1903-1910

[Baseball Guru]

1903

After going at each other viciously for two years, the established National League and fledgling American League buried the hatchet, at least temporarily, in 1903 -- thanks in large part to the owners of the NL's Pittsburgh club and the AL's Boston team.

With their clubs apparently headed toward pennants, Pittsburgh's Barney Dreyfuss and Boston's Henry Killilea agreed during the 1903 season to stage a best-of-nine postseason playoff for the "world championship." The accommodation came in the wake of open hostilities -- punctuated player raids -- that had existed between the National League and American League since the junior's entry on the major-league scene in 1901.

Dreyfuss' Pirates appeared to be stellar representatives for the league, whose history dated to 1876. Pittsburgh had third consecutive pennant in '03. Boston also seemed a worthy competitor in this first modern World Series, having won the AL flag by 14 1/2 games.

In Game 1, Pirates workhorse Deacon Phillippe pitched a six-hitter and right fielder Jimmy Sebring hit the first home run in Series history and drove in four runs as Pittsburgh scored a 7-3 victory. Third baseman Tommy Leach rapped two singles and two triples for the Pirates. Boston evened the Series, though, when Bill Dinneen threw a three-hitter and Patsy Dougherty walloped two homers in a 3-0 triumph.

Phillippe, pressed into heavy duty because of illness and injury to the Pittsburgh pitching staff, came back on just one day of rest to start Game 3. A 25-game winner during the season, Phillippe continued to excel. He allowed only four hits, won 4-2 and, as it turned out, was just getting warmed up. When a travel day and rainout ensued, the Pirates turned to the good Deacon for Game 4 as well. Phillippe met the challenge with a complete-game 54 triumph -- Leach knocked in three of the Pirates' runs, while Honus Wagner and Ginger Beaumont each collected three hits -- and Pittsburgh led Boston, three games to one.

Cy Young, 36 years old but a 28-game winner for the 1903 Red Sox (also known as the Pilgrims, Puritans and Americans), was called upon to cool off the Pirates in Game 5 -- and did just that. Young yielded only six hits and drove in three runs in an 11-2 runaway. The next day, Dinneen was a 6-3 victor in a game that featured four hits, two RBIs and two stolen bases by the losers' Beaumont. After six games, it was the Red Sox 3, Phillippe 3.

Having won each time Phillippe had trudged to the mound, Pittsburgh sent the strong-armed righthander against Boston in Game 7. But this wasn't to be Phillippe's day. Jimmy Collins, the Red Sox's playing manager, and Chick Stahl touched him for first-inning triples and Boston bolted to a 2-0 lead en route to a 7-3 triumph. For the first time, the Red Sox had seized the Series lead. Ahead four games to three, Boston would attempt to nail down the championship on its Huntington Avenue Grounds.

The pitching matchup for Game 8 was a beauty -- Dinneen against, yes, Deacon Phillippe. Working on two days of rest this time, Phillippe battled Dinneen to a scoreless tie through three innings. After Dinneen blanked Pittsburgh again in the fourth, the Red Sox broke through against the Deacon in their half of the inning. Buck Freeman led off with a triple and Freddy Parent reached base on an error (with Freeman holding third). Candy LaChance then sacrificed Parent to second. Hobe Ferris followed with a single, putting Phillippe and the Pirates in a 2-0 hole.

The hole grew deeper two innings later when LaChance stroked a two-out triple and scored on Ferris' single.

Phillippe battled on and would up pitching his fifth complete in the Series, which lasted 13 days. But Dinneen bested him in the climactic Game 8, tossing his second shutout of the Series and notching his third victory. The 3-0 decision was the Red Sox's fourth straight triumph and made the upstart Boston team champion of the First American league-vs. National League World Series.

Dinneen and Young were bellwethers for Boston. Together, they pitched 69 of the 71 innings that Red Sox hurlers totaled in the fall classic. (Tom Hughes lasted two-plus innings as Boston's third-game starter.) Young, appearing in what would prove his only Series, won two of three decisions for Boston and recorded a 1.59 earned-run average.

