"World Championship Series / Washington vs. Pittsburgh". Scorecard from 1925 World Series between the Washington Nationals and the Pittsburgh Pirates. |
The Washington Nationals made it to the post season! Though eliminated in the Division Series,
Washington baseball fans can celebrate an excellent season. Since moving to Washington from Montreal in
2005, the team has not had a winning season until this year, when, led by
Manager Davey Johnson, they finished with 98 wins and 64 losses – the best
record in Major League Baseball. Throughout
most of its history, Washington’s baseball teams have only rarely enjoyed
winning seasons. The American League
Washington Nationals who played from 1900-1960, before relocating to the Twin
Cities, achieved the feat only 16 times, with their best years falling during
the 1910s and 1920s under Managers Clark Griffith and Bucky Harris. The
Washington Senators who played here from 1961-1971 before they were relocated
to Texas to become the Rangers, had only one winning season, in 1969, managed
by Ted Williams. Thirty three dark years
would pass following the 1971 season, before the Nation’s Capital saw diamond
action again with the Montreal Expos’ relocation to the District.
The year 1925 was one of only three times in which the city
of Washington saw its team go to the post season, when they posted a 96 win, 55
loss record. The program illustrated
here is from the World Series, in which the American League Nationals (sometimes
called the Senators) faced the National League Pittsburgh Pirates, who’d
finished with a 95-58 record. There were
no divisions within leagues in those days, so teams that won their league’s
pennant went straight to the World Series.
The previous year, Washington had won the only World Series they would ever win, beating John McGraw’s New York Giants in seven games, the win in the final game coming in sudden death on a hit in the bottom of the 12th inning by Earl McNeely, scoring catcher Muddy Ruel from 2nd base. Ruel had reached base on a double following a dropped foul by the Giants’ catcher Hank Gowdy, who’d failed to make the play when he’d tripped on his own mask.
Things looked promising for Washington’s team as 1925’s
World Series began in Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field. Game 1 featured future Hall of Fame pitcher
Walter Johnson dominating the Pirates, with Washington winning 4-1. The Pirates took game 2 with a score of
3-2. Washington took a lead of three
games to one as the Series came to Washington’s Griffith Stadium for the middle
games. They won 4-3 in game 3, and
Walter Johnson dazzled fans again in game 4, shutting the Pirates out 4-0 on
six hits, with Goose Goslin and Joe Harris each hitting a pair of solo
homers. Game 5, in Washington, and Game
6, in Pittsburgh, saw the Pirates come back to tie the Series, with scores of
6-3 and 3-2. In
the final game, Johnson hoped to win three games in one World Series. It
was not to be.
The final game, originally scheduled for October 14, was
cancelled due to rain, and rescheduled for the 15th, even though
conditions on the field were terrible.
Author Roger Treat, in Walter
Johnson: King of the Pitchers, described the pitching mound as “a quagmire”
and compared the playing field to “soft, brown ice cream”. Fog, smog and chilly temperatures further
complicated things. At first things
looked good for the Nationals and dismal for the Pirates as every man in the Washington
lineup batted in the top of the first inning and Washington took a 4-0 lead ,
knocking out Pittsburgh starter Vic Aldridge.
An on-and-off drizzle turned into a steady soak as the first inning
ended, and intensified as the game progressed.
Johnson found it almost impossible to grip the baseball or to throw
strikes. The Pirates scored three times
in the third inning and another in the fifth, but Washington had scored twice
in the fourth. Baseball Commissioner
Kenesaw Mountain Landis, seated next to team owner Clark Griffith, wanted to
stop play but was talked out of it by Griffith.
By the 7th inning, with rain falling harder, enough outs had
been recorded to make it a legal game, and again Landis made the decision to
call the game and let the score stand 6-4 in Washington’s favor. Again he was overruled by Griffith, who
feared that people would say that the Commissioner gave the series to
Washington.
The last of the seventh inning saw Washington lose the lead. It started with an error on a routine pop
fly, a disputed call on a line drive (apparently foul but called fair)
resulting in a run, and a triple hit by Pie Traynor that he attempted to
stretch to a home run. Though out at the
plate, he’d driven in the Pirates’ 6th run. Sheets of rain continued to fall. Shortstop Roger Peckinpaugh, who’d committed
the error, atoned with a home run in the top of the eighth, but the Nationals’ one
run lead was brief. The Pirates tied it
7-7 on a pair of doubles followed by another error by Peckinpaugh that should
have been the third out, but instead put a second man on base. A disputed call on the next batter, future
Hall of Famer Kiki Cuyler (a ball that appeared to be a third strike, but
called a ball) was followed by a double by Cuyler, which scored both runners,
giving the Pirates the lead, 9-7, a lead they would hold as three consecutive
future Hall of Famers, Sam Rice, Bucky Harris and Goose Goslin, were retired by
Pirate reliever John Oldham, with both Rice and Goslin striking out.
The city of Washington would see post season baseball just
once more before the 2012 season. In
1933, the World Series was a rematch with their 1924 opponents, the New York
Giants. The Senators lost the World
Series in five games. That Series also
featured several future Hall of Famers, including Carl Hubbell and Mel Ott for
the Giants, and for the Senators, Joe Cronin and Heinie Manush.
Opening day for Major League Baseball is April 1, 2013. As always, the first day of the season is a
day of limitless possibilities, with each team’s fans visualizing their heroes
taking it all in October. But all 30 teams
begin with a blank slate.
- Cathy Keen, NMAH Archives Center
- Cathy Keen, NMAH Archives Center
Thanks Cathy Keen for such a nice post about world championship , I have just read first paragraph, it was too interested and I have read it all.
ReplyDeleteLove the Image "word championship series"
Thanks for sharing it with us.
Well wisher
Rob Popkey