by Glenn Stout
Still, the Giants tried. In the seventh Merkle, unable to hit what he could not see, struck out to start the inning, bringing up Buck Herzog. According to Fullerton, "He seemed helpless with the dark ball, but fouled it into the stand and a new ball was thrown out." Home plate umpire Charlie Rigler was out of baseballs. He retrieved some more and tossed Wood a "pearl," a brand-new white one. It was like the lights went on—Herzog singled and then went to second on an out. Art Fletcher found the new ball to his liking as well and followed with a double down the right-field line, Herzog just making it home under Cady's tag. The score was now 2–1.
Jeff Tesreau was up next, but McGraw knew the Giants were running out of time. He called on his pinch hitter par excellence, Moose McCormick. McCormick, who could not run or do much else, was made to pinch-hit, once saying, "I never worried when I went to the plate. I always thought this when I was asked to bat for another, 'Well, if I fail, no fault can be found with me, for if everybody on the team had been hitting I would never had been called on.'" He came through, singling off Steve Yerkes's shin. McGraw, knowing his club might not have another chance to score, waved Fletcher, who had slowed rounding third, toward the plate.
The Boston second baseman scrambled after the ball in short right, picked it up, and threw home, where Hick Cady crouched before the plate, blocking it like a fallen tree with Fletcher still fifteen feet from home. "Fletcher," wrote Paul Shannon in the Post later, "saw the cause was lost and that his only hope lay in knocking the ball out of the hands of the catcher ... therefore he hurled himself straight at the catcher, not with feet forward ... but sideways, so the big catcher received the full force of the collision." Cady held on, and Fletcher, noted Shannon, "got the worst of it." Both men tumbled to the ground, Cady absorbing the blow with his ribs but applying the tag and sending Fletcher over his shoulder in a somersault. When Fletcher opened his eyes he found Cady, enraged, bent over him, ready to tear him apart. McGraw rushed to the aid of his player, Tris Speaker raced in to back up Cady, and umpire Charlie Rigler got between all four of them and was finally able to convince everyone to cool off.
The Giants' last chance came in the eighth when, with two out, Snodgrass reached on an error and Red Murray singled, bringing up Fred Merkle with two on. After the batter drove a long ball foul into the stands, Cady called time to settle Wood down, and Stahl joined them both on the mound for a conference. Even though Wood often professed that he felt no fear on the mound, his teammates knew better. Harry Hooper later recalled that at times Wood got so worked up that he couldn't even speak. Fortunately, he was adept at channeling his fear into his performance. Given a chance to take a few breaths and steady himself, Wood poured the ball past Snodgrass for a strikeout to end the threat.
As he walked back to the Boston dugout a fan delivered what the Times called the "tribute de luxe" to Wood. The box seats in the Polo Grounds were adorned with flowers, and a smitten young woman plucked a handful of posies and tossed them to Wood as he stepped into the dugout, the flowers landing on his head and shoulders like a laurel wreath.
The Red Sox tacked on an insurance run in the top of the ninth off relief pitcher Red Ames when Wood himself knocked home Gardner with a single, making the score 3–1. The Giants began wondering what was on the dinner menu in the dining car of the Gilt Edge Express. They went out quickly in the ninth. Wood, whom the Tribune afterward called a "mighty magician and apostle of necromancy far too potent for the pigmy bats of the Giants," had his second victory of the Series after scattering nine hits and this time striking out only eight. When he left the field the New York crowd that had hoped to jeer his demise instead stood and gave the Boston pitcher some well-earned cheers. Of his 108 pitches, only 28 had been called a ball by umpire Charlie Rigler.
JOE WOOD, THE GIANT–KILLER, BESTS TESREAU AGAIN, 3–1
Once more the players dressed quickly after the game and were ferried to Grand Central Station to make the train back to Boston. Speaker, still hobbled, traveled once again between the two cities soaking his ankle in warm water. The palm of Hick Cady's glove hand was black and swollen, the price of catching Joe Wood all year long, but this time the Red Sox were the ebullient ball club, while the Giants were tight-lipped and grim. They had been in the lead all season long, and now, for the first time all year, it looked like they were licked.
