Phillies 100 Years Ago: Mayer Makes Mincemeat Of Cincinnati And The NL Race Rounds Into Shape

August 26, 1915

Phillies vs. Cincinnati Reds

Athletics @ St. Louis Browns

Welcome back!  Today, 100 years ago, Mother Teresa turned five years old.  Also, on this date five years from now, women will be granted the right to vote everywhere in the United States.

When we last left the National League pennant race on August 14^th, the first-place Phillies were holding the Dodgers back by the skin of their teeth, the Boston Braves were surging, as they are apt to do at this point in the season, and the rest of the league was were struggling to stay relevant.  Since then each team played about eleven games.  Amazingly, two of the best teams over that stretch sat in the basement for most of the season.  The Cardinals and Reds, both of who were significantly behind the pack just two weeks ago, pulled themselves out of the realm of insignificance.  St. Louis managed eight wins, including a sweep of the New York Giants at the Polo Grounds, and jumped over both Pittsburgh and New York to occupy fifth place.  While Cincinnati didn’t get to claim a new position in the standings, they did cut the lead of the seventh-place Giants to just a half-game. 

Phillies 100 Years Ago: Demaree and Luderus Hand A Beating to the Braves

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 15^th 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.

Phillies 100 Years Ago: Phillies, Alex Start Home Stand Off Right

August 13, 2015

Phillies vs. Boston Braves

Athletics @ New York Yankees

Hello, there!  It’s been awhile without any 1915 Phillies info.  I was barely home for the past few weeks, running all around the Mid-Atlantic and, due to my mistake with timing posts, I was not able to keep up with the daily goings on of the blog.  Today happens to coincide with the Phillies returning home from a long western road trip, so I think it’s the perfect place to jump back into the swing of things.  This post will catch us up on what was happening to the Phillies and baseball as a whole.  As a side note, I’m preparing an update on the Federal League.  The FL season isn’t super relevant to the Phillies per se, but the league was important in the history of baseball and I want to make sure it gets some time later on in the season.

Phillies 100 Year Ago: Mistakes On Mistakes

July 23, 1915

Phillies vs. Cincinnati Reds

Athletics @ Cleveland Indians

The one-year anniversary of the climax of what would be known as the July Crisis occurred 100 years ago today.  After a little less than a month of investigation, diplomatic conversations, and other preparations, Austria-Hungary issued ten ultimatums to Serbia in response to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.  To sum up the demands, Serbia was told to eliminate all anti-Austro-Hungarian elements in the entire nation, bring to trial the architects of the assassination plot, and end military mobilization…all within 48 hours.  They were designed to be almost impossible to comply with, which would result in a declaration of war.  Faced with little support from the rest of Europe, Serbia accepted all of the demands except they refused to allow Austro-Hungarian police to operate in Serbia.  Well, I guess that means they didn’t accept the demands.  War was soon declared, but one has to wonder if Austria-Hungary regretted issuing the ultimatums now that they had seen the destruction their decision caused in the past year.

Phillies 100 Years Ago: A Double Chance To Do-In Cincinnati

July 22, 1915

Phillies vs. Cincinnati Reds

Phillies vs. Cincinnati Reds

The United States sent a third diplomatic note to the German government concerning the latter’s use of submarines against commercial steamers.  As you may remember, a week or so ago the Germans declared that they would continue to use submarines in the North Sea as a matter of preservation against the British blockade, but agreed to spare ships coming from the US that wore neutral insignia and reported their presence beforehand.  It took between two and three hours to fully telegraph the U.S.'s 1200 word note to Copenhagen, where it would then be forwarded to an ambassador in Berlin for translation and delivery to German authorities.  While the State Department kept the contents of the note a secret, insiders in Washington believed the US once again urged Germany to accept responsibility for the deaths of those on board the Lusitania and affirmed its citizens’ right to travel when and where they wished while also forgoing threat of war should these demands not be met.  A delay in response from Germany was expected now that the Central Powers’ armies were making a push to take the city of Warsaw.  For the record, the Lusitania sunk more than two months ago and the two nations have had a grand total of three communications on the subject.[1]