Washington DC Baseball

GeoPoto · #1 05-22-2023, 04:11 AM

It rained in Washington on October 9, 1925, and game three of the World Series was put off for a day. It would be well worth the wait. When play resumed the next day for the Nats' first home game, President Coolidge and his Secretary of State, Frank Billings Kellogg, were among the many dignitaries on hand to witness the Pirates score the first run for the first time in the Series. Bucky Harris had elected to go with righthanded forkballer Alex Ferguson, 9-5 with an atrocious 6.18 ERA in '25. Twice traded during the season, Ferguson had nonetheless managed a 5-1 ledger in seven games since being acquired from the Yankees in a cash deal on August 19.

The previous year, Ferguson had been 14-17 with the hapless Boston Red Sox, but here he was starting in the World Series. He got out of trouble despite walking the first batter of the game and hitting the second one with a pitch. The Pirates scored the first run off Ferguson when, in leading off the second inning, Pie Traynor hit a low shot at Bucky Harris, who let the ball get through him and into the gap in right center for a triple. Glenn Wright followed with a sacrifice fly to left. The Senators were facing Ray Kremer, a tough man and hard drinker who had just completed the second year of a fine seven-year stretch with the Pirates. Kremer was known for destroying Pullman cars and tossing teammates' shoes out of train windows in fits of temper. He would go on to win 20 games in 1926 and 1930, 19 in 1927, and 18 in 1929.

The Senators came right back in the third inning against Kremer, with Sam Rice looping a single over second base to start things off. Bucky Harris sacrificed, and Goslin, going for more than a sacrifice, hit a shot to deep right. The catch was made, but Rice was into third easily. He scored moments later when Joe Judge doubled inside first base. The Nats nearly took the lead when Judge tried to score on a scratch hit by Joe Harris that shortstop Glenn Wright had nearly thrown into the dirt. First baseman George Grantham, a second baseman by trade, made a major-league play, picking the peg out of the dirt and throwing Judge out at home to preserve the tie for the Pirates after three innings.

The very first batter in the top of the fourth, Kiki Cuyler, doubled to the gap in left center, and then came home on a single to left by the next batter, Pittsburgh left fielder Clyde Barnhart. Ferguson walked the next batter, and then ended up yielding an intentional pass to load the bases. Nonetheless he muddled through without giving up another run in the inning, striking out his opposing number, Ray Kremer, to extinguish the fire. Ferguson gave up another double in the fifth, to Max Carey, but got out of the inning without further damage.

https://www.net54baseball.com/attach...1&d=1684746523

GeoPoto · #2 05-23-2023, 04:42 AM

In the sixth, Roger Peckinpaugh committed his fourth error in three games and it led to another Pittsburgh run, making the score 3-1. After Pie Traynor flied out to Sam Rice about 420 feet to the bleacher fence to open the inning, Glenn Wright bounced to Peckinpaugh, who made a bad relay to first. Wright eventually scored when pitcher Kremer got a base hit which took a freaky high bounce over second base. In the bottom of the inning, however, the Nats got one back very quickly when the lefty-hitting Goslin led off by pulling a home run into the right centerfield bleachers.

Alex Ferguson got out of the seventh inning, and the game, after retiring the Pirates in order for the first time. His departure was hastened because he was due to be the first batter in the next half inning. The veteran outfielder, Nemo Leibold, took a walk and was immediately lifted for pinch runner Earl McNeely. McNeely was now strictly relegated to a reserve role due to the emergence of Joe "Moon" Harris, who was having a great Series. After Clyde Barnhart made a fine catch off of a Sam Rice attempt at the left-field foul line, the Nats' peerless leader, Bucky Harris, beat out a single.

With the score 3-2 and men on first and second with just one out, the Pirates could not have been prepared for what came next. Goose Goslin, the Nats' best slugger, swung from the heels on the first pitch and missed -- the infielders were playing far back. Goslin then caught the defense by surprise, bunting along the third base line and loading the bases in the process. Joe Judge was next up, and his sac fly to center brought in McNeely with the tying run. Joe Harris was next and singled to left to put the Nats ahead for the first time in the game. The inning then ended in odd fashion when Buddy Myer got in the way of his own batted ball while outside the batter's box and was called out.