Fenway Park was shrouded in fog the next morning, a low dense cloud that soaked everything and blocked out the sun, but once the decision was made to play the game and the gates opened at noon, another record crowd pressed its way into the park. McRoy and McAleer somehow found a way to squeeze an extra fifty-nine fans into every nook and cranny to set another attendance record, trumping the mark set only two days before. Many fans were already half in their cups, for the Columbus Day parade was winding through Boston and more than 100,000 people were on the streets.
Despite the dank weather, as the players on both teams scanned the morning paper—the Red Sox reading every eager word about Wood's victory the day before and the Giants flipping through in search of the funny pages—they were heartened to learn that they were rich. The players' share of receipts from the first four games totaled $147,571.70 on a paid attendance of 138,006, bettering the record set the previous year by the Giants and the A's. The winning club would divvy up 60 percent of that sum, meaning the champions would earn about $4,000 a man and the losers nearly $3,000. It was nice to know a check was in the offing, but at the same time the players knew that the tie game was bringing the owners a windfall they had done nothing at all to earn. The more the players thought about it and talked with each other, the more steamed they became. It just wasn't right. The National Commission was stealing about $1,000 a man, enough to buy a new automobile.
Christy Mathewson was McGraw's choice as pitcher for game 5, but Stahl had not only Ray Collins warming up before the game but also, in something of a surprise, Hugh Bedient and Charley Hall. Most observers had expected him to select the veteran Collins over the rookie Bedient, even though the Giants had hit Collins hard in his earlier start.
As game time approached Stahl kept scanning the sky. Although the fog had lifted a bit, it was still dark—as dark as it had been in New York the day before. Stahl had noted how hard it had been to see the ball, particularly when Wood threw a fastball.
Collins was a control artist. Bedient did not throw as hard as Wood—no one but Walter Johnson could claim that—but he threw harder than any other Boston pitcher, and that helped him to a record of 20-9 for the season. That wasn't bad for a rookie, though Bedient, like every other Boston pitcher, suffered in comparison to Wood. He used a slow wind-up and then threw across his body, a deceptive motion that made it seem as though he threw even harder than he did. His fastball, thought Stahl, combined with the dark day and a dark baseball, made Bedient his best bet to shut the Giants down. Although control problems had plagued both of his earlier relief appearances in the Series, if Bedient could find the plate Stahl believed that he could give the Giants real trouble. With a one-game lead in the Series, Stahl could afford to gamble, and if the rookie stumbled Collins and Hall would be ready.
John McGraw had no such luxury. Although some pressed him to turn to Marquard with only one day's rest, McGraw resisted the temptation. Besides, Mathewson had already won more than three hundred games in a Giants uniform, and even if he no longer had the stuff that had once made him the best in baseball, he still had the heart of a champion. McGraw knew that Matty would give everything he had.
When the batteries were announced, there was a buzz around Fenway Park, for not only did Bedient get the start for Boston, but so too did Hick Cady behind the plate. Thus far in the Series Stahl seemed to have decided that Cady would catch Wood and Carrigan would catch everyone else. The veteran had been behind the plate when both Collins and O'Brien had pitched, but now the manager went with Cady. It might have been just a hunch on Stahl's part, but Stahl may also have gotten wind of the fact that Carrigan had again agreed to represent t
he Red Sox in a meeting that Mathewson was trying to set up with the National Commission to discuss the players' grievances over the tie game. That was like trying to take money out of both Stahl's pocket and that of his father-in-law. In any event, Bill Carrigan's World's Series was over. He would spend the remaining games coaching first base.