With Phillippe, Dinneen and Young dominating play, hitters obviously had a tough time. The Red Sox batted .252 while Pittsburgh, despite the presence of NL batting champion Wagner, hit .237. Wagner hit .222 in the Series, managing only one hit in the final four games. And the rival playing managers, third baseman Collins of Boston and left fielder Fred Clarke of Pittsburgh, drove in one run in a combined 70 at-bats.

Pittsburgh's Sebring, besides accounting for the first homer in Series history, also led all regulars with a .367 average.

Perhaps the main thing about the 1903 Series, though, was that it at least cooled tempers between baseball's warring factions. That the upstart American League buried the hatchet squarely in the back of the haughty National League -- and did so with fiendish delight -- was merely a sidelight.

[Baseball Guru]

1904

There was no World Series in 1904 because John T. Brush, president of the National League champion New York Giants, refused to allow his team to compete against Boston, the representative of the "inferior" American League.

At least, that's the official reason.

However, the fact that the teams did not meet probably had to do more with Giants manager John McGraw's personal hatred for American League president Ban Johnson than any National League sense of superiority. In the winter, however, Brush proposed the idea for an annual matchup between the league champions.

His about-face spawned the "Brush Rules," a set of guidelines relating to the on-field play and off-field finances of the World Series which exists to this day.

[Baseball Guru]

1905
The New York Giants, having scuttled the 1904 World Series with an unmistakable air of disdain, were willing participants in the 1905 fall classic. And with righthanded sensation Christy Mathewson in tow, why not? The 25-year-old Mathewson had just reached the 30-victory plateau for the third consecutive season.

It's not that the 1904 Giants, National League champions by 13 games, had quaked in their cleats over thoughts of a Series date with the Boston Red Sox, repeat titleists 'in the American League. Instead, Giants owner John T. Brush and Manager John McGraw had pent-up feelings against the American League -- Brush being irate over the entry of an AL team (the Highlanders) in New York and McGraw still fuming over what he perceived as injustices meted out by AL President Ban Johnson when McGraw was plying his trade for the AL's Baltimore Orioles.

"Why should we play this upstart club (Boston), or any other American League team, for any postseason championship?" McCraw had asked during the 1904 season. "When we clinch the National League pennant, we'll be champions of the only real major league."

So the Giants turned down Boston's challenge for a World Series meeting in 1904, forcing the lone interruption in the history of the fall classic.

But 1905 was a different story. With the public expressing its indignation over the Giants' "thanks, but no thanks" Series attitude of the previous season, Brush, McGraw and company were ready to take on the American League champion Philadelphia Athletics after an NL race in which the Giants won 105 games. The Series would be contested under guidelines drawn up by the Giants' owner, seeking to stabilize an event he earlier had torpedoed. Besides outlining a revenue formula, the John T. Brush Rules called for -- among other things -- a best-of-seven format.

The Athletics, reeling from the late-season loss of standout lefthander Rube Waddell, sidelined because of an injury, were faced with the prospect of going up against a Giants pitching rotation that featured Mathewson (31 victories), Joe McGinnity (21) and Red Ames (22) and also included Dummy Taylor (15) and Hooks Wiltse (14). New York wound up using only two of its "big five" as starters in the Series, but that twosome proved more than enough.

Lefthander Eddie Plank, a 25-game winner for the Athletics, was matched against Mathewson in the opening game. The contest was scoreless until the fifth inning when the Giants broke through for two runs -- an outburst ignited by a Mathewson single. And with Mathewson contributing a key sacrifice in the ninth, New York added another run. Mathewson pitched masterfully throughout, finishing with a four-hit, 3-0 triumph. He did not walk a batter.

Athletics Manager Connie Mack called on Chief Bender in Game 2 and the righthander responded beautifully. Bender, supported by Bris Lord's run-scoring singles in the third and eighth innings, outdueled McGinnity, 3-0. Not only was the Series tied, but a trend had developed. Two games, two shutouts.

