Before getting into Part Two of that 1908 season, I’ll start with some current news.
Buck’s Bridge: I was out of town last week and so missed the dedication of the John Jordan “Buck” O’Neil Bridge. When Rita and I came in from the airport Friday night, we were excited to see the sign as we crossed the bridge on our way home. The dedication ceremony was held at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum:
Sportswriter Joe Posnanski was there (third from the left in the photo), and you may recall that he wrote a wonderful book on Buck in 2007, The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O’Neil’s America. Joe is also a fan of the Broadway show Hamilton which features a song “The Room Where it Happens” to describe the room where Jefferson, Hamilton and Madison hammered out the Compromise of 1790 that assured passage of the U.S. Constitution. In a post after the bridge dedication, Joe put a spin on this by describing a different room where it happened, this time in 2006 – on the 2nd floor of the NLBM where he and others waited with Buck for the Hall of Fame announcement on Negro Leaguers being selected for the Hall. In a shock to everyone, Buck was not included with the other 17, but Buck’s immediate response was that he hoped he could be the speaker for the entry of the others in the Hall (all 17 were deceased). He famously delivered that induction speech. Please read Joe’s post (it is okay to get tears in your eyes).
2016 Playoffs: On Sunday night, Rita and I watched the early part of the Blue Jays/Texas game, switched to the debate, then went back for the 10th inning of the game. We appreciated that the teams had gone into extra innings so we could watch the walk-off ending when Josh Donaldson made his Hosmer-like mad dash to home). Last night, I went to bed while the Cubs were leading 3-2 and awoke to find they lost 6-5 in the 13th. Quite a game. Big games tonight to see if the Cubs and Nationals can win in four.
Without the Royals in the mix, my dream matchup pits the Cubs against the Indians in the Series. These two teams have the longest streaks of not winning the World Series – Cleveland last did it in 1948 and the Cubs in 1908. Sports Illustrated has hopefully not jinxed the Cubs by putting them on their cover, although I really like their cover because it is inspired by a 1908 cover from a long-defunct weekly, Sporting Life:
The 1908 American League Pennant Race: With just two days to go in the 1908 season, both leagues still had three teams in the race. The pennant winner of each was not decided until the last game. In the NL, the Cubs won in the replay of the Merkle game as recounted in Part One. In the AL, the pennant race ended even closer than the NL – by half a game. After I sent out the Part One post, Hot Stove reader Mike Kelley recommended another book on the 1908 season, Crazy ’08: How a Cast of Cranks, Rogues, Boneheads, and Magnates Created the Greatest Year in Baseball History. I got a copy and the title of the first chapter is “The Hot Stove League” where author Cait Murphy describes off-season activities leading up to the 1908 season. One was a rule change by the NL that provided that any rained-out or tied games would be made up if they had a bearing on the pennant race. The AL did not adopt this rule. As you will see, this is more than trivia.
Four teams were bunched at the top for most of the season, but the St. Louis Browns faded in early September. Three fought down to the last days.
Detroit Tigers: The key player was Ty Cobb who just in his third full season won his second batting title. Detroit also had the second leading hitter in the AL, Sam Crawford.
Cleveland Naps: Nap Lajoie was arguably the best player in baseball when he joined the Cleveland Bronchos in 1902. He was so popular that the team name was changed to the Naps in 1903. He also served as manager of the team from 1905 to 1909. Addie Joss was their star pitcher, and 1908 was his fourth straight season with 20 or more wins.
Chicago White Sox: Big Ed Walsh won 40 games (out of the 88 won by the Sox). The team was called the “Hitless Wonders” because of an anemic lineup although they had surprised everyone in 1906 by beating the Cubs in the Series.
As the pennant race was winding down, two of the teams participated in what may have been “The Greatest Game Ever Pitched.”
