1907 World Series Game 1
The Greatest First Game Of A World Series Ever?
1907 World Series Game 1
As I promised in this post, we’re going to take a look back at some of the forgotten great old World Series games. You know all about Gibson and Eckersley in 1988 — but do you know about this one?
Buildup
I don’t know if this was a first or not, but The Chicago Tribune offered to show fans the game for free on an electronic scoreboard:
It’s also interesting to see here the note that it was perfectly legal to watch the game for free from a housetop — or to sell a rooftop seat to someone else.
And, well, I guess you can say that The Chicago Tribune was ready for the occasion:
There were other post-season series at the time, many of which have been lost to history:
We’ll do research on these series in the future. Just remember that Retrosheet doesn’t necessarily have everything.
The Detroit newspapers were also ready for the event:
Of course, it wouldn’t be the World Series without special advertisements:
I wonder what one of those pennants would cost today. Also, does anybody know which card set that is at the bottom?
If you really want to get in the mood, The Chicago Tribune printed this little box with practical advice:
I don’t think you could purchase a general admission ticket to this one when the gates opened. Maybe if you camped outside.
Finally, to set the mood right, here are a few assorted preview articles from both newspapers:
We simply don’t have anything in sports today to match the intrigue, excitement, and hype that surrounded those early World Series games. Remember, all of this comes from only 2 newspapers. There were others that we’re not going to look into now.
The Game
There’s no question that this was one of the best first games of any World Series.
I’m basing this summary on Baseball Reference’s play by play.
The Cubs were the first to score, pushing one out in the bottom of the 4th inning. Frank Chance walked, and Harry Steinfeldt sacrificed him to 2nd. This is that classic strategy of bunting the guy on first over to second no matter what, something that you see a lot of in deadball era games.
Johnny Kling singled to left, scoring Chance. Kling was thrown out trying to advance to second base for the second out.
Johnny Evers tried to keep the rally alive by singling and stealing a base, but Frank Schulte struck out, putting all of that to an end.
And this one remained a 1-0 game until the late innings.
In the top of the 9th, the Tigers finally broke free. Davy Jones singled with one out and stole second. Germany Schaefer hit a ground ball to shortstop Joe Tinker. Tinker booted it, allowing Jones to reach third and Schaefer to reach first safely. Schaefer then stole second.
With runners now on second and third, Sam Crawford singled to right. Jones scored, and Schaefer scored behind him when right fielder Frank Schulte threw wildly. Crawford advanced to third on that throw. It was now a 2-1 Detroit lead.
Ty Cobb came up in a clutch situation, with a runner on third base and only one out. And I’m not quiet sure what happens here:
I think pitcher Overall threw home, but the catcher dropped the ball. Cobb was safe on a fielder’s choice and advanced to second.
Claude Rossman hit a sacrifice fly, advancing both runners and making the score 3-1 in favor of Detroit. And Bill Coughlin then struck out, ending the threat.
The Cubs came back in the bottom of the 9th, in what must have been an amazing thing to see.
Frank Chance singled to lead things off. Harry Steinfeldt was then hit by a pitch. Johnny Kling tried to bunt the two men over, but wound up popping up to first base.
Johnny Evers then hit what fans must have seen as a double play ground ball to third baseman Bill Coughlin. The grounder ate Coughlin up, however, loading the bases with only one out.
Frank Schulte hit a ground ball to first. The Tigers opted for the out at first base instead of throwing home. The score was now 3-2. I’m not sure why Detroit didn’t at least try for a double play.
Del Howard then struck out. However, catcher Boss Schmidt dropped the ball, allowing the tying run to score. Howard was safe at first, and the game was now tied at 3 each.
It then went into extra innings. The Cubs had men on second and third in the 10th, but failed to score. They then loaded the bases with only one out in the 11th, but a strikeout by Heinie Zimmerman and a groundout by relief pitcher Ed Reulbach put an end to all that.
Detroit didn’t have many real chances to score in extra innings. The game was ultimately called a tie after 12.
Based on this alone, I’d say this was clearly one of the most exciting first games of any World Series in history. But what did the contemporary newspapers say?
News Coverage
In the interest of making this extremely long article at least somewhat manageable, I’ll refrain from commenting. I’ll just post the articles, starting with the Chicago papers:
If you read that play by play account carefully, you can see some pretty big discrepancies with the official account — especially in the bottom of the 9th.
And now for the Detroit reports:
Anyway, that should give you something to read.
A few notes:
Old newspaper articles are great because they offer details about what otherwise look like routine outs. I would have never known about Schaefer’s great play in the 12th if it weren’t for these articles.
The noise must have been deafening when Coughlin made his error in the 9th.
The passed ball on that strikeout in the 9th went back to the crows that was stationed in front of the grandstand (see the photo above). It’s hard to imagine an atmosphere like that for a modern World Series game.
Those telegraph presentations were no joke. The crowds must have been huge, and apparently would cheer their team on from many miles away.