Need a Baseball Fix? Step Right Up.
If you need a baseball fix, here’s an excerpt from my historical novel, The Run Don’t Count: The Life and Times of Frank Chance and His 1908 Chicago Cubs. This game against the Pirates on Sunday, October 4, 1908, was the first of two straight win-or-go-home contests the Cubs played to reach the ’08 World Series. The second game, the replay of the Merkle’s Boner Game, is much more widely known and is in the discussion for craziest game ever. But without this game, there would have been no Merkle Game. And the crowd at the Cubs’ West Side Grounds was pretty crazy that day. It’s always good to fluster Honus Wagner.
All the baseball detail is historical fact. I pored over entire seasons of box scores and game stories, plus books and magazines. I simply added some dialogue. Tinker and Evers give their ornery takes on baseball and life. And Chance shows why he’s The Peerless Leader.
The story is told by a young narrator/batboy who becomes a lifelong friend and confidant of Tinker, Evers and Chance.
There are more excerpts and information available at facebook/therundontcount. The Run Don't Count is available at Amazon.com. For signed copies, contact me directly (herbgould85@gmail/com).
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OCTOBER 4, 1908
CHICAGO
When I got to the ballpark, it was a true frenzy. The ticket sellers were rifling out their remaining tickets as quickly as they could collect the money from frantic and impatient fans. Many “unofficial” ticket transactions also were taking place, with scalpers keeping a wary eye out for police who might want to impede their progress – or worse.
The gates remained closed but it was clear that would need to change. There were too many people milling about. Thousands. And thousands. There was nowhere for them to go but inside. And Murphy’s concessions people were anxious to accommodate them with “official” doughnuts and coffee, hot dogs and other food and beverage – instead of the independent concessions business being conducted by more modest entrepreneurs.
After cleaning and shining the players’ cleats, I brought them out and put them in front of the players’ dressing stalls. Pitcher Mordecai ``Three-Fingered’’ Brown and his catcher, Johnny Kling, were engaged in a quiet discussion at Kling’s space. Both were holding little notebooks that they occasionally glanced at.
“Just keep it low and away with him.”
“He gets impatient late in the count. That’s the time for a curve ball.’’
Second baseman Johnny Evers also had pulled up a chair. Manager Frank Chance stuck his nose in once or twice, basically to listen.
The fixation on this game extended far beyond the outfield barrier at West Side Park. Thousands had gathered to watch the results on scoreboards in Pittsburgh. And in New York, a crowd of 3,500 at the Polo Grounds planned to root for the hated Cubs to defeat the Pirates. It must have been difficult to cheer for players they despised. But that was the Giants’ only chance to win the pennant.
Cubs owner ``Chubby’’ Charlie Murphy would announce later that a crowd of 30,247 had been shoehorned into West Side Park, 6,000 more than the previous record. By the end of the day, the crowd had grown to 30,248. A woman in the center-field bleachers gave birth during the game. She was quickly helped to the Cubs’ dressing room and then taken to Cook County Hospital, across the street.
As the Cubs took the field for the start of the game, the din of anticipation turned into a loud wave of approval. The players hustled off the bench looking calm and determined. All except Brown. When I caught his eye, he was smiling broadly. “This is why we play the game,” he said, patting me on the back.
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Brown went out and put down the first two Pirates. The third batter, Wee Tommy Leach, mustered all the muscle in his 5-6, 145-pound frame and delivered a two-out single to center field but was thrown out trying to steal second.
The Cubs wasted no time igniting their crowd. Sheckard, in his first game back since an early September leg injury, led off with a ground-rule double into the crowd in right field. After Evers sacrificed him to third, Sheckard scored on Schulte’s single to right field for a 1-0 Cubs lead. When Sheckard went past me as I knelt near the Cubs’ bats, the grin he wore was as wide as his face. “Welcome back, Jimmy,” Frank said.
The score remained 1-0 until the bottom of the fifth. With two men already out, Honus Wagner wheeled to his left and made a good stop on a hot grounder by Evers. But Wagner’s high throw sailed over first baseman Alan Storke and Evers wound up on second on a single and an error. Schulte then drilled a liner up the middle that scored Evers and gave the Cubs a 2-0 lead.
