A Record-Setting Game in Baseball’s Last “Pure” World Series

With baseball's post-season starting today, it's interesting to re-visit what some call the last “pure” World Series, a time before the American and National Leagues had divisions within them. It was simple: the two teams with the league's best records went straight to the World Series. There were no wild cards, no division or league series. The division system was introduced in 1969, and since then the layers of post season elimination rounds have continued to expand. Now, World Series games are still being played late into October.

October 2nd marks the 50th anniversary of the setting of a World Series record which still stands: Bob Gibson’s 17 strikeouts in Game 1 of the 1968 Series, in which the defending world champion St. Louis Cardinals faced the Detroit Tigers. The record had been held by Dodger Sandy Koufax, with his previous mark of 15, set just five years earlier. Gibson struck out at least one batter in each inning of the game, the first to do so in a World Series since Ed Walsh did it in 1906.

The number of strikeouts was not the only remarkable thing about Gibson’s pitching performance during this series. Gibson, for the second consecutive World Series, pitched three complete games, the first one a shutout, allowing just one run in the second game and three in the finale, in which he faced the Tigers’ lefty Mickey Lolich. Lolich too, pitched three complete games in the series, getting the win in each, as the Tigers took the series 4 games to 3. Gibson’s World Series performance capped off an amazing season, as he had finished with 22 wins (a stunning 13 of which were shutouts) and an Earned Run Average of 1.12, another record which still stands after 50 years. He pitched 28 complete games of 34 starts. In today’s baseball, complete games by pitchers are rare.

Gibson and the Tigers’ Mickey Lolich both had three complete games in the 1968 World Series. Lolich was the winning pitcher in the 7th game. Image no.: AC0545-0000034-1, Archives Center, National Museum of American History.

Gibson’s path to baseball greatness seems an unlikely one, considering his impoverished upbringing in Omaha, Nebraska, raised by a mother widowed before he was born and who suffered from rickets and respiratory problems as a child. He details his early life in his autobiography, From Ghetto to Glory. In it, Gibson allows that the word “glory” might be an exaggeration, but that he could “write volumes” on the ghetto experience. A basketball and baseball standout in high school, he received a full scholarship to Creighton University, which led to being offered a chance to sign with the Harlem Globetrotters. He played with the Globetrotters for a year before signing with the Cardinals. Maybe his background of hardship toughened him up. He had a reputation as a hard-nosed player, an intimidating pitcher who didn’t mind giving opposing batters a close shave with his fastball. He was also proud of his ability to tune out all the noise and distraction around him.

Gibson’s Topps Card for 1969, the season following his record-breaking performance in the World Series. Image no.: AC0545-0000033-1 and AC0545-0000033-2, Archives Center, National Museum of American History. 

Gibson was not the only pitcher doing amazing things that season. The 1968 season was nicknamed “The Year of the Pitcher”. Some reasons why:

• There were 339 shutouts, that's more than 20% of all games played;

• it was the last year baseball had a 30 game winning pitcher, Denny McLain of the Tigers, with 31;

• Dodger Don Drysdale set a consecutive scoreless innings record of 58.2, a record not bettered until 1988;

• only one hitter, Carl Yastrzemski of the Red Sox, ended the season with a batting average over .300, his was .301;

• the average season batting average for all hitters in the majors was a pitiful .231.

Gibson had the most strikeouts in the National League in 1968 with 268. Fergie Jenkins of the Cubs was second with 260. Bill Singer of the Dodgers was a distant third with 227. Image no.: AC0545-0000036-1, Archives Center, National Museum of American History.

These numbers didn’t arise in a vacuum. 1968 was the culmination of a decade in which pitching was emphasized and changes were made after the home run heavy seasons of the early 1960s. The biggest change was that the height of the strike zone was expanded making strikeouts easier to get. By the end of the decade, new Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, fearing that too many slow-paced, tense pitching duels would make fans stay away, instituted some changes that were intended to increase the number of runs scored and reduce the dominance of pitchers. The mound height was lowered, from fifteen inches to ten. The strike zone was also reduced in size to what it had been before 1962. It is not surprising that these rule changes were informally called “The Gibson Rules.”

In 2015, Bob Gibson wrote a book about his record setting game, called Pitch by Pitch, wherein he takes the reader through the game inning by inning, batter by batter, pitch by pitch. The most dramatic inning was the bottom of the ninth. After a leadoff single to Tiger shortstop Mickey Stanley, Gibson faced the Tigers’ most feared hitter, future Hall of Famer Al Kaline. Gibson struck Kaline out swinging, with a slider. This strikeout tied Koufax’ 1963 record, but Gibson admitted not realizing it at the time. Next up was Norm Cash, who also struck out swinging. That left power hitting outfielder Willie Horton. On a 2-2 count, Horton was called out looking on a breaking ball, setting a new World Series record that has yet to be matched.

