Great Deadball Entertainment!

A Thriller in Chicago

Great Deadball Entertainment

It’s games like this that make you fall in love with the deadball era.

There weren’t any cheap home runs or other simple shenanigans. Runs were hard to come by in this game, and both teams had to dig down deep to find a way to score.

We’ll start our description off in the bottom of the 7th, with the score tied at 1.

Freddy Parent led things off with a double, after which Jiggs Donahue sacrificed him over to third base.

With one out, the White Sox reminded us why they were known as the Hitless Wonders in those days. Lee Tannehill was up next, and he lifted a sacrifice fly out to George Stone in left field. It was deep enough to score Parent from third, and the score was now Chicago 2, St. Louis 1.

St. Louis Comeback

Of course, if it were that simple I wouldn’t be writing about it.

Jimmy Williams rapped a base hit to lead off the top of the 8th for the Browns.

In keeping with the spirit of the times, I decided to call for a hit and run. Both Williams and hitter Danny Hoffman got the sign. Hoffman got the base hit, and runners were now on first and third.

In his eagerness to score the go-ahead run, however, Hoffman managed to get himself thrown out trying to steal. That left us with one out and a runner on third for Roy Hartzell.

Hartzell came through, rapping a double to score the run.

We were now tied at 2 — and there was more to come in the top of the 9th.

9th Inning

Rube Waddell started things off with a leadoff walk.

Stone was next.

He rapped out a single to right field, sending Waddell to second base. A faster runner would have gone to third, though I wanted Rube in that ballgame for the bottom of the 9th.

That was all for White Sox starter Frank Owen, who looked like he was going to implode. I decided to call on Moxie Manuel to try to put out the fire.

Up next was Bobby Wallace, who flew out to Hartzell in right.

That brought up Hobe Ferris, and we were bunting:

The bunt attempt by Ferris turned out better than I could have ever expected. The bases were now loaded, and there were at least two chances to score.

Up came Williams:

And that provided the final margin of victory. Chicago went down quietly in the bottom of the 9th, and that’s all she wrote.

Well, you can’t say that I’m shying away from sacrifice bunts. There were 4 total in this game, despite the fact that there were 17 hits between the two teams combined.

Owen pitched well, but his lack of control got the best of him. 4 walks might be acceptable in 1949, but certainly not in 1908.