Coming All The Way Back
The 1908 Pirates pull one out of the fire
Coming All The Way Back
It’s easy to forget little things like home openers when you’re playing a replay like this. The games start to blend together a little bit, and you suddenly realize that you’ve ignored the fact that a key team just played its first home game.
That happened to me here. It wasn’t until I sat down to write this piece that I realized that this was Pittsburgh’s first home game.
And, man, what a spectacle it must have been!
13,000 would have been a significantly sized crowd for a baseball game in 1908.
As good as those front pages were, this cartoon is probably best of all:
Pittsburgh made short work of St. Louis in real life. The question is whether they can do the same in NPIII.
Comeback Initiated
Believe it or not, it actually looked pretty bleak for Honus Wagner and his merry crew.
Red Murray started the game off with a home run for St. Louis, which is not what you expect to see in 1908. The Cardinals added 2 in the top of the 3rd and 1 in the top of the 5th to take a 4-0 lead that seemed insurmountable, even for the vaunted Pirate offense.
Sadly, the first major breakthrough for the Pirates eluded my ability to take a screenshot. Tommy Leach tripled with two on in the bottom of the 5th, making the game 4-2. After an out and a walk, Pittsburgh scored another run to make it a 4-3 ballgame.
Then, in the bottom of the 6th inning with slow-footed catcher George Gibson on second base and two out, Fred Clarke got a chance:
That tied the game at 4, and set us up for an exciting finish.
Finishing the Rally
You bet the crowd went wild when this happened.
The game progressed quickly to the 9th, as if the dice wanted to skip the rising action and cut straight to the climax.
Clarke ground out to lead off the bottom of the 9th. And that brought up Leach:
Tommy’s second triple of the game set the Pirates up for success. All they needed now was for Ed Abbaticchio to make contact.
Ed was happy to oblige.
Art Fromme didn’t pitch poorly, though I’m sure he wishes he walked fewer than 4. The Pirates came out of this deserved winners despite those 3 errors. And Wagner is quietly hitting .368 in the early going, making Ty Cobb look like a chump.