 12, 1915, accessed October 13, 2015, http://1.usa.gov/1jmkuS3.

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