In the top of the sixth, Wagner drove in Pittsburgh’s first run with a double, went to third on a wild pitch and scored on a single by second baseman Ed “Abby” Abbaticchio, tying the game 2-2.
Even though I didn’t want Wagner to do well, I couldn’t take my eyes off him, whether he was making a play in the field or at the plate. A thickly built 5-foot-11, 200-pound blue-collar man, he looked big and gangly, hunched over in the field with massive arms. But when the ball came his way, he moved with athletic grace. And with a bat in his hand, he was even more of a wonder. He was in the midst of leading the National League in hitting seven times in nine years. Those broad shoulders moved into the ball with a speed and fluid motion that was ferocious.
The Cubs regained the lead in the bottom of the sixth. After Tinker doubled to left with one out, Pittsburgh pitcher Vic Willis, the Pirates ace, walked Kling intentionally. That brought up Brown, who made the face-the-pitcher strategy backfire by singling to right for a 3-2 Cubs lead. Brownie tried to keep a deadpan look as he stood on first base with the crowd roaring. But he couldn’t hide his grin. As he’d told me, this was what he lived for, to compete with the heat on.
The Cubs added insurance runs in the seventh and eighth innings, and took a 5-2 lead into the ninth. Wagner led off the top of the ninth with a single. The Pirates thought Abby had added a second straight hit down the right-field line, but umpires Hank O’Day and Cy Rigler ruled that the ball had landed foul and the 31-year-old middle infielder wound up striking out.
The next Pirate, first baseman Alan Storke, rifled a shot off of the glove of Hofman, who was playing third base because Steinfeldt was nursing a sore knee. But Tinker alertly scooped up the deflection and threw to Evers at second for a force-out on Wagner. Wilson then hit a grounder to Tinker, which he flipped to Evers for another force-out at second base to give the Cubs a 5-2 win.
West Side Park erupted.
In a scene Chance’s crew repeated often, the Cubs won even though their opponent had the most talented player in the game. The Pirates had Wagner, the National League’s best hitter. And the Giants had Christy Mathewson, the league’s best pitcher. But the Cubs found a way to be the best team. They also had done it in the 1907 World Series, when they beat Detroit, which had Ty Cobb, the American League’s best hitter. Frank’s Cubs always seemed to find a way.
While the jubilant spectators poured onto the field, shouting and tossing their seat cushions, the Cubs hurried into their clubhouse in right-center field to avoid being roughed up by the congratulations of their celebrating fans. Merkle wasn’t the only ballplayer eager to avoid raucous fans.
Doc and I did not have an easy time of it, lugging the gear back to the clubhouse through the frenzy. But we managed.
While the Cubs celebrated in their clubhouse – Frank had made sure there were some cases of iced beer on hand while his team waited for the mayhem to die down outside – Pirates manager Fred Clarke and owner Barney Dreyfuss came over to offer congratulations.
“Of course, we’re disappointed,” Clarke said, mentioning the ruling that Abby’s shot down the right-field line was foul. “That decision in the ninth inning might have meant something to us, but I guess the Cubs were too strong for us today.”
“Somebody had to lose,” Dreyfuss said. “It was Pittsburgh. We lost to a good team.”
Wagner, who had hit .354 that season, was devastated.
“Bosh with those 201 hits and all that stuff,” the National League batting champion told reporters in Pittsburgh the next day. “What does it all amount to when we didn’t win that game yesterday? I’m going to kill 10,000 birds this winter to try to forget it.”
Chance credited the will and skill the Cubs mustered after a season of highs and lows.
“We simply had to win and we did,” Chance said. “Everybody played great ball. We’ll take morning practice each day while awaiting the returns from New York, and will go out to pull for the Sox in the afternoon. Whatever the result in New York, we expect to win another pennant and another world’s championship.”
At that point, there was the possibility of a repeat of the 1906 all-Chicago World Series. The White Sox had beaten Detroit 3-1 on the South Side that day. They remained in third place behind the Tigers and the Indians, but they were only 1½ games behind Detroit and would play Tigers twice more, on Monday and Tuesday.
A pair of Sox wins, combined with a Cleveland loss, would set up another Cubs-White Sox all-Chicago World Series.
The Cubs would be watching the White Sox. But they would be waiting for the results from the East, where the Giants needed to win their three remaining games against Boston to pull into a tie with the Cubs for first place.