Our last update was August 14th. The Red Sox would go on a 23-4-1 stretch, turning a 9.5 game lead into a 15.5 one on September 13th. On the 19th, 100 years ago yesterday, the following appeared in the Providence Evening News:So after the A's lost, the Red Sox invoked their right to not have to make up a postponed game against a team they'd finished their road season series with, in order to clinch. Of course, they were going to clinch anyway, but I guess they figured why not rest. Then again, they could have probably "rested" right in the field and still beat the Yankees, who were 48 games off the pace. (A fact Yankee fans conveniently forgot before 2004 when they'd talk about how they never ever ever lost to the Red Sox "when it counted." I guess that whole season didn't count. It's like Kramer saying the bet (that he won't convert his apartment into levels) is off because he's not gonna do it after all: "In seasons where it's close enough to warrant some type of playoff, we always win! Just don't even consider the seasons where we finish 55 games behind!")

So the pennant officially became Boston's. Now it was time to talk about the World Series. Already there were workers at Fenway Park adding 10,000 seats in preparation. The team also "adopted an elaborate system against the securing of tickets by speculators." Man, even back when fans were gambling in the stands and players were throwing games, teams cared about not having tickets resold above face value--now the league just joins up with the crooks and splits the profits. Stupid crooked MLB....

Labels: 1912 Red Sox

Since July 23rd, the 1912 Red Sox have played .650 ball. Yet their lead shrank from 8 to 5.5 by August 7th. Today, though, August 14th, the lowly Browns came to town, and Boston swept a doubleheader, extending their league lead to its biggest margin yet, 9.5 games, with a little more than 40 games remaining.

Over this last 21-game stretch, Smoky Joe Wood started 5 games and won them all. Several papers reported that most of the American League's managers predicted that the Red Sox would take the pennant. The team's record at the end of today, August 14th, was 75-34, a .688 winning percentage. Only the Giants are doing better; at .716, they lead the N.L. by 6 games.

Coincidental note: In the August 9th game in Detroit, league president Ban Johnson was on hand to present the great pitcher Wild Bill Donovan with a gold watch on behalf of the Tigers' fans. Donovan had been injured and was on his way out of Detroit, going to Providence to manage the Grays of the International League. Donovan would manage Babe Ruth in 1914 while leading Providence to the championship. (A decade later, Donovan would die in the wreck of the "20th Century Limited" train.)

Labels: 1912 Red Sox

We left off in early June. Boston was three games out of first. However, between June 5th and July 4th, the team either gained ground or stayed even on all but two days. Pretty much a solid month of moving up in the standings--and all but six of those games were on the road! They went from 3 out to 7 up. At one point they won 9 in a row, all away from Fenway, outscoring Chicago, New York, and Washington by a 71-27 margin. They also played a six-game series at home against the Yanks, winning all but the last game, when the Yanks beat the Red Sox for the first time in 15 tries in 1912, 18 overall. Then between July 5th and 19th, they found themselves exactly 6.5 games ahead in first after every game they played except for two.

100 years ago today, the Sox start the day 7 games ahead of Washington. They'll play the next 3 games at home against Cleveland, before hitting the road again for a 16-game trip. At this point, through July 22nd, 1912, they've scored more and given up fewer runs than any team in the league. Only the Giants have scored more runs--they are running away with the N.L, 11 up on the Cubs. The two teams seem to be on a collision course....

Labels: 1912 Red Sox

When we last left off with the 1912 season, Ty Cobb and the Tigers were ready to go on strike. And they did. For one game. The replacement Tigers were slaughtered 24-2 by the A's. (Check out the pitcher's major league stats--24 runs, 26 hits, all in that one game. He would also become the only priest to have ever played major league baseball.) The next game was canceled by the league president, and the Tigers were told they'd be fined $50 for every game missed. So they each paid their $100 and went right back to the diamond.

As for the Red Sox, after May 18th, they would go on to win 9 of their next 11, and go 10-5 overall through June 4th. Highlights included a doubleheader sweep over Washington by scores of 21-8 and 12-11. In another game, Cleveland scored 3 in the 9th to tie it, but the Red Sox won in the 10th when Tris Speaker tried to go to from first to third on a sacrifice bunt--the throw went to third but the bag was uncovered, and he came home to score the winning run. Speaker also hit a 3-run homer in the win.

So Boston still sat 3 games behind the White Sox for first place 100 years ago today, with both teams even at 214 runs scored for the year. Boston will be on the road for almost the entire month of June, while it's the opposite for Chicago. So the Pale Hose have a great chance to distance themselves...will they? (Dude, it's already happened. They won't.)

Labels: 1912 Red Sox

At our last update, April 30th, the 1912 Red Sox were a half game out of first. Since then, from May 1st to May 18th, they went a pedestrian 7-6 (4 of the wins came against the lowly St. Louis Browns who would finish 1912 with a .346 winning percentage), and fell to 5.5 games out, still in second place, at 16-10. And that would be the last time the team would be anywhere near that close to .500. (Remember, they end up finishing almost 60 games over.)

On this day 100 years ago, May 18th, 1912, baseball was on the front pages. A few days earlier in New York, the Tigers' Ty Cobb (the "king of baseball players") was heckled by a fan, to the point where he finally went into the stands after the guy. Apparently Mr. Cobb didn't realize that the man who he was spiking with his cleats had, and I'm quoting Cybil Shepherd's character in Taxi Driver now, "three fingers missing on this hand, and that hand missing on that hand." But he kept pummeling the dude anyway. The league president fined Cobb and suspended him indefinitely. At which point the Tigers said they weren't gonna play anymore. Players around the league backed Cobb saying they should have the right to "personal protection" from fans, other teams prepared to strike along with Detroit, and a "baseball war" was feared. This all led to baseball players becoming, and now I'm quoting Robert DeNiro's character in Taxi Driver, "like a union." Stay tuned....

Labels: 1912 Red Sox

On this date in 1912, the Red Sox beat the A's 6-1, and closed to within a half-game of the White Sox, who lost in 10 innings at Detroit's new ballpark. When we left off, Boston had won the first two games at Hilltop Park. They would sweep that opening series and split two in Philly before coming home for Fenway Park's first game, a 7-6 win over the Yanks in 11 innings. The team would finish its first homestand at Fenway with a 5-3 mark, moving the season record up to 9-4. That first homestand also saw Hugh Bradley become the first player to hit a home run over the left field wall.

The Yankees sat in the cellar at 2-10.

Labels: 1912 Red Sox

It was a hundred years ago yesterday that the Red Sox opened their world championship season of 1912. On opening day "on the Hilltop" in Upper Manhattan, the Boston team, with their new uniforms reading "RED SOX," beat the Yanks, now sporting black pinstripes and an NY logo on their chests, 5-3. A 4-run, come-from-behind, 9th-inning rally did New York in:

The rally arrived at a time when 12,000 fans were getting their throats in order to sing a few paens of joy over the successful debut of Manager Harry Wolverton as a Yankee chieftan, a few more for the stellar mound work of "Slim" Ray Caldwell and some for the Yankee team. The storm of Boston bingles swept Caldwell from the scene, buried Wolverton and his Yankees in defeat, and drowned out all the bubbling enthusiasm. --NYT, 100 years ago today, 4/12/1912

The Red Sox would remain ahead of the Yanks in the standings for the entire season.

In game two, played exactly 100 years ago today, it was more of the same:

Tris Speaker, the third man up in the opening chapter, sounded the Yankee death knell with a terrific punch to the fence in right centre field for a home run, chasing home Hooper, who had reached first base on a pass. --NYT, 4/13/1912

Then Duffy Lewis hit one that "sailed over Bert Daniel's attic" (!) All those mountain hikes in Arkansas paid off for player/manager Jake Stahl, who went 4-4 with a walk--and a deep foul fly that was impressive enough to make the papers. The 5-2 win had Boston off to a 2-0 start.

Labels: 1912 Red Sox