October 7, 1916: Georgia Tech 222, Cumberland 0

John Heisman

October 7, 1916: Game 1 of the World Series, played at Braves Field in Boston. Since the Red Sox had lent the use of Fenway Park to the Braves in the 1914 World Series, since it had a larger capacity than the antiquated South End Grounds, the Braves, having now opened the larger Braves Field, let the Sox use it in the 1915, '16 and '18 World Series. Bill Carrigan becomes the 1st man to manage the Red Sox in back-to-back World Series, and he remains the only one. (Jimmy Collins was denied the chance to do so when the Giants wouldn’t play in one in 1904.)

Ernie Shore is in control until the 9th, but melts down, allowing 4 runs and loading the bases before Collins has to call on Carl Mays to bail him out. Mays does so, and the Sox have a hard-earned 6-5 win over the Brooklyn Robins. (The Dodgers were then named for their manager, Wilbert Robinson.)

But that's not the biggest sports story of the day. At Grant Field in Atlanta, Georgia Tech wins the biggest blowout in the history of college football, defeating Cumberland College, 222-0. No, that's not a typo: Tech won by a score of two hundred and twenty-two to zero.

John Heisman, for whom the national player of the year trophy would be named, was Tech's coach, and would lead them to the National Championship the next year. Cumberland, a small Presbyterian school in Lebanon, Tennessee, now in NCAA Division III, should never have been on a big school's schedule, but needed the money, and Tech was willing to pay them to come to Atlanta and play the big boys.

Why the big score? Indeed, why that many points? Because, earlier in the year, Cumberland had beaten Tech's baseball team, of which Heisman was also the coach, 22-0. In those days, sportswriters also tended to rank teams based on how many points they scored, which Heisman thought was ridiculous. He may have wanted to prove his point, as later sportscaster Warner Wolf tended to do when mocking gamblers and their obsession with point spreads. Had Warner been around in 1916, he would have said, "If you had Cumberland and 221 points, you lost!"

Also on this day, Lance Corporal Leigh Richmond Roose is killed at the Battle of the Somme in World War I. Dick Roose was a Welsh soccer player, a goalkeeper for several teams, including Stoke City, Everton, Sunderland, Celtic of Glasgow, Huddersfield Town, Aston Villa, and, in the 1911-12 season, Woolwich Arsenal, the team that would move to North London in 1913.

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October 7, 1916 was a Saturday. Some other college football games of note that day:

* The University of Tennessee beat Maryville College, of Maryville, Tennessee, 32-0 at Waite Field in Knoxville, Tennessee. Like Georgia Tech, they would finish 8-0-1, and be declared Co-Champions of the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association, a precursor to the Southeastern Conference.

* Ohio State beat Ohio Wesleyan, 12-0 at Ohio Field in Columbus. A week later, they beat Oberlin College, 128-0. Georgia Tech fans must have thought, "Big deal."

* Oregon, probably the best team on the West Coast, beat cross-State opponents Willamette University, 97-0 at Kincaid Field in Eugene. Georgia Tech fans probably weren't impressed by this, either.

* Notre Dame beat Western Reserve, 48-0 at League Park in Cleveland.

* Army beat Washington & Lee, 14-7 on The Plain at West Point, New York.

* Navy beat Georgetown, 13-7 at Worden Field in Annapolis, Maryland.

* The University of Pittsburgh, along with Army probably the best team in the East, beat fellow Western Pennsylvanians Westminster College, 57-0 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh.

* Tufts stunned Harvard, 7-3 at Harvard Stadium in Boston. That probably would have gotten a lot more notice if Georgia Tech had only won by 22 points, instead of by 222.

* Yale beat Virginia, 61-3 at the Yale Bowl in New Haven, Connecticut.

* Fordham beat Western Maryland, 20-0 at Fordham Field in The Bronx.

* New York University beat Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute -- NYU over RPI -- 22-0 at Ohio Field in The Bronx.

* Princeton beat North Carolina, 29-0 at Palmer Stadium in Princeton, New Jersey.

* And Rutgers beat Villanova, 33-0 at Neilson Field in New Brunswick, New Jersey.