Working with two days of rest, Mathewson trudged back to the mound for Game 3 and again befuddled Philadelphia on four hits. This time, he issued only one walks. First baseman Dan McGann was the Giants' big gun in a 9-0 romp, collecting two singles and a double and driving in four runs.

As good as the pitching had been through the first three games of the 1905 Series, it reached an even higher level in Game 4 when McGinnity and Plank hooked up in a contest that produced only one run and nine hits. The Giants notched the run, thanks to fourth-inning errors by Monte and Lave Cross, who manned the left side of the Athletics' infield. The 1-0 triumph increased New York's Series lead to three games to one.

Bender, only 21 but a three-season veteran of the major leagues, was Mack's choice to halt the Giants in Game 5. McGraw countered with the redoubtable Mathewson, who would be pitching with just one day of rest. Mathewson again was up to the challenge, allowing only six hits and walking no one. Bender was nearly as good, yielding just five hits, but he went down to a 2-0 defeat that made McGraw and company World Series champions.

Mathewson, the fabled Big Six, was merely phenomenal in his three outings against the Athletics. In the space of six days, he pitched three shutouts and permitted only 14 hits. The Giants' wheelhorse struck out 18 and walked one in 27 innings. Besides Matty and McGinnity, the only other Giants pitcher to see action was Ames, who worked all of one inning (as a reliever in Game 2).

The 1905 fall classic proved memorable not just because of Mathewson's heroics or the five shutouts in five games. The Series also was noteworthy because the Giants concentrated on scuttling the opposition instead of the event itself.

[Baseball Guru]

1906

The 1906 fall classic appeared to be a classic mismatch. The intracity battle paired the Cubs, winners of a big-league-record 116 games, against a White Sox team that won the American League pennant despite its .228 batting average.

The Cubs, who finished 20 games ahead of the runner-up New York Giants in the National League race, boasted a crack pitching staff headed by Mordecai (Three Finger) Brown, Jack Pfiester, Ed Reulbach and Orval Overall and a standout infield featuring the Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance double-play combination. The White Sox relied on pitchers Nick Altrock, Frank Owen, Big Ed Walsh and Doc White, parlaying their skills into a 19-game winning streak in August en route to a three-game edge over the runner-up New York Highlanders in the AL standings. No White Sox regular batted higher than .279.

Unquestionably, all of Chicago was abuzz over the World Series pairing. The South Side Sox against the West Side Cubs. (The National Leaguers' move to the North Side was another decade away.)

Manager Fielder Jones' White Sox played true to form in the first four games of the Series (Games 1 and 2, incidentally, were played amid periodic snow flurries), collecting only six runs and 11 hits in those games. But the Hitless Wonders also showed their opportunistic nature, managing a 2-2 tie in games despite the meager offense.

After the White Sox won the Series opener, 2-1, behind Altrock, the Cubs rebounded for a 7-1 victory that featured the one-hit pitching of Reulbach and the timely hitting of Harry Steinfeldt and Joe Tinker. A wild pitch and an error led to the White Sox's run in the fifth inning, but the AL titleists didn't collect their lone hit of the day until Jiggs Donahue singled in the seventh. Third baseman Steinfeldt, the "other" member of the Cubs' infield and a .327 hitter for the NL kingpins in 1906 after his off-season acquisition from Cincinnati, went 3-for-3 and Tinker had two hits and scored three runs.

In Game 3, Walsh allowed a single to Solly Hofman and a double to Frank Schulte in the first inning, then held the Cubs hitless the rest of the way. The White Sox emerged as 3-0 winners, with Walsh striking out 12 batters and George Rohe tagging Pfiester for a bases-loaded triple in the sixth inning. Brown drew the Cubs even the next day, denying the White Sox a hit for the first 5 2/3 innings on the way to a two-hit, 1-0 triumph.

Wonder of wonders, White Sox bats came alive in Games 5 and 6. In the fifth game, the Hitless Wonders drove Reulbach from the mound in the third inning, broke loose for four runs in the fourth and held on for an 8-6 victory. Frank Isbell paced the Sox's 12-hit attack with a Series-record four doubles, while George Davis knocked in three runs. In the sixth game, the American Leaguers chased Brown in the second inning and, led by another three RBIs from Davis and three RBIs by Donahue, cruised to a stunning and Series-deciding 8-3 victory that was spiced by 14 White Sox hits.

The Sox had pulled off an upset of gigantic proportions despite only .198 in the Series. Three regulars -- Patsy Dougherty, Billy Sullivan and Jones, the team's playing manager -- combined for only four hits in 62 at-bats. Nevertheless the Sox outhit the Cubs, who batted only .196. Frank Chance epitomized the National Leaguers' futility at the plate. The cleanup hitters for the Cubs, first baseman Chance, failed to drive in a run in the six games.

Little-known players had impact I this Series. Rohe, thrust into the White Sox's starting lineup because of an injury to shortstop Davis (regular third baseman Lee Tannehill took over at shortstop at the outset of the classic and Rohe manned third), was instrumental in his team's triumph. Besides delivering the decisive hit in Game 3, Rohe tripled and scored the first run in the opening-game pitchers' duel, went 3-for-4 in the fifth game and tacked on two more hits in Game 6. The 31-year-old utilityman and first baseman Donahue led the White Sox with .333 batting averages.

The Cubs' top hitter was center fielder Hofman, who had appeared in only 64 games during the regular season. He played every inning of the Series and batted .304.

[Baseball Guru]

1907


With the Detroit Tigers ahead, 3-2, in the ninth inning of Game 1 of the 1907 World Series, Del Howard was called upon to bat for Cubs shortstop Joe Tinker in a two-on, two-out situation. Harry Steinfeldt was on third base for Chicago and Johnny Evers was perched on second.

Bill Donovan was pitching for the Tigers, and the advantage clearly was with the American League champions. Donovan, after all, had fashioned a 25-4 record. Howard, a June acquisition from the Boston Braves, had batted only .230 for the Cubs.

Sure enough, Donovan struck out Howard. Tiger fans couldn't have asked for more.


Except, maybe, for catcher Charlie Schmidt to hang on to the ball. Schmidt didn't. And as the ball got away from the second-year major leaguer, Steinfeldt raced home with the game-tying run.

Donovan retired the side, but the real damage had been done. The teams remained in a deadlock through three more innings, then the game was called because of darkness. Tigers 3, Cubs 3, 12 innings. Detroit had let certain victory -- and momentum -- slip out of its grasp. And Manager Hugh Jennings' Tigers would pay dearly.

Given a reprieve, the Cubs proceeded to make short shrift of the Tigers. Detroit, which had edged the Philadelphia Athletics in a fiercely contested American League pennant race, failed to score more than one run in any of the remaining Series games. Chicago's Jack Pfiester handcuffed Detroit, 3-1, in Game 2 and Ed Reulbach stymied the AL champs, 5-1, the next day.

The Tigers seized a 1-0 lead in the fourth inning of Game 4 as 20-year-old Ty Cobb, having just won his first batting championship, slammed a triple and scored on Claude Rossman's single. But Detroit did nothing else of note against Orval Overall and went down to a 6-1 defeat. Overall himself put the Cubs ahead with a two-run single in the fifth inning. In Game 5, Mordecai Brown spun a seven-hitter and the Cubs swept to a Series-clinching 2-0 triumph.

That the Cubs were primed to atone for their 1906 embarrassment at the hands of the Chicago White Sox was a given. That Frank Chance's team would make amends in such a dominant manner was not wholly anticipated. But dominate the Cubs did.

