Fenway 1912 (27 page)

Jimmy McAleer's former club, which had finished in seventh place in 1911 with McAleer at the helm, had been remade in the off-season, getting younger, faster, and considerably more athletic. Outfielder Clyde Milan was blossoming into a full-fledged star, in the same conversation with Speaker and Cobb, but the real difference was Walter Johnson. In 1911, at age twenty-three, he had won twenty-five games. But he was even better in 1912. He was everything Joe Wood aspired to be.

Although Johnson, like Wood, was a fastball pitcher, he shared little else with his Boston counterpart. Where Wood was cocksure and arrogant and occasionally even cruel, Johnson was even-tempered and polite. Wood later called him, without any irony whatsoever, "a prince among men," a characterization virtually everyone agreed with. Unlike Wood, the right-handed Johnson threw sidearm, a buggy-whip action that was particularly hard on right-handed hitters.

Yet hitters did not fear Johnson—Johnson feared them, for he knew full well how hard he threw and worried that he might one day hit a batter and kill him. When asked once why he didn't brush hitters off the plate, Johnson replied with uncharacteristic anger: "The beanball is one of the meanest things on Earth and no decent fellow would use it. The beanball is a potential murderer. If I were a batter and thought the pitcher really tried to bean me, I'd be inclined to wait for him outside the park with a baseball bat."

As a result Johnson rarely pitched inside, preferring to stay away from hitters. Had he been more aggressive, batters would have had no chance. As it was, their chances were still somewhere between slim and none. All by himself he made the Senators, who otherwise were a .500 team at best, a bona fide contender.

His only other weakness was that he could not pitch every game, something every team in baseball knew when they faced the Senators. Just as Jake Stahl had maneuvered his pitching rotation to avoid putting an ace opposite Ed Walsh, many Washington opponents took the same approach in regard to Johnson. Stahl, in fact, planned to do just that, particularly after Bedient beat the Senators in the first game of the series to give Boston its fourteenth win out of the last fifteen. Rather than pitch Wood opposite Johnson, he opted for O'Brien. The defeat took some air out of both the Senators and their fans, who had turned out in force and were finally starting to believe in their ball club. But while the Washington crowd had the upper hand at the start, by the end of the game the big noise in the ballpark was being made by a contingent of nearly one hundred Royal Rooters who had made the trip from Boston.

The rabid bunch of fans had been leading the way back in Boston while the Red Sox mopped up on the road, and they simply couldn't wait for the team to come home. Dozens had boarded trains for Washington, where they hoped not only to see the Sox dispatch the Nationals but also to take some money from overly optimistic Washington fans.

The Red Sox players welcomed their arrival. After spending weeks together in hotels and trains with only each other for company, it was nice to see a few familiar faces. Besides, the Rooters were always good for a free meal and a few drinks when they were in town.

Unfortunately, the Rooters were disappointed in game 2. Walter Johnson and Buck O'Brien were scheduled to square off, but Johnson had a touch of tonsillitis, and when Washington manager Clark Griffith saw that it was raining, he called the game off, causing a doubleheader to be scheduled for the following afternoon. Jake Stahl was out with indigestion, leaving management of the club to Charlie Wagner and Bill Carrigan, whom the press had dubbed Boston's "Board of Strategy." Now that Wood and Johnson were going to pitch on the same day anyway, they saw no reason to hold Wood back from pitching opposite Johnson. He did not need to be coddled. Besides, with a six-game lead over the Senators, Boston was going for the throat.

The Senators felt the same way. Before the game Washington owner Griffith offered the opinion that Johnson was pitching so well that he did not think his ace would lose another game all season. So far it had been a season of streaks, for apart from the Senators' own recent winning streak and those of the Giants, New York pitcher Rube Marquard, at 17-0, had not lost all year.

