Fenway 1912 (45 page)

McGraw, to no one's surprise whatsoever, selected his old standby, Mathewson, to start for New York. Jake Stahl countered with lefty Ray Collins, for it was widely believed that the Giants lineup had a bit of trouble with left-handed pitching and, as yet, left-handed pitchers were not thought to be a liability in Fenway Park. That characteristic would develop later, after the introduction of the lively ball in 1920 made the left-field wall a more inviting target for right-handed hitters and sluggers like Jimmie Foxx took advantage.

Collins took the mound, O'Loughlin called out for the game to begin, and with the noise of the crowd reaching a crescendo, outfielder Fred Snodgrass, leading off for the Giants, took Ray Collins's first pitch for a strike. He swung at the second and hit the ball solid to left field, where it went up as a rather routine fly ball but came down and was swallowed by a sea of hands on Duffy's Cliff. During the regular season Duffy Lewis might have either caught the ball or retrieved it in time for a play at second, but not anymore. Snodgrass collected a ground-rule double.

Collins left him stranded, but in the Boston half Mathewson was not so fortunate. Hooper led off with a single, and then, after he stole second, the Giants played hot potato. Steve Yerkes smacked a soft line drive to shortstop Art Fletcher, who not only failed to hold on to the ball but missed a chance to double up Hooper, who misjudged the hit and was already on his way to third. Both men were safe. When Tris Speaker then dropped a perfect bunt down the third-base line, Mathewson made no attempt to field it but walked behind it until it rolled to a stop, hoping it would go foul while eyeballing Hooper and keeping him at third. That filled the bases. Groundouts by Lewis and Gardner and a single by Stahl gave the Red Sox a quick 3–0 lead.

The Giants should have gotten one run back in a hurry. With one out in the second, Buck Herzog rapped the ball far and deep to right field, way over Hooper's head, and the ball took a long bounce to the rail fence—a sure home run if it had not hit the top rail with a crack and bounced straight back. Had it gone either over or through the barrier, Herzog would have had a home run, but now he only made third. Fortunately for New York, the issue became moot when Chief Meyers cracked a bad-hop ground ball off Larry Gardner's face and Herzog scored to make it 3–1. Gardner's cheek began to swell almost immediately, and for the rest of the Series he would look like a prizefighter after a bad night.

In the middle innings the two clubs traded runs as each did its best to give the other the game. New York shortstop Art Fletcher, with one bad play already to his credit, kept it up, having a perfectly wretched day in the field. One day after striking out three times, Fletcher made several other miscues, such as dropping a perfect peg to second base that should have caught Harry Hooper and helping Boston to a run. However, Fletcher saved his best work—from Boston's perspective—for the eighth inning.

In the top of that inning with the score 4-2, it looked at first as if the Giants had put the game away and tied the Series. It began with Duffy Lewis lending the opposition a helping hand by dropping Fred Snodgrass's leadoff fly ball. Larry Doyle then singled, and after a force-out put runners at first and third, Red Murray hit a slashing drive to deep left. Once again, a few weeks earlier Lewis, maybe playing deeper, might well have tracked the ball down and made a fine running catch. But on this day, with the close crowd, the ball was past him in a flash and into his namesake bleachers for a double, scoring Snodgrass.

That was enough for Stahl. The Giants had been hitting Collins hard all day, and at various times the Boston manager had had both Joe Wood and Charley Hall warming up in front of the third-base stands, the only place left in the park where there was room for a pitcher to throw. He called on Hall, and the rescue pitcher nearly saved the day. He got Fred Merkle to pop out foul to Carrigan, who was catching this day instead of Cady. Buck Herzog then lifted another twisting foul toward the first-base stands. As is well known to generations of fans who have sat in the grandstand, a wind blowing in through the stands pushes such foul balls back toward the field, even today. Had Carrigan caught the ball, the Giants would have been out of the inning, but the catcher struggled to track the twisting fly. The ball hit the catcher's glove and then, as Hugh Fullerton wrote, "rimmed around like a golf ball on a long putt" before dropping out. Carrigan cursed loudly as the ball fell, and Herzog was free to hit again.

He made Boston pay. Once more a long fly was sent toward left. The ball ricocheted off the stockade fence in left-center for a double, two runs scoring. The Giants were suddenly ahead, 5–4, and only six outs away from tying the Series with Christy Mathewson, who had pitched better than the score, looking strong.

Matty got two quick outs in the eighth before Fenway Park and Art Fletcher combined to save the day for the Boston. A few innings before, when the sun peeked through the clouds, John McGraw had made a switch, sending diminutive left fielder Josh Devore to right and right fielder Red Murray to left because Murray had trouble with the sun field. Now the sun was gone, but McGraw had not bothered to have the two men switch back to their original places. Duffy Lewis lofted a routine fly ball Murray's way, and the outfielder drifted back on the ball, which, pushed by the wind, headed to earth some twenty feet shy of the wall.

Of course, because of what Sam Crane disparagingly referred to as "the temporary little low circus seat stand erected behind left field," that meant that the ball was actually dropping just over the temporary fence. Murray staggered back and, not sure of precisely where the fence was, leapt up for the fly ball just as he backed into the low rail. Devore, nearly half a foot shorter than Murray, might not have even tried for the catch, but the taller man did, and the ball and Murray entered the stands together. Murray flipped backward over the fence and tumbled headfirst into the stands.

Duffy Lewis pulled up at second base, but no one more than ten feet away from Murray was quite sure whether or not the outfielder had caught the ball. Murray himself didn't know. After landing on his head, he was dazed and only semiconscious, and Boston fans were not particularly eager to help him up. Umpire Bill Klem, manning the left-field line, had a good angle on the play, however, and was relatively certain that the ball had landed free. In a matter of seconds he dashed over to where Murray had disappeared and looked for the ball.

It was not in the groggy outfielder's glove, and Klem, quickly ascertaining that it had not been caught—at least not by Murray—ruled the hit a double. After a minute or two a hatless Murray returned to the field—an enterprising Royal Rooter had taken advantage of the situation and obtained a souvenir—and was given a fine ovation by the Boston crowd, both for his effort and because it had been for naught. The game was delayed another minute while Murray was given a spare cap and a moment to make sure his head was still attached to his neck.

After watching the delay from the mound, Mathewson turned around to face Larry Gardner, who hit a hard ground ball to Art Fletcher at short. The infielder didn't move, and that was the problem. It should have been the end of the inning, but the ball, wrote the
New York Times,
"went through his hands and legs as it would a ladder." Lewis scored, and the game was tied, 5–5.

The ninth inning went fast, and the game entered extra innings, but night was falling quickly. Sunset would be just after 5:00 p.m., and the sun, which had peeked in and out of the clouds until midgame, was now hidden behind a thick bank of low clouds, a harbinger of rain. Players on both teams began to play quickly, taking chances they would not have taken earlier in the day, desperate for the game to end before it was called. Fred Merkle led off the tenth for New York with a long drive to left-center, and by the time Duffy Lewis ran the ball down Merkle, who ran hard from the start, was at third base. Two batters later, McGraw pulled Art Fletcher in favor of pinch hitter Moose McCormick, who came through, hitting a fly ball to left that scored Merkle easily. Now New York led 6–5, and Mathewson, still in the game, needed only three outs to collect a win and knot the Series.

Steve Yerkes opened the tenth by grounding out, bringing up Tris Speaker. He had hit the ball hard all game but thus far had but one hit, his first-inning bunt. Standing at the plate with his bat held low and flat, like Ty Cobb, this time he swung away and hit the ball square.

The liner rocketed to center field and came within an eyelash of making it over the fence for a home run, but to New York's good fortune, it smacked against the fence and then rolled away from the center fielder. Speaker tore toward first but nearly stumbled when first baseman Fred Merkle, using a trick that dated back to John McGraw's days with the Orioles, "accidently" wandered in his path. Speaker managed to stay on his feet, however, then rounded second and was nearly at third when Snodgrass's throw came in to shortstop Tillie Schaefer, who had taken over for Art Fletcher. Speaker appeared to be slowing up as he approached third, but when he looked over his left shoulder and saw Schaefer bobble the ball, he suddenly sped up. As he did, third baseman Buck Herzog got in his way, causing Speaker to take a bad step and nearly fall once again before he careened toward home.

Tillie Schaefer's throw had Speaker beat by ten feet, but when catcher Artie Wilson, set up just in front of the plate, tried to catch the ball and spin to his left to put the tag on Speaker, he couldn't hang on to it and the ball rolled free. Speaker, twisting out of the way behind home, slid past without touching the plate. As Silk O'Loughlin leaned over the proceedings with his hands at his sides, Wilson realized that he didn't have the ball, Speaker realized that he had missed the base, and both men suddenly sprang into action. Wilson grabbed the ball and dove toward Speaker as Speaker, from his knees, launched himself toward home, his right hand reaching out. An instant before Wilson reached him, Speaker slapped home to tie the game, 6–6. Speaker was given a triple on the hit, and an error was charged to Wilson.

Speaker jumped to his feet and, limping badly, let O'Loughlin have it, claiming in the most profane terms that first Merkle and then Herzog had blocked his path and he had the sprained ankle to prove it, but O'Loughlin claimed not to have seen anything illegal. Speaker then took up his case with base umpire Charlie Rigler, but Rigler hadn't seen anything either. Speaker limped off, still complaining, waving his arms in the air in frustration as the Giants smirked.

Mathewson was gassed, but McGraw decided to stick with his pitcher, win, lose, or draw. The pitcher tried to wiggle out of the jam and, after toeing the rubber, stepped off and threw to Merkle at first, making an appeal that Speaker had missed first base, but his plea was denied. Then Mathewson took a deep breath, dug deep, and threw.

Even the bands were tired now, and it was almost too dark to read the music anyway. Fenway Park was nearly silent as he released the pitch, but the crack of the bat as Lewis sliced the ball to right brought the crowd to its feet.

It was as if Fenway Park was suddenly some billiard table and every ball hit some new trick bank shot. Once again, the Red Sox lost a home run by an eyelash as Lewis's hit found the two-by-four-inch railing and fell back onto the field. Lewis pulled up at second base with another double, incredulous. Gardner, his eye now black from his earlier encounter with the ground ball, tried to win the game with a smash through the hole on the right side, but Larry Doyle reached out with one hand, knocked it down, then threw him out. Stahl then grounded out and the game was still tied.

As the teams exchanged positions Speaker stopped Buck Herzog near the pitcher's mound, blocking his way like a matador stopping a bull. The two men jawed at one another for a minute and then nearly came to blows until first Larry Doyle and then John McGraw himself came out and kept Herzog from trying to knock Speaker down again, this time with his fist. Jake Stahl, having seen enough of Charley Hall, who had walked four in two and two-thirds innings, made the only move he had left and replaced Hall with Hugh Bedient.

By then, as Damon Runyon wrote, it was 4:45 p.m. and "somber dusk was shrouding Fenway ... lights were popping up in the windows of houses beyond the wall and electric signs were commencing to twinkle on the roofs of distant buildings." The two clubs were exhausted, yet both knew they needed to work quickly—Silk O'Loughlin had informed each manager that he would call the game at the end of the inning. The Giants got Snodgrass and Becker on in the eleventh on a hit-by-pitch and a walk as Bedient showed nothing but nerves, but both men, desperate to reach scoring position, were cut down stealing. The Red Sox worked quickly in their half as well, swinging at almost everything. When Mathewson threw his 128th and final pitch of the game to Hugh Bedient, he topped the ball back to the mound for the third out in the eleventh inning. Silk O'Loughlin waved his hand and the game was over.

It was a tie, 6–6, but although it was not yet obvious, for Boston it was far better than kissing your sister. The tie contest—slowly, inexorably, and irrevocably—tilted the advantage Boston's way. As the National Commission had decided earlier, a tie game would be made up in the city in which it had been played. So instead of getting on a train to New York, the teams would stay in Boston for another game at Fenway the next day, and New York's home-field advantage was now less pronounced. Moreover, if the Series was extended because of the tie, Joe Wood might be available to pitch in not just three but four games. So could Tesreau, but the Sox, after discovering that he was tipping his pitches, were not afraid to face him again.

Fenway Park had done its job. While the vagaries of the ballpark's recent makeover had taken away several potential long hits and created several others, at the most critical time it had also accommodated Boston's eighth-inning comeback and helped the home team avoid a loss. And now they would get to play game 2 again.