Cleveland, with only five games to go in its season and a half game out of first, hosted the Chicago White Sox at League Park on October 2. The two best pitchers in the league were on the mound: Addie Joss for the Indians and Ed Walsh for the White Sox. More than 10,000 fans filled the grandstands long before the 2:30 start, which had been pushed up a half hour in case the anticipated pitching duel went into extra innings – no stadium lights in those days.
Walsh was superb as he struck out 15 batters (then a record) and allowed only one unearned run. Joe Birmingham singled in the third, but Walsh picked him off first and Birmingham headed to second. The throw to second by the first baseman hit Birmingham and the ball rolled to center field, allowing the runner to get to third. Birmingham then scored on a wild pitch when the backup catcher playing that day failed to capture a spitball thrown by Walsh. [Spitball Trivia: The Walsh spitball was considered the most effective pitch in baseball. The spitball was fully legal until 1920, then limited to two pitchers per team, and then phased out completely in 1921 except for grandfathering in 17 pitchers. The last legal spitballer was Burleigh Grimes whose career ended in 1934.]
Joss had thrown four shutouts in September, including a one-hitter and a two-hitter. He was even better on October 2. He hurled a 74-pitch perfect game against the aptly named “Hitless Wonders.” There has only been one other perfect game pitched in October – Don Larsen’s in the 1956 World Series. [Joss Trivia: Addie only pitched two more seasons, dying of meningitis at age 31. His nine years was among the best nine in history, but the Veterans Committee at the Hall of Fame could not originally consider him because he did not meet the 10-year minimum. The rule was later fixed for Joss and he was inducted in 1978.]
The perfect game temporarily gave Cleveland a tie for first place, but Detroit won later that day to regain its half-game lead. Both teams went 2-2 for their last four games, including Detroit beating Chicago in a winner-take-all game on the last day of the season. Cleveland had played its full 154-game schedule, but Detroit had played only 153 games because of one rainout – so it did not have the opportunity to lose a 64th game. Under the existing AL rules, the rainout was not made up even though it had a bearing on the pennant race. If only the AL had done what the NL had done during the Hot Stove season between 1907 and 1908, i.e. create the rule requiring a makeup game (some accounts say both leagues did not make the change until after 1908, but I’m going with the more appealing story in the Crazy ’08 book). This quirk also hurt Chicago which had played only 152 games because of two rainouts. If the new rule had been in place, Chicago would have had the opportunity to play those two games and possibly create a 3-way tie for the pennant. The final standings:
| American League | ||||
| Club | Wins | Losses | Win % | GB |
| Detroit Tigers | 90 | 63 | .588 | – |
| Cleveland Naps | 90 | 64 | .584 | 0.5 |
| Chicago White Sox | 88 | 64 | .579 | 1.5 |
| St. Louis Browns | 83 | 69 | .546 | 6.5 |
| Boston Red Sox | 75 | 79 | .487 | 15.5 |
| Philadelphia Athletics | 68 | 85 | .444 | 22.0 |
| Washington Senators | 67 | 85 | .441 | 22.5 |
| New York Highlanders | 51 | 103 | .331 | 39.5 |
[Trivia from the standings above. This was the first year that Boston was known as the Red Sox. The Naps were named after Nap Lajoie who had jumped from the NL to the new AL – an early form of free agency. After Lajoie left Cleveland in 1914, they became the Indians. The Highlanders became the Yankees in 1913. The Browns are now the Baltimore Orioles. The A’s are now in Oakland. This version of the Senators is now the Minnesota Twins.]
1908 World Series: The Series was anticlimactic as the Cubs knocked out the Tigers 4 games to 1. Ty Cobb did his part, hitting .368, but the rest of the Tigers hit .187. The Cubs hit .293, and Mordecai Three-Finger Brown and Orval Overall each won two games with ERA’s under 2.00. The Cubs were so superior that only 6,210 fans showed up for Game 5 in Detroit, the smallest World Series crowd in history.
Some Other 1908 Baseball Trivia: (i) Players discussed forming a protective association to be run by a non-player as an executive to enforce labor rights. AFL president Samuel Gompers was supportive, but the first true union did not form until 1966 under the leadership of non-player Marvin Miller. (ii) In late August, large electric diamonds were erected in New York and Chicago so that fans could watch reproductions of the games (based on telegraph info) to follow the pennant race. Baseball would not be on the radio until 1921. (iii) Pittsburg made the first major effort to protect against rainouts by using a tarpaulin to protect the field. (iv) The demand for tickets was so strong that speculators were buying up the tickets for resale. The Giants counterattacked by not selling advanced reserved tickets and requiring fans to show up on game day to purchase. No Stub-Hub. (v) Jack Norworth, while riding a NY subway train, was inspired by a sign that said “Baseball Today – Polo Grounds” and wrote “Take Me Out To The Ball Game.” (vi) The Cincinnati team bought towers and searchlights with the hope of developing night baseball so that the fans would not be docked a half-day’s pay for sneaking out to the ball park. Cincinnati did become the first with major league night baseball, but not until 1935 at Crosley Field. That put them five years behind the Kansas City Monarchs who regularly played with a portable light system:
The 1908 season is concisely summarized in these cool sports-maps: Click on National League and American League.
President of the National League: Harry Pulliam had a rough year. He agonized over his decision that Merkle was out for not touching second after an apparent walk-off Giants victory. The Giants and the city of New York felt they had been robbed. Another issue also involved the Giants. Their team doctor Joseph Creamer was accused of attempting to bribe umpire Bill Klem in advance of the makeup of the Merkle game. Gambling was common around baseball, including touts taking bets in the stands. Giant manager John McGraw was known to associate with gamblers. The investigation resulted in Creamer being permanently banned from baseball, but Pulliam was not much help in the investigation as the turmoil of the season put him over the edge – drinking, swearing, spending money recklessly and making murderous threats. He had a nervous breakdown and took a leave of absence for several months. He returned to his job in June of 1909, but not for long – he shot himself in July. The Giants were not forgiving upon his death. They were the only NL team that did not send a delegation to the funeral and manager McGraw said “I didn’t think a bullet to his head could hurt him.”
Presidential Race of 1908: Teddy Roosevelt (namesake of Ted Williams) was making a decision on whether or not to run for a third term – he had a partial term after the McKinley assassination plus his own victory in 1904. The cartoonists wondered if he would try for third base:
Roosevelt decided not to run and tapped William Howard Taft to be the Republican nominee. Taft and Democrat William Jennings Bryan were nominated at August conventions in the middle of the pennant races. From The Sporting News on September 27: “There is more interest today in what clubs are going to play for the world’s championship than in the outcome of the November election…[if asked about the outcome of the election], the reply would be: ‘Oh, to —- with that. Who’s going to win the pennant?”
Taft won the 1908 election and in 1910 became the first President to throw out the first pitch on Opening Day:
Presidential Race of 2016: Hillary Clinton has been a Cubs fan over the years – but also a Yankee fan after her move to NY. Donald Trump has shown interest in the Yankees and Mets. But the real “strange bedfellows” of baseball and politics this year reside in Chicago with the Cubs. Owner Joe Ricketts and some family members were very active in the anti-Trump movement leading to the convention. It prompted Trump to tweet “I hear the Rickets [sic] family, who owns the Chicago Cubs, are secretly spending $’s against me. They better be careful, they have a lot to hide!”. Ricketts has since decided to back Trump with a big campaign contribution. Ricketts daughter Laura and Cubs President Theo Epstein, the man who built the current lineup for the Cubs, are with Clinton. As is 96-year old baseball writer Roger Angell who cast his first ballot in 1944 – a must read. Stay tuned.
Baseball and democracy. America is great. In early November, we will have winners in the election and the World Series. And then we can start talking about the Royals winning it all next year.
One last piece of Cubs trivia. The Cubs hired the first black coach in the Major Leagues. His name was….
I got to spend some time with Buck this past summer in Cooperstown at the Hall of Fame:
