October 14, 1905: The New York Giants win the World Series, with Christy Mathewson pitching his 3rd shutout of the Series.
After refusing to play the American League Champions in a World Series in 1904 -- remember, the World Series had only started in 1903 -- the New York Giants got tired of being called cowards. So team owner John T. Brush got together with National League President Harry Pulliam and AL President Ban Johnson, and wrote the rules for the World Series.
Now, manager John McGraw told his Giants that they had to win. After all, it was one thing to look like cowards and then make up for it. It was another thing to look like fools.
The AL Champions were the Philadelphia Athletics, managed by Connie Mack. Cornelius Alexander McGillicuddy -- he shortened his name so that it would fit in a box score, but never legally changed it -- and John Joseph McGraw were both Irishmen from the Northeastern United States, and both loved baseball, and both were geniuses at it.
Those were their similarities. But their differences were bigger. Mack, 42 years old at the time, was "lace-curtain Irish," described with words like "patrician," "courtly" and "gentlemanly." McGraw was more the stereotype that "Yankee" Protestants made of Irish Catholics: Loud, obnoxious, hard-drinking, hard-fighting. Mack was tall and thin, known as "the Tall Tactician." McGraw, 31, was short and chubby, known as "the Little Napoleon of Baseball."
They were different as players. Mack was a catcher, a good fielder and a good handler of pitchers, but not much of a hitter, batting .245 in a career that lasted from 1886 to 1896. McGraw was a 3rd baseman, a good fielder, and a great hitter, whose .466 career on-base percentage still ranks 3rd all-time behind Ted Williams' .482 and Babe Ruth's .474. McGraw was not yet officially retired as a player, although the 1903 season saw him sustain a knee injury that left him playing only sparingly until finally quitting in 1907, and be hit in the nose by a throw, which gave him breathing problems for the rest of his life.
And they were different as managers. Mack wore a suit in the dugout, and thus wasn't allowed on the field. So he would stand on the top step of the dugout, and maneuver his fielders with his scorecard, like a conductor leading an orchestra. McGraw would storm out of the dugout and argue with an umpire over anything, and was a pioneer in arguing not because he thought an ump was wrong, but because he wanted his players to see him standing up for them.
They both knew great pitching when they saw it. And each had an ace who had gone to college (an unusual thing for a baseball player at the time) in Pennsylvania: Eddie Plank of Gettysburg College, and Christy Mathewson of Bucknell University. Mathewson would be 1 of the 1st 5 inductees into the Baseball Hall of Fame, in 1936; Plank was elected in 1946. (Mack and McGraw would be the 1st men elected as managers, part of the 2nd class of 8 inductees in 1937.)
Game 1, October 9, at Columbia Park in Philadelphia. Mathewson allowed just 4 hits, while the Giants scored 2 runs off Plank in the 7th inning and another in the 9th, and won, 3-0.
Game 2, October 10, at the Polo Grounds in New York. Albert Bender, a Chippewa tribesman known as "Chief," outpitched "Iron Man" Joe McGinnity. Again, the score was 3-0, but, this time, it was the A's that won. Red Ames pitched the 9th inning for the Giants, facing 5 batters. Between them, in this Series, Mathewson and McGinnity faced 359 out of 364.
Game 3, October 12, back in Philadelphia. On just 2 days' rest, Mathewson allowed only 4 hits. The Giants chased Andy Coakley from the mound in the 5th inning, and won, 9-0.
Game 4, October 13, in New York. McGinnity and Plank each allowed only 5 hits, but an A's error in the 4th led to a 1-0 Giants win.
Game 5, October 14, in New York. It was Mathewson, on 1 day of rest, against Bender, on 3. The Giants scored a run in the 5th and another in the 8th. If Matty was tired, he didn't show it, allowing just 5 hits. The Giants won, 2-0, becoming the undisputed World Champions of baseball for the 1st time since 1889.
The Giants had outscored the A's 15-3. Mathewson went 3-0, with an ERA of 0.00, allowing 13 hits and 1 walk for a WHIP of 0.519, and struck out 18 -- all in a span of 6 days. It was the greatest pitching performance baseball had yet seen -- and one that would be nearly impossible within 20 years, due to the arrival of the Lively Ball Era.
The Giants and A's would play each other again in the World Series of 1911 and 1913, with the A's winning both times, including winning games against Mathewson. Mathewson died of tuberculosis in 1925, only 45 years old. McGraw retired as Giants manager in 1932, although he came out of retirement to manage the NL side in the 1st All-Star Game in 1933, with Mack managing the AL side.
McGraw died the next year. Mack, doing so long after he should have stopped, but by then the majority owner of the A's and unwilling to fire himself, continued to manage the A's until 1950, at age 87, before his family finally ganged up on him and forced him to retire. They couldn't run the team any better than he could, and sold the team in 1954, to Arnold Johnson, who moved them to Kansas City. Mack died in 1956. The following year, the Giants announced their move to San Francisco. McGraw's widow, Blanche, was honored at the last game of the season, and said the move would have broken her husband's heart. She lived long enough to attend the New York Mets' 1st home game at the Polo Grounds in 1962.
The athletic complex at St. Bonaventure University in McGraw's hometown of Olean, New York is named for him. The football stadium at Bucknell is named for Mathewson. And Shibe Park, where the A's played from 1909 to 1954 and the Phillies played from 1938 to 1970, was renamed Connie Mack Stadium in 1953.
In 1978, the Philadelphia Phillies established the Philadelphia Baseball Wall of Fame. From that year until 2003, they elected one Athletics figure every year, starting with Mack. Also elected from the 1905 team were pitchers Eddie Plank, Rube Waddell and Chief Bender. Mack, Plank and Bender have also been elected to the Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame.
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October 14, 1905 was a Tuesday. The World Series clincher was the only score on that historic day.
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