Heartache in Philadelphia
On September 27th, 1907, the Detroit Tigers (86-56) and Philadelphia Athletics (83-54), were dead even in the American League pennant race with both teams sporting winning percentages of .606. That same day, the two clubs began a three game series in Philadelphia in a battle that was certain to find a winner.
In the opener, the Tigers squeaked by Philadelphia, 5-4, to take a lead in the American League standings. Philadelphia native and Tiger starter, ‘Wild Bill’ Donovan, who would win 25 games that season, held the A’s in check throughout the game and outpitched his opponent, Eddie Plank. Nonetheless, Philadelphia had its chances against Donovan, as they loaded the bases against him on three occasions. However, three times the A’s came up empty-handed in those situations and as a result, they walked away with the loss.
Mother Nature sometimes can rule supreme over a baseball game and in this case, she did. Steady rain on the 28th forced the two clubs to play a doubleheader on the 30th in their final two meetings of the season. After these games, the two clubs each had seven remaining games on their schedule. Philadelphia had three games against fourth place Cleveland at home (head-to-head record, 12-7, A’s) and then four on the road against last place Washington (14-3, A’s). As for Detroit, the Tigers would first head to Washington for four (10-4, Tigers) and then to St. Louis for three games. Overall, the team had a 13-6 series advantage over the Browns but had struggled in the state of Missouri, going 3-5 in road games against St. Louis.
Taking everything into consideration, the final schedules for the two teams appeared very close and it wouldn’t be a reach to say the doubleheader could make or break either team’s season. For game one, Tigers manager Hughie Jennings would send out Donovan to the mound once again, hoping he could lead his ballclub to another victory. His managerial counterpart, Connie Mack, decided to go with 22-year old spitballer Jimmy Dygert.
The sun finally came out on the last day of September and so did anxious Philadelphia baseball fans, who packed Columbia Park. The official paid attendance at the game was 24,127 and it was only that because that was about all the ballpark could hold. Thousands more squeezed into every crevasse they could find along the ballpark and climbed every ladder to every roof the could find just to get a glimpse of the game. The New York Times estimated that the number in attendance was more close to 40,000 spectators and the Philadelphia North American said “If it had been possible to accommodate them, 50,000 people would have attended the game.”
At the beginning, Philadelphia just flat out hit Donovan. Perhaps it was familiarity, as the last pitcher the Philly batters had seen was ‘Wild Bill’, just two days previous. Whatever Donovan threw, be it a fastball or his sharp curveball, A’s hitters whacked the ball to all fields. Harry Davis, Jimmy Collins, and Rube Oldring all had RBIs in the first inning as Philadelphia took a quick 3-0 advantage after sending eight batters to the plate.
Things got a bit interesting in Detroit’s half of the second. Claude Rossman led off with a single and then Dygert made a throwing error on a Bill Coughlin dribbler to the mound which should have been an easy out. The runners were moved over on a sacrifice and Rossman would score on the next play, which was another error by Dygart. After the run had scored, Connie Mack strolled to the mound and replaced Dygart. Mack would later say that a combination of the errors and the nervous look on his pitcher’s face forced him to make a change. Coming out of the bullpen for the A’s would be Rube Waddell.
Waddell would come in and face the top of the order for the Tigers and the man who had led the American League in strikeouts since 1902 would strike out both Davy Jones and Germany Schaefer. The back-to-back K’s would strand two Tiger baserunners and energize the crowd at Columbia Park. In the third, Philly added a few more runs to their lead, going up 5-1 in an inning highlighted with doubles by Davis and Socks Seybold. The lead was enlarged to 7-1 in the fifth thanks to a Davis home run.
Then, it all came falling down. Piece by piece, the Philadelphia Athletics crumbled. It started in the seventh with Waddell still on the mound. To this point, he had been as good as Connie Mack could have wanted him to be. Now, him and the eight players behind him faltered. First, it was Oldring who dropped a Donovan pop fly in centerfield to allow the leadoff man to get on base. Waddell then walked Jones and the second error of the inning, curiosity of shortstop Simon Nicholls, allowed the Tigers to put a runner at every base with still nobody out. Sam Crawford deflated the A’s just a little more with a two-run double and two more runs would score in the inning on a pair of groundouts by Ty Cobb and Rossman.
With their lead cut down to 7-5, the Athletics would scratch a run across in the bottom of the disastrous seventh inning. Danny Murphy led off the inning with a single off of Donovan and he would move station-to-station before finally scoring on an Ossee Schreckengost groundout. Detroit would gain the run back in the eight thanks to a well-executed hit-and-run with Jones doing the hitting and Charley O’Leary doing the running, scoring from second on the play. After Donovan held the Athletics in check in the eighth, the Tigers headed into the ninth needing two more runs to continue the contest. For Philadelphia, all they needed were three more outs.
Waddell’s game would end early in the ninth and his performance in this game factored into why Philadelphia sold him to St. Louis before the start of the next season. Facing the meat of the Tiger lineup, he surrendered a leadoff single to Crawford and in the very next at-bats, the ‘Georgia Peach’ clobbered a ball over the spectators in the roped-off outfield. With one swing of the bat, Cobb had tied the score and ended Waddell’s day. Mack would signal for Eddie Plank, the workhorse of his staff, to come into the game. Plank would prevent any further damage and the Athletics would have a chance to win it in the bottom of the ninth. To this point, Philadelphia had collected 14 hits off of Donovan. But, ‘Wild Bill’ did his part for the Tigers and the game was headed to extra innings, tied at eights.
No scoring in the tenth but in the eleventh, it looked as though the Tigers might have completed their comeback. Cobb started the rally with a double off of Plank and the next batsman, Rossman, would drive him home on a basehit. With their backs against the wall, however, the A’s would score a run of their own to keep the game going. Nicholls led of the inning with a double and would later advance to third of a wild pitch by Donovan. With one out, Davis would hit a long sacrifice fly to score Nicholls and to keep the game going.
Things got interesting in the 14th. The score was still tied with the Athletics up to bat and Donovan was still on the mound. Davis hit a long drive into the roped-off section of the outfield and would be called a ground rule double if the ball fell. However, the centerfield Crawford got a good jump on the ball and had the potential to make a play on it. As he neared the wall and looked to get under it, the ball hit the grass in the midst of the crowd. Right away, Crawford ran out to base umpire Tom Connolly to protest fan interference.
Crawford would say as soon as he entered the crowd, one policeman ran in front of him while another grabbed his arm to prevent him from catching the ball. Home plate umpire Silk O’Loughlin didn’t see it that way at first, even saying to Topsy Hartsel (according to Mack), “What are they arguing about? I saw no interference.” O’Loughlin went out to check the call with Connolly but something in that discussion changed his mind and he ruled Davis out. Then all hell broke loose.
The normally reserved Mack leapt out of the dugout and went after O’Loughlin verbally. The Tiger and A’s bench had already been cleared and everyone was on the field when a fight erupted. Some recall that Cobb told his teammate Rossman that Monte Cross, an Athletics player, had used a slur against Rossman, who was Jewish. True of not, Rossman went after Cross and sucker punched him, which started a brawl between Rossman and Waddell. Police raced over to break up the fight and in doing so, left much of the crowd unattended. Some fans spilled out into the field, but the police and some players pushed the crowd back and stopped a riot from escalating.
Mack would return to the bench, still fuming, and everyone would return to their positions except Rossman, who was arrested. The next batter, Danny Murphy, hit a long single that would have easily scored Davis. But, the Athletics were retired without scoring a run and the game headed into the fifteenth. The game went until after the seventeenth inning, with the sun beginning to set, O’Loughlin called the game due to darkness. A doubleheader that was suppose to decide the pennant ended with one game, an 8-8 tie.
The pitching, which had gotten lit up early in the game, controlled the contest through extra innings. Plank relieved Waddell and pitched well, never seeming to get into any trouble. The real story was Donovan. After getting lit up early, ‘Wild Bill’ pitched all seventeen innings in his hometown and got better as the game progressed. After surrendering 14 hits in the first seven innings, he would only give up 6 more the rest of the way.
Mack was still raging. After the game, he sought out O’Loughlin in the umpires room. He would later say to reporters, “If ever there was such a thing as crooked baseball, today’s game would stand as a good example.” Recalling the game 40 years later, Mack still had a bad taste in his mouth, saying, “We could have won if Silk O’Loughlin hadn’t called that decision against us in that seventeen-inning game with Detroit.” The umpire and manager would never speak to each other again.
Detroit would leave town with a slim lead and would end up winning the pennant by 1.5 games over Philadelphia, despite almost collapsing in St. Louis, where their struggles continued. 1907 would be the first of three straight American League pennants for the Tigers, although they would never win a World Series.