The Sporting News covered Gibson’s record-setting game, reproduced on a Topps card. Image no.: AC0545-0000035-1, Archives Center, National Museum of American History.

To learn more about the sports and trading cards in this post, please check out the Guide to the Ronald S. Korda Collection of Sports and Trading Cards on the Smithsonian Online Virtual Archives.

Cathy Keen, Archivist, Archives Center, National Museum of American History

LAX in the Stacks

Creek lacrosse players in Oklahoma fight for the ball by Eugene Heflin, 1938.
(NAA INV 01783800) SPC Se Creek BAE 3302 (V 2) 01783800,
National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution.

Spring is here again and in most parts of the country attention is focused on ballparks where the national pastime begins a new season. However, in other parts of the U.S., other  athletes are   pursuing their preferred sport – lacrosse. A couple years ago, we presented one of the earliest ethnographic descriptions of this  game as published by James Mooney in an 1890 issue of The American Anthropologist. In his article, Mooney described the game as it was played by the Cherokee Indians.

Two years after Mooney’s publication, John Napoleon Brinton (J.N.B.) Hewitt, a linguist and ethnologist who worked for the Bureau of American Ethnology (the records of which are the foundation for the NAA’s collection), published his description of the Iroquois version of lacrosse also in The American Anthropologist (vol. 5, 1892, p. 189-191).  Born on the Tuscarora Indian Reservation in New York State, Hewitt offered some insight into how the Iroquois played the game and the significance they placed on the contests.   The National Anthropological Archives (NAA) holds a letter from Hewitt that appears to be a draft of the article as well as an extract from a book by Hewitt that adds more information on lacrosse as it was played in Iroquois communities.

Seneca men playing lacrosse on the Allegheny Reservation in New York State. 
(NAA INV 00750301)SPC Ne Iroquois Gen/Unid BAE 4413 00750301,
NationalAnthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution. Original photo
(graphics: 2291) is copyrighted by the American Philosophical Society. 
Permission to publish is required.

In his study, Mooney highlighted the taboos and rites the Cherokee observed when preparing for their games in order to increase their chances for success. Hewitt also found strict pre-game preparations among the Iroquois who played lacrosse. Prior to the games, “players would go through a course of stringent fasting, bathing, and emetics, which [the]latter were infusions of the bark of the spotted alder and red willow” and also noted the Iroquois players would invariably carry “some charm or talisman to insure their victory. ” In a more recent publication, Thomas Vennum (1994: 36) indicates that Iroquois lacrosse players, in recognition of the greater powers held by medicine men, would seek out the support of the best among them. Predictably, however, a show of favoritism toward ones’ opponents by a medicine man with a reputation for greater powers almost always had a disheartening impact on players.

Passamaquoddy lacrosse stick
collected by Edward Palmer in
Pleasant Point, Maine and donated
in 1873.  (E11425-0) Department
of Anthropology, National
Museum of Natural History,
Smithsonian Institution.

Photograph of the Wolftown lacrosse team of the Qualla Reservation in North
Carolina by James Mooney. (NAA INV 06217800) BAE GN 01041 06217800,
National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution.

Such ritual preparations and ferocity with which the Iroquois played the game suggest the importance that the participants and the community placed on lacrosse. Hewitt documented the abandon with which these contests were waged, noting that players were “permitted to trip, throw, push, hold, and run at full speed against any antagonist.” This resulted in “many hands and fingers crushed; arms, legs, bones, and noses broken; brows beaten down; joints dislocated, heads split; sometimes even a player is killed.” 
While players risked life and limb during a lacrosse game, they also could also win high praise for their performance. Hewitt explained that “it was a feat of great honor for a player to take the ball on his bat [stick], elude his pursuers and opponents, outplay the doorguard [goalie] and then carry the ball into the goal, and especially if he was able to walk into the goal.”

Those familiar with the modern game of lacrosse may be surprised to learn that Iroquois players could score by walking through the goal with the ball. The crease – a circle drawn around the goal which only the goalie may enter – prevents such play in the modern game. Other differences between the Iroquois game Hewitt described and the modern one include the size of the teams and timekeeping. The Iroquois did not the limit the size of the lacrosse teams so long as there were equal numbers on each team. There was also no time limit to the games. The first team to score an agreed upon number of points was deemed the winner.

