26 September 1924
On September 26, 1924 the Washington Senators began the day with a two-game advantage over New York in the American League with four games to play. Washington was set to begin a four-game season-ending series in Boston and looking forward to clinching the American League pennant against a poor Red Sox club. Leading with their ace pitcher, who brought a 13-game win streak, Washington could also look forward to the vocal support of the Boston fans who were fully charmed by the prospect of Walter Johnson's likely last chance to play in a World Series. Washington's potent offense expected to be paced by Sam Rice, currently engaged in a team-record 31-game hitting streak.
Wahington eagerly and confidently awaited word that the Senators had taken another big step toward capturing the pennant. But this is baseball, so of course, Walter Johnson's consecutive-win streak was broken at 13 in a 2-1 heartbreaker. Meanwhile, New York pounded Philadelphia 7-1. And Sam Rice went 0-4.
But, before all that, an enterprising and overconfident news operative put out a picture of righthanded Senator pitcher, Al Russell, asserting that because he was previously employed by the Yankees, Russell could take special delight in beating them out of the (still hotly contested) pennant:
|