There was a much more unusual play in the eighth inning -- indeed one of the most bizarre plays in all of World Series history. Firpo Marberry, pitching for the first time in five weeks and yet called upon to protect a 4-3 lead in a World Series game, began wonderfully by striking out the first two Pirates to face him. Then Pirate catcher Earl Smith slammed a monster shot to the right centerfield bleachers. Sam Rice raced to the spot, extended his glove as far as he could, and definitely seemed to get it on the ball. But Rice's momentum carried him into the bleachers, behind the fence, and out of sight. He did not immediately re-emerge, and Pirates manager Bill McKechnie came bounding out of the dugout, protesting that Rice surely must have dropped the ball. Rice only had it in his possession now, McKechnie contended, because it had been handed back to him by a fan.

https://www.net54baseball.com/attach...1&d=1684834822

GeoPoto · #3 05-24-2023, 04:05 AM

The four umpires working the game conferred and after much to-do, it was decided that (Rice's) catch would stand, probably because they had seen the catch and nothing else. Manager McKechnie took the matter to the commissioner's office, and did so in a manner we would not see today. He just walked over to the box where Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis was sitting, and politely inquired whether he could appeal the matter. The autocratic Landis just as immediately retorted with a flat-out "no". The case was closed, and the Nats were out of the inning with their 4-3 lead intact.

Questioned by reporters later, Sam Rice said simply that the delay behind the fence had been caused by his Adam's apple coming into contact with the hard skull of a paying customer. Commissioner Landis wanted to talk to Sam and had him summoned following the game. Sam told the judge one thing -- that the umpire had called Earl Smith out. That, Landis said, was precisely the answer he wanted the player to keep giving whenever that question was put to him in the future. The controversial play incited the first major rule change in the majors in five years -- in the future, if a player left his feet and followed the ball into the stands, it would be a home run. This does not detract from Rice's effort, since "the Catch" was the most miraculous many players professed to have seen in their lifetimes.

More confusion ensued in the bottom of the eighth . . . the Senators batted out of order! When they'd taken the field in the top of the inning, McNeely had gone out to center. He had of course pinch run for Leibold, who had batted in the pitcher's spot. Since McNeely had inherited the ninth spot, it was his turn to bat following Muddy Ruel's single with one out. Instead the pitcher, Firpo Marberry, not only batted in the ninth spot, but executed a perfect sacrifice to move Ruel ahead. Fortunately for Washington, the Pirates were also somnolent on this play. The opposition did not clue in quickly enough -- by the time the play was appealed, it was too late. Sam Rice was already in the batter's box, and under the rules, what had taken place could not be negated. When Rice grounded to short, however, the whole sordid episode was rendered moot, as the Nats did not score.

There were more fireworks in the top of the ninth when, with one out, Firpo Marberry gave up successive singles and then hit Kiki Cuyler with a pitch. After inducing Clyde Barnhart to pop up in fair territory near the plate, the great Pie Traynor worked Marberry to a 3-2 count before flying out to McNeely in center. The Nats had restored their lead in the Series with a 4-3 final. An exciting game indeed, and all of its excitement was contained within two hours and ten minutes -- a quick game by today's standards, but the longest of the 1925 Series to that point.

https://www.net54baseball.com/attach...1&d=1684919079

GeoPoto · #4 05-25-2023, 04:23 AM

Spirits were high and buoyed even further in the nation's capital when it was announced by Bucky Harris that Walter Johnson would start the fourth game. Given the Nats' 2-1 lead in the Series, this made good strategic sense. If Johnson won, the Senators would obviously be in the driver's seat, but if he lost, he'd be available for a seventh game with sufficient rest. Johnson's opponent would be lefthanded submariner Emil Yde, who'd enjoyed a superb 16-3, 2.83 season the previous year but had slipped to 17-9, 4.13 on a pennant winner in '25. Yde would be gone from the big-league scene before the end of the 1920s, and the imminent fourth game of the World Series would prove a precursor to his demise.

Yde gave up a couple of walks in the first inning, and Johnson allowed runners to get to second and third in the second, but there were no runs. After the Big Train had retired the Pirates in order, the Nats struck in the bottom of the third. The damage they wreaked, however, would be insignificant compared to the negative impact of the play that happened next. Walter Johnson, the first batter of the inning, hit a clean single to left and the great man, trying gallantly to stretch the hit into a double, stretched a leg muscle. After the next batter, lead-off man Rice, beat out an infield single, Bucky Harris hit what might have been a double-play ball toward George Grantham at first. Grantham, who, as mentioned earlier, was really a second baseman, made a good relay but Glenn Wright dropped the ball.

The play opened the floodgates, and Goose Goslin then unleashed a huge blast into the left centerfield bleachers, a shot of well over 420 feet, his second home run of the Series. Moon Harris, the next batter, then hit one nearly as far into the bleachers in left, his second homer of an outstanding World Series for him. With the Senators suddenly up 4-0, Joe Judge coaxed a walk out of Yde, who was out of what would turn out to be his one and only World Series game after getting just seven batters out.

