• 4 •

August Madness

In early August, Europeans gathered at newspaper offices and telegraph posts, and when they heard of the war declarations, many broke out into the streets, bursting into song, parading, and waving flags. Jubilant, sometimes hysterical crowds filled the squares and boulevards of Vienna, Berlin, St. Petersburg, and London. Reflecting this patriotic fervor, English poet Rupert Brooke soon wrote “Soldier,” one of five sonnets collectively called 1914. “If I should die, think only this of me: That there’s some corner of a foreign field, That is forever England.” Both Brooke’s passionate love of country and the joyful, celebratory citizens who filled European streets represented the ardent nationalism of all European countries, a “spirit of 1914.”1

Not all Europeans welcomed the euphoric, flag-waving crowds. Citizens in rural areas, working-class Socialists, and minorities in both Russia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire approached war somberly, fearful of the near future. They distanced themselves from the “August Madness.” European leaders, nevertheless, immediately began to mobilize millions of soldiers and citizens to engage in the first global war, the first total war. European imperial powers drew their soldiers into this world war from Australia, India, and Africa. Combatants battled in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Pacific. And for the first time in history, the war was all-encompassing: Governments drew on every available resource to support millions of soldiers and sailors. The war transformed the hearts and minds of nearly all participants. Nearly 70 million soldiers participated, 8.5 million of them died, and approximately 6 million civilians lost their lives.2

Why the war? Its origins are still cloudy, yet European leaders quite clearly directed the events that enflamed Europe and the world. It is also now evident that World War I, or the Great War, transformed the world, and that it influenced World War II and events beyond. As Hew Strachan in 2003 concluded: “This is of course the biggest paradox in our understanding of the war. On the one hand it [World War I] was an unnecessary war fought in a manner that defied common sense, but on the other it was the war that shaped the world in which we still live.”3

In August and September, just as Americans were observing the Braves’ surge to catch the first-place Giants, they read of the war and saw how the new, modern warriors were killing tens of thousands and decimating the European landscape. Much of World War I was fought in the trenches, but when the war broke out in August, highly mobile troops cut through the terrain in Belgium, France, and East Prussia. In August, the Germans would form an army of 3.8 million, the French 3.8 million, and the Russians 3 million. As massive armies attacked with modern firepower, human destruction reached unprecedented levels. At the Battle of the Frontiers, fought in August of 1914, both the Germans and the French suffered more than 250,000 casualties.4

The Germans, ignoring Belgium’s international legal status as a neutral country, and avoiding France’s heavily fortified eastern border, hoped to attack swiftly through their small neighbor, sweep down through France, and seize Paris, even before the Russians had fully mobilized in the east. Following the general script of this strategic plan, the Schieffen Plan, the Germans brought their siege guns and attacked the Belgians’ reinforced concrete forts. The grandest siege gun, Big Bertha, exemplified the new modern war tactics: the howitzer could launch a 2,100-pound shell as far as nine miles.

By August 12, the Germans had begun launching shells, and Belgian defenders, trapped in their forts, if not crushed and burned, choked to death on concrete dust. By August 16, the Germans had destroyed all key Belgian forts, but the Belgians offered unexpected and fierce resistance. The German command, fearful of retaliation, terrified by what they perceived to be snipers, or francs-tireurs, and in need of a rapid, successful attack, instructed soldiers to act without mercy. Germans torched the town of Tamines and massacred hundreds of civilians; they ravaged the city of Leuven, burning a medieval library.5

These were real war crimes, sometimes reported in a straightforward fashion, but often conveyed in a stylized tabloid manner of perverse tortures and execution; for instance, it was alleged that nuns were being tied to church bells and were then crushed as the bells began to toll. About 6,500 civilians, French and Belgian, were killed in the first month of the war (180,000 Belgian refugees fled to England). The Belgian government issued reports about the atrocities, and Louis Raemakers’s poignant cartoons found their way to Britain and the United States. Americans read of the vast European armies battling over territory in Prussia, Belgium, and France.6 The British propaganda machine seized on these incidents, and the atrocities were heavily reported in 1915, and investigated by the Bryce Commission in the same year. Yet, even in the summer of 1914, the brutality of the war was evident. In late August, the Germans crushed the Russians in the decisive Battle of Tannenberg, later described vividly in Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s August 1914.7

The Braves’ Rise Trumps War News

But Boston fans experienced solace as the National League team contested for the pennant. “News of the European war becomes of almost secondary importance, in Boston at least,” read the August 11, 1914 installment of the Boston Globe, “because of the shift yesterday in the standing of the National League clubs that landed the Boston Braves in second place.” The Braves, who had been in last place on July 18, had soared to the top at a remarkable rate. “From Cellar to Attic in 23 Days,” read the sports headline.8 On the front page of the August 15 edition of the Boston Globe appeared major stories about Belgian resistance, patriotic attitudes of the British, the French forces in Vosges, and speculation on Turkey entering the war. Juxtaposed next to the war news at the top of the paper a large, striking picture of the Braves’ Bill James, with an article entitled “Giants Again Shrivel to Pigmy Size before Braves’ Withering Fire.” By August 15, the Braves had won 27 games out of their last 33. The Globe praised the turnaround: “Newspapers in other cities that ridiculed the Braves a few weeks ago are now praising them.”9

How the Braves managed to climb to the top so rapidly is a complex tale. One ingredient of the success, what writers intuitively viewed as the Braves’ “fight,” involved the regular use of sacrifice hits. In the Deadball Era, managers employed the hit-and-run, stealing, and sacrifices—not magnificent Ruthian home runs. Managers like John McGraw, while following the Deadball Era, or small-ball approach, stressed stolen bases. George Stallings, on the other hand, emphasized the sacrifice hit. The team regularly turned games around with sacrifice bunts, the Braves’ offensive weapon of choice in 1914. By the end of the season, the Braves boasted three of the top sacrifice hitters in the National League: Johnny Evers, third, with 31; Rabbit Maranville, second, with 27; and Butch Schmidt, the hefty, power-hitting, middle-of-the-lineup first baseman, with 10. While the Braves were second in runs scored, third in on-base percentage, and third in home runs (35), they led the league in sacrifices, far outdistancing any other team. Their 221 sacrifice hits soared above the next best team, the Chicago Cubs, who had only 191. The Braves also led the league by a small margin in RBIs; they excelled at knocking in runs, especially after they had sacrificed them into scoring position.10 The quality so often associated with the Braves, “fight,” often came in the form of the sacrifice hit, and the individual yielding for the greater good of the team best represented the Braves’ determination to win.

When Stallings evaluated his team’s success, he praised its fighting spirit, a youthful spirit that embraced each victory, while ignoring a series of defeats. The team—even the experienced Evers—played like exuberant adolescents, unmindful of the pain of defeat. The position players averaged 26.5 years of age, an entire year younger than the rest of the National League. In the midst of the comeback, Stallings expressed a realistic, although fighting, optimism: “I never cross my bridges before I come to them. I do not know where Boston is going to finish. But I can promise my team will fight to the end. The other clubs will know that they have been through a fight, not where Boston may finish.”11 While always pleased that he had a “fighting, hustling” club, Stallings concluded, “The best thing about the club is that it does not know it is defeated.” The 1914 Braves seemed much like the “Miracle Mets” of 1969, a team that Roger Angell so accurately describes: “Their immense good fortune was to find themselves together at the same moment of sudden maturity, combined skills, and high spirits. Perhaps they won because they didn’t want this ended. Perhaps they won because they were unbored.”12

Pitching Is Key

The Braves succeeded because of their unyielding determination; their superb small-ball tactics; and the exceptional leadership of Maranville, Stallings, and Evers. But they triumphed in August 1914, largely because of brilliant pitching. The three “boxmen,” a term for pitcher used since the nineteenth century—Bill James, Dick Rudolph, and “Lefty” Tyler—shut down the opposition with regularity, keeping the other teams to two or three hits and even fewer runs. On August 3, Tyler beat the Cardinals, 1–0, on a three-hitter; Rudolph and James pitched two- and four-hitters on August 4 and 5, respectively, against Pittsburgh. The Braves’ pitchers, backed by their “usual brilliant fielding exhibition,” shut out the Pirates twice. Toward the end of July and beginning of August, the three hurlers never lost when they stepped onto the mound.13 By the end of the season, Tyler, James, and Rudolph averaged 310 innings each (Justin Verlander, in his 2011 Cy Young Award–winning year, pitched 251 innings), placing fifth, sixth, and seventh, respectively, in the National League in strikeouts. Tyler allowed opposing batters to average .249, as he tallied a 1.28 WHIP, winning 16 games; James, while winning 26 games, let batters hit .225, as he earned a 1.14 WHIP; and the batting average against Rudolph was .238, as he established a phenomenal 1.04 WHIP, and he, too, won 26 games.14

On August 1, the Boston Globe reported on Rudolph’s pitching prowess from the previous day. The Braves were battling the Cardinals in a four-game series from July 30 to August 3. Against the St. Louis Cardinals, “Dick had the visitors fooled up to their eyes.” Rudolph pitched a “masterful” two-hitter against his old teammate Hub Perdue, retiring batter after batter (with one play a questionable call at first after a brilliant Maranville defensive feat), and even when Cardinals outfielder Lee Magee moved around to third on three errors, Rudolph stopped the bleeding with two groundouts. The Braves, after hitting three sacrifices and six hits, managed to scrape by with a 2–0 victory. Rudolph’s success against St. Louis explained the Braves’ trajectory: timely hitting, a few sacrifices, and dominating pitching. The Braves, who had won four in a row, 11 of their last 13, spiraled upward, not only in the standings, drawing the attention and energy of Boston fans. The Braves’ popularity in Boston soared, but the South End Grounds, uncomfortable and confining, restricted attendance. In a most gracious gesture, Boston Red Sox owner Joseph Lannin invited the Braves to move to Fenway Park.15

On the first Saturday of August, the Braves, having won five out of their last six games, entered Fenway Park and were greeted by 20,000 exultant fans, the largest crowd to attend a National League game in Boston. The Braves added a new ingredient to their success: thousands of