December 20, 1921: Bullet Joe Bush and Sad Sam Jones

Bullet Joe Bush

December 20, 1921: The New York Yankees trade shortstop Roger Peckinpaugh, and pitchers Harry "Rip" Collins, Bill Piercy and Jack Quinn, to the Boston Red Sox for pitchers "Bullet" Joe Bush and "Sad" Sam Jones, and shortstop Everett Scott.

Peckinpaugh helped the Washington Senators win their 1st 2 Pennants. Quinn would pitch until he was 50, helping Connie Mack establish the next Philadelphia Athletics dynasty in the late 1920s. And Collins would be the starting catcher on the St. Louis Cardinals' 1931 World Series winners.

Even with all of that, the Yankees won this trade going away. They got 2 fantastic pitchers to go along with Hoyt and Bob Shawkey, the latter a key purchase from Mack in 1915 rather than a trade acquisition. Bush went 26-7 in 1922, and would have been an easy choice for the Cy Young Award. He went 19-15 in 1923, to help the Yankees win the World Series for the 1st time.

Jones was just 13-13 in 1922, but went 21-8 in 1923, and would have won that year's Cy Young Award. Scott was also key, and should be remembered as a solid fielder and a good contact hitter, not just as the man who held the record for most consecutive games played prior to Lou Gehrig, 1,308.

Sad Sam Jones

For 1923, the Yankees would acquire Herb Pennock from the Red Sox. It wasn't getting Babe Ruth from the Sox that wrecked the Sox and built the Yankees: It was getting an entire starting rotation that, had there been an All-Star Game at the time, would have been perennial All-Stars: Bush, Jones, Pennock, Waite Hoyt and Carl Mays, all in trades with the Red Sox between mid-1919 and the 1922-23 off-season.

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December 20, 1921 was a Tuesday. Baseball was out of season. Football season had just ended. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. And, although the NHL season had begun 3 days earlier, there were no games scheduled for this day. So there were no scores on this historic day.

October 15, 1925: Walter Johnson's Last Stand

October 15, 1925: A steady downpour yesterday and today has left the field at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh a muddy mess, as Game 7 of the World Series is scheduled to be played. The weather forecast suggested rain for the next 3 days for both cities involved, Pittsburgh and Washington, making the moving of Game 7 to Washington pointless, and Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis was anxious to get it over with.

I've never seen film of this game. I don't even know if any survives, although YouTube has footage from earlier in the Series, and of the Game 7s of 1924 and 1926. Maybe the film crews didn't want to risk getting electrocuted in the rain. At any rate, all we have to go on for the inclement weather are news reports.

UPDATE: On August 8, 2025, as commemorations for the 100th Anniversary of this Series began, I saw a photograph of a rather dubious method of drying the infield: Dousing it with gasoline and setting it on fire.

This insane tactic actually happened. It wasn't the only time, either.

But it would have been just plain wrong to play if the rain were as bad as what Philadelphia and Tampa Bay faced when Game 5 of the 2008 Series was suspended. There was a 6-day delay due to rain in 1911, and there were 3-day delays in 1962 and 1975. It could have been done again.

It was a short day for Pirate starter Vic Aldridge: 3 walks and 2 hits‚ and he was out of there with just 1 out in the 1st. Walter Johnson, the winningest pitcher in American League history, who finally became a World Series hero the year before, took a 4-0 lead to the mound. In what became known as "Johnson's Last Stand," the Bucs clobbered the 38-year-old Big Train for 15 hits‚ good for 24 total bases. Max Carey's 4-for-5 gave him a Series-high batting average of .458.

The Senators made the most of 7 hits‚ scoring 7 runs‚ including shortstop Roger Peckinpaugh's home run‚ the 12th homer of the Series by both teams combined‚ then a Series record, despite Forbes Field and Washington's Griffith Stadium both having some of the most distant fences in the game. Johnson would have fared better but for 2 more errors by Peckinpaugh‚ his 7th and 8th‚ still the Series record for any position. The Senators made only 1 other error in the 7 games.

Ray Kremer picked up his 2nd win with a 4-inning relief effort‚ as the Pirates won, 9-7. This was the Pirates' 1st World Championship in 16 years, and only one player remains from that 1909 title with Honus Wagner: Charles "Babe" Adams, who had pitched and won 3 games in '09, and was riding out the string in '25. It would take until 2019 for another Washington team to get that close to a World Series win.

In the next day's New York Times, James Harrison wrote, "In a grave of mud was buried Walter Johnson's ambition to join the select panel of pitchers who have won three victories in one World Series. With mud shackling his ankles and water running down his neck, the grand old man of baseball succumbed to weariness, a sore leg, wretched support and the most miserable weather conditions that ever confronted a pitcher."

The last surviving member of the 1925 Pirates was shortstop Glenn Wright, who lived until 1984.

UPDATE: The Pirates have a team Hall of Fame. From their 1925 and 1927 National League Champions, including the 1925 World Series win, they have inducted 3rd baseman Harold "Pie" Traynor, center fielder Max Carey (who left after 1926), right fielders Hazen "Kiki" Cuyler and Paul Waner (who arrived in 1926), and Paul's brother, center fielder Lloyd Waner (who arrived in 1927).

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October 15, 1925 was a Thursday. There was 1 other score on this historic day, a college football rivalry: North Carolina beat North Carolina State, 17-0 at Riddick Field on the N.C. State campus in Raleigh.