Johnson, who'd stayed in the game despite being bandaged after his ill-fated slide into second, pitched from the stretch but otherwise showed no ill effects the rest of the way. He gave up just four more hits through the last six innings after the incident, two of them to the infield. He's surrendered only six singles, and walked just two, as only one Pirate reached third base all day. The 4-0 shutout had the Nats just one win away.

The Big Train had not had the usual dominance and struck out just two, compared to the ten he'd racked up while getting his first win in game one. At 37 years, 11 months, he set the still-standing (as of 2000) record as the oldest pitcher to throw a complete-game World Series shutout. It had taken him a long time, but after 17 mostly disheartening seasons in the majors, he was now just one win away from a second straight World Championship . . . no team had ever lost a World Series after holding a 3-1 lead in games.

Sam Rice scoring on Goslin's home run:

https://www.net54baseball.com/attach...1&d=1685006329

GeoPoto · #5 05-26-2023, 04:22 AM

Bucky Harris was in another quandary prior to the fifth game. It would be the final game in Washington, if not the final game of the Series. Harris, anxious to end it, was unsure whether he would go with one of his lefties, Dutch Ruether or Tom Zachary, or with his eventual choice, his best available pitcher, Stan Coveleskie, who had shared with Johnson the number-one role throughout the season. Vic Aldridge would be the opposing pitcher, and Ossie Bluege, who'd been beaned by Aldridge in the second game and hadn't played since, would be back in the lineup. Bluege would double and field flawlessly.

Coveleski pitched out of a bases-loaded jam in the first inning, as game five also got off to a hectic start. The beloved Nats replied with a run. Sam Rice led off by lining a single to right. Bucky Harris, still playing with a spiked hand which affected his hitting, was able to move Rice over. Goslin then blooped a double near the left field foul line to drive in the first run. From then on, though, it was all downhill for the Senators. Coveleskie surrendered a couple of walks and a single in the third, for a couple of runs. After Series star Moon Harris hit his third home run in five games in the bottom of the fourth, the score remained 2-2 until the Pirates bunched three more singles and a walk for a couple of runs, chasing Coveleskie in the seventh.

The Bucs were not to relinquish that lead, although Nemo Leibold and Sam Rice combined to bring in a run to narrow the margin to 4-3 in the seventh. Pittsburgh would win this one 6-3. Pirate shortstop Glenn Wright doubled and scored off Tom Zachary in the eighth, and drove in Clyde Barnhart with a single off Marberry, who had to come in to rescue Zachary in the eighth. Although he pitched to only two batters, Marberry aggravated the arm injury which had caused him to miss the last five weeks of the season -- he would not pitch in this World Series again.

Moon Harris home run:

https://www.net54baseball.com/attach...1&d=1685092797

GeoPoto · #6 05-27-2023, 04:18 AM

The move to go with Coveleski had backfired. The Senators still maintained a 3-2 lead in games, but Bucky Harris had a pitching rotation in disarray at this point. He had used Zachary in game five, and that had not gone well. Johnson would be held over for the seventh game, if there was one, but his injured leg was a question mark which meant this upcoming game was all the more crucial. Dutch Ruether had not pitched in the Series. Alex Ferguson had, and had done a creditable job winning the third game, giving up six hits and four walks in seven innings in his only appearance. Harris decided to go with him, despite rumors that Ferguson himself didn't think he should be the one to get the assignment.

The trepidation in the Senators' camp was quickly assuaged when, with two out in the top of the first, Goose Goslin launched a Ray Kremer pitch very deep into the rightfield stands. In the second, Joe Judge singled and was forced at second by Ossie Bluege, who then upped the score to 2-0 when Roger Peckinpaugh lined a double over the head of first baseman Stuffy McInnis. McInnis's presence since game five, which reportedly had come at John McGraw's recommendation, would later be recognized by baseball's pundits as a significant move on the part of the Pirates. George Grantham had gone 2-for-14 in the Series. McInnis, a 17-year vet and longtime A's and Red Sox star, had hit .368 following his midseason acquisition from the Boston Braves.

Pittsburgh came back in the third, with Peckinpaugh's fifth error of the Series prolonging a two-run rally. With a man on first, Peckinpaugh grabbed a high bouncer but then missed second when he tried to go for the lead man. Both runs came in on an infield single and another base hit through the box by Pie Traynor that breezed past Alex Ferguson. After that, only one man made it to first base for either side (Ossie Bluege singled in the fourth and got caught leading off first) until the top of the fifth, when Pirate lead-off man Eddie Moore hit a Chinese home run into the temporary seats in left field.

The Pirates led 3-2 and the game was uneventful the rest of the way, except for the fact that Peckinpaugh muffed another chance in the seventh, his sixth error in six games, when he threw low to first base, allowing Moore to once more get on to start an inning. Moore's homer held up as the decisive blow. The Senators had lost two in a row and there was no more margin for error, on the part of Roger Peckinpaugh or anyone else.

We will now enjoy a brief pause -- next expected post: 31 May.

Bucky Harris turns a double play:

GeoPoto · #7 05-31-2023, 04:23 AM

As had happened prior to the third game in Washington, it rained in Pittsburgh and the seventh game was postponed one day, with the decisive contest rescheduled for Thursday, October 15, 1925. It was still wet and cold, but Commissioner Landis in his infinite wisdom ordered the game played in a steady rain. It was thought that never had such an important game been played in such conditions. It was, wrote James R. Harrison in the New York Times, "a perfect day for water polo."

Bucky Harris' decision concerning whom to start was easier to make this time. In his statement to reporters, he announced that Washington was going to come back with the greatest pitcher the game had ever known. Walter Johnson, on three days' rest and with a sore leg, pronounced himself ready. Babe Ruth, covering the Series from his apartment in New York, thought he spoke for all American Leaguers when he said that Walter was not just respected by the players, but loved by them. Ruth admitted he'd be rooting for a man he called the greatest character in baseball.

Vic Aldridge, who had been steady in winning games two and five, was out again for this, the big one. The Pirates certainly had momentum on their side, and the fans on their side, but it was the Senators who struck first, and struck hard, again in the first inning. Sam Rice led off with a single over second base. Bucky Harris, still hampered by the spiked hand, flew out softly to left, but Aldridge then uncorked a wild pitch, allowing Rice to take second. Aldridge was wild -- he walked Goslin and then lost control of another pitch, moving the runners up to second and third. Moon Harris walked, loading the bases. Joe Judge, always selective, worked the count full and then earned a fourth ball from Aldridge, and the Nats had their first run.

Ossie Bluege was next up and singled cleanly, bringing in Goslin and precipitating Aldridge's exit. Aldridge had finally met his Waterloo and was replaces by "Jughandle Johnny" Morrison, he of the sweeping curveball. Morrison was another character on a team of characters -- a heavy drinker, he would, in the two coming seasons, be suspended by the Pirates for apparently feigning illness and running off to his home in the Kentucky hills. Morrison had given up two hits and a run in one inning in a mop-up role in game one, and had allowed five hits and a walk, but no runs, in the 4-0 loss to Walter Johnson in the fourth game.

The righthanded Morrison lured Roger Peckinpaugh into batting the ball into the ground with the bases full. This was another of the strange plays in this Series. Catcher Earl Smith had apparently tipped Peck's bat, and Peck was awarded first, Joe Harris scoring the third run of the first inning. The roof caved in just a bit more for the Pirates and poor Morrison, as Eddie Moore booted a roller off the bat of Muddy Ruel, who was enjoying a much better World Series from an offensive standpoint than he had in 1924. Moore's muff brought in Joe Judge, but Morrison then fanned Walter Johnson. Despite his great season at the plate, Barney would go 1-for-11 for the Series. Sam Rice, up next, lofted a fly to left to end the inning.

https://www.net54baseball.com/attach...1&d=1685524866

Thread Tools
Show Printable Version Email this Page
Display Modes
Switch to Linear Mode Hybrid Mode Switch to Threaded Mode

Similar Threads
Thread	Thread Starter	Forum	Replies	Last Post
WTB: Washington-related baseball memorabilia	Runscott	Baseball Memorabilia B/S/T	4	05-23-2014 05:18 PM
WTB: Specific Claudell Washington, U.L. Washington, Garth Iorg and Johnny Grubb Cards	EGreenwood	1950 to 1959 Baseball cards- B/S/T	0	12-07-2012 10:27 PM
1920's washington senators baseball cap	bryson22	Baseball Memorabilia B/S/T	1	12-30-2010 09:21 PM
The Oregon-Washington Baseball League???	slidekellyslide	Net54baseball Sports (Primarily) Vintage Memorabilia Forum incl. Game Used	7	06-12-2009 07:55 PM
Baseball cabinet - Washington Senators?	Archive	Net54baseball Sports (Primarily) Vintage Memorabilia Forum incl. Game Used	1	06-18-2008 02:33 PM