They ran wild against the Tigers, stealing seven bases in Game 1 and finishing the Series with 18. They got outstanding offensive production from Steinfeldt and Evers, who batted .471 and .350, respectively (with Steinfeldt getting seven hits in the last three games of the Series and Evers getting seven in the first three games). And, most of all, the Cubs exhibited exquisite pitching. Pfiester, Reulbach, Overall and Brown threw 43 scoreless innings out of 48 and shut down the American League's top hitters of 1907, Cobb and Sam Crawford. Cobb managed only a .200 average in the Series after batting .350 in the regular season; Crawford hit .238 after a .323 season.

The Cubs, of course, had the potential to crush any opponent, as evidenced by their second consecutive runaway in the National League. In 1907, the Cubs won 107 games and finished 17 games ahead of the Pittsburgh Pirates. And, given a second chance in two years to demonstrate their apparent supremacy over the rest of major-league baseball, the Cubs made the most of the opportunity this time.

[Baseball Guru]

1908


After winning 223 games over the previous two National League seasons and building huge pennant-winning margins, the Chicago Cubs went about the business of winning a league championship in a vastly different manner in 1908.

Oh, the Cubs had another outstanding season, all right, winning 99 games. But had it not been for a baserunning blunder by the New York Giants' Fred Merkle, Chicago would have finished with 98 victories -- and been on the outside looking in.

In a September 23 Cubs-Giants game, Merkle failed to touch second base when Al Bridwell delivered an apparent game-winning hit in the bottom of the ninth inning. By the time the Cubs retrieved the ball and eventually forced Merkle at second, fans had swarmed the field. With order impossible to restore, the game was declared a 1-1 tie. As things turned out, Chicago and New York wound up with 98-55 records, meaning the "Merkle game" would have to be made up.


In an October 8 replay, the Cubs scored a 4-2 victory and left the Giants agonizing over what might have been. Or even what should have been. The Chicagoans, on the other hand, were reveling in what was.

Having repeated as NL titleists by the barest of margins (the Pirates, like the Giants, finished one game behind Chicago), the Cubs prepared for a second consecutive World Series against the Detroit Tigers, who had won the American League championship on the final day of the regular season.

As was the case the previous year, the Tigers held the lead entering the ninth inning of the Series opener. And, as in 1907, Detroit frittered away the advantage. This time, the Tigers suffered a worse fate than being tied.

With his club ahead 6-5 in the ninth, Detroit pitcher Ed Summers retired Johnny Evers to start the inning. Summers, a 24-game winner in 1908, then yielded six consecutive hits and five runs, the go-ahead runs scoring on a bases-loaded single by Solly Hofman. The Cubs pulled out all the stops en route to a 10-6 triumph, using Orval Overall and Mordecai Brown in relief roles behind Ed Reulbach.

The Tigers' Bill Donovan was paired against Overall in Game 2, and the righthanders put on quite a show. Through four innings, neither pitcher had allowed a hit in a 0-0 standoff. After seven innings, the Tigers had three hits and the Cubs only one (by Overall) as the game remained scoreless.

Overall proceeded to retire the Tigers in order in the top of the eighth, but Donovan ran into trouble in the bottom of the inning. Big trouble. After Harry Steinfeldt singled, Joe Tinker poked a home run to right field. And before the inning was over, the Cubs had four more hits and four more runs.

Ty Cobb delivered a run-scoring single in the ninth for Detroit, but Overall and Chicago prevailed, 6-1. The Cubs had won their sixth consecutive Series game from the Tigers.

Detroit finally broke through in Game 3, with George Mullin checking the Chicagoans on seven hits in an 8-3 victory. Cobb had four hits and two RBIs. Brown quieted any rising Tiger fervor, however, by recording a four-hit, 3-0 triumph in Game 4. And Overall, so magnificent three days earlier, was at the top of his game again in Game 5. The 27-year-old Californian allowed only three hits and struck out 10 batters and, backed by three hits and RBIs from Evers and Manager Frank Chance, was a 2-0 winner. Only 6,210 fans witnessed the finale in Detroit, the smallest crowd in Series history.

The Cubs ruled major-league baseball, becoming the first team to win back-to-back World Series titles. And those championships had come on the heels of their record 116-victory season of 1906.

In sports, the word "dynasty" just might have applied for the first time in October 1908.

[Baseball Guru]

1909

The hitting-on-all-cylinders machine known as the Chicago Cubs won 104 games in 1909 and lost only 49. Such a gaudy record by the National Leaguers surely instilled fear in the hearts of the World Series-bound American League representative.

Only thing is, the Cubs never made it to the Series in 1909. The Pittsburgh Pirates, led by veteran superstar Honus Wagner and three pitchers who combined for 66 victories, rolled to a pennant-winning 110-42 record and denied Cubs a fourth consecutive appearance in the fall classic.

Wagner won his seventh NL championship in 1909 (he added an eighth and last title two years later), hitting .339. Howie Camnitz and Vic Willis won 25 and 22 games, respectively, for the Pirates and Lefty Leifield posted 19 victories.

Detroit won its third straight AL flag in 1909, paced by the hitting of Ty Cobb and Sam Crawford and the pitching of George Mullin, Ed Willett and Ed Summers. Cobb won his third straight AL batting title with a .377 mark (he finished his career with 11 titles), and Crawford hit .314. Mullin (29), Willett (22) and Summers (19) combined for 70 victories.

None of the Pirates' "big three" pitchers won a game in the Series, and only one of Detroit's standouts, Mullin, was victorious. Mullin won twice, 5-0 in Game 4 and 5-4 in Game 6.

While the Tigers solved Camnitz, Willis and Leifield, they couldn't handle rookie Babe Adams -- and that tilted the Series in Pittsburgh's direction. Adams, who compiled a 12-3 record for the Pirates in 1909, drew the starting assignment in Game 1 and responded with a six-hitter.

Manager Fred Clarke got the Pirates rolling with a game-tying home run in the fourth inning and the Pirates went on to win, 4-1.

Detroit's three-run outburst in the third inning of Game 2 -- an uprising spiced by Cobb's steal of home -- paved the way for a Series-squaring 7-2 Tiger victory. Pittsburgh regained the lead, though, with an 8-6 decision that featured Wagner's three hits, three RBIs and three stolen bases.

Mullin brought the Tigers back the next day, pitching a five-hit shutout and striking out 10 Pirates.

The victory-swapping pattern continued unabated. In Game 5, Adams allowed only six hits -- Crawford touched him for a single, double and home run -- and Clarke hammered a tie-breaking three-run homer as Pittsburgh prevailed, 8-4. But the resilient Tigers found themselves back in business the next afternoon when Mullin, after being roughed up for three first-inning runs, surrendered only one more and wound up with a seven-hit victory.

With the Series going down to a climactic seventh game -- this was the first fall classic to go the limit -- Pittsburgh's Clarke went with Adams as his pitcher, while Detroit Manager Hugh Jennings decided on Bill Donovan, a complete-game winner in Game 2.

Donovan, known as Wild Bill, was just that. After hitting the first batter, Bobby Byrne, with a pitch, he proceeded to walk six batters in the first two innings. After three innings, Donovan was gone and Adams was holding a 2-0 lead.

Pittsburgh extended its advantage to 4-0 in the fourth when Dots Miller singled with the bases loaded and blew the game open in the sixth when Wagner tripled home two runs and scored on an error. Adams continued to cruise, and he went on to nail down a six-hit, 8-0 victory that gave the Pirates their first World Series championship.

Wagner led the Pirates with a .333 mark and drove in seven runs. He also accounted for six of Pittsburgh's 18 stolen bases. Clarke, despite batting only .211, also totaled seven RBIs and, in a one-for-the-book performance, drew four walks in Game 7 (he played from start to finish, going O-for-O officially at the plate).