In the meantime the Red Sox made a move. With Marty Krug still laid up, the club purchased infielder Neal Ball from Cleveland. Considered a fine fielder, Ball was beginning to show his age and had become expendable when he lost the shortstop job to young Roger Peckinpaugh. Ball was best known for turning a line drive by Charlie Wagner into an unassisted triple play three years earlier. But the Sox weren't asking him to repeat that miracle. They just hoped he could give Wagner and Gardner the occasional rest and provide some insurance against injury, but the deal was telling. It was the kind of move made by a good team beginning to look forward, trying to anticipate a need before it became apparent and picking up a veteran who could be counted on during a pennant race—or in the World's Series.

When the players awoke on the morning of June 26, the rain that had washed out the game the day before was gone and it was already hot, with the kind of humidity that made the act of breathing akin to chewing the air. By the time the ballplayers reached the ballpark the temperature was above ninety degrees and rising, but there was still a crowd of more than twelve thousand. All through the stands fans loosened their collars and fanned each other with hats, while the players dabbed their foreheads with ammonia water and tucked cabbage leaves under their caps to keep cool. Washington's season was on the line. The club simply could not afford to be swept by Boston.

Buck O'Brien, who looked haggard on a good day, took the mound in game 1 opposite Washington's Buddy Groom. By the end of the game he looked completely wilted as the home crowd got what it wanted. With the score tied 2–2 in the bottom of the tenth, O'Brien, his wool uniform heavy and sagging with sweat, opened the inning by giving up a base on balls to Tilly Walker, his eighth free pass of the game. Eddie Forster then stepped in and smacked the first pitch he saw hard to left.

Duffy Lewis moved in on the ball. The layout of Washington's ballpark, later known as Griffith Stadium but in 1912 simply known as American League Park, was nearly the mirror image of Fenway Park. The right-field fence was only 280 feet from home down the line, but in left it was more than 400 feet to the wall. As a result Lewis was playing much deeper than in Fenway Park. He had to because in Washington, with no Duffy's Cliff or fence close behind, any ball that got past him was an extra-base hit.

When the drive hit the ground and skipped toward him, Lewis bent and reached down to field the fast grounder ... then watched it bound between his legs. Walker was already tearing around second. Lewis spun and began to run after the ball but stopped after a few futile steps, saving what energy he had left for the next game. Walker raced across the plate as the Washington crowd roared in approval. They had barely let up when they started roaring again as Walter Johnson strolled out of the dugout to begin warming up for game 2. As Joe Wood soon followed him onto the field Washington fans began to dream of a sweep.

The game was important to Wood, and he knew it. His ball club was in first place, but it went far beyond that. Johnson had the respect of every man in the league and every fan in the game. That was the kind of recognition Wood wanted for himself. As Tim Murnane commented later, "Wood was hungry for a little glory and the scalp of one of the big guns." Johnson was the biggest gun of all, and a victory over baseball's best pitcher could give Wood the boost he sorely needed.

Only ten minutes after the end of the first game umpire Fred Westervelt called out, "Play ball," and game 2 began as Johnson, his uniform already dark with perspiration, poured the first pitch over the plate. Even for himself, Johnson was in rare form from the start, his fastball a blur and his sweeping curve a knee buckler. But so was Joe Wood. As the
Washington Post
noted the next day, "Walter Johnson and Joe Wood hadn't gone more than an inning each in the second game before it was apparent that the winner wouldn't need more than a run or two, and probably that some break in the luck of the game would decide it."

Johnson retired the first nine Boston hitters in order, and Wood nearly matched him. But with two out in the third, Johnson, like Wood a fine hitter, hit a fly to right that Harry Hooper misplayed into a double. Wood then escaped without further damage.

Boston didn't even have a hit through the first four innings. But with one out in the fifth, Gardner singled to right field. Now came that "break in the luck of the game." It was Washington right fielder Tilly Walker's turn to make a mistake, and he overran the ball. Gardner kept running, and when the throw to third was high and wild he lit out for home. The throw beat him there, but catcher Eddie Ainsmith dropped the ball. Boston scored a run it did not earn but was glad to accept nonetheless.

On the mound, Johnson's expression did not change. He never showed up his own players by expressing displeasure at their mistakes. He knew that even he was not infallible, and in the sixth inning he proved it.

Hick Cady was facing Johnson that day for the first time in his career. Johnson should have had the advantage, but Cady, overmatched like almost every other hitter in the league, did the wise thing in his second appearance. He kept his bat on his shoulder and managed to draw a walk. Wood then swung through three straight pitches to strike out, but Hooper singled to left, and Yerkes flied out to center, bringing up Speaker.

Speaker was the exception. He was not overmatched by either Johnson or anyone else. Knowing that Johnson would not pitch inside against him, he gave up all thought of pulling the ball and instead looked up the middle and to left. In a later era Johnson might have chosen to pitch around Speaker, who was batting nearly .400, or even intentionally walk him to face Larry Gardner, a good hitter but no Tris Speaker. But that strategy was considered a sign of cowardice and rarely used. Baseball's best pitcher went after baseball's best hitter without a moment's hesitation.

There was no mystery when a hitter faced Johnson, particularly a good hitter. It was simply Johnson's fastball against the batter's reflexes, the speed of the ball and the speed of the bat. This time Speaker won the battle, squaring up a fastball and driving it deep to left-center, splitting the outfielders and bounding up against the fence. Cady and Hooper both scored as Speaker, who loved playing in the hot weather, which reminded him of home, raced to third base with a triple. Now Boston led 3–0.

Wood, with a lead, and Johnson, trailing, both stiffened, and over the next three innings only two men reached base, one for each club, as hitter after hitter went back to the bench dragging his bat behind. Boston—and Wood—won, 3–0, as Johnson gave up four hits and Wood only three, Wood walked one man and Johnson two, and Wood struck out nine and Johnson ten. There was only a hair's breadth of difference between the two pitchers, but that difference—and the relative difference in the strength of the lineup each man faced—was just enough to tilt the game in Wood's direction. In the context of the 1912 season, both men would see the game as something special. For Wood the game affirmed that he could be what he wanted to be—the best—and it gave him confidence. Johnson, on the other hand, seemed to realize that he could not afford a letup of any kind. He had to be perfect. Over the next two months each man would be almost unbeatable.

But the significance of the win went beyond that. By ensuring at least a split of the series, Boston's win had stopped Washington's surge. Washington had lost its best chance to close the gap on Boston, and the two clubs would not meet again until September. Their destinies would be controlled by others.

On the last day of the road trip the Senators salvaged the split with an 8–4 win in a game cut short so the Red Sox could make their train back to Boston. They dashed to the station, piled into the dining car for supper, and then collapsed in their berths, happy and exhausted, dreaming of sleeping again in their own beds. But apart from the fitful sleep they gained aboard the sleeping car, there would be little rest for Boston. Because of the rainouts earlier in the season, over the next two days they were scheduled to play back-to-back doubleheaders against New York.

Nevertheless the club that had left Boston four weeks before in second place and in disarray was returning home to Fenway Park full of confidence, knowing that they could win both at home and on the road and that they had a pitcher, Joe Wood, who now seemed the equal of the great Walter Johnson.

The Red Sox, under the able leadership of "Come Back" Stahl, are cutting a wide swath in the American League pennant race this season. In fact, they are creating quite a bit of a stir ... and the critics around the circuit are wondering who will pull them down from their lofty perch at the top of the ladder. The Red Sox are a well balanced club with good pitchers and catchers, the best all around outfield in either league and an infield that is as good as the average. They have the pennant bee buzzing in their bonnet, too, and that is half the battle.

—
Atlanta Journal Constitution

Jake Stahl's Crimson handled speed boys have taken the whip hand in the American Committee meet and are steamrolling the competition at a fearful rate. By seating only their own delegates the Red Sox are having everything their own way in the new organization and are carrying the day in full sway.

—
Lima
(Ohio)
Daily News

A
FTER TRAVELING MOST
of the night from Washington and then passing out in their beds, the groggy Red Sox squad made their way late on the morning of June 28 to Fenway Park, where they saw the sight they had hoped to see when they left Boston four weeks earlier. Atop the Fenway Park grandstand, the red-and-white pennant that represented the franchise flapped gently in the warm breeze. Like that pennant, the Red Sox were flying above all others. Later that day, for the first time since their first game in Fenway Park, the Red Sox would take the field alone in first place.