Playoff of Dreams

1918 World Series in Press Clippings

Because the Playoff of Dreams’ 1918 World Series matchup was the same as the actual 1918 World Series matchup, we are not replaying the series in the interest of redundancy, or rather the interest of avoiding redundancy.

To maintain a complete archive of game recaps, though, here are the clippings for the 1918 Fall Classic from the Chicago Tribune.

Game 1

The Game 6 story concludes by noting that it was the last professional baseball game to be played until the end of the war in Europe. Exactly two months later, at 3 a.m. on November 11, the banner headline in the Tribune read “GREAT WAR ENDS.”

Major-league teams played a schedule of only 140 games, down from the usual 154, in 1919. National League president John Heydler appears to have made that announcement on New Year’s Day: the Streator Times cites Heydler saying that the reconstruction period from the war made 1919 a logical year for a shorter slate.

The 1915 Playoff of Dreams will begin on Wednesday, July 20.

[9/10/1918] Six unanswered runs send Boston to World Series

BY JOHN JOHNSON / Grand National Tribune

BOSTON (Tuesday, September 10, 1918) — The Boston Red Sox turned a 4-0 seventh-inning deficit into a 6-4 win over the Cleveland Indians this afternoon at Fenway Park, scoring three times in the bottom of the seventh and three more in the eighth to win the fifth and deciding game of the 1918 American League Championship Series and book their tickets to the World Series.

Each of the top eight positions in the Boston batting order registered at least one hit, paced by two hits and a walk in four tries from Babe Ruth, who scored twice. George Whiteman cracked a pinch-hit two-run double in the seventh: Ruth also had a double while Harry Hooper and Everett Scott tripled. Dave Shean and Stuffy McInnis joined Ruth with two-hit showings.

Amos Strunk scored the tying run on a Shean single in the eighth. Shean came across to take the lead three batters later on Scott’s fly to right and Wally Schang singled in Ruth to finish the scoring.

Carl Mays won his second game of the series for Boston, going the distance despite 144 pitches and 12 hits. He allowed three earned runs, walked two men and struck out five.

Cleveland did its scoring one run at a time in the third, fourth, fifth and seventh innings, a process that required 10 hits and left seven men on base. Bill Wambsganss led the visitors with a four-hit day, smacking two singles and two doubles while scoring once. Ray Chapman and Steve O’Neill each hit safely twice.

Guy Morton suffered the loss for the visitors. After reaching the seventh-inning stretch with a shutout on three hits, he finished with 11 hits and a walk against six strikeouts. He was lifted for a pinch-hitter in the top of the ninth but was never replaced on the mound as the Indian offense left the tying run in the batter’s box.

After two innings with a hit apiece, Cleveland broke the ice in the third inning with a Terry Turner single and a Chapman double. Tris Speaker’s single led to the second run in the fourth inning, although he crossed the plate with aid of an error after O’Neill’s hit. Wambsganss doubled and Braggo Roth singled him in two batters later to put the visitors up 3-0 at the game’s midpoint.

Cleveland concluded its scoring in the seventh inning, when it loaded the bases with no outs after a single, a double and an intentional walk. McInnis let most of the air from the balloon when he snared Roth’s line drive and doubled Speaker off first base. O’Neill scored Chapman with a single, but trail runner Wambsganss was thrown out at the plate to end the inning.

From the third inning to the sixth, Boston’s only baserunners were Shean, who was thrown out stealing after a fourth-inning single, and Scott, who tripled in the fifth and watched the next two men fail to get the ball out of the infield.

The bottom of the seventh marked a change: Hooper led off with a triple and promptly scored on Ruth’s infield single, then Ruth moved to second on a McInnis hit past the first baseman. Scott bunted the men into scoring position and, after a lineout, Whiteman doubled into left to trim the lead to 4-3. That brought Mays up as the go-ahead run, but he grounded out as pitchers often do.

That flipped the lineup over to start the eighth, though, and Strunk took second on a single and error combination. Shean tied the score with a base hit, and after Hooper fanned, Morton walked Ruth so as not to be smacked by the Sultan of Swat.

McInnis singled to load the bases, which removed any margin for error so that, when Scott flied to right-center, Shean trotted home with the go-ahead run. Schang added insurance with a single to score Ruth before George Cochran struck out.

Scott caught three pop flies to end the game in the ninth inning. Wambsganss did intervene with a two-out single up the middle, but Speaker’s attempt to move him ahead proved futile.

The Boston win ends the 1918 Playoff of Dreams, since it sets up the same Cubs-Red Sox matchup in the World Series that occurred in real life. We will proceed to the 1918 World Series recap and the 1919 Playoff of Dreams in due course.

[9/9/1918] Chicago Cubs pound way to National League pennant

BY PETE PETERS / Grand National Tribune

NEW YORK (Monday, September 9, 1918) — Fred Merkle’s solo home run leading off the top of the fifth inning sparked nine unanswered runs from the Chicago Cubs, who turned a 2-2 tie into an 11-2 win as they clinched the National League Championship Series three games to one at Brush Stadium.

Six Chicago players recorded multiple hits, including Merkle, who had five. Charlie Hollocher added four, Charlie Deal and Max Flack poked three apiece, Les Mann and Dode Paskert each finished with two and the team finished with 21 hits. Paskert added his first home run of the series in the ninth inning.

Hippo Vaughn picked up his second win of the series, finishing with two runs allowed on nine hits in a 102-pitch complete game. Pol Perritt, who was charged with eight Chicago runs and 15 of their hits in seven and two-thirds innings, suffered the loss.

The Cubs struck first in the hit column, getting a Merkle double and a Hollocher single in the first inning, but could not break through with a run because Merkle was thrown out trying to score. Rollie Zeider’s sacrifice fly produced the first run of the game in the second inning and Hollocher doubled the lead by singling in Paskert in the third.

New York got on the scoreboard with five consecutive baserunners in the fourth inning, getting back-to-back hits from George Burns and Ross Youngs before Art Fletcher was hit by a pitch and Walter Holke and Lew McCarty contributed more singles. With the bases loaded and the score tied at 2, Perritt grounded into an inning-ending double play, the sort of thing that will no doubt prompt batting advocates to propose that someone should hit for the pitcher someday.

The tie lasted all of seven pitches, as Perritt saw four and Merkle needed three to launch a 413-foot home run to left. That begat three consecutive singles from Hollocher, Mann and Deal, the latter of which put the Cubs up 4-2 before Bill Killefer sacrificed the remaining two men into scoring position and Vaughn added a fly to left to make it 5-2. Paskert cracked a run-scoring single and Flack loaded the bases with a walk before Merkle forced him to end the inning.

Vaughn proceeded to not allow another hit until the eighth inning, by which time the Cubs had scored twice more on four additional hits to run the score to 8-2 and chase Perritt. Jesse Barnes drew mop-up duty and allowed six hits to his ten batters, including five hits and three runs in the ninth.

Burns and Youngs each hit safely twice for New York, which recorded nine hits but none for extra bases. The Giants left six men on base; the Cubs left 13. Despite all of that, the game was over in a tidy 95 minutes.

Since Cleveland forced a fifth and deciding game in the American League Championship Series, that series is guaranteed to finish Tuesday, which will set the World Series opener on Friday. The Cubs will have home advantage in four of the seven games, but their opponent will determine which games are played at Comiskey Park: if they face Boston, the Cubs will host games four through seven, while if they face Cleveland they would host games one, two, six and seven.

With John Johnson at the typewriter for the A.L. game tomorrow and the World Series, this is my swan song until 1919. Good night, good luck, and don’t run with scissors.

[9/9/1918] Coveleski foils Boston lead with bat, comeback with arm in 5-4 win as Cleveland lives to see fifth game

BY JOHN JOHNSON / Grand National Tribune

BOSTON (Monday, September 9, 1918) — The Cleveland Indians stayed alive on opposing soil for the second consecutive game this afternoon, topping the Boston Red Sox 5-4 at Fenway Park to level the best-of-five American League Championship Series at two games apiece.

Stan Coveleski threw a complete game, allowing eight hits and striking out one, and stranded the tying run at home plate in the eighth inning and on second base in the ninth. Jack Graney scored the tying run in the second inning and drove in Braggo Roth for the final tally with a two-out single in the seventh.

Babe Ruth, the offensive star of the series for Boston, opened the scoring with a two-run home run in the bottom of the first inning. He finished 2 for 4 with a fourth-inning single but grounded out as the potential tying run in the eighth inning. Harry Hooper, the runner on base ahead of Ruth in both the first and eighth innings, posted the other two-hit day for the Red Sox. Amos Strunk and Dave Shean both singled.

Boston starter Joe Bush needed 179 pitches to get through the game, allowing nine hits and walking five men while working around a pair of errors. Coveleski, his opposite number who had no miscues to clean up, also hit the game-tying single in the second.

Despite falling behind 2-0 in the first, Cleveland made quick work of its deficit and scored five straight runs. It loaded the bases with no outs in the second when Steve O’Neill and Terry Turner singled and Graney reached on an error. Pinch-hitter Bob Bescher hit into a double play, scoring O’Neill, and Coveleski’s hit back through the box leveled the score 2-2.

Two innings later, Turner worked a leadoff walk and moved to second on a bunt before Bill Wambsganss singled to center to open a 3-2 lead. Rip Williams, who replaced Bescher at first base, scored on Ray Chapman’s first hit of the series in the sixth to double the advantage. And in the seventh, Roth stole second following a one-out walk and Graney singled him in two batters later.

Boston left a runner on third when Strunk doubled with one out in the third and stranded a pair of men in the fourth inning, but would not get a hit again until the seventh or multiple baserunners again until the eighth.

In the penultimate inning, Shean laced a one-out double to the short corner in right, then scored on a Hooper single to cut the score to 5-3 before Ruth and Stuffy McInnis made outs to end the inning.

With the gap still at two runs in the ninth, Everett Scott started the inning with a hit and Wally Schang walked to put the tying run on base. Fred Thomas bunted both men into scoring position at the cost of the first out.

George Whiteman batted for Bush and grounded to short, driving in Scott and leaving Schang at second. Strunk lofted a fly toward the large wall in left, drawing oohs and aahs off the bat from the crowd of more than 26,000, but Graney flagged it down in front of the scoreboard to secure the win.

The win ensures that the 1918 World Series will begin on Thursday. A Boston-New York series or a Cleveland-Chicago series would each start in the National League city, while the Cleveland-New York option would begin on the shores of Lake Erie and the Boston-Chicago set that happened in real life would not be played on the Playoff of Dreams.

The fifth and deciding game of the series will be played Tuesday afternoon on the same grounds. The second game’s starters, Guy Morton of Cleveland and Carl Mays of Boston, are slated to reprise that matchup. First ball is set for three o’clock eastern war time on Saturday with the live action on my Twitter account at @playoffdreams.

[9/7/1918] Cleveland washes Sox to stay alive in American League playoff

BY JOHN JOHNSON / Grand National Tribune

BOSTON (Saturday, Sept. 7, 1918) — Jack Graney drove in four runs with a pair of two-run singles, Tris Speaker reached base four times and scored twice, and Fritz Coumbe was close enough to perfect to get the job today as the Cleveland Indians routed the Boston Red Sox 8-1 at Fenway Park in the third game of the American League Championship Series. The first Cleveland win of the five-game series brings the tally to 2-1 in Boston’s favor, leaving the Red Sox one win from the World Series.

Coumbe retired the first 16 batters he faces and shut out Boston until the penultimate batter of the game, ultimately allowing six hits and a walk along with one strikeout. Five of the six hits were singles.

Cleveland nearly gave its pitcher all the support he needed in the first inning when Tris Speaker scored on a wild pitch; the run was unearned thanks to a Fred Thomas error earlier in the inning, but of course it still counted for a 1-0 lead.

Ray Chapman’s leadoff walk in the third inning allowed Braggo Roth to double the lead with a two-out triple.

The visitors broke the game open in the sixth inning when five straight batters reached base, including a run-scoring single from Steve O’Neill and one of Graney’s two-run-scoring hits. The other run came in on a wild pitch by Boston starter Babe Ruth, who walked six men in addition to that miscue.

Graney’s other two-run single came in the ninth inning, plating Roth and Bill Wambsganss, and Terry Turner would have run the lead to 9-0 with his two-out single except that O’Neill was thrown out at the plate.

Thomas spoiled Coumbe’s perfect game on a double over Speaker’s head in center field with one out in the bottom of the sixth. The Boston nine left a single man on base in each of the sixth, seventh and eighth innings.

In the ninth inning, Dave Shean’s one-out single and Harry Hooper’s subsequent walk put the Red Sox in business with two men on. Pinch-hitter Sam Agnew made solid contact but lined out to short before Stuffy McInnis and Everett Scott dumped singles into right field. Scott’s hit scored Shean and reloaded the bases, but Wally Schang popped up after that to end the game.

Each of Boston’s six hits came from a different player. Ruth started and threw 147 pitches in eight and one-third innings, allowing all eight runs of which seven were earned. Dick McCabe relieved him for the final four hitters and did not actually retire any of them, but the Red Sox defense threw out two runners on the base paths.

Wambsganss, Roth and Speaker all scored twice for Cleveland, which had a pair of long hits in Speaker’s double and Roth’s triple.

Following the obligatory Sunday off day, the teams will match up again Monday in the fourth game of the series at Fenway Park. The first game’s starters, Stan Coveleski of Cleveland and Joe Bush of Boston, are slated to reprise that matchup. First ball is set for three o’clock eastern war time on Saturday with the live action on my Twitter account at @playoffdreams.

[9/7/1918] Deal-breaker! Charlie cracks open pitchers’ duel, Cubs win 2-0

BY PETE PETERS / Grand National Tribune

NEW YORK (Saturday, Sept. 7, 1918) — Charlie Deal poked a tiebreaking single to center with two outs in the top of the seventh inning to score Les Mann, who added an insurance run with a sacrifice fly two innings later, and push the Chicago Cubs to within one game of the World Series today with a 2-0 win over the New York Giants in game three of the National League Championship Series at Brush Stadium. Claude Hendrix allowed six hits in a shutout for the Cubs, who lead two games to one in the best-of-5-game pennant playoff series.

Ferdie Schupp took a no-hitter into the fifth inning and allowed six hits of his own. Each starter walked two men and struck out three, with Hendrix finishing the game at 115 pitches and Schupp 118. Each team had one man with two hits: George Burns paced New York and Deal led Chicago.

The Giants threatened right off the bat, getting a leadoff single from Burns in the first inning. While he was promptly retired on Art Fletcher’s double-play grounder to first base, Ross Youngs singled and Benny Kauff worked a walk to put a man in scoring position before Heinie Zimmerman lined out.

The Cubs got their first baserunner on an error in the third and added a walk in the fourth, but took until the fifth to crack the goose egg on the hits column when Deal doubled over the head of Kauff in center. He was thrown out at third trying to become the first man on third base, though, and a twin killing two batters later ended the inning.

Chicago’s first run came on a two-out rally in the seventh inning when Mann walked and stole second before scoring on a Deal single. The Giants answered with two one-out hits in the bottom of that frame before a Larry Doyle fly to center pushed the tying run to third, but a weak dribbler to first ended that threat.

The visitors doubled their lead in the ninth when Max Flack led off with a single and Fred Merkle pushed him to second with another hit. Charlie Hollocher reached by fielder’s choice when Flack went to third and Mann flied to right to score the run.

New York went down in order despite the middle of its lineup hitting in the bottom of the ninth.

While momentum is building for Sunday baseball to be legal in America’s largest city, the blue laws still on the books oblige the teams to go without a game on Sunday, so the fourth game must wait until Monday. Hippo Vaughn will pitch for Chicago and Pol Perritt opposes him for New York. First pitch is set for three o’clock local time (two o’clock in Chicago) and I will live-tweet all the action at @POD_Peters.

[9/5/1918] Giants muzzle Cub offense to level N.L. series at one game each

BY PETE PETERS / Grand National Tribune

CHICAGO (Thursday, Sept. 5, 1918) — The New York Giants needed seven pitches to take the lead, outhitting the Chicago Cubs 15-4 today on the way to an 8-2 win in game two of the National League Championship Series at Comiskey Park. Slim Sallee threw a complete game on the mound for the visitors, who leveled the best-of-5 series at one game apiece.

Sallee struck out four men and allowed one earned run on 115 pitches while getting help in the form of three-hit games by Larry Doyle, Ross Youngs and Lew McCarty. Art Fletcher and Walter Holke each recorded two hits apiece.

Doyle led off the game with a triple and scored on Heinie Zimmerman’s ground ball to the right side. Zimmerman was the only Giant position player without a base hit in the game. Doyle was also responsible for doubling the lead in the second inning with an infield single that plated Fletcher after a leadoff walk.

The Giants handed Chicago a run in the bottom of the second when Doyle’s throwing error left Charlie Hollocher on second base to start the inning. After Les Mann singled and Charlie Deal grounded out, putting the tying run on second with one out, Doyle redeemed himself with an unassisted double play on a line drive that preserved the lead.

The Cubs got a leadoff base hit from Rollie Zeider in the third, but that would be their last hit until the seventh inning. In that time, the Giants tripled the lead to 4-1: Doyle’s sacrifice fly scored Holke in the fourth inning and McCarty singled in Fletcher in the sixth.

While Mann posted his team-high third hit of the series to start the home seventh, any Chicago momentum was immediately erased when McCarty threw him out stealing second. The wheels fell off for the Cubs in the top of the eighth, which the Giants started with a Fletcher single and a one-out, run-scoring McCarty double. Sallee reached on an error to put men on the corners. Doyle followed that with another double, which chased Tyler in favor of Vic Aldridge, whose wild pitch scored Sallee for a 7-1 lead. Benny Kauff’s RBI double wrapped up the Giant scoring.

Chicago picked up a consolation prize in the top of the ninth after Max Flack’s leadoff triple and a Hollocher groundout.

Tyler was saddled with the loss on 126 pitches, 85 of which were strikes, an allotment that still only got him through seven and a third innings. Aldridge retired five of the seven hitters he faced, walking one and allowing a hit.

Mann’s two-for-four day was the lone multi-hit game for the Cubs. Doyle doubled and tripled for New York.

The teams will take the train east tomorrow before the series resumes Saturday at Brush Stadium in Manhattan. Claude Hendrix of Chicago and Ferdie Schupp of New York will each try to pitch their team to within a game of the World Series. First pitch is set for three o’clock local time (two o’clock in Chicago) and I will live-tweet all the action at @POD_Peters.

[9/5/1918] Escape Sox rally within one win of World Series

BY JOHN JOHNSON / Grand National Tribune

CLEVELAND (Thursday, Sept. 5, 1918) — Carl Mays of the Boston Red Sox pitched his way out of a bases-loaded jam in the eighth and a two-on, one-out situation in the ninth, stranding the go-ahead run on base both times, before Wally Schang drove in Babe Ruth for the eventual winning run in the tenth inning of Boston’s 4-2, extra-inning win over the Cleveland Indians at Dunn Field today.

Mays walked seven in ten innings of work while Ruth was 3 for 5 with all the kinds of extra-base hits and the two men staked the visitors to a 2-0 lead in the American League pennant playoff. As the series shifts to Boston this weekend, the Indians need to win all three games to go to the World Series.

Ruth led off the extra inning with a double before Stuffy McInnis was bypassed to create a force play. After an Everett Scott fly to center, Schang singled to right to push the visitors in front.

McInnis scored an insurance run later in the inning, scoring from third on a dropped fly ball with two outs, and Mays faced three batters in the bottom of the inning to claim the win.

Mays threw 91 strikes and 64 balls in the game, allowing seven hits and fanning two. His opposite number, Guy Morton allowed twelve hits and walked four before running out of gas in the tenth and yielding to Jim Bagby, who allowed the last two men Morton faced to score.

Dave Shean also recorded three hits, his first of the series, for Boston. McInnis contributed a single, a double and a walk while Schang hit safely twice and walked twice more. Ruth scored the team’s first three runs.

On the Indian side of the ledger, two men had multiple hits but the balance of the team was 2 for 22. Tris Speaker led the way with every hit but the home run and Joe Wood singled twice and scored the opening run. Braggo Roth drove in both runs.

Cleveland needed four batters to open the scoring, getting hits from Wood and Speaker with one out in the first before Roth knocked in the tally with a ground ball to second. Ruth ended that advantage in the top of the third by lining the ball over Speaker in center and coming around to score on an inside-the-park home run.

Speaker’s one-out triple set the stage for a Roth base hit to put the visitors up 2-1 in the bottom of that inning, though much of that momentum stalled when Roth was promptly apprehended at second base by Schang.

Again, the lead lasted until Ruth circled the bases; this time it was a sixth-inning triple past Wood into the corner in left field before McInnis drove him home with a single.

The Red Sox nearly took the lead in the eighth inning, getting a McInnis double followed by two-out walks to Schang and pinch-hitter George Whiteman, but that brought up the pitcher’s spot and Mays flied out.

Mays retired 12 men in a row from the third inning to the seventh but quickly ran into trouble in the eighth. Wood singled and Speaker doubled to start the inning, setting up an intentional pass to Roth, which loaded the bases and brought Bob Bescher out to bat for catcher Steve O’Neill. Unfortunately for O’Neill, that also brought the infield in, and his ground ball to second base became a double play by way of the plate. Bill Wambsganss grounded out to end that inning.

In the bottom of the ninth, Mays dug his own hole by walking the first two men. Morton bunted them to second and third, Chapman chased an outside pitch for strike three and Wood worked a walk that was unintentional in name only. With the bases loaded, Speaker lined out to second.

Following the overnight trip to Boston, the teams will match up Saturday, Monday and Tuesday at Fenway Park. The next game’s scheduled starters are Ruth for Boston and Fritz Coumbe for Cleveland. First ball is set for three o’clock eastern war time on Saturday with the live action on my Twitter account at @playoffdreams.

[9/4/1918] Mann delivers single to put Cubs in front with 2-0 opening win

BY PETE PETERS / Grand National Tribune

CHICAGO (Wednesday, Sept. 4, 1918) — Pol Perritt and Hippo Vaughn had the pitchers’ duel but Les Mann brought the weapon of choice today, slashing a fifth-inning single back up the middle to score Vaughn and Fred Merkle for the game’s only runs as the Chicago Cubs blanked the New York Giants 2-0 in game one of the best-of-5 National League Championship Series at Comiskey Park.

Vaughn fanned eight and allowed six hits, all of which were in different innings before a knock to right with two outs in the ninth inning, on his way to a 141-pitch complete game with 93 strikes.

The Cubs, who are playing their playoff games at the White Sox’s stadium due to its larger capacity, threatened first with a pair of two-out singles in the bottom of the first inning. They added hits from Rollie Zeider and Bill Killefer in the second, when both men moved to scoring position on a bunt, and led off the third by reaching on an error.

None of those actions led to a run, however, as Perritt induced flyouts to end the first two innings and a grounder to first in the third. Meanwhile, Vaughn cruised through the first seven innings with three singles to keep the Giants off the scoreboard.

The Cubs struck in the fifth, getting a leadoff hit from Vaughn back up the middle before two outs appeared to let Perritt off the hook. Merkle walked, though, and a Charlie Hollocher single loaded the bases for Mann, who drove in two with a liner to center.

That line drive would be the Cubs’ last hit — they followed it with 10 outs and an error — but it would be all the help Vaughn needed.

Walter Holke led off the eighth with a single, bringing the tying run to the plate, but the Gotham nine mustered only a fielders’ choice from pinch-hitter Joe Wilhoit before ending the inning. Benny Kauff led off the ninth with a hit, but held at second on Ross Youngs’ two-out line drive to right and Art Fletcher grounded out as the tying run.

Perritt finished with two runs and eight hits in seven innings, throwing 129 pitches and 82 strikes. Frank Anderson worked a 1-2-3 eighth and the Cubs did not hit in the ninth.

Offensively, Chicago got two hits each from Hollocher and Killefer. All eight Cub hits were singles. The Giants’ lone double came from George Burns in the fifth. Holke and Heinie Zimmerman each had two hits.

The series continues tomorrow on the South Side before shifting east for the final three games in New York. Slim Sallee of New York and Lefty Tyler of Chicago are the scheduled starters. First pitch is set for three o’clock local time (four o’clock in the east) and I will live-tweet all the action at @POD_Peters.

[9/4/1918] Bush’s Beantown nine jumps on Cleveland early

BY JOHN JOHNSON / Grand National Tribune

CLEVELAND (Wednesday, Sept. 4, 1918) — The race to end the baseball playoffs to get men into fighting positions is in full swing and the Boston Red Sox wasted little time pulling ahead today, taking a lead four batters into the game and blanking the Cleveland Indians 4-0 in the first game of the best-of-5 American League pennant playoff at Dunn Field.

Harry Hooper doubled twice, scored twice and drove in a run while Babe Ruth drove in two runs for Boston. Everett Scott also had two hits and was thrown out at the plate trying to extend a 3-0 lead in the sixth inning.

Appropriately, the men of Beantown were led by a Bush — Bullet Joe, to be specific — who struck out six men and did not allow more than one hit in an inning on his way to a six-hit shoutout. He walked four, two of which bookended a Steve O’Neill single to load the bases with no one out in the fourth, but promptly retired the next ten men to cement the lead.

Tris Speaker led Cleveland with two singles and a double in four tries and O’Neill singled twice, but the other eight men who played combined for one hit, a Marty Kavanagh double out of the eighth spot in the lineup in the eighth inning. Stan Coveleski went the distance on the mound, allowing 12 hits and walking one without striking out a batter.

Eight of Boston’s nine hitters hit safely, the exception being second baseman Dave Shean, and had a man reach base in every inning but the seventh. Hooper and Amos Strunk each stole bases.

After its first-inning tally, Boston set its sights on the scoreboard again in the third inning. Strunk reached on a leadoff single before taking second when Joe Wood could not handle the ball in left-center field. Shean’s groundout moved the man to third, but he could have scored from second anyway when Hooper lashed a double against the same wall Wood tried to defend. Hooper stole third and scored on a Ruth fly to center.

Wally Schang and Fred Thomas poked singles in the fourth for Boston but were stranded aboard. In the bottom of the inning, Cleveland had its best shot when Braggo Roth walked, O’Neill singled and Bill Wambsganss singled before any outs. Boston brought the infield in, though, and Jack Graney and Kavanagh each saw shots up the middle turn into outs at the plate before Coveleski popped up.

A pair of singles sparked Boston’s offense in the eighth, when Hooper and Ruth each reached on base hits to leave men on the corners for Everett Scott. Scott would not receive credit for Hooper in, however, as he hit into a twin killing while doing that damage.

Cleveland got baserunners in both the eighth and ninth inning but did not do further damage.

The second game of the series is set for tomorrow afternoon here at Dunn Field with Boston’s Carl Mays set to oppose Cleveland’s Guy Morton. First ball is set for three o’clock eastern war time with the live action on my Twitter account at @playoffdreams.