Authors: Glenn Stout
They all got their money's worth and more. The game had to be stopped several times and the crowd pushed back behind ropes. Even Boston players lent a hand. Jerome Kelley's crew was overwhelmed by the task, and Paul Shannon reported that "Red Sox players drove home the posts that held the crowd in check," using bats as hammers. Boston fought back from a 3–0 deficit with five runs in the seventh inning to take the lead. In Washington, where the game between the Naps and Senators had already ended, eight thousand fans still desperately hoping for a Boston collapse stayed inside the park to watch the result on the scoreboard. When the five-spot went up in Boston's half, "a chorus of groans" reportedly echoed through the Washington park.
But Boston's rally extracted a price. Jake Stahl, perhaps because of the size of the crowd, decided to do all he could to squeak out a win and in the seventh inning had Olaf Henriksen pinch-hit for Ray Collins. The move worked, but now he needed a pitcher.
Stahl, apparently concluding that even if Wood's arm was too sore for him to start he could still relieve, sent him out to the mound to pitch the eighth. The crowd roared with approval as their hero strode onto the field and toed the rubber. He retired the side in order in the eighth, but in the ninth, leading 6–3 with two outs, he began to falter. Catcher Oscar Stanage tripled, and pitcher George Mullin singled to make the score 6–4 and bring up leadoff hitter Davy Jones, the tying run. Fortunately for the Red Sox, Wood had one more good fastball left in his right arm, and he jammed Jones, who lifted a weak infield fly to end the game.
Sunday was an off day, but after Bedient beat the Tigers on Monday, Wood, despite his obvious fatigue, got the ball on Tuesday to pitch the series' finale. He still wasn't right, as it was reported that he depended on a "rare assortment of curves" to tame the Tigers. But he was nevertheless effective, winning 6–2 and, according to Murnane, "working Ty Cobb as a mother would a rich mine owner for her daughter," teasing him with curves and slow balls, holding the Tiger star to one hit and collecting his twenty-sixth win. The victory was his third in the last ten days over five appearances and his eleventh in a row.
Rest was not part of Stahl's plan for his ace pitcher. Wood took his regular turn against Cleveland just four days later, on Saturday, August 24. Once again Fenway Park was packed to the rafters to see Wood and the Sox erupt for an early 6–0 lead. After getting the lead, Wood reportedly took things easy again, using his breaking ball and changeup more often than usual. He won, 8–4, but gave up runs in three of the last four innings.
Sunday gave all of Boston a chance to take a break from the day-to-day drama of the season and assess the state of the Red Sox. Apart from a complete and utter collapse of historic proportions, the Red Sox were on course to win the pennant by double digits—if Wood's arm held up. Tris Speaker was hitting .401, Larry Gardner .311, and Hick Cady a robust .295 since seeing regular playing time, while Wagner and Duffy Lewis were both enjoying perhaps the best season of their careers. Together they made Boston's offense the most potent in the league.
Wood, however, was still the big story, and now the writers and fans began looking ahead. The press noted that in another ten days or so Wood and Johnson, whose winning streak now stood at sixteen games, might just meet up. The specter of Johnson, who by then might be going after Marquard's mark, facing Wood, hot on the heels of the same record, was absolutely delicious, particularly for the sporting men in the crowd. Such a contest would draw heavy betting action not just in Boston and Washington but over the entire country.
Washington manager Clark Griffith was no more cautious with Johnson than Stahl was with Wood, and even though the Senators trailed Boston by nearly ten games, he was still pushing hard for every victory. On August 26, with Washington and the Browns tied 2–2 in the seventh inning, men on first and second, and one out, Griffith called on Johnson to pitch in relief of Tom Hughes, one of thirteen such appearances he would make over the course of the season. Johnson struck out the first hitter he faced, but then gave up an uncharacteristic wild pitch, followed by a base hit, to give up two runs. Washington then went on to lose the game, 4–3.
