The day would be perfect if America's darling, Walter Johnson, could get his team off on the right foot with a victory over the Giants in the series opener. We get an idea of the type of opponent the Nats were up against when we consider that six of their members are today enshrined in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Those players are Bill Terry, George Kelly, Frank Frisch, Travis Jackson, Ross Youngs, and Hack Wilson. (Note: I don't know why Deveaux omits Freddie Lindstrom from this list. He was inducted in 1976 by the Veteran's Committee, but I believe Deveaux's book was issued in 2001.) Both Terry and Wilson were rookies, and Terry had seen limited action during the season due to Kelly's incumbency at the first-base position.
Ross Youngs had just won the National League batting title with a .356 average, the eighth straight year he'd batted over .300. George Kelly was tops in RBIs in both major leagues in 1924 with 136. Long George, who was 6'4", had the agility of a cat around the first base bag, and he could play the outfield, and even second base in a pinch. Team captain Frank Frisch was a recognized superstar, one of the acknowledged all-time best at second base. He'd hit .328 for the season and had tied for the league lead in runs with another of the great second basemen, Rogers Hornsby of the St. Louis Cardinals, who had hit .424, a mark never matched during the entire century.
Among the other regulars were the 18-year-old lead-off hitter, third baseman Fred Lindstrom, who would hit .311 for his career, and Emil "Irish" Meusel, Yankee Bob Meusel's older brother, who would post a .310 career mark. Needless to say, the Giants, who took the pennant by a mere 1 1/2 games over the Dodgers, had far and away the best offense in the National League in 1924. They were participating in their fourth straight World Series -- they had won two of the three previous Series, all against the Yankees, but their most recent memory was of a six-game defeat in 1923. They were led by the wiliest and toughest of baseball men, the antagonistic John McGraw.
Washington catcher Muddy Ruel would say years later that the Giants had seemed like a confident bunch on the other side of the diamond during the 1924 World Series. Apart from their offensive fire power, they had the reputation of being better defensively than any club in the American League. With John McGraw glowering at them all the while, it would have been easy for the Nats to have felt intimidated. But, as Ruel put it, those Washington Senators were a tough bunch too, and they wouldn't go down without a hell of a fight.
New York had no Walter Johnson or Firpo Marberry, and in Goose Goslin the Nats had a man with incredible power, a man who put as much into his swings as Babe Ruth. The proof was that when he missed, the Goose would do a pirouette which was pretty much just like the Babe's. But it was hard to deny that the Giants had more good hitters, and had more depth in starting pitching, and with only three days' rest following the end of the regular season and a World Series game scheduled every single day, these factors could turn out to be keys in determining the outcome. There was also the nagging fact that the Giants were taking part in their fourth consecutive World Series. On the Washington side, only Roger Peckinpaugh and Nemo Leibold had ever played in the postseason. Nevertheless, oddsmakers were calling it pretty much a toss-up, and the Nats were favored to take the first game, what with Bucky Harris having promised to start Walter Johnson.
1924 New York Giants wait to board train to Washington for Game 1:
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