As game time approached the raucous crowd grew more restless and nasty. All Series long the Boston crowd in the center-field bleachers had been razzing Giant center fielder Fred Snodgrass unmercifully, reminding him of his play in the 1911 World's Series. In game 3 of that Series Snodgrass had spiked Philadelphia third baseman Frank Baker. A's fans thought he had done so deliberately, and when Snodgrass appeared on the street after the game he was hooted and hissed and his life was threatened—one newspaper report even indicated that he had been shot. Fortunately, the report was false, but Snodgrass was petrified. McGraw saw the toll that the threats were having on his center fielder, and when the Series was delayed for almost a week by rain he sent Snodgrass home to regain his nerve. Ever since, fans had viewed Snodgrass as soft and something of a coward. They let him know it, and he heard every word.
The Boston crowd had detected his weak spot, and as Snodgrass and the Giants warmed up before the game the outfielder's rabbit ears kept growing. He finally blew up and jawed back at the crowd, but only managed to further incite the Boston partisans. When a ball strayed near the stands and a couple of fans tumbled over the low fence to retrieve it, Snodgrass, his temper growing hotter by the minute, threw a fastball at the interlopers like they were part of a carnival game. This really set the crowd off, and a few moments later so many had pressed against the fence to razz Snodgrass that it gave way and a hundred or so Boston fans tumbled onto the field. The police ushered them back into the seats, and the grounds crew came out and secured the fence, but Snodgrass would not spend another second in Fenway Park without the fans in center field doing everything in their power to drive him to distraction. After the game the Herald noted that the crowd "greatly affected his batting" during the game—Snodgrass went hitless—and offered that "no man is capable of doing his best when the crowd is riding him." If that was the case, Snodgrass had more trouble in his future.
As Bedient took the mound and began to throw his final warm-up tosses McGraw and the Giants were eager to face him. The Giants manager expected the young pitcher to show his nerves and cautioned his team to be patient. In his first two appearances Bedient had been unable to find the plate. McGraw was convinced that if they gave Bedient the opportunity, he would beat himself.
Leading off for New York, little Josh Devore made McGraw look like the genius he was. As McGraw hooted and hollered at Bedient from the third-base coaching box, the Boston pitcher was wild high, and Devore worked a walk. Doyle, up next, tried to be patient as well, but Bedient's fastball, like Wood's, had a "hop" to it. Doyle swung at a ball that looked like it was coming in waist high, but he hit underneath the pitch as it passed by his armpits, sending up a high foul that Lewis caught in the narrow space between the baseline and the third-base stand. Fred Snodgrass, up next and determined to silence the Boston crowd, then bounced a pitch to where ground balls died on the Fenway Park infield, the glove of Charlie Wagner, and the shortstop turned a neat double play.
The two clubs parried one another for the first few innings, each threatening but neither team scoring as both Mathewson and Bedient seemed overly cautious and a bit off their game. With each at-bat, however, the pitchers seemed to settle down. The game was still scoreless when Harry Hooper stepped to the plate to lead off the bottom of the third. Mathewson did not know it, but during this at-bat he was facing more than just a dangerous left-handed hitter. He was also pitching against architect James E. McLaughlin, builder Charles Logue, and the ballpark they had created together, Fenway Park.
On his second pitch Mathewson threw one wide. Hooper hit the ball flush but late, slicing a line drive to the right of Buck Herzog. The third baseman, playing off the line, dove but could not reach it. The ball hit the ground in shallow left and started skipping to the corner with New York left fielder Josh Devore, hoping to cut the ball off and hold Hooper to a single, in pursuit.
There was, noted Ralph McMillen of the Herald, "a shade of English on the ball," and the drive skipped and rolled innocently toward the left-field corner, where the foul line met the wall. Left-field umpire Bill Klem watched closely as Boston fans, screaming and hanging over the third-base stands, saw the ball bound by Devore, now a certain double.
The new third-base stands met the left-field line at an angle about thirty feet from the left-field fence, then, instead of running parallel to the foul line, angled back slightly away from the field. Although James McLaughlin's drawing of Fenway Park with the new arrangement of seats for the World's Series showed the fence running in front of the Duffy's Cliff bleachers and meeting those stands, cutting the left-field wall off from the field of play completely, what Charles Logue built was not exactly what McLaughlin drew. To accommodate the construction of the new third-base stands and allow fans easier access to the seats on Duffy's Cliff, instead of extending across the foul line to meet the stands the fence stopped where the bleachers themselves did, at the foul line. That left what McMillen accurately described as a "pie-shaped open space between these stands and the Lewis Ledge [Duffy's Cliff] seats" (see illustration 9).
For the Red Sox this pie-shaped piece of real estate and its narrow entrance way would prove to be a banquet, but for the Giants the slice of property the New York Tribune later dismissed as an "ugly triangle" was pure food poisoning. The ball skipped into the space and rattled around like it was in a pinball machine, glancing off the tall board fence that covered the end of the new stands, rolling up the small exposed wedge of Duffy's Cliff to the wall, then clattering back and forth between the fence, the bleachers, and the third-base stands. Meanwhile Hooper was rounding first and racing to second.
Devore raced into the triangle, with umpire Bill Klem close behind him to make sure the ball remained accessible. If it became wedged against the bottom of the fence or bounced beneath the bleachers, Klem would have no choice but to rule the hit a ground-rule double.
It did not. Devore scrambled into the piece of pie, spotted the ball, and then, completely out of sight of most of the press box and everyone else in the park except for those far across the field in the stands along the first-base line, picked it up. He wanted to throw, but from his vantage point he could not see third base or extend his arm to throw. Devore was forced to take a few quick steps out from the piece of pie and into the outfield where everyone, including Harry Hooper, who was now well on his way to third, could see him. "When the relay finally reached the infield," wrote McMillen, "Hoop was resting comfortably on the final hassock" (third base), and the Boston crowd was shaking the park to its foundations.
Fenway Park had never been more friendly to the Boston cause. With a strong assist from McLaughlin and Logue, the ballpark had just made the difference in the game. Hooper's hit may well have been the key at-bat for the entire Series, for it left the Red Sox in position to win the game and put themselves only one game away from a world championship.
Mathewson, who rarely allowed anything to bother him, seemed taken aback, as if he could not believe that Hooper's bouncing little line drive had resulted in a triple, and Buck Herzog went out to the mound to steady him. Steve Yerkes stepped to the plate. In center field the crowd pelted Snodgrass with a constant barrage of abuse, and the center fielder edged a few steps closer to home plate. Hooper ran well, and Snodgrass knew that if Yerkes hit the ball to center, his only chance to catch Hooper at the plate would be on a short fly ball.
His opening day heroics notwithstanding, Yerkes had been considered the weakest link in Boston's batting order for the rest of the season, and the player least likely to drive the ball for extra bases. But thus far in the Series he was doing better than he had any right to. Playing the best baseball of his career at the best possible time, Yer
kes was outperforming his New York counterpart, NL MVP Larry Doyle, by a wide margin.
Mathewson threw, and Yerkes connected, driving the ball over Fred Snodgrass's right shoulder toward left-center field. The outfielder was slow to react—they were saying some really awful stuff to him in center field—and then the ball hit the left-field fence near where it met the center-field fence and caromed away. Snodgrass ran a gauntlet of verbal abuse as he tracked the ball along the fence, and by the time he ran it down and threw it back in to shortstop Art Fletcher, Yerkes was on his way to third, where he avoided Herzog's tag on the relay with a beautiful hook slide to the outfield side of the base. Hooper walked home, and Boston led, 1–0.
Trailing 1–0 had not overly concerned the Giants, but trailing 2–0 did. With the heart of Boston's batting order coming to the plate, McGraw moved the infield in to cut off a potential second run at the plate. He also sent pitcher George Wiltse to warm up in foul ground along the right-field line. Desperation had replaced confidence.