Lacrosse stick probably used in woodlands surrounding the
western Great Lakes and added to Department of Anthropology’s
collection in 1867. (E2670-0) Department of Anthropology,
National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution.

The photos on this page are a sample of the many in the NAA’s collection that depict lacrosse games and players. There are also images of several types of lacrosse sticks that are part of the collections at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. They reflect the different versions of the game that various communities of Native Americans across the eastern half of the U.S. and Canada played as well as the evolution of the game over time (e.g. the use of protective equipment in later years). Check them out and enjoy the rich and proud tradition of a sport inherited from American Indian communities. To learn more about the various forms of lacrosse played by these communities, we recommend American Indian Lacrosse:  Little Brother of War by Senior Ethnomusicologist Emeritus at the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage Thomas Vennum, Jr.  (Washington, D.C. : Smithsonian Institution Press, 1994).

Adam Minakowski, Reference Archivist 
National Anthropological Archives

Laplako men taking medicine in preparation for a lacrosse game by John Reed Swanton, 1913.  Photo 165h, Photo Lot 76, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution.

WASHINGTON, D.C.: BASEBALL TOWN. HIDDEN TREASURE FROM A WASHINGTON WORLD SERIES

"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 12^th inning by Earl McNeely, scoring catcher Muddy Ruel from 2^nd 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 15^th, 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 7^th 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’ 6^th 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

Game Night at the Museum

Blogs across the Smithsonian will give an inside look at the Institution’s archival collections and practices during a month long blogathon in celebration of October’s American Archives Month. See additional posts from our other participating blogs, as well as related events and resources, on the Smithsonian’s Archives Month website.

Every so often the archivist runs across a lone box sitting forgotten in the stacks unfortunately labeled, “Miscellaneous Oversize”.  For this archivist it was a particularly painful sight since the box belonged to the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation (MAI) records, which had been processed and described in full. [See previous blog post here] Luckily, after examining the contents, my dismay turned to interest when the items were revealed to include: copper printing plates, a museum seal, United States Postal Service  stamps featuring Navajo blankets from MAI’s collection, a matchbox in a plastic bag, shopping bags with the MAI logo, and (drum roll please) “DIRECTOR a game for two, three or four players”.

Photo by Rachel Menyuk

The object of “Director” the board game, as the instructions describe, is to be the first of the directors to reach a $1,000,000.00 unrestricted grant.  Each player selects one of the four kinds of institutions (science, natural history, art, or zoo) and rolls a die to determine which square he or she lands on.   When players land on a question mark they pick a “decision card” from the deck, which can be positive or negative depending on the roll. Some example cards read: 

A school class comes for a visit; they:
+3 Have a worthwhile experience
-3 Cannot find the bathrooms and riot in the cafeteria

Your books are audited by the IRS:
+3 Your retain your tax-exempt status.
-3 Your treasurer is indicted for embezzling

If you don’t land on a question mark, your square may have particular instructions depending on which museum you represent. Here are a few of my favorites:

Art: All abstract paintings are hanging upside-down. BACK 1.
Science: New theory of physics renders museum obsolete. BACK 3.
Natural History: Dinosaur egg hatches. Pelican emerges. BACK 3.
Zoo: Hyena escapes and impregnates trustee’s poodle. BACK 5.

Lastly, when a player lands on the squares marked “STAFF MEETING”, “ANOTHER STAFF MEETING”, or “MY GOD ANOTHER STAFF MEETING” he has to go back to the center and start all over again.

After discovering this gem, showing the rest of the archive staff, and deciding we would have to have a game night at our holiday party, I got to thinking about how this game came into the collection.  The copyright states “1970 Museum Planning, Inc.,” and the game appears to be a promotional tool for this company.  A couple of the cards in the decision deck just say “Museum Planning, Inc” and can be used to nullify a “move back” instruction since, according to the directions, “MPI solves problems.” Although I’m not sure if the MAI decided to employ Museum Planning, Inc., MAI was indeed in financial straits in the 1970s.  The director at the time, Frederick Dockstader, came into what Roland Force, his successor and author of Politics and the Museum of the American Indian: The Heye and the Mighty, called a Catch-22 situation. According to Force, the Museum needed grants to secure staff and staff to secure grants. For the staff employed by the Museum in 1970 perhaps a riveting game of “Directors” was enough to ease their troubles for an hour or two. After all, they could always be thankful that their trustees’ poodles were safe and the museum bathrooms well marked. 

MAI Director Frederick Dockstader autographing a shirt after a lecture in Tucson, Arizona. [P20929]

~Rachel Menyuk, Archives Technician, NMAI Archive Center