I run across a lot of neat things working at a newspaper. For instance, a woman donated some old newspaper clippings to us here at the paper not long ago. There is a lot of World War I and various miscellany of the few decades surrounding that time period in the stack she brought up. Interestingly, a clipping on the back of one of the preserved articles was what got my attention: “Pirates beat Griffs for Baseball Title: Cuyler’s Double in Eighth Wins Last Game and World Championship.” It was, of course, a portion of an article for the 1925 World Series game. One thing that I could discern from the article, is that sports writers are very much the same now as they were then: good sports writers are – whether you want to admit it or not – better journalists than many a beat reporter or paid writer for national news publications. Their work is precise, witty, often humorous, and pleasant to read. I wish there was a national day of “switch news writing” when all sports journalists could write an article or two for a national event. I think the public at large would be surprised – and probably pretty satisfied. Sports writers get lost in the details and the details support their opinions and perceptions.
At any rate, the 1925 World Series between the Pirates and Washington Senators was a thriller. “Never before, except perhaps many years ago, was a contest played under such terrible conditions,” says the article writer William Becker, who goes on to describe rainy conditions so bad (yes, they kept playing, too – in the rain, battling right through it like champs, folks), that they had to frequently wipe down bats and hands with towels and spread sawdust out on the pitcher’s mound so Walter Johnson (yes, that Walter Johnson) could pitch through the eighth inning. So he could, “…twirl that heart-breaking eighth inning,” as Becker put it.
The Pirates had a great season in 1925: they went 95 – 58 in a season that saw outfielder Kiki Cuyler hit 26 triples, and infielder Glenn Wright get an unassisted triple play (in May). The Senators, at a 96 – 55 season, were in pretty good shape, too, and the World Series was a showdown: mother nature, however, showed them both up on the final game of a series that went to seven.
The conditions at Forbes Field were, as mentioned above, terrible. Rain and lighting were bad: “So dark the outfielders were invisible.” That, folks, is a baseball game. Red Oldham, the closing pitcher for the Pirates, got the save. But a lot of people were there just to see if Walter Johnson could hold out nine innings. “They begged [the crowd] and pleaded until their spirit and confidence were communicated [to Johnson].” That is a crowd getting into a game: this is before stadium lighting, it is raining something terrible out, and no one is leaving the ball park. There is saw dust on the mound, bats and hands are wet, and the Washington fans are mainly concerned with Johnson “going the distance.” The only homerun hit in the game was Washington Senator Roger Peckingpaugh (we do not have the great names in baseball as much as we used to, either: for example, Red Oldham, Goose Goslin, Stuffy McInnis, or Mule Haas), which attests to great pitching and really *****y weather. It had been raining most of the morning, anyway – and, no one cared: they were going to watch the game – and the game was going to be played. “While customers in what is called, and once was the ‘sun field’, watched the passing of threatening clouds, a crew of workers administered first aid to the drenched infield.” And this would have been cool, too: “Part of the crew burned gasoline on the runways [baselines] and succeeded in removing the water and drying up the diamond somewhat.”
Don’t you want to go back and see this game, folks?
The Imagists 