October 10, 1904 - Elberfeld's Comment on Chesbro WIld Pitch
NEW YORK'S NEW MANAGER
Created through a series of shady back-room deals to be the signature franchise of the newly established American League, the league's New York franchise (often referred to as the Highlanders because of the location of their home field at Hilltop Park in Washington Heights, but commonly known as the Yankees), in just its second year of existance, found itself a half game behind the defending World Champion Boston Pilgrims going into a season-ending five game series at Hilltop Park. With cross-town manager John McGraw having already stated his refusal to have his National League Champion Giants participate in what would have been the second ever World Series, those final five games between the AL's top two clubs proved to be the closest thing to a Championship series that baseball had in 1904.
The Yankees got themselves in this position to a large extent on the arm of their ace, "Happy" Jack Chesbro, a thirty-year-old spitballer (the spitball still being a legal pitch) from North Adams, Massachusetts who had jumped the NL's Pittsburgh Pirates to join the new New York team the previous year. Enjoying one of the greatest pitching seasons in baseball history, Chesbro started the opener on Friday, October 7, pitching the Yankees to a 3-2 victory. Chesbro went the distance and in the process recorded his record 41st win in front of 10,000 fans, who carried him off the field after the final out. With that victory, the Yankees moved into first place by a half game and were in position to take home the pennant with a split of the remaining games, a pair of doubleheaders to be played on Saturday and Monday (Sunday baseball still being considered blasphemy, at least on the east coast).
That the Yankees held first place at this late date was a surprise to everyone, including the team's owners. So much so that earlier in the season, when it appeared that Boston would win the pennant outright, Yankee owners Frank Farrell and former New York City Chief of Police Big Bill Devery (both shady Tammany Hall-types) had rented Hilltop Park to Columbia University for a football game on the day of the season's penultimate doubleheader in order to turn a better profit than would be possible from having their team play out the string. Thus Saturday's twin bill was relocated to the Huntington Avenue Grounds in Boston. With Chesbro having pitched his 47th complete game of the season the previous day, Yankee Manager Clark Griffith instructed his ace to stay behind in New York and prepare for the season finale on Monday. Chesbro insisted on taking the ball in Game One in Boston, but after having pitched 436 innings that year, the Yankee ace had finally run out of gas and his team fell 13-2. Cy Young then won Game Two almost by himself, driving in the only run while shutting out the Yankees for seven innings for a darkness-shortened 1-0 Boston victory to give the Pilgrim's a sweep in their own park. The Yankees now needed a sweep of their own back in New York to take the pennant.
Having had Sunday off, Chesbro again took the hill in the season's penultimate game, his 51st and final start of the year. The Yanks took an early 2-0 lead, but a pair of errors by second baseman Jimmy Williams tied the score in the fifth. In the ninth, another error, this by shortstop Kid Elberfeld, put Boston catcher Lou Criger on first where he was bunted to second and move to third on a groundout to Elberfeld. With two out and the go-ahead run on third, Chesbro got ahead of Boston shortstop Freddie Parent 1-2. As for what happened next, I give you Glenn Stout:
There is an old baseball adage that says a pitcher shall not get beat throwing anything but his best pitch. Even in 1904, that stratagem was standard fare. And the spitball, for most of the 454 innings that Jack Chesbro pitched in the season of 1904, had not only been his best pitch, but perhaps the best pitch any pitcher has ever had.
Throwing a spitball is best described as akin to squeezing a seed out from between one's fingers, made even more difficult by the fact that it must be done amidst the usual throwing motion. It is a difficult pitch to learn, and nearly impossible to control precisely. But no pitcher in baseball has ever been better at it than Jack Chesbro.
Yet even Chesbro, despite all evidence to the contrary, was not superhuman. He stood on the mound, wet his fingertips, gripped the ball, wound up and threw, pulling his right arm down violently, his wrist and forearm stiff, as the ball left his hand.
But this time, perhaps from fatigue, the seed squirted out wide and high. One newspaper described the pitch as "ten feet over Parent's head." Kleinow reached for the ball - too late, according to some - but he missed it. Elberfeld later said the catcher would have needed a "step ladder" to get it. The ball reportedly soared fully seventy-five feet in the air past him, all the way to the stands, where it was variously described as either striking the chicken wire backstop that protected the fans or thudding against the wooden fence that supported it.
Criger trotted home as Kleinow scrambled after the rebound. Chesbro looked shocked. He turned away and wiped his face as if to remove the saliva from his hand. Clark Griffith fell prostrate in front of the Yankee bench and buried his face in the dirt. Boston led, 3-2. The New York crowd sat in silence as Boston's Rooters sang and cheered and hooted for all they were worth.
A moment later, Parent singled, then was forced at second. The stunned Yankees were but three outs away from the end of the season.
Chesbro returned to bench and collapsed, alone and in tears. Over thirty years later long-time Yankee employee Mark Roth told a reporter, "Some day I'll tell you how Chesbro cried like a baby after that wild pitch. But that always makes me sad. I'll save it."
Griffith pinch-hit for Chesbro in the bottom of the ninth as the Yankees rallied to put runners on first and second with two outs only to have left fielder Patsy Dougherty, a star with Boston the previous two seasons who was acquired mid-year and had since excelled against his old team, strike out to end the game and the Yankees' pennant hopes. The Yankees then won the second game 1-0, plating the game's lone run in the bottom of the tenth. Too little, too late. They finished the season a game and a half behind the future Red Sox, who at that point in their existence had won two of the four AL pennants and the only modern World Series. The Yankees would have to wait seventeen years before they would finally be able to call themselves the American League Champions.
Source: http://bronxbanter.baseballtoaster.com/archives/266187.html
Created through a series of shady back-room deals to be the signature franchise of the newly established American League, the league's New York franchise (often referred to as the Highlanders because of the location of their home field at Hilltop Park in Washington Heights, but commonly known as the Yankees), in just its second year of existance, found itself a half game behind the defending World Champion Boston Pilgrims going into a season-ending five game series at Hilltop Park. With cross-town manager John McGraw having already stated his refusal to have his National League Champion Giants participate in what would have been the second ever World Series, those final five games between the AL's top two clubs proved to be the closest thing to a Championship series that baseball had in 1904.
The Yankees got themselves in this position to a large extent on the arm of their ace, "Happy" Jack Chesbro, a thirty-year-old spitballer (the spitball still being a legal pitch) from North Adams, Massachusetts who had jumped the NL's Pittsburgh Pirates to join the new New York team the previous year. Enjoying one of the greatest pitching seasons in baseball history, Chesbro started the opener on Friday, October 7, pitching the Yankees to a 3-2 victory. Chesbro went the distance and in the process recorded his record 41st win in front of 10,000 fans, who carried him off the field after the final out. With that victory, the Yankees moved into first place by a half game and were in position to take home the pennant with a split of the remaining games, a pair of doubleheaders to be played on Saturday and Monday (Sunday baseball still being considered blasphemy, at least on the east coast).
That the Yankees held first place at this late date was a surprise to everyone, including the team's owners. So much so that earlier in the season, when it appeared that Boston would win the pennant outright, Yankee owners Frank Farrell and former New York City Chief of Police Big Bill Devery (both shady Tammany Hall-types) had rented Hilltop Park to Columbia University for a football game on the day of the season's penultimate doubleheader in order to turn a better profit than would be possible from having their team play out the string. Thus Saturday's twin bill was relocated to the Huntington Avenue Grounds in Boston. With Chesbro having pitched his 47th complete game of the season the previous day, Yankee Manager Clark Griffith instructed his ace to stay behind in New York and prepare for the season finale on Monday. Chesbro insisted on taking the ball in Game One in Boston, but after having pitched 436 innings that year, the Yankee ace had finally run out of gas and his team fell 13-2. Cy Young then won Game Two almost by himself, driving in the only run while shutting out the Yankees for seven innings for a darkness-shortened 1-0 Boston victory to give the Pilgrim's a sweep in their own park. The Yankees now needed a sweep of their own back in New York to take the pennant.
Having had Sunday off, Chesbro again took the hill in the season's penultimate game, his 51st and final start of the year. The Yanks took an early 2-0 lead, but a pair of errors by second baseman Jimmy Williams tied the score in the fifth. In the ninth, another error, this by shortstop Kid Elberfeld, put Boston catcher Lou Criger on first where he was bunted to second and move to third on a groundout to Elberfeld. With two out and the go-ahead run on third, Chesbro got ahead of Boston shortstop Freddie Parent 1-2. As for what happened next, I give you Glenn Stout:
There is an old baseball adage that says a pitcher shall not get beat throwing anything but his best pitch. Even in 1904, that stratagem was standard fare. And the spitball, for most of the 454 innings that Jack Chesbro pitched in the season of 1904, had not only been his best pitch, but perhaps the best pitch any pitcher has ever had.
Throwing a spitball is best described as akin to squeezing a seed out from between one's fingers, made even more difficult by the fact that it must be done amidst the usual throwing motion. It is a difficult pitch to learn, and nearly impossible to control precisely. But no pitcher in baseball has ever been better at it than Jack Chesbro.
Yet even Chesbro, despite all evidence to the contrary, was not superhuman. He stood on the mound, wet his fingertips, gripped the ball, wound up and threw, pulling his right arm down violently, his wrist and forearm stiff, as the ball left his hand.
But this time, perhaps from fatigue, the seed squirted out wide and high. One newspaper described the pitch as "ten feet over Parent's head." Kleinow reached for the ball - too late, according to some - but he missed it. Elberfeld later said the catcher would have needed a "step ladder" to get it. The ball reportedly soared fully seventy-five feet in the air past him, all the way to the stands, where it was variously described as either striking the chicken wire backstop that protected the fans or thudding against the wooden fence that supported it.
Criger trotted home as Kleinow scrambled after the rebound. Chesbro looked shocked. He turned away and wiped his face as if to remove the saliva from his hand. Clark Griffith fell prostrate in front of the Yankee bench and buried his face in the dirt. Boston led, 3-2. The New York crowd sat in silence as Boston's Rooters sang and cheered and hooted for all they were worth.
A moment later, Parent singled, then was forced at second. The stunned Yankees were but three outs away from the end of the season.
Chesbro returned to bench and collapsed, alone and in tears. Over thirty years later long-time Yankee employee Mark Roth told a reporter, "Some day I'll tell you how Chesbro cried like a baby after that wild pitch. But that always makes me sad. I'll save it."
Griffith pinch-hit for Chesbro in the bottom of the ninth as the Yankees rallied to put runners on first and second with two outs only to have left fielder Patsy Dougherty, a star with Boston the previous two seasons who was acquired mid-year and had since excelled against his old team, strike out to end the game and the Yankees' pennant hopes. The Yankees then won the second game 1-0, plating the game's lone run in the bottom of the tenth. Too little, too late. They finished the season a game and a half behind the future Red Sox, who at that point in their existence had won two of the four AL pennants and the only modern World Series. The Yankees would have to wait seventeen years before they would finally be able to call themselves the American League Champions.
Source: http://bronxbanter.baseballtoaster.com/archives/266187.html