Under today's scoring rules, Johnson would not have been credited with the loss. The two runners on base when he entered the game would be considered the responsibility of the pitcher who was on the mound when they reached base. But scoring rules in 1912 were much less clear, and a consistent scoring system would not be put in place until after the 1912 season. Had the game taken place in the National League, Hughes, not Johnson, would have been given the loss, but in the American League it was up to the official scorer to assign credit for the loss. Given Johnson's streak, however, scorekeeper Joe Jackson of the
Washington Post
was uncomfortable making such a ruling. He wired Ban Johnson, whom sportswriters referred to as "the custodian of the last guess" in such situations, to render a decision. Johnson responded that since Walter Johnson was on the mound when the winning run scored, he should be given the loss. He later explained: "[Johnson] had a chance to win the game by saving it. He failed. Therefore he is entitled to shoulder the blame.... I will not stand for any 'padding.'" The loss halted Johnson's streak at sixteen games and dropped his record to 29-8.
All of Washington howled at the ruling, which they felt was unfair. But Johnson, true to form, was magnanimous in defeat, saying, "It would be unfair to charge Tom Hughes with a defeat just to keep my record clean ... I lost the game."
However, there may also have been a bit more to it than that.
The Giants, who had been virtually unbeatable over the first half of the season, now seemed out of steam. The NL pennant was still a certainty, but the question of the world championship remained open. Based on recent developments, not only did it seem likely that the Red Sox would win the pennant, but if they maintained their current level of play, the Sox seemed likely to beat the Giants in the Series. That was an outcome that Ban Johnson relished, for there was still considerable enmity between the two leagues and between Johnson and Giants manager John McGraw, who detested one another.
A decade before, McGraw, like James McAleer, had been one of Johnson's favorites when he was the player-manager of the American League's Baltimore franchise. But to John McGraw a baseball game was a battle to be fought every second and victory an outcome sought by any means necessary. After McGraw had incited a crowd to attack an umpire, Johnson suspended him, and the relationship between the two men began to sour. McGraw became increasingly belligerent and later that year got into a series of rows with umpires. Johnson had little choice but to suspend him indefinitely.
McGraw was both outraged ... and delighted. He was being courted by the New York Giants of the National League, and in his mind the suspension set him free. Sure enough, McGraw signed with the Giants, a treasonous act in the eyes of Ban Johnson, who was best described as a man who "always remembers a friend and never forgets an enemy." Ever since that time there was little that Johnson liked better than sticking it to McGraw in ways both large and small, and the World's Series of 1912 seemed likely to present another opportunity to do just that.
On August 24—two days before Johnson's streak came to an end—Ban Johnson and Boston owner James McAleer were in Washington. Johnson asked McAleer to meet him for dinner, and the Boston owner agreed. McAleer knew full well that when Johnson asked him to jump, it was time to leave his feet. After all, Johnson had much more money invested in the Boston club than McAleer, liked to keep tabs on his investment, and as league president apparently had a plan to increase the value of that investment. Washington club president Tom Noyes had just passed away, leaving Washington manager Griffith, whose 10 percent stake in the club made him the largest shareholder, temporarily in charge. With McAleer acting as his willing frontman, the two men asked Griffith to join them for dinner at a private club.
The three men extended their condolences, talked baseball, and chatted about league affairs over drinks and a multi-course dinner, and then, to no one's surprise, the dinner conversation eventually turned to Walter Johnson and his remarkable streak. As Griffith extolled the virtues of the game's best pitcher, McAleer and Johnson nodded in agreement. Then, during a brief lull in the conversation, McAleer turned to Griffith and dropped a bomb.
"I'll give you fifty thousand dollars for Johnson and you turn him over to me tomorrow. Here's a thousand dollars right here to bind the agreement."
Griffith was stunned. Raising an eyebrow and scanning the faces of both men, he asked, "Are you kidding me?"
"No, I'm not kidding," deadpanned McAleer as Johnson looked on silently. "Here's the thousand here on the table." With that, McAleer reached into his pocket, withdrew a fat roll of bills, and began counting out the money, stacking it on the table in front of Griffith. The cash had almost certainly been supplied by Johnson. McAleer neither had such resources himself nor could have made such a bold and expensive proposal without Johnson's input.
As the pile rose higher Griffith, processing the scene before him, slowly began shaking his head. "Nothing doing," he said. "You couldn't even buy him for one hundred thousand dollars." But McAleer left the money on the table. He maintained that he was serious in his offer and appealed to Griffith's allegiance to the American League, explaining that Johnson "would win the coming World's Series for my club alternating with Joe Wood."
From the perspective of Boston—and Ban Johnson—the tandem of Wood and Johnson pitching for the same team in the World's Series was absolutely delicious, as close to an unbeatable combination as it was humanly possible to create. Never again in the history of baseball, in fact, would two pitchers perform at such a high level during the same season in the same league. Together, not only is it likely that Johnson and Wood would have routed the Giants in the 1912 World's Series, but the deal could conceivably have tilted the balance toward Boston for a generation or more. Both pitchers were still young and presumably looking forward to another decade or more of success. The result might have been a dynasty to rival any in the game, for at some point, all at the same time, the Red Sox roster might well have included Wood, Walter Johnson, Tris Speaker, and Babe Ruth.
But Griffith, whose nickname "the Old Fox" spoke to his acumen, would not be dissuaded. Although he was a supporter of Ban Johnson's league, he had had his own share of run-ins with the league president. In fact, when Griffith had first bought into the Washington club the previous fall, Johnson had reneged on a promise to loan him some money. And while the $50,000 offer was tempting—no player had ever commanded such a sale price—Walter Johnson was one of a kind, absolutely irreplaceable. Without Johnson, Griffith's stake in the team was worth considerably less than he had paid for it. Besides, Griffith knew that Washington fans would never forgive him if he sold the greatest player the city had ever seen. Washington was on pace to draw more than one hundred thousand more fans than in 1911, and Walter Johnson was the reason.
McAleer kept finding new ways to ask, but Griffith kept saying no as Johnson looked on and saw his great idea evaporate. McAleer finally stuffed the money back into his pocket and the conversation, now forced, turned to other matters.
Johnson did not forget. The league president was accustomed to getting his own way, and Griffith's refusal to sell his star may well have influenced Johnson's scoring decision a few days later. Now that the pennant race was over, Washington fans had little incentive apart from Johnson's streak to go to the ballpark for the remainder of the season. And now that Ban Johnson had put an end to it, they had even less of a reason to attend. Take
that.
Although the end of Johnson's winning streak stripped the potential matchup between Wood and Johnson of some national interest, in Boston, if anything, it only increased the contest's significance. Now it was Wood and only Wood who still had a shot at Marquard's mark. That is, if he remained undefeated.
There was still a long way to go until that would be known, for Wood had at least two more starts before he could even entertain the possibility of pitching opposite Johnson. Meanwhile it seemed that Fenway Park was still the site of something new almost every day. The White Sox, after their wonderful start, were playing lousy ball, and it was beginning to show in their ill temper toward each other, the opposition, and even the umpires. On August 27 the Red Sox and their Chicago counterparts met in Fenway Park to play what might be considered the first night game in the history of Fenway Park.
It was a sloppy, back-and-forth game that spoke to Chicago's desperation in the face of a deteriorating season. Boston took command early, taking a 6–2 lead, but in the sixth the White Sox routed Bedient and scored five runs to surge ahead. Then Bill Carrigan's single in the seventh chased Eddie Cicotte, and Ed Walsh came on in relief for what seemed like his one hundredth appearance of the season. Charley Hall singled to center field, scoring a run and sending Carrigan on around second base.
That was when everything got weird. Carrigan took a wide turn at second, and Chicago center fielder Jimmie Callahan threw behind him, catching the Boston catcher between bases. A rundown ensued that eventually involved the entire Chicago infield as Carrigan darted this way and dashed that way, back and forth, racing away from the ball in great loops and skirting the outfield grass like a Little Leaguer who didn't know the rules. Finally, somehow, he dove back safe to second base.
As soon as he did several Chicago players stopped chasing Carrigan and started charging after umpires Silk O'Loughlin and Fred Westervelt, arguing that, while avoiding being tagged, Carrigan had run outside the baseline. But whether that was a violation of the rules was not exactly clear. Even the
Boston Globe
wondered "if there is any line drawn for such a play."