Cobb, appearing in what would be his last Series although he would be an active player through 1928, had his second sub-par classic out of three. He batted only .231 but led Detroit in RBIs with six. Second baseman Jim Delahanty's .346 average led the Tigers.

[Baseball Guru]

1910


The Chicago Cubs were back. Frank Chance's team returned to the top of the National League heap in 1910, winning the pennant by 13 games and increasing its total of NL flags to four in five seasons.

In ruling the National League, the Cubs won 104 games and ran their five-year victory total to 530.

The American League champion Philadelphia Athletics put up some pretty good numbers in 1910, too -- collectively and individually. The young A's won 102 games and took the AL pennant by 14 1/2 games. They boasted .300 hitters in second baseman Eddie Collins and outfielders Rube Oldring and Danny Murphy and a 31-game winner in Jack Coombs, a 27-year-old righthander who was 12-12 the previous season.

Neither of the powerhouses was at full strength for the World Series, though. The Cubs lost second baseman Johnny Evers because of a broken ankle, and the Athletics played without Oldring (broken leg) and pitcher Eddie Plank (arm ailment).

While Philadelphia Manager Connie Mack appeared at a disadvantage because of the loss of Plank, he still had Coombs and Chief Bender. And that's all he needed.

Bender, coming off his first 20-victory season in the major leagues (he was 23-5), opposed the Cubs' Orval Overall in Game 1 of the Series. The matchup proved a mismatch, with Bender taking a one-hitter into the ninth inning and Overall departing after allowing three runs and six hits in the first three innings. The A's, getting three hits and two RBIs from Frank Baker, scored a 4-1 victory as Bender wound up with a three-hitter and eight strikeouts. A bright spot for the Cubs was Harry McIntire's one-hit pitching in five innings of relief.

Coombs gave the Athletics a 2-0 lead in the Series, although he was far from dazzling. Pitching a complete game, Coombs gave up eight hits and nine walks while staggering to a 9-3 triumph. The A's broke up a tight game with a six-run seventh, an inning that featured Murphy's two-run double off Cubs starter and loser Mordecai Brown.

Having teed off on two of Chicago's aces, Philadelphia went to work on another stalwart. This time, the victim was Ed Reulbach, who left for a pinch-hitter in the second inning of Game 3 after yielding three runs. McIntire, so effective in the Series opener, took over in the third inning with the score tied, 3-3, and was shelled for four runs -- three scoring on Murphy's home run -- in one-third inning. Before the inning ended, the A's had tacked or a fifth run en route to a 12-5 romp. Coombs, pitching with only one day of rest, gave up six hits and helped himself at the plate with three hits and three RBIs. Shortstop Jack Barry also knocked in three Philadelphia runs.

The Cubs, on the brink of elimination, turned away from "old breed" of their pitching staff and entrusted the club's immediate fate to the right arm of rookie Leonard (King) Cole, who had together a 20-4 season. Cole formed admirably in Game 4, but Chicago trailed the A's, 3-2, when the 24-year-old pitcher left for a pinch-hitter in the eighth inning. The Cubs, down to what seemed like their last gasp, gained new life in the ninth when Manager Chance tripled home Frank Schulte. Then, in the 10th, Chicago's Jimmy Sheckard came through with a two-out, game-winning single against Bender, who had gone the distance for Mack's team.

Buoyed by their 4-3 victory, the Cubs sent 25-game winner Brown (the winner in relief in Game 4) against Coombs in Game 5. Through seven innings, pitching was the name of the game as Philadelphia held a 2-1 lead. But the A's struck for five runs in the eighth and came out on top, 7-2.

Using only two pitchers, Bender and three-time winner Coombs, in the entire Series, the A's had emerged as champions. And, considering the youth on this A's team, Philadelphia loomed as a team to be reckoned with for years to come.

Collins and Barry were only 23, Baker was 24, Bender and Coombs were 27 and promising reserve Stuffy McInnis had just turned 20. Even the seemingly forever-old Mack was a mere stripling -- 47 -- when he led the A's to this World Series crown.