Tension in Washington
April 22, 1908
Tension in Washington
No, this isn’t an article about Senator Isidor Rayner’s controversial appeal to states rights on the Senate Floor.
We don’t have time for that kind of silliness. Why pay attention to power struggles and politics when something as important as a baseball pennant is at stake?
The Good Stuff
Now, I’m going to do something unorthodox here. I’m going to stip right to the good stuff.
You know as well as I do that there’s nothing wrong with skipping straight to the most important part of the game. In fact, if you’re bored enough to read what the “content creation” gurus have to say, you’ll think that everything should start with the climax, hit the reader (or viewer) as hard as it can over and over again, and leave her exhausted, breathlessly hoping for the next post.
Personally, I prefer the natural storyline of a gradually building drama. Sadly, we don’t have that here.
This is a long-winded way of telling you that nothing happened in this game for 8 innings.
Yeah, yeah, I know, I know, it’s the Deadball Era, we’re supposed to have no offense, players bunted too often back then, pitchers stuck every sticky substance imaginable on the ball, etc. But, seriously, think about it for a second. We had 8 innings of absolutely no scoring and no excitement. I think I’ve attended funerals with more scoring chances.
And then everything broke wide open, all of a sudden.
9th Inning
Heinie Wanger started it for the Red Sox with a single with one out in the top of the 9th.
The Red Sox were 6-2, and it was no surprise to see them ganging up like this against the 2-5 Senators. Washington found itself in its usual perdicament, lacking the substance of Walter Johnson — a city high on the rhetoric of men named Isidor and low on practical ideas that could result in base hits and runs scored.
Of course, a rally takes more than a single. If you’re going to preach, you’ve got to have more than just the choir, after all. Getting something done means getting together to do it.
And that’s just what Denny Sullivan did:
Sullivan’s second-column 8 normally wouldn’t have done much with Wagner on first. However, the fact that Burt Keeley was a D and the fact that Wagner was running with the pitch made all the difference.
With catcher Lou Criger coming up next and only one out, I knew that every selfsure sabermetrican on Twitter was screaming at me to let him swing away. My momma didn’t raise no fool, however, and we got back to the age-old art of bunting:
Yeah, I know that 9 would have been a single, but I don’t care. We were in this to score a run, not to impress people with line drives and base hits and OPS+.
That gave the Red Sox a 1-0 lead. Of course, the Senators still had their at-bats.
You know, that’s one of the funny things about baseball, one of those things you don’t see in any other sport. A Tom Brady touchdown drive will likely eat up the clock and win the game. If Liverpool score a late goal to go up 1-0, they’ll likely be able to defend for the final few minutes and win the victory. And I don’t even need to tell you about “garbage time,” a concept that has become synonymous with professional basketball over the years.
But it doesn’t happen in baseball.
Even the straightlaced world of Washington politics usually doesn’t give you a fair chance to redeem yourself.
Baseball does.
Jerry Freeman, one of the many 1908 Senators that you’ve never heard of, started the bottom of the 9th by hitting a ground ball over to Amby McConnell.
McConnell booted it:
Yes, that’s right, Cy Young was on the mound for the Red Sox, grimacing in pain. There were still no outs, and now there was a runner on first.
That brought up Bob Ganley, whose name my YouTube faithful know I pronounce differently every time. Ganley is the sort of player who needs to bunt:
That bunt turned into an error — an awful error, actually, by Criger. The man who drove in the only run committed an error that put Washington in an excellent position to score.
This brought up Otis Clymer. Once again, I ignored Tom Tango’s bookish advice and decided to do what any manager would do in this situation: walk the bases loaded intentionally. After all, Clymer’s run doesn’t matter:
And that set the stage for Bill Shipke:
The inside baseball here is that Cy Young’s grade was lowered twice in the inning: once by that error, and once by that intentional walk. This is due to the Skeetersoft Advanced Pitching System, which has certain rules for grade lowering after giving up a certain number of base runners once a pitcher has reached a certain point in the game.
In other words, Young was dead tired, and that’s why he gave up that game winning walk-off single.
Shipke was the clear hero, having gone 3 for 4 on the day with the only 2 RBIs the Senators had. The only other Senator to get a hit off Young was Jim Delahanty.
Other Action
Doves 2, Phillies 1: At Philadelphia, the Doves scored the go-ahead run in the bottom of the 5th and coasted from there. Yeah, that’s right: I’m not going to spend the time to write up every single one-run 1908 contest. Some of them just aren’t that interesting.
Reds 3, Cubs 0: At Chicago, the winless Reds broke Chicago’s 7-game winning streak. Watch the game here.
White Sox 3, Naps 2: At Cleveland, numerous attempts by the Naps to come back against Sox pitcher Frank Owen fail. Watch the game here. Read the summary here.
Browns 4, Tigers 0: At Detroit, Rube Waddell shut out the American League Champions on 4 hits, managing to drive in a run in the process. Guess he didn’t see any fire engines to chase today.
Superbas 3, Giants 2: At New York, Brooklyn won a trhiller. Read the summary here.
Athletics 9, Highlanders 3: At New York, Eddie Plank drove in 4 in a 3 for 3 batting performance — and threw a complete game against the strong Highlander offense in the process. Watch the game here.
Pirates 5, Cardinals 4: At Pittsburgh, the Pirates overcame a 4-0 deficit to win. Tommy Leach contributed two triples. Watch the game here. Read the summary here.
Senators 2, Red Sox 1: At Washington, see above.
Standings
Yes, this is certainly 1908. All 8 teams are technically still in the American League race. I mean, it’s too early to count teams out, but, seriously, all 3 teams are within only 3 games of first.
The National League is starting to take shape. The Giants have an awesome offense, but they’re going to need to beat Brooklyn once in a while if they want a shot at the flag. Chicago and Pittsburgh are the teams to beat.