Rolling the Late Night Dice

Doves at Superbas, April 16, 1908

Late Night Epic

We all make mistakes.

I started this game up at 10:45 PM, figuring that I could finish it before 11. I like to go to bed earlier, but I wanted to get a few extra games in under my belt, mostly because I was planning on recording the next day.

You see, I try to plan out the recording schedule ahead of time. I don’t record every game and then just show the ones that wound up close. Instead, I try to strike a balance between on-camera and off-camera games, and then let the dice fall as they may.

I figured that the 1908 Boston Doves and Brooklyn Superbas weren’t interesting to most people. This would be an easy game to play quickly off camera, I told myself. And so I went trudging into the late night, blissfully unaware of what awaited me.

Real Life

Surely you can excuse me for thinking that this would be a simple game. After all, the real life version was over relatively quickly:

From The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 17, 1908, page 22

Sacrifice

This game was quiet until the bottom of the 7th.

Brooklyn led the inning off with a Harry Pattee single. That brought up shortstop Phil Lewis, and, well, sacrifice brings forth the blessings of heaven.

That’s right: I bunted the runner on first over to second with nobody out in the late innings of a ballgame.

And it was the right decision.

Bill Bergen, another weak hitter, came up next, and I bunted again. Bergen was safe at first on a failed fielder’s choice, and now Brooklyn had runners on 1st and 3rd with only one out. I told you that bunting was the right decision.

That brought up Jim Pastorius, Brooklyn’s pitcher. I told him to bunt, but Boston pitcher Gus Dorner had other ideas. He walked Pastorius, loading the bases for Tim Jordan.

Now, I’m not a complete monster. I let Jordan swing away. His sacrifice fly to George Browne in left field scored the first run of the ballgame.

It’s amazing when you think about it. Brooklyn scored their first run on a soft single, a bunt, another bunt that resulted in a botched fielding play, a walk, and a sacrifice fly. That’s what you’ve got to do to score in 1908.

Base hits

Of course, base hits work as well.

Boston came right back in the top of the 8th. Claude Ritchey led off with a walk off Pastorius, bringing up Ginger Beaumont in a position to do some damage. Beaumont singled, sending Ritchey to second base.

Up came Johnny Bates now. His single tied it at 1.

Boston did manage another hit in the inning by Bill Dahlen, but it was to no avail.

The contrast here was striking. Boston had a walk and three singles, and yet still only managed a single run.

Craziness

This is where it really became fun.

In the top of the 9th, the Red Sox had runners on first and third with only one out and Beaumont at the plate. I decided to bunt, of course. This is what happened:

You might have a hard time reading that. Beaumont wound up taking a strike, missing the bunt — and pitcher Dorner on third was a dead duck. That’s what you get when you mess around with the suicide squeeze!

On we went to the 10th, and we’ll skip on ahead to the bottom of the 10th. Brooklyn had a golden chance here, with a runner on second and two out, John Hummel at the plate.

Hummel hit a ball down to Dahlen. Dahlen is a great shortstop, but couldn’t manage to field this one cleanly, and now there were runners on first and third with two outs.

And that brought up Billy Maloney:

Claude Ritchey took in the soft popup, and this game just kept going.

In the bottom of the 11th, Pastorius (who was still in there) almost won the game by himself. He hit a two out single to try to score Lewis… who was thrown out at the plate:

And, finally, in the bottom of the 15th, long after my bedtime, with darkness approaching, Maloney sent us all home happy and satisfied:

Credit Hummel with the clutch triple that set this one up.

This was one of the most remarkable games that I’ve ever played. I mean, this one just wouldn’t quit. Both starting pitchers were exceptional, and there were great fielding plays all around. My description here sadly does not do this game the justice that it deserves.

And the second guessing here could go on for days. There was only 1 successful stolen base during this whole game. 5 runners were thrown out attempting to steal. The two teams combined for 7 sacrifice bunts, and there were a total of 7 errors in this ballgame.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it in my simulation days. And we’ve got a whole season of these ahead of us!

I went to sleep that night with dice dancing in my head.