May 1, 1915
Phillies vs. New York Giants
Athletics @ New York Yankees
Archie Williams was a black track star that competed in the
1920s and 1930s. He attended the
University of California where he began setting world records in the 400
m. In 1936, he had the honor to compete
at the Berlin Olympics (the Nazi games) and was a teammate of Jesse Owens. Despite the pressure of the Olympics,
representing the United States at a time when African Americans were considered
less evolved than whites, and performing in front of future-worst-person-ever
Adolph Hitler, Williams triumphed by winning the gold medal in the 400 m. He noted that Hitler would not shake his hand
after his race, but also that the German people treated him with respect and
didn’t make him sit on the back of the bus.
Commentary! After retiring from
track, Archie joined the military and flew fighter jets in the Korean War. Williams was a great athlete and a great
American, and while he gets overshadowed by the accomplishments Jesse Owens at the
1936 Olympics, he still deserves recognition.
Today, 100 years ago, Archie Williams was born in Oakland,
California. About 2,500 miles to the
east the RMS Lusitania was setting
sail for Liverpool.
We’ve come to the end of the first month of the baseball
season. The Phillies finished April
11-3, the best record in baseball. The
hot start was due to excellent pitching and the middle of the lineup smashing
balls over every park they played in.
Possum Whitted, Gavvy Cravath, Grover Cleveland Alexander, and Erskine
Mayer were leading the suddenly great Philadelphia squad. Cincinnati, Chicago, and Boston were playing
musical chairs with second place while St. Louis, Brooklyn, Pittsburgh, and New
York made up the second division.
Over on the American League side, it was the Tigers that
held the claim on first at the season’s first turn, but the lead was tiny as New
York, Chicago, and the Washington Senators were bunched within two a half games
of each other. The bottom four, all
under .500 on the year, were Boston, Cleveland, Philadelphia, and the St. Louis
Browns. The Athletics were lucky to be
playing in the same league as the Browns because they would be basement
dwellers in any other league. If you
were just looking at the standings you might not think the A’s were so bad
off. They were within a game and a half
of sixth-place Cleveland and a game and a half above the Browns. But St. Louis was masking how bad the A’s were. Connie Mack had no good pitchers to give the
ball to, which is astonishing because he used the most pitchers in
baseball. For 1915, the average team
across the three leagues used a little over 12 pitchers during the year, and of
those only two per team pitched in less than three games. The Mackmen threw 27 different pitchers and
10 of them appeared in less than three games!
Connie was just giving everyone a tryout! Sadly, almost none of them stuck in the
majors. Mack got so frustrated by the
poor performances he witnessed day in and day out that he would just cut guys
after one back game. Poor Connie Mack
couldn’t even figure out how to get out of his own way in 1915.
Needless to say, the first month of a season was a surprise
for Philadelphia fans. Those at 21st
and Lehigh were distraught that the trusted and beloved Mack couldn’t find the
right combination to field even a below average major league team. I’d suspect that A’s fans were probably a
little more confident that the club’s run of bad ball would end just because
Mack had pulled it off before, but to watch a full month of terrible baseball
must have put the fear of God into them.
Ever the pessimists, the fans down the street at Broad and Lehigh might
have been confident that their run of good
ball would end soon. I mean, after
Alexander and Mayer, who had really stepped up to be the third reliable pitcher
the club would need to make a pennant run?
Would the offense maintain all year?
Possum Whitted and Cravath were hitting great, but were they hitting
over their heads a bit? Question,
questions, questions. Luckily, in
baseball, there isn’t much time to debate the questions because there’s always
a game the next day.
May 1, 1915 was a Saturday, and Saturday’s meant huge crowds
for ball games. So it was no surprise
that the second largest crowd of the season witnessed the rematch of Grover
Cleveland Alexander and Christy Mathewson.
The Giants had been the bizzaro-Phillies so far in 1915. Since starting the season by beating the
Dodgers twice, New York lost nine of their next ten games and occupied last
place in the National League, seven games behind the first place Phillies. Mathewson had struggled, losing the only two
games he started and posting a 4.09 ERA while only striking out two batters. As a club, the Giants scored the fewest runs
in April while giving up the fourth most. This was quite a shock to the Giants
and their fiery manager John McGraw as they had not finished out of the first
division since 1902! Now they were
playing ball like a last place team.
The poor play was probably because the Giants were a little
beat up to start the season. Their big
Franks, Merkle and Snodgrass, had both missed time and would sit out against
the Phillies. Before the game the Giants
received more bad news. Phillies’ third
baseman Bobby Byrne accidently warmed up right into Giants’ pitcher Pol
Perritt’s nose, breaking the poor man’s schnoz.
The Phillies were pounding the Giants before the game even started. Amazingly, the broken nose would only
sideline Pol for two weeks before he was back in the second slot of his team’s
rotation.
Byrne may have received a bit of luck from the broken nose
incident; he hit a single, a triple, and scored a run. As the Phillies’ leadoff hitter, Byrne was
struggling to get starter and posted a .167/.211/.241 slash line in April. The big game he had today almost brought his
average over the Mendoza Line, so things were looking up! Beals Becker contributed a combo meal (home
run plus steal) and two RBIs to shove it in his former team’s face. Becker had been cut, no trade or buyout, just
a straight up cut by McGraw after the 1912 season. He went to Cincinnat before being traded to
Philadelphia, where he found a home in the Baker Bowl’s left field. The problem in today’s game was that Byrne and
Becker provided almost all of the offense today. The four through nine batters combined to go 3
for 19 and only Possum Whitted had an RBI because that’s what Possum Whitted
does. Mathewson didn’t pitching
exceedingly great, but he did show signs of his former greatness.
As one might guess, Alexander did a great job neutralizing
what little there was left of the Giants’ lineup. He allowed only six hits, and while three of
these were doubles, he managed to keep the Giants on the base paths for the most
part. A run squeezed by in the third and
another in the eight, but the contest was never really in doubt. Alex completed his fifth complete game
victory of the year, winning by a score of 4-2.
For a moment it seemed like the Phillies were back on
track. Alex had come in as the Stopper
and halted the losing streak, just as he was supposed to do. While the hitting wasn’t consistent, they
received contributions from guys that had not performed well as of yet. And this series was a great chance to
establish something by taking advantage of the scuffling Giants. In 1915, tomorrow was a Sunday, which meant
blue laws, which meant no baseball. The
Phillies would have to wait until Monday to see what kind of stuff this club
had. We’ll check back in a few days to
catch up with the Philadelphia baseball clubs.
