December 12, 1933: The 2nd Athletics Fire Sale

Jimmie Foxx (left) and Connie Mack

September 28, 1932: Connie Mack begins the breakup his of his Philadelphia Athletics. The 1st time he'd done so, in 1914-15, it was because he couldn't keep up with the salaries being offered by the Federal League teams. This time, it was personal.

In 1925, the A's went 88-64, and were only 8 1/2 games behind the 1st-place Washington Senators. But the rise of the "Murderers' Row" Yankees delayed Philadelphia's return to greatness. In 1929, they began a run of 3 seasons in which they won 313 games, and game within a Game 7 loss in 1931 of winning 3 straight World Series.

But Mack lost all of his non-baseball holdings in the stock market Crash of 1929. He couldn't fund the A's with any other income. So, after the 1932 season, despite a strong 94-60 record (but 13 games behind the Pennant-winning Yankees), he began to sell of his 2nd generation of stars.

On September 28, 1932, he sent left fielder Al Simmons, 3rd baseman Jimmy Dykes, and center fielder Mule Haas are all sold to the Chicago White Sox, for $100,000. Simmons would be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, and Dykes and Haas would have been perennial All-Stars had the All-Star Game been founded before 1933.

But the big day was...

December 12, 1933: When Mack made 3 separate moves:

* Pitchers Lefty Grove and Rube Walberg, and 2nd baseman Max Bishop, are traded to the Boston Red Sox for Bob Kline and Rabbit Warstler and $125,000. Along with Carl Hubbell, Grove was 1 of the 2 best lefthanded pitchers in the game, and would go to the Hall of Fame. Walberg was the 3rd starter on the A's, behind Grove and George Earnshaw, but would have been the ace on many teams.

Key to this deal was the fact that Tom Yawkey had recently turned 30 and come into his inheritance, and had bought the Red Sox, and could afford to spend whatever he wanted to build a championship team. He did try, but the Yankees' dynasty that was restarted in 1936 thwarted his early efforts.

Grove's 199 wins during the 1930s made him the winningest pitcher of the decade.

* Catcher Mickey Cochrane was traded to the Detroit Tigers for Johnny Pasek and $100,000. The Tigers subsequently named Cochrane player-manager, and won the next 2 American League Pennants.

* Finally, before the ink was dry on the previous 2 trades, Mack traded Pasek and Earnshaw to the White Sox for Charlie Berry and $100,000. So, in 1 day, Mack sold off his 3 best pitchers.

On December 10, 1935, 1st baseman Jimmie Foxx and pitcher Johnny Marcum were traded to the Red Sox for Gordon Rhodes, George Savino and $150,000. Foxx was the best righthanded slugger in the game, and would go to the Hall of Fame. Marcum was the Mackmen's best pitcher following the '33 fire sale, and Mack dumped him, anyway.

The A's went from 94-60 in 1932 to 79-72 in 1933, to 68-82 in 1934, to 58-91 in 1935, and to 53-100 in 1936. To make matters worse, Tom Shibe died in 1936, and Jack Shibe the next year. The deaths of these sons of Ben Shibe, with whom Mack founded the A's in 1901, pretty much left Mack, 74 years old at the time, in full control of the A's, and his control of his mental faculties began to diminish.

The A's never recovered. In 1950, Mack's sons, who seemed to agree on nothing else, ganged up in the senile 87-year-old man, and finally removed him from control, if not ownership, and the manager's job after his 50th season in charge. The Mack family ended up selling the team in 1954, to a buyer who moved them to Kansas City.

They failed there as well, and Charlie Finley bought them in 1960, moving them to Oakland in 1968. After 5 straight AL Western Division titles, 1971-75, including 3 straight World Series wins, 1972-74, he broke them up, and the team crashed. New owner Walter Haas rebuilt them in the early 1980s, but the pitching collapsed, preventing a new dynasty. The A's rebuilt again, and won 3 straight Pennants, 1988-90, but after another Division title in 1992, were broken up again.

The pattern held: By 2000, the "Moneyball" regime built a team that reached the Playoffs 5 times in 7 years, but won no Pennants. They sold off, rebuilt, and made 3 straight Playoffs, 2012-14. They couldn't afford to keep it going, sold off, rebuilt, and made 3 straight Playoffs, 2018-20. They couldn't afford to keep it going, and sold off. In 2022, the A's lost 102 games, their most since the Finley fire sale bottomed out at 108 in 1979.

Rumors of the A's moving again have been renewed, since they haven't been able to get a deal to replace the Oakland Coliseum. If they do move, how long will it be before they win again? And, if so, how long before they have a 9th fire sale?

One thing is for sure: The A's are not moving back to Philadelphia, where the Phillies, having won the 2022 NL Pennant, are overwhelmingly popular. The Delaware Valley is certainly big enough to support one winning Major League Baseball team, but not two MLB teams, regardless of performance. But, wherever they go, or if they stay, at some point, the A's will go back to their Philadelphia roots, by breaking it all down and starting all over again.

In 1949, Ogden Nash, my grandmother's favorite poet, wrote "Line-Up for Yesterday" for Sport magazine, an alphabetical list of star players. For the letter Q, Nash had to cheat a little, and wrote:

Q is for Don Quixote

Cornelius Mack;

Neither Yankees nor years

Can halt his attack.

He also had to cheat a little for the letter X:

X is the first

of two x's in Foxx

Who was right behind Ruth

with his powerful soxx.

But even that poem is now so far back in history that it hasn't raised their profiles. The Athletics' moves have left their Philadelphia era virtually forgotten, even though Foxx hit 534 home runs, Grove and Eddie Plank each won at least 300 games, and Eddie Collins collected over 3,000 hits and Al Simmons nearly did. Foxx hit 415 home runs during the 1930s, making him the decade's leader. And, unlike their Bay Area neighbors, the San Francisco Giants, the Oakland version of the A's doesn't really pay tribute to that era.

They have notations for Philadelphia's 1910, 1911, 1913, 1929 and 1930 World Series wins at the Oakland Coliseum, but, unlike the Giants with the top players from their New York era, they have not retired any uniform numbers from their time in Philly: The 2 of Mickey Cochrane, the 3 of Jimmie Foxx, the 7 of Al Simmons and the 10 of Lefty Grove remain in circulation. Earlier players like Plank and Collins did not have numbers that could be retired, though Collins later wore 32 as a coach. And, of course, wearing suits instead of uniforms, Connie Mack also never had a number to retire.

And it took until 2018 for them to establish a team Hall of Fame, and 2021 for them to honor any figures from the Philadelphia era: Mack, Plank, Collins, Cochrane, Foxx, Simmons, Grove, George "Rube" Waddell, Charles "Chief" Bender, Frank "Home Run" Baker, Bob Johnson and Eddie Joost.

*

December 12, 1933 was a Tuesday. Baseball was out of season. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. The NFL was going to play its 1st official Championship Game the following Sunday, and the Chicago Bears won it, 23-21 over the New York Giants.

There were 4 games played in the NHL that night:

* The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Boston Bruins, 4-1 at the Boston Garden. This was the game in which Eddie Shore hit Ace Bailey over the head with his stick, ending his career. I have a separate entry for that event.

* The New York Americans beat the New York Rangers, 3-0 at the old Madison Square Garden, which was still fairly new at the time. The company that ran the Garden owned the Rangers, and the Amerks were tenants, so any win the tenants had over the landlords was considered big.

* The Detroit Red Wings beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 4-1 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit.

* And the Montreal Canadiens and the Ottawa Senators played to a 1-1 tie at the Ottawa Auditorium.

December 8, 1914: The 1st Athletics Fire Sale

December 8, 1914: Connie Mack breaks up his champion Philadelphia Athletics. It sets a pattern for the franchise that lasts to this day.

Founded in 1901 with the American League, and not the first baseball team with that name, the Philadelphia Athletics were owned by Benjamin Shibe, with Connie Mack -- the former catcher shortened his name so it would fit better in a box score, but never legally changed his name from Cornelius Alexander McGillicuddy -- as the team's manager, treasurer, and 25 percent owner.

They won the American League Pennant in 1902, before the World Series was instituted. They won the Pennant in 1905, losing the World Series to the National League Champions, the New York Giants. They fell a little short of the Pennant in 1907 and 1909, before winning it in 1910, defeating the Chicago Cubs in the World Series. They won the Pennant again in 1911 and 1913, each time beating the Giants in the World Series. They won another Pennant in 1914, but lost the World Series to the Boston Braves, in the competition's 1st major upset.

But 1914 was also the 1st year of the Federal League, which considered itself not bound by the reserve clause, as the AL and the NL agreed to be. So the FL could offer higher salaries, and Mack, as treasurer and part-owner, could not keep up.

On December 2, 1914, Mack's best pitcher, Eddie Plank, signed with the FL's St. Louis Terriers. Three days later, his next-best pitcher, Charles Albert "Chief" Bender, signed with the FL's Baltimore Terrapins. Both pitchers would be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Mack could have sold or traded either of them, and gotten something for them. Instead, he got nothing for them.

Eddie Plank

So he began to sell off his best players. Here's the starting players, and the remaining main pitchers, from the 1914 World Series, and what happened to them:

* December 8, 1914: Sold 2nd baseman Eddie Collins, a future Hall-of-Famer, to the Chicago White Sox, for $50,000. 

* Sometime before the 1915 season: Released pitcher Jack Coombs, who would be signed by the Brooklyn Robins (as the Dodgers were then known). 

* June 6, 1915: Waived pitcher Herb Pennock, who would be claimed by the Boston Red Sox. 

* June 28, 1915: Sold pitcher Bob Shawkey to the New York Yankees for $3,000. So much is made of the Red Sox' owner, Harry Frazee, selling their pitchers to help build the Yankees' 1920s dynasty, but Mack had a big role in that as well.

* July 2, 1915: Sold shortstop Jack Barry to the Boston Red Sox for $10,000. 

* July 15, 1915: Sold right fielder Eddie Murphy to the White Sox, for $11,500. 

* February 15, 1916: After 3rd baseman John Franklin "Frank" or "Home Run" Baker, a future Hall-of-Famer, sat out the entire 1915 season in a salary dispute, Mack sold him to the Yankees for $37,500. 

* July 1, 1916: Released left fielder Reuben "Rube" Oldring. 

* August 30, 1916: Traded center fielder Jimmy Walsh to the Red Sox for Raymond Haley. 

* December 14, 1917: Traded catcher Wally Schang, pitcher Bullet Joe Bush and center fielder Amos Strunk to the Red Sox for Sylveanus "Vean" Gregg, Merlin Kopp, Chester "Pinch" Thomas and, perhaps most importantly, $60,000.

* January 10, 1918: Traded 1st baseman John "Stuffy" McInnis to the Boston Red Sox for Forrest Cady, Larry Gardner and Tillie Walker. McInnis, Collins, Barry and Baker were known as "The $100,000 Infield." 

The results were staggering, in both directions. Coombs helped the Brooklyn Dodgers win the 1916 NL Pennant. Collins helped the White Sox win the 1917 World Series and the 1919 AL Pennant, before 7 of their players "threw" the World Series. (Collins was not in on the fix.)

Pennock, Shawkey, Schang, Bush would help the Red Sox win the 1918 World Series, then would be acquired by the Yankees, as they built their 1920s dynasty. McInnis would also help the Red Sox win that World Series, but did not go on to the Yankees, though he did play a reserve role on the Pittsburgh Pirates when they won the 1925 World Series. Baker would also be a part of that Yankee team, before retiring after the 1922 season.

As for the A's: They went 99-53 in 1914, but dropped to 43-109 in 1915. That net loss of 56 games has never seriously been approached in baseball history. In 1916, they went 36-117. Those 117 losses were the most of an MLB team between the 134 of the 1899 Cleveland Spiders and the 120 of the 1962 New York Mets, and remained the most ever in the AL until the Detroit Tigers lost 119 in 2003. The '16 A's' "winning" percentage of .235 remains the lowest in the major leagues since the 1899 Spiders.

When asked about this worst season in AL history, Mack said something that entered the American lexicon: "Well, you can't win them all."

Slowly, but surely, Mack began to rebuild. Ben Shibe died in 1922, and his sons, Tom and Jack, were amenable to Mack doing pretty much whatever he wanted. Although most teams didn't have full farm systems until the 1930s, Mack developed a working relationship with the Baltimore Orioles, who dominated the International League in the 1920s.

In 1925, the A's went 88-64, and were only 8 1/2 games behind the 1st-place Washington Senators. But the rise of the "Murderers' Row" Yankees delayed Philadelphia's return to greatness. In 1929, they began a run of 3 seasons in which they won 313 games, and game within a Game 7 loss in 1931 of winning 3 straight World Series.

But Mack lost all of his non-baseball holdings in the stock market Crash of 1929. He couldn't fund the A's with any other income. So, after the 1932 season, despite a strong 94-60 record (but 13 games behind the Pennant-winning Yankees), he began to sell of his 2nd generation of stars. The team never recovered, and the Mack family ended up selling the A's in 1954, to a buyer who moved them to Kansas City.

They failed there as well, and Charlie Finley bought them in 1960, moving them to Oakland in 1968. After 5 straight AL Western Division titles, 1971-75, including 3 straight World Series wins, 1972-74, he broke them up, and the team crashed. New owner Walter Haas rebuilt them in the early 1980s, but the pitching collapsed, preventing a new dynasty. The A's rebuilt again, and won 3 straight Pennants, 1988-90, but after another Division title in 1992, were broken up again.

The pattern held: By 2000, the "Moneyball" regime built a team that reached the Playoffs 5 times in 7 years, but won no Pennants. They sold off, rebuilt, and made 3 straight Playoffs, 2012-14. They couldn't afford to keep it going, sold off, rebuilt, and made 3 straight Playoffs, 2018-20. They couldn't afford to keep it going, and sold off. In 2022, the A's lost 102 games, their most since the Finley fire sale bottomed out at 108 in 1979.

Rumors of the A's moving again have been renewed, since they haven't been able to get a deal to replace the Oakland Coliseum. If they do move, how long will it be before they win again? And, if so, how long before they have a 9th fire sale?

One thing is for sure: The A's are not moving back to Philadelphia, where the Phillies, having won the 2022 NL Pennant, are overwhelmingly popular. The city can certainly support one winning team, but not two teams. But, wherever they go, or if they stay, at some point, the A's will go back to their Philadelphia roots, and break it all down and start all over again.

To this day, Plank holds the record for most games won by a Philadelphia-based pitcher: 284 of his 326 major league wins came with the A's. This tops Steve Carlton, who won 241 of his 329 with the Phils; Robin Roberts, who won 234 of his 286 with the Phils; Lefty Grove, who won 195 of his even 300 with the A's; and Grover Cleveland Alexander, who won 190 of his 373 with the Phils.

In 1949, Ogden Nash, my grandmother's favorite poet, wrote "Line-Up for Yesterday" for Sport magazine, an alphabetical list of star players. For the letter P, he wrote, citing Plank's World Series matchups with the Giants' Christy Mathewson: 

P is for Plank,
The arm of the A's;
When he tangled with Matty
Games lasted for days.

UPDATE: The A's made a deal to leave Oakland after the 2024 season, play at the Class AAA ballpark in Sacramento for 3 years, and then build a domed stadium in Las Vegas to open in 2028.

*

December 8, 1914 was a Tuesday. Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. Professional basketball barely existed. There was professional hockey, in the forms of Eastern Canada's National Hockey Association, and Western Canada's Pacific Coast Hockey Association.

The NHA season didn't begin until December 26, but the PCHA season opened on December 8, with 1 game: The Vancouver Millionaires beat the Portland Rosebuds, 6-3 at the Portland Ice Arena. The Millionaires would win the PCHA title, and beat the NHA Champion Ottawa Senators for the Stanley Cup. No Vancouver team has won the Cup since.

This was also the day that the Southwest Conference was founded. I have a separate entry for that event.

November 8, 1954: The Death of the Philadelphia Athletics

Connie Mack and Bobby Shantz, who turned out to be

the last living former player for the Philadelphia Athletics

November 8, 1954: The American League owners approve the shift of the Philadelphia Athletics franchise to Kansas City. Roy and Earle Mack, sons of the now-senile 88-year-old Connie Mack, sell the A's to Arnold Johnson, a Chicago-based trucking magnate.

Johnson's bid is $3‚375‚000 for the team and stadium‚ Shibe Park, recently renamed Connie Mack Stadium. He says he will sell the stadium to the Phillies for $1‚675‚000, although Phils owner Bob Carpenter, a very wealthy man as a member of both the Carpenter and the duPont families, says, "I need Shibe Park like I need a hole in the head."

One of the offers for the team is from a wealthy Texas group that proposes to move the A's to Los Angeles. This would have meant that the expansion team of 1961 that we currently know as the Los Angeles Angels would have been established elsewhere. However, given that the A's were in the American League, Walter O'Malley still might have moved the National League's Brooklyn Dodgers there.

But the A's did not go to L.A. Kansas City, long a hotbed of minor league and Negro League baseball, gets major league status for the 1st time since the Kansas City Packers of the Federal League in 1915 – or, if you don’t count that, since the Kansas City Cowboys of the old American Association in 1889.

The A's had won AL Pennants in 1902, 1905, 1910, 1911, 1913, 1914, 1929, 1930 and 1931. They had won the World Series in 1910, 1911, 1913, 1929 and 1930. Connie Mack had built 2 dynasties, then broke them up because he needed money.

Unlike in Boston, where the Red Sox stayed and the Braves left, and St. Louis, where the Cardinals stayed and the Browns left, in Philadelphia, the more historically successful team was the one that moved. But while the A's had 9 Pennants to the Phillies' 2, and 5 titles to the Phils' none, the Phils had money, and the A's didn't. And, since both teams couldn't survive in the city, the one without the money went.

Would Philadelphia have been better off if it had been the A's that stayed and the Phils that moved? Imagine, instead, that the Carpenters had bought the A's from the Macks in 1943, instead of buying the Phils from William D. Cox at that time. Here is what the teams won from 1931 to 1970:

Phillies: 1950 Pennant, plus that agonizing near-miss of 1964
A's: Nothing

Doesn't sound good for either team, but at least the Phils won something, right? Hold on, here's 1971 to 2006:

A's: 1971 AL West, 1972 World Series, 1973 World Series, 1974 World Series, 1975 AL West, 1981 AL West, 1988 Pennant, 1989 World Series, 1990 Pennant, 1992 AL West, 2000 AL West, 2001 AL Wild Card, 2002 AL West, 2003 AL West, 2006 AL West

Phils: 1976 NL East, 1977 NL East, 1978 NL East, 1980 World Series, 1981 NL East (1st half), 1983 Pennant, 1993 Pennant

Better for both, but now, it favors the A's. Now, check it out from 2007 onward:

Phils: 2007 NL East, 2008 World Series, 2009 Pennant, 2010 NL East, 2011 NL East, 2022 Pennant

A's: 2012 AL West, 2013 AL West, 2014 AL Wild Card, 2018 AL Wild Card, 2019 AL Wild Card, 2020 AL Wild Card

So, now, the A's have the edge. Here it is, overall, 1901 to 2014:

A's: 30 postseason appearances, 15 Pennants, 9 World Championships
Phillies: 15 postseason appearances, 8 Pennants, 2 World Championships

Definitely, the A's were the ones that should have stayed. At least then, they'd have been in a better stadium than either the Oakland Coliseum or Veterans Stadium by 2004.

Vic Power played until 1965, making him the last active Philadelphia Athletic.

UPDATE: On September 26, 2025, Bobby Shantz celebrated his 100th birthday. By that point, he was the last living Philadelphia Athletic, and the last living man who had played for Connie Mack.

*

November 8, 1954 was a Monday. Baseball season was over. Football was in midweek: There would be no Monday Night Football for another 16 years. And the NBA and NHL seasons were underway, but no games were scheduled in either. So there were no scores on this historic day.

November 2, 1934: The Yankees vs. the Yankees of Japan

Eiji Swamura

November 2, 1934: Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and several other baseball players, led by manager Connie Mack, step off the cruiseliner Empress of Japan at the port city of Yokohama, and begin a tour of Japan. This was the 1st time that American major leaguers faced Japanese professionals.

The American "besuboru" players were adored by the Japanese fans, especially "Babu Rusu." But as much as they loved their own players, the natives were under no illusions: No one was surprised when the Americans won 17 out of 18 games.

The big surprise occurred when 17-year-old Eiji Sawamura of the Tokyo Baseball Club struck Ruth, Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx and Charlie Gehringer out in succession in a game in Shizuoka. But Gehrig also hit a home run off him, and the Americans won 1-0.

The Tokyo BC was founded that season, and in 1947, they became known as the Yomiuri Giants. Unlike in North American sports, where sports teams merely sell the naming rights to their venues to corporations, in Asian sports leagues, corporations buy teams, and name them after themselves. (This has also been done by Red Bull of Austria, buying the New York Red Bulls and the former soccer teams of Salzubrg and Leipzig.) Yomiuri Shumbun started as a newspaper, and has grown to a massive media conglomerate.

The Giants have won 47 Pennants (38 of them in the Central League, including in 2021) and 22 Japan Series (the last in 2012). Because of this, despite bearing the name and colors of the New York (now San Francisco) Giants of the National League, they are known as "The Yankees of Japan."

Among the American players on that tour was Moe Berg, a good catcher, and an intellectual from Newark. Dave Harris, a teammate on the Washington Senators, was told that Berg spoke 7 languages, responded, "Yeah, and he can't hit in any of them." He was right: Berg's lifetime batting average was .243.

Moe Berg

But his skill with languages, and with a camera, led the U.S. Department of State to include him on the roster. With the countries not yet at war, but with tensions between them rising, Berg was able, without suspicion, to go onto the rooftops of major buildings in Japan's various cities, and take pictures and home movies. These images aided the U.S. Department of War (which became the Department of Defense in 1947) to pick bombing targets once Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 forced America into World War II.

That war cut Sawamura's career short: He ended up being killed in 1944, when his ship was sunk by an American ship. The Japanese leagues now give the Eiji Sawamura Award to their best pitcher, their equivalent of the Cy Young Award.

Berg last played in the major leagues in 1939, served with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS, forerunner of the CIA), and lived on until 1972.

*

November 2, 1934 was a Friday. Baseball season was over. Football was in midweek. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. And the NHL season wouldn't start until November 8. So there were no scores on this historic day. But Australian tennis legend Ken Rosewall was born on this day.

October 14, 1905: Christy Mathewson's 3rd World Series Shutout

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, 31, 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 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.

Columbia Park, home of the A's, 1901-08

* 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.

The 1890-1911 version of the Polo Grounds

* 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.

But this was the Dead Ball Era. Indicative of this is that the A's had a 1st baseman named Harry Davis. He was known as "Home Run Harry." He led the AL in home runs in 1904 with 10, in 1905 with 8, in 1906 with 12, and in 1907 with 8. Yeah. His RBI totals in those seasons look a lot better: 62, 83, 96 and 87. He hit 75 home runs in his career, including 67 from 1900 to 1909, making him the leading home run hitter for that decade.

"Home Run Harry"

And yet, unless you really know your baseball history, you've probably never heard of him. The Phillies established the Philadelphia Baseball Wall of Fame, and honored an Athletics player nearly every year from 1978 to 2003, but they never elected Davis, even though he was a Philadelphia native, lived in the city all his life (1873-1947), helped a city team win 6 Pennants and 3 World Series, and even got elected to the City Council. The Oakland version of the A's has never honored him, either.

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.

*

October 14, 1905 was a Tuesday. The World Series clincher was the only score on that historic day.

October 12, 1929: The Athletics' 10-Run Comeback

Haas scoring on his inside-the-park homer

October 12, 1929: Game 4 of the 1929 World Series, at Shibe Park in Philadelphia, remains one of the wildest in postseason history. Having started a seemingly washed-up Howard Ehmke in Game 1 and having it work, this time, Philadelphia Athletics owner-manager Connie Mack started 45-year-old Jack Quinn. (Already approaching his 67th birthday, Mack was not yet known as "The Grand Old Man of Baseball," but, apparently, he already had an affinity for veterans.)

Shibe Park

This seemed to work, too, until the 6th inning, when the Chicago Cubs start scoring. By the time they stopped, they led, 7-0. Cub manager Joe McCarthy started Charlie Root, who would later become a victim of McCarthy's Yankees, including Babe Ruth’s "called shot," though this quirk of history/legend does not do Root justice, as he was a fine pitcher for many years. Root entered the bottom of the 7th with an 8-0 lead.

Then the A's came storming back. Slugging left fielder Al Simmons led off with a home run. Jimmie Foxx singled. Edmund "Bing" Miller singled. Jimmy Dykes singled Foxx home. Joe Boley singled Miller home. Mack sent George Burns (a former All-Star outfielder, not the comedian) up to pinch-hit for pitcher Eddie Rommel. He popped up, but Max Bishop singled Dykes home. It was 8-4 Cubs.

McCarthy took Root out, and brought in Art Nehf, the ace pitcher of the New York Giants' 1921 and '22 World Champions. Lewis "Hack" Wilson, a great slugger but not the best of outfielders even when not drunk or hungover, misjudged a fly ball from George "Mule" Haas, and it turned into a 3-run inside-the-park home run, making the score 8-7 Cubs.

Simmons began jumping around in the dugout, yelling, "We're back in the game, boys!" His momentum caused him to crash into Mack – as I said, nearly 67, if not the elderly figure some of us imagine him to have always been. Simmons apologized profusely, but Mack, a former big-league catcher and familiar with ballplayers crashing into him, was just as enthused, and told him, "That's all right, Al."

Mickey Cochrane drew a walk, and McCarthy brought in a 3rd pitcher, John "Sheriff" Blake. The A's had now batted around, and Simmons singled. Foxx singled Cochrane home, and the game was tied. McCarthy brought in a 4th pitcher, Pat Malone. Malone would later help McCarthy win 2 Pennants with the Yankees. This time, he hit with Miller with a pitch, and allowed a double to Dykes that scored Simmons and Foxx.

Malone finally ended the onslaught by striking out Boley and Burns, but 10 runs had scored, and that remains a Series record for a single inning. Mack brought in his ace Lefty Grove, to relieve and finish the Cubs off, and 10-8 remained the final score. The A's closed the shellshocked Cubs down 2 days later -- not being able to play the next day, because sports on Sunday were still illegal in Pennsylvania until 1933.

In 1981, baseball historian John Thorn published Baseball's 10 Greatest Games. He included this game as one of them.

The 1929 Philadelphia Athletics are remembered as one of the greatest teams in baseball history. They might have been the greatest non-Yankee team in American League history. They won the World Series again the next season, beating the St. Louis Cardinals. They won a 3rd straight Pennant in 1931, with 107 regular-season wins, but lost Game 7 of the World Series, to the Cardinals.

They finished a distant 2nd to the Yankees in 1932, and Mack then broke up his team due to the financial constraints of the Great Depression. The team would not win another Pennant until 1972, 41 years -- and two moves to other cities -- later.

In 1978, the Philadelphia Phillies established the Philadelphia Baseball Wall of Fame. From then until 2003, they elected an Athletics figure every year, starting with Mack. From the 1929-31 dynasty, they also elected Jimmie Foxx, Lefty Grove, Al Simmons, Mickey Cochrane, Jimmy Dykes, Eddie Rommel, Bing Miller, George Earnshaw and Rube Walberg. Mack, Foxx, Grove, Simmons, Cochrane and Dykes have also been elected to the Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame.

UPDATE: The Cubs also have a team Hall of Fame. Inducted from their 1929 Pennant winners have been catcher Charles "Gabby" Hartnett, 1st baseman Charlie Grimm, 2nd baseman Rogers Hornsby, left fielder Riggs Stephenson, center fielder Lewis "Hack" Wilson, right fielder Hazen "Kiki" Cuyler, pitcher Charlie Root, manager Joe McCarthy, team owner William Wrigley Jr., executive Margaret Donahue, and public address announcer Pat Pieper.

*

October 12, 1929 was a Saturday. This was the only baseball game played that day. Pro football was in midweek. Pro basketball was still strictly minor-league. And the NHL season didn't begin until November 14.

But there were college football scores. Most notably, Sanford Stadium opened in Athens, Georgia. The University of Georgia opened it with a 15-0 win over Yale. I have a separate entry for this event. Other notable games played that day:

* The top team in the South, Tulane University, beat Mississippi A&M, 34-0 at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans. (A&M would rename itself Mississippi State in 1932.)

* Notre Dame beat Navy, 14-7 at Municipal Stadium in Baltimore. From 1950 to 1954, piece by piece, it was converted into Memorial Stadium, longtime home of the Orioles and Colts. Notre Dame went 9-0, and were retroactively declared National Champions.

* The University of Pittsburgh also claim a National Championship for this season. They went 9-1, including on this day, winning their annual "Backyard Brawl" with West Virginia, 27-7.

* Purdue beat Michigan, 30-16 at Ross-Ade Stadium in West Lafayette, Indiana. This game decided the Big Ten Conference title.

* The top team on the Pacific Coast, USC beat the University of Washington, 48-0 at Husky Stadium in Seattle.

* In New York City, Fordham beat New York University, 26-0 at the Polo Grounds.

* And City College of New York lost to St. Lawrence University, 22-0 at Weeks Field in Canton, New York.

* In New Jersey, Princeton lost to Brown, 13-12 at Palmer Stadium in Princeton.

* And Rutgers lost to Holy Cross, 20-3 at Fitton Field in Worcester, Massachusetts.

October 8, 1929: Connie Mack's Gamble On Howard Ehmke

October 8, 1929: In front of 50,000 fans at Wrigley Field -- which now holds only about 41,000, and was around 38,000 from the reconstruction of its famed bleachers in 1938 until its recent renovation -- Philadelphia Athletics owner-manager Connie Mack fools everyone before Game 1 of the World Series, starting neither of his big fireballers, lefthander Robert "Lefty" Grove or righthander George Earnshaw.

He gambles that the sidearm slow stuff of former Red Sox star Howard Ehmke (the visiting starter for the Red Sox in the 1st game at the original Yankee Stadium) might frustrate the Cubs' big sluggers such as Rogers Hornsby, Hack Wilson and Riggs Stephenson.

Mack's gamble pays off, as Ehmke establishes a new World Series record, striking out 13 Cubs, en route to a 3-1 A's victory in Game 1 of the Fall Classic. The mark will last for 34 years, until Dodger hurler Carl Erskine fans 14 Yankees in 1953. The Cubs never recover, and the A's win the Series in 5.

October 8, 1929 was a Tuesday. This was the only baseball game played that day. Pro football was in midweek. Pro basketball was still strictly minor-league. And the NHL season didn't begin until November 14. So this was the only score on this historic day.

October 5, 1910: The 1st Father to Manage His Own Son In Major League Baseball

Earle and Connie -- well after 1910.

October 5, 1910: Philadelphia Athletics manager/co-owner Connie Mack inserts his son Earle Mack behind the plate in a game against the New York Highlanders (forerunners of the Yankees) at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. This is the 1st time that a manager has put his son in a game as a player.

Earle‚ who hit .135 in 26 minor league games this year‚ belies that stat with a single and triple while catching Eddie Plank and Jack Coombs. The Highlanders beat the A's 7-4, but it was hardly Earle's fault.

Earle mopped up in late-season games the next year, and again in 1914‚ and served for 25 years as his father's coach, before moving into the front office. While Connie always wore a suit, and thus was limited to the dugout, Earle wore a uniform, usually Number 27, and could handle mound conferences.

The plan may have been for Connie to hand the managing duties over to Earle someday, and concentrate on running the team's finances and personnel as owner and general manager. Earle and his brother Roy, sons from Connie's 1st marriage, to Margaret Hogan, who died in 1892, seemed to be under the impression. Once the other owners, the Shibe brothers, died in the mid-1930s, that seemed like the reasonable thing to believe. And, when Connie had to step aside due to illness for a few days in 1937, and again in 1939, Earle stood in as manager.

But Connie Mack Jr., his son from his 2nd marriage, in 1910 to Catherine Holahan, thought he would be the heir. Catherine herself thought she would be the operating owner, while Connie Jr. managed.

But Connie Sr. wouldn't stop managing. He was the owner, so he had the ultimate job security. He would call out for pinch-hitters and relief pitchers he had long ago traded or sold. Finally, in 1950, at age 87, the team had a horrible season. The sons, who agreed on little else, decided it was time to gang up on "The Grand Old Man of Baseball," and bought out the Shibes' heirs -- bankrupting themselves in the process -- and had the votes to force Connie Sr. out. Catherine was furious, but there was nothing she could do.

Taking out a loan they couldn't hope to pay back in the near future, Earle and Roy bought Connie Jr. out, and finally sold the team in 1954, to Arnold Johnson, who moved them to Kansas City.

After 1914, no manager would again put his son into a game until 1985, when Yogi Berra played his son Dale with the Yankees. Cal Ripken Sr. would also manage Cal Jr. on the Baltimore Orioles, and Felipe Alou would manage Moisés on the Montreal Expos.

*

October 5, 1910 was a Wednesday. This was also the day that a revolution toppled the monarchy of Portugal, never to return. I have a separate entry for that event.

There were 3 other major league games that day:

* The Boston Red Sox led the Washington Senators, 5-1 going into the bottom of the 9th at American League Park in Washington. The Senators tied the game. But they couldn't find the winning run, and the umpires called the game due to darkness.

* And a doubleheader was played at Bennett Park in Detroit. The Detroit Tigers lost the opener to the Cleveland Naps, 8-3, allowing 5 runs in the top of the 10th inning. The nightcap was called due to darkness after 5 innings, with the Tigers leading, 4-2. The Naps were named for their manager, 2nd baseman and best hitter, Napoleon "Nap" Lajoie. They would be renamed the Indians in 1915 and the Guardians in 2022.

This was the last week of the regular season, and Lajoie and the Tigers' Ty Cobb were in a feverish race for the American League battle title, with the Chalmers Auto Company offering a new car to the winner. Over the 2 games, Cobb went 3-for-6 with a walk, 3 stolen bases and 2 RBIs, while Lajoie went 3-for-6 with an RBI. "Shoeless" Joe Jackson went 3-for-7. Cobb ended up winning the batting title, but there were shenanigans (not his doing), and so Chalmers gave both men cars. (Cobb didn't mind: He got what he wanted.)

Bennett Park was torn down in 1911, and a new park opened on the site the next year, known as Navin Field from 1912 to 1937, Briggs Stadium from 1938 to 1960, and Tiger Stadium from 1961 to 1999.

Despite it being a Monday, there were 5 college football games played that day:

* Yale beat Tufts, 17-0 at Yale Field in New Haven, Connecticut.

* The University of Pennsylvania beat Franklin & Marshall University, 17-0 at the original Franklin Field in Philadelphia.

* The Carlisle Indian School, with a sophomore two-way back named Jim Thorpe, beat Dickinson College, 24-0 at Biddle Field in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

* VPI -- the Virginia Polytechnic Institute, usually known as "Virginia Tech" now -- beat Davidson University, 16-0 at Miles Field in Blacksburg, Virginia.

* And the University of Mississippi, a.k.a. Ole Miss, beat Tennessee Medical College, now the University of Memphis, 2-0 in Oxford, Mississippi.

October 1, 1950: The Dick Sisler Game & Connie Mack's Farewell

October 1, 1950: Dick Sisler hits a home run off Don Newcombe in the top of the 10th inning at Ebbets Field, and the Phillies beat the Brooklyn Dodgers 4-1, to clinch the National League Pennant. It is the only Pennant the Phils would win in a 65-year stretch from 1915 to 1980.

This was the 2nd of 3 straight seasons in which the National League race came down to the last day of the regular season with the Dodgers involved. The year before, they had to win to clinch and eliminate the St. Louis Cardinals, and they did. The year after, they had to win to force a Playoff with their arch-rivals, the New York Giants, and they did -- for all the good that ended up doing them.

The Phillies were the youngest team, by average player, ever to win the National League Pennant. Before the season started, Harry Grayson, the sports editor of the Newspaper Enterprise Association, gave them the nickname "The Whiz Kids," a takeoff on a radio show titled Quiz Kids.

Managed by Eddie Sawyer, only 40 years old but experienced with them, as he had managed some of them in the minor leagues, the Phillies had been strong all season long, led by center fielder sparkplug Richie Ashburn, slugging left fielder Del Ennis, ace starting pitcher Robin Roberts, and Jim Konstanty, who became the 1st relief pitcher ever to be named either League's Most Valuable Player.

But they had lost 3 starting pitchers down the stretch: Curt Simmons went into the Army when his National Guard unit was called up on September 10, rookie Bubba Church sustained an awful eye injury on September 15, and rookie Bob Miller suffered a shoulder injury the next day. Simmons had won 17 games, Church 8, and Miller 11; but none would win another game that season. If not for Roberts winning 20, and Konstanty winning 16 and saving 22 more, the Phils would have been hopeless.

Richard Alan Sisler was born on November 2, 1920 in St. Louis. His father was George Sisler of the St. Louis Browns, one of the best all-around players of his generation: A .340 lifetime hitter whose 1920 total of 257 hits stood as a major league record for 84 years, a 4-time American League leader in stolen bases, and, according to contemporary observers, the best-fieldling 1st baseman of his time.

His brother Dave Sisler would be a major league pitcher, and his brother George Sisler Jr. became a longtie baseball executive. Oddly, George Sr. was a scout for the Dodgers at the time, and was in the ballpark when Dick hit the home run. A reporter asked George how he felt, and he said, "I felt awful and terrific at the same time."

A 1st baseman and left fielder, Dick debuted with the Cardinals in 1946, contributing to a World Series-winning team a a rookie. He was traded to the Phillies in 1948. That 1950 season was his only selection to the All-Star Game. He was traded to the Cincinnati Reds in 1952, and back to the Cardinals later that year, last playing in the majors with them in 1953. He finished his career with a .276 batting average, and just 55 home runs, but 1 of them won a Pennant.

Dick went into coaching, and won another Pennant in 1961, on the staff of Fred Hutchinson of the Cincinnati Reds. When Hutchison left the team late in the 1964 season due to cancer, Dick stepped in as interim manager. Ironically, his Reds were a big reason why his former team, the Phillies, did not win the Pennant that season. But it was his other former team, the Cardinals, who did.

When Hutch died, Dick was named the official manager, and won 89 games in 1965, but was fired after the season, anyway. The Cardinals brought him onto the coaching staff of his former teammate Red Schoendienst, and, together, they won the 1967 World Series, and lost the 1968 World Series. He later coached for the San Diego Padres and, in 1979 and '80, under Joe Torre on the Mets.

He spent most of the 1980s working in the Cardinal farm system, helping to build a team that won 3 Pennants and the 1982 World Series. He died on November 20, 1998, at the age of 78.

The Dick Sisler Game was is also the last major league game as a manager for Burt Shotton, who'd managed the Dodgers to Pennants in 1947 and 1949, and eased the path of Jackie Robinson as he and general manager ranch Rickey reintegrated baseball.

An outfielder, Shotton had played in the major leagues from 1909 to 1923, including 1915 to 1917 with the St. Louis Browns, where he was a teammate of George Sisler -- hence, George's scouting for the Dodgers. Shotton had previously managed the Phillies from 1928 to 1933, and the Reds in 1934, and had also coached for the Cardinals and the Cleveland Indians.

He left the Indians after the 1945 season. When Rickey needed a manager for 1947 after Leo Durocher's yearlong suspension, he asked for Shatoon, who told Rickey, "I romised my wife I would never put on another uniform." So Rickey talked him into managing in a suit, like Connie Mack.

Speaking of whom...

Also on this day, the Philadelphia Athletics complete a massively disappointing 102-loss season by beating the Washington Senators, 5-3 at Shibe Park. It is the last game for A's manager Connie Mack: Approaching his 88th birthday, his sons Earle, Roy and Connie Jr., agreeing on little else, agree to gang up on him and force him to finally retire as manager -- something he, as also the owner, did not want to do.

Before the A's move to Kansas City, the Phillies, new owners of the ballpark, will rename it Connie Mack Stadium, and will erect a statue of him outside.

Having first played in what we would now call Major League Baseball in 1886, the 1st term of Grover Cleveland, and made it to 1950, the 2nd term of Harry Truman, Connie Mack was involved in 4,490 regular-season games, far and away a major league record. (Vin Scully was on hand for 10,766 games over 67 seasons, but that was as a broadcaster.)

Shotton and Mack were the last managers to wear street clothes during a game. Although no rule specifically mandates that a manager must wear a uniform, there is now a rule that states that, aside from medical and security personnel, no one is allowed on the field of play during a game unless they are wearing some form of baseball uniform.

At 87, Mack remains the oldest manager in MLB history. The oldest who was not also the team's owner is Jack McKeon, who was just short of 81 when he served as interim manager of the Florida Marlins in 2011, having previously led them to win the 2003 World Series. Otherwise, the oldest regular manager was Casey Stengel, who had to retire as manager of the New York Mets after an injury at his 75th birthday party.

Pitcher Bobby Shantz is the last living man to have been managed by Connie Mack, 72 years after Mack's last game. Dodger pinch-hitter Tommy "Buckshot" Brown was the last living player from the Dick Sisler Game. For the Phillies, the last survivor, backup infielder Ralph "Putsy" Caballero, died in 2017. Curt Simmons, who did not appear in the game, was the last living 1950 Phillies Whiz Kid.

In 1978, the Phillies established the Philadelphia Baseball Wall of Fame. They elected one Phillie and one Athletic every year until 2003, and have elected a single Phillie every year after that. From the 1950 Whiz Kids, they have elected Robin Roberts, Richie Ashburn, Del Ennis, Granny Hamner, Curt Simmons, Willie "Puddin' Head" Jones.

Mack was the 1st A's figure elected. Also elected from the 1950 A's were Wally Moses, Elmer Valo, Bobby Shantz, Eddie Joost, Ferris Fain, Sam Chapman and Gus Zernial. But it says something about the fall of the A's that, for most of the 1930s and '40s, the only player elected to the Wall was "Indian" Bob Johnson.

Mack, Shantz and Johnson have also been elected to the Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame. Of the 1950 Whiz Kids, so have Roberts, Ashburn, Ennis, Hamner, Simmons, Jones, and broadcaster Byrum Saam -- but, oddly, not manager Eddie Sawyer.

UPDATE: Simmons died on December 13, 2022, Brown on January 15, 2025. Shantz turned 100 on September 26, 2025.

*

October 1, 1950 was a Sunday. Actor Randy Quaid was born.

These other MLB games were played:

* The Yankees lost to the Boston Red Sox, 7-3 at Fenway Park in Boston. The game is meaningless, as the Yankees had long since clinched the Pennant. Ted Williams went 4-for-5 with 3 RBIs. Joe DiMaggio was held out, to save his injured heel for the World Series.

* The New York Giants beat the Boston Braves, 5-1 at the Polo Grounds.

* A doubleheader was split at Comiskey Park in Chicago. The Chicago White Sox won the opener, 4-3. The St. Louis Browns won the nightcap, 10-6 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. The nightcap was the last game for Luke Appling, the Hall of Fame shortstop for the Chiago White Sox. Appling goes 1-for-4, but, batting .234 at age 43, it was time. "Old Aches and Pains" retires with a lifetime batting average of .310, and 2,749 hits.

* A doubleheader was split at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. The Cincinnati Reds won the 1st game, 3-2. The Pittsburgh Pirates won the 2nd game, 3-1.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Detroit Tigers, 7-5 at Briggs Stadium in Detroit. The ballpark was renamed Tiger Stadium in 1961.

* And the Chicago Cubs beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 3-2 in 11 innings, at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. Stan Musial hit a home run.

Since this was a Sunday, there were also NFL games:

* The New York Giants beat the Cleveland Browns, 6-0 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium.

* The Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Washington Redskins, 26-7 at Griffith Stadium in Washington.

* The Green Bay Packers beat the Chicago Bears, 31-21 at Green Bay City Stadium.

* The next day, the Chicago Cardinals beat the Baltimore Colts, 55-13 at Comiskey Park.

* The Los Angeles Rams beat the San Francisco 49ers, 35-14 at Kezar Stadium in San Francisco. Since the 49ers had come in from the All-America Football Conference, this was the 1st game ever between them and the Rams, which became one of the NFL's best rivalries.

* Two days earlier, on the Friday, the football team named the New York Yanks (not "Yankees") lost to the Detroit Lions, 44-21 at Yankee Stadium.

* And, with some irony, given what else was going on in sports in their city, the Philadelphia Eagles had the week off.

September 28, 1941: Ted Williams Finishes at .406

September 28, 1941: Ted Williams, left fielder for the Boston Red Sox, enters the last day of baseball's regular season with a batting average of .39955, which would have been officially rounded up to .400. Red Sox manager Joe Cronin offers to let him sit and protect his ".400 batting average."

But the Splendid Splinter, all of 23 years old, understands what his place in baseball history would have really been, and insists on playing the doubleheader, against Connie Mack's Philadelphia Athletics at Shibe Park. (It was renamed Connie Mack Stadium for the A's manager in 1953.)

Ted remembered that the home plate umpire, Al Barlick, required to remain neutral, told him before the game, "In order to bat .400, you gotta be loose." And the A's catcher, Frankie Hayes, told him what their manager, Connie Mack, said: "Mr. Mack told us to pitch to you." The A's would not be walking him, intentionally or semi-intentionally, in order to stop him: They would try to stop him fair and square.

They couldn't. He singled to right in the 2nd inning, hit a home run leading off the 5th, singled to right in the 6th, hit an RBI single to right in the 7th, and reached on an error in the 9th, by the A's 2nd baseman -- Lawrence Columbus "Crash" Davis of Durham, North Carolina, for whom the Kevin Costner character in the movie Bull Durham would be named. So the one time he didn't get a hit, he gots on base anyway. Despite a 9-run A's outburst in the 5th inning, the Sox won, 12-11.

Ted's batting average was now .404. Even if he had gone 0-for-4 in the nightcap, he would still have finished at .4004. (Going 0-for-5 would have made him .39956.) He played anyway. He singled to right in the 2nd, doubled to center in the 4th, and flew to left in the 7th.

Because Pennsylvania had only legalized professional sporting events on Sundays in 1934, and had a 7:00 PM curfew for such games, the A's were already up 7-1, and Ted's .400 was secure, it was agreed between the umpires and the managers, Cronin and Mack, that the 1st game would end after 8 innings, thus denying Ted a 4th at-bat in the game. He finished the season with 185 hits in 456 at-bats, for a batting average of .405701754, rounded off to .406.

Ironically, the Sox pitcher in the 2nd game was former A's star Lefty Grove. It was the last appearance of a Hall of Fame career in which he went 300-141. A's pitcher Fred Caligiuri, who lived to be 100 and died in 2018, was the last living player from this doubleheader.

Joe DiMaggio of the Yankees was awarded the American League MVP. Red Sox fans, now 3 generations removed, remain angry about this. They say Ted's .406 average was a greater achievement than DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak the same season. They forget that the award is named Most Valuable Player, not Most Outstanding Player. Ted's great season did not get the Red Sox above 6th place. Joe's great season put the Yankees on a run that led to them winning the World Series.

In 1957, Ted came close to .400 again, at age 39, batting .388. In 1977, Rod Carew was over .400 for much of the season, and finished at .388. In 1980, George Brett was over .400 in September, and finished at .390. In 1994, Tony Gwynn was at .394 when the strike hit on August 12. Ted died in 2002, and since then, there have been no living human beings who have hit .400 in a season. (Bill Terry of the 1930 New York Giants, at .401, remains the last to do it in the National League.)

*

September 28, 1941 was a Sunday. These other major league games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Washington Senators, 5-0 at Yankee Stadium. This didn't matter to the Yankees: They had clinched the AL Pennant on September 4, the earliest Pennant-clinching date in AL history. Sid Hudson pitched a 4-hit shutout for the Senators, allowing only a single to Tommy Henrich and a double to DiMaggio in the 4th inning, and singles to Joe Gordon and Phil Rizzuto in the 8th. He didn't walk any batters, either.

* The New York Giants beat the Boston Braves, 2-1 at Braves Field in Boston.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 5-1 at Ebbets Field. The Dodgers had clinched the Pennant, their 1st in 21 years, in Boston 3 days earlier, but the Yankees would beat them in the World Series in 5 games.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Cincinnati Reds, 3-2 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Detroit Tigers, 3-0 at Briggs Stadium in Detroit. (It was renamed Tiger Stadium in 1961.) Thornton Lee pitched a 6-hit shutout.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat their arch-rivals, the Chicago Cubs, 3-1 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. For the Cards, a 20-year-old rookie named Stan Musial went 1-for-4.

* And the St. Louis Browns beat the Cleveland Indians, 5-4 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis.

There were also NFL games that day:

* The football version of the New York Giants beat the Washington Redskins, 17-10 at Griffith Stadium in Washington.

* The Chicago Bears beat the Green Bay Packers, 25-17 at City Stadium in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

* The football version of the Brooklyn Dodgers had played before, beating the Philadelphia Eagles, 24-13 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia.

* Also playing the day before were the Chicago Cardinals and the Detroit Lions, to a 14-14 tie at Comiskey Park in Chicago.

* The Pittsburgh Steelers and the Cleveland Rams had a bye week.

* And 1 game was played in the rival American Football League: The New York Americans beat the Milwaukee Chiefs, 10-3 at the Dairy Bowl in the Milwaukee suburb of West Allis, Wisconsin. This version of the AFL suspended operations for World War II, and never resumed. The Americans, named after the hockey team, played their games at Downing Stadium on Randall's Island.

July 30, 1910: The Philadelphia Athletics Trade Shoeless Joe Jackson

July 30, 1910: The Philadelphia Athletics beat the Washington Senators, 7-5 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. It is a battle between future Hall of Fame pitchers, although neither has his best stuff. Walter Johnson goes the distance for the Senators. Charles Albert "Chief" Bender takes a 7-0 lead into the 9th inning, then stumbles. Manager Connie Mack is forced to bring in another future Hall-of-Famer, Eddie Plank, and he isn't much better. Before Plank can secure the final out of the game, the Senators have scored 5 runs, and nearly completed an amazing comeback.

Not a factor in this game is left fielder Joe Jackson. On this day, Mack, also the team's treasurer, under owner Ben Shibe, sends Jackson to the Cleveland Naps. as the player to be named later, along with infielder Morris "Morrie" Rath, for left fielder Bristol "Bris" Lord, who had previously played with the A's on their 1905 American League Pennant winners.

The Naps, named for their manager, 2nd baseman and best hitter, Napoleon "Nap" Lajoie, beat the St. Louis Browns on this day, 2-1 at League Park in Cleveland. Cy Young, 43 years old, notched the 502nd win of his career.

Joseph Jefferson Jackson had become known as "Shoeless Joe" because of an incident in a minor league game. The shoes he'd been given were too tight, so he took them off in the outfield. He was a farmboy from the Appalachian western region of South Carolina, and had never learned how to read. He knew he had to learn how to sign his name, to give kids autographs, but he got around his illiteracy by having his wife order for him in restaurants.

And, up to this point, he hadn't yet shown that he could "read" pitchers, either. Just past his 23rd birthday, he had played 10 games for the A's, none this season. Although batting .354 for the New Orleans Pelicans of the Southern Association, he had gone 6-for-40 at the major league level, or .150. Reports disagree as to why he hadn't made it in Philadelphia: Either he didn't get along with his teammates, or he didn't get along with Mack, or he simply couldn't handle the big city.

Cleveland was then the 6th-largest city in America, but not as bad as Philadelphia. And Jackson now had Nap Lajoie to learn from. They got along much better. It's no coincidence that the Indians traded him to the Chicago White Sox in 1915, after Lajoie had fallen out with team management and been traded.

Babe Ruth supposedly modeled his lefthanded swing after Jackson's. At the close of the 1920 season, just 33 years old, he had a .356 lifetime batting average (still the 3rd-highest ever), a whopping 170 OPS+, and 1,772 hits, including 307 doubles, 168 triples and 54 home runs. What would later be known as the 3,000 Hit Club was within reach for him.

He was also a good baserunner, having stolen 202 bases. How good a fielder was he? Ty Cobb called him the greatest left fielder he'd ever seen, and his glove "the place where triples go to die." There was no Baseball Hall of Fame yet, but Shoeless Joe seemed to be on his way.

Jackson never played again after 1920: He and 7 White Sox teammates were permanently banned for their apparent roles in throwing the 1919 World Series to the Cincinnati Reds. In a weird twist, the sign to the gamblers that the fix was still on was that the 1st Reds batter in Game 1 was to be hit with a pitch. That turned out to be Morrie Rath. (He was not injured.)

How did the A's do without Jackson? Pretty well, winning 4 of the next 5 AL Pennants, including 3 World Series. That dynasty was broken up in the 1914-15 off-season, as Mack needed money during the fight between the AL and the National League on one side, and the Federal League on the other. If he and Jackson had worked out their differences, and Jackson had become a star with the A's, he probably would have been sold off as part of this process, anyway.

*

July 30, 1910 was a Saturday. These other baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Highlanders lost to the Boston Red Sox, 5-4 in 10 innings at the Huntington Avenue Grounds. The Highlanders became the Yankees in 1913.

* The New York Giants swept a doubleheader from the Boston Doves, 4-1 and 4-0 at the Polo Grounds. Red Ames pitched a 4-0 shutout in the 2nd game. The Doves became the Boston Braves in 1912.

* The Brooklyn Superbas lost to the Philadelphia Phillies, 2-1 in 14 innings at Washington Park in Brooklyn. The game was scoreless for the 1st 13 innings. The Superbas became the Dodgers the next season.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 4-2 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. Honus Wagner went 0-for-4 with a walk.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Chicago White Sox, 4-2 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Ty Cobb went 2-for-4 with a stolen base and an RBI.

* And the Chicago Cubs beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 4-1 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis.