October 10, 1904: The Jack Chesbro Game

Photo colorized, but otherwise real.

October 10, 1904: For the first time, and not for the last, an American League Pennant comes down to New York and Boston. The last day of the season features a doubleheader at Hilltop Park, at 165th Street & Broadway in Manhattan's Washington Heights.

The New York Highlanders, forerunners of the Yankees, need to sweep the Boston Americans, forerunners of the Red Sox, in order to win. Otherwise, Boston will win it. Hilltop Park seats about 16,000, but there's perhaps 30,000 jammed into the confines, including thousands of standees roped off in the massive outfield area.

Pitching the 1st game for the Highlanders is Jack Chesbro, who has already won 41 games, which remains the single-season record for pitching from 60 feet, 6 inches away. And that's pronounced CHEESE-bro, not CHEZ-bro.

With the score 2-2 in the top of the 9th and Lou Criger on 3rd base, Chesbro throws a spitball – then a legal pitch – but it's a wild pitch, going over the head of his catcher, Jim "Deacon" McGuire, and Criger scores the Pennant-winning run. The Yankees win the nightcap, 1-0, but it's meaningless, as the Red Sox-to-be win the Pennant.

But, faced with the prospect of losing a postseason series not just to the champions of what they view as "an inferior league," but to the other New York team, the National League Champion New York Giants refuse to participate in the World Series. Manager John McGraw, on this day, issues a statement that it was his decision, not that of owner John T. Brush, to refuse to play the AL Champions, regardless of who they turned out to be. The 1904 World Series is called off, and it will be 90 years before such a thing happens again – over a very different kind of stupidity, and a more egregious one at that.

Brush and McGraw were so shamed in the press for chickening out that they agreed that they would participate in any future World Series – and they participated in 14 before moving to San Francisco, their total now 20.

Today, over a century later, the Red Sox organization does not claim a forfeit win and call themselves the 1904 World Champions, which would give them 9 World Championships, rather than 8. But they might as well -- after all, who can stop them, and how? Certainly, they have a more legitimate claim to the title of 1904 than they do to those of 2004, 2007, 2013 and 2018.

And yet, the plaque at Polo Grounds Towers lists the Giants as World Champions for 1904, as well as for 1905, 1921, 1922, 1933 and 1954 -- but not for 1888 and 1889, possibly because those titles were not won at that location, but rather at a different location with a facility called the Polo Grounds.

After 1904, the Americans/Red Sox would win 4 more Pennants in the next 14 seasons. The Highlanders/Yankees would have to wait another 17 years before winning their 1st, but then, they would pretty much keep winning them for the next 43 years.

John Dwight Chesbro, a.k.a. Happy Jack, won 41 games that season, and 198 in his Hall of Fame career for the Pirates and the Yankees (and, for the very last game of his career, the North Adams, Massachusetts native came home and pitched and lost one for the Red Sox). Sadly, he is mainly remembered not for all the games he won, but for one he lost, basically for one bad pitch that he threw. He died in 1931, age 57.

A shocking percentage of the 1904 Americans died young, what with that being the pre-antibiotic era, although the man named Denton True Young, a.k.a. Cy Young, lived to be 87. The last survivor of the 1904 Americans, and the 1903 team that won the 1st World Series, was shortstop Freddy Parent, a New England native, from Biddeford, Maine, who lived on until 1972, at the age of 96. The last surviving 1904 Highlander was 2nd baseman Jimmy Williams (no relation to later Red Sox manager Jimy Williams), who died in 1965.

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October 10, 1904 was a Monday. This was before what became North America's other major sports, football, basketball and hockey, really went professional. There were only 2 other games that day in what would later be called Major League Baseball, and they were a doubleheader.

It was played at Boundary Field in Washington, D.C. The host Washington Senators lost the opener to the Philadelphia Athletics, 7-6. Then they were leading the nightcap, 4-3, when the game was called after 5 innings, due to darkness, as no ballparks had lights in those days.

Boundary Field burned down early in the 1911 season, as did the Polo Grounds in New York. Both were quickly rebuilt. The new Washington ballpark was named National Park, until 1922, when Clark Griffith -- the 1st manager of the Highlanders/Yankees and also a pitcher for them -- bought the Senators, and renamed it Griffith Stadium. Baseball continued to be played there until 1961. It was demolished in 1965, and Howard University Hospital was built on the site.

The Highlanders became the Yankees in 1913. That same year, they moved into the Polo Grounds, invited to do so as a return courtesy for the Yankees letting the New York Giants use Hilltop Park while the Polo Grounds was rebuilt after their fire. They moved into the original Yankee Stadium in 1923.

Hilltop Park was torn down in 1914. For a while, Billy Sunday, a former major league pitcher turned nationally-known evangelist, had a church on the site. In 1928, the site of Hilltop Park, like that of Griffith Stadium, had a hospital built on it, Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center. At each hospital, the location of home plate is marked with a plaque.

And the home of the Americans/Red Sox? The Huntington Avenue Grounds didn't last much beyond the team moving to Fenway Park in 1912. Northeastern University built athletic facilities on the site. A statue of Cy Young now stands where the pitcher's mound once stood. 

September 3, 1906: A Wild Doubleheader In Washington Heights

Silk O'Loughlin

September 3, 1906: Before they were the New York Yankees, the New York Highlanders had a few moments of glory. Not many, but a few.

Coming into this day, they were 2 games behind the Chicago White Sox in the American League, with 34 games to play. The Philadelphia Athletics, who had won the Pennant the year before under young manager Connie Mack (the former catcher was 43), were 5 behind the South Side ballclub. The Cleveland Naps, led by manager, 2nd baseman and slugger Napoleon "Nap" Lajoie, were 7 back. There was a chance.

That was more than could be said in the National League, where the Chicago Cubs were running away with the Pennant. Frank Chance's West Siders were 13 games ahead of Honus Wagner and the Pittsburgh Pirates.

It was Labor Day, and, after "blue laws" prohibited Sunday baseball in some States, ballclubs were anticipating big holiday doubleheader paydays. The White Sox were to play the Naps at League Park in Cleveland, while the Highlanders were hosting the A's at Hilltop Park, in Washington Heights at 165th and Broadway, the highest elevation on Manhattan Island, which game them team its name, although with its nickname, the Hilltoppers. The name "Yankees" was also being informally used.

The New York shortstop was Norman Elberfeld, usually known as "Kid," short for "The Tabasco Kid," because he was such a hothead. A's 2nd baseman Danny Murphy stole 3rd base in the opener, and Elberfeld was sure that Murphy was out. Umpire Frank "Silk" O'Loughlin said otherwise, and the Kid lost it, and tried to kick him. He was so unsportsmanlike that even the 20,000 or so home fans, who normally loved him, turned on him. He chased O'Loughlin around the field, trying to hit him, and the police had to come onto the field and arrest Elberfeld.

"Slow" Joe Doyle started for New York, and he couldn't quite go the distance. Manager Clark Griffith, himself a former pitcher for the Cubs, brought ace Jack Chesbro in to get the last out in the top of the 9th. Jimmy Dygert started for Philadelphia, and he took a 3-3 tie into the bottom of the 9th, when Frank Delahanty, younger brother of the late star Ed Delahanty, singled Jimmy Williams home, and the Highlanders won, 4-3.

Chesbro started the 2nd game, against the man then recognized as the best pitcher in the AL, Rube Waddell. It was 3-1 A's in the bottom of the 9th, when the Highlanders tied it. A's 1st baseman Harry Davis alleged that the Yankees' best hitter, "Wee" Willie Keeler, had interfered with him on the infield single that led to the tying run.

O'Loughlin, the lone umpire in the games, generally regarded as one of the better ones -- and doomed to die in the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic -- ruled that there was no interference. Mack pulled his team off the field in protest, and O'Loughlin awarded the game to the Highlanders as a forfeit, with the official score of 9-0.

Meanwhile, 500 miles away, in Cleveland, the Naps swept the ChiSox, 10-3 and 4-3. Over the 2 games, Lajoie went 7-for-8 with an RBI. When the day was done, the Highlanders and White Sox were tied for 1st, but having played fewer games meant that the Highlanders led by 1 game in the loss column; while the A's trailed by 5 games, and the Naps by 5 1/2.

The St. Louis Browns swept the Detroit Tigers, 5-2 and 5-0 at Bennett Park in Detroit, and were now 8 1/2 back. Maybe this wasn't just a 4-team race, but a 5-team race. Far back, the Boston Americans won the 1st game of a doubleheader at the Huntington Avenue Grounds in Boston, 3-1, with Cy Young as the winning pitcher; while the Washington Senators won the 2nd game, 6-3.

In the National League:

* The New York Giants swept the Boston Beaneaters at the Polo Grounds. They won the 1st game, 4-0, on a shutout by Christy Mathewson; and the 2nd game, 3-2 in 11 innings.

* The Brooklyn Superbas had about as good a day as you could imagine, sweeping the Philadelphia Phillies, 8-0 and 10-0, at National League Park, later known as Baker Bowl, in Philadelphia, behind shutouts by Don Scanlan and Harry McIntire.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates swept the St. Louis Cardinals, 7-1 and 2-1 at Exposition Park in Pittsburgh.

* And the Chicago Cubs beat the Cincinnati Reds, 7-0 at The Palace of the Fans in Cincinnati, with Ed Reulbach pitching a shutout; then were leading the 2nd game, 5-2 after 7 innings, when the game was called due to darkness.

The Americans became the Boston Red Sox in 1908. The Superbas became the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1911. The Beaneaters became the Boston Braves in 1912. The Highlanders became the New York Yankees in 1913. The Naps became the Cleveland Indians in 1915.

April 22, 1903: The New York Highlanders (Yankees) Debut

The original Yankees. Colorized, but otherwise real.

No pinstripes here.

April 22, 1903: A new baseball season begins. Among the games played this day is one at American League Park in Washington, D.C. The Washington Senators host the New York Highlanders.

The Highlanders had entered the American League, taking the place of the dissolved Baltimore Orioles. Their name came from 2 sources. Their home field, Hilltop Park, was at the highest elevation on Manhattan Island, on Broadway between 165th and 168th Streets.

And the owners, 37-year-old gambling impresario Frank J. Farrell and 49-year-old former Chief of Police William S. "Big Bill" Devery -- having controversial team owners was nothing new in New York sports, not even then -- had hired a team president named Joseph Gordon (no relation to the later Hall of Fame 2nd baseman for the team), and brought to mind the Gordon Highlanders, a Scottish military unit that had distinguished itself in British military actions over the preceding 20 years, including the recent Boer War.

Many early sports-page cartoons showed team figures, often the manager, in Scottish garb, including a tam o' shanter cap, a kilt, and argyle socks. Had the Highlanders name survived until 1986, when the film Highlander premiered, it might have changed the image of the team.

At any rate, the team's first game was on the road, against the Senators. Here was the starting lineup:

LF Alphonso "Lefty" Davis

RF Willie Keeler

CF Dave Fultz

2B Jimmy Williams

1B John Ganzel

3B William "Wid" Conroy

SS Herman Long

C Jack O'Connor

P Jack Chesbro

The team's manager was Clark Griffith, and behind Chesbro the team's best pitcher. He had starred with 2 different teams named the Chicago White Stockings: As a pitcher for the National League team that had become the Cubs, and as ace pitcher and manager of the team that won the 1st American League Pennant in 1901, eventually known as the White Sox.

With some irony, Griffith is now best known for being the longtime owner of the day's opponents, the Washington Senators. When American League Park burned down in 1911, he built a replacement on the site, and named it Griffith Stadium for himself. He, former Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Chesbro, and former Orioles (NL version) and Brooklyn Superbas (Dodgers) hitter Keeler would all go to the Baseball Hall of Fame, although only Griffith would live to see its establishment, let alone his own induction.

The Senators team they played on this day was nothing special. The most interesting players on it were William "Boileryard" Clarke, a teammate of Keeler's on the Orioles' 1894, '95 and '96 Pennant winners; and their starting pitcher that day, Al Orth, who would later pitch for the Highlanders, well enough, but with only a fastball, to be known as "The Curveless Wonder."

The attendance on this Wednesday afternoon was listed at 11,050, a sellout. Not among the crowd was the District of Columbia's most famous temporary resident, and New York City's most famous permanent resident, the President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt. Although he loved all kinds of competition, TR was not a baseball fan. His successor, William Howard Taft, had played baseball at Yale University, and, in 1910, would begin the tradition of the President going to the Senators' home opener and throwing out the ceremonial first ball.

Aside from it being the Highlanders' debut, the game itself is only noteworthy to modern eyes for one reason. Early AL rules allowed the home team to choose whether to bat first or, as usual, last. This time, the Senators chose to bat first.

So the Highlanders batted in the bottom half of each inning. They scored a run in the bottom of the 1st, but that would be it for them. The Senators tied the game in the top of the 4th, and scored 2 more in the top of the 5th, and held on for a 3-1 win. Not an auspicious beginning for the New York club of the American League.

The next day, April 23, with Harry Howell pitching (no relation to the later Rangers Hockey Hall-of-Famer of the same name), the Highlanders won for the 1st time, 7-2. On April 30, after going 3-4 in away games in Washington and Philadelphia, they played their 1st home game at Hilltop Park, also against the Senators, and beat them 6-2, with Chesbro winning.

Like most of the other AL teams, they were often called "the Americans" in the newspapers. In addition to identifying their league, it was a way of getting around the fact that, at 11 letters, "Highlanders" is a long name to put into a headline.

In late 1904, shortly after the Highlanders ended their 2nd season by losing a close Pennant race to the Boston Americans, George M. Cohan's musical Little Johnny Jones opened on Broadway, including the song "Yankee Doodle Dandy."

It was still running as the 1905 baseball season began, and, making the connection between "Yankee" and "American," some papers began calling the Highlanders "the Yankees." It's a 7-letter word that fits more easily into a headline. It can be shortened further, to the 5-letter "Yanks." (This was also one of the reasons why "Mets" was chosen for the later National League team: Brevity for headlines.)

By 1912, pretty much everybody was calling the Highlanders the Yankees. So for 1913, the team made it official. It still hadn't done well, competitively speaking: They'd finished 2nd in 1904, 1906 and 1910, but was usually far from the Pennant.

That would change in 1915, when Farrell and Devery, fed up with each other and with running the team, sold it to brewery boss Jacob Ruppert and engineer Tillinghast L'Hommedieu Huston. Ruppert began throwing money around, eventually bought Babe Ruth, and the rest is history.

Today, the name "Highlanders" is mostly forgotten, although there's a Mets' fan blog that calls the Yankees that, to remind them of the days when they were unsuccessful. As opposed to the Mets, who are nearly always unsuccessful.

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April 22, 1903, unofficially the date of birth for the most successful franchise in the history of North American sports, was a Wednesday. And the Highlanders'/Yankees' debut was 1 of 7 games played that day:

* The New York Giants beat the Brooklyn Superbas, 7-2 at Washington Park in Brooklyn. The Superbas had been managed by Ned Hanlon, bringing to mind a famous circus troupe, Hanlon's Superbas. They became the Dodgers in 1911, short for "Trolley Dodgers." In 1914, they hired Wilbert Robinson, an 1890s Orioles teammate of Keeler, Clarke, and Giants manager John McGraw, and became the Brooklyn Robins. He led them to Pennants in 1916 and 1920, and nearly in 1924, but was fired after the 1931 season, and they became the Dodgers again.

* The Boston Beaneaters beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 2-1 in 12 innings at the South End Grounds in Boston. They became the Braves in 1912.

* The Philadelphia Athletics beat the Boston Americans, 6-1 at Columbia Park in North Philadelphia. The Americans took the Beanaters' former name of Red Stockings, and became the Boston Red Sox in 1908.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Cleveland Naps, 4-2 at Bennett Park in Detroit. After the 1911 season, Bennett Park was torn down, and what would eventually be named Tiger Stadium was built in the site. The Cleveland team was named for its manager and 2nd baseman, Napoleon "Nap" Lajoie. They became the Cleveland Indians in 1915.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Chicago Cubs, 5-3 at West Side Park in Chicago.

* And the Chicago White Sox beat the St. Louis Browns, 14-4 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. That park would be torn down after the 1908 season, and a new part with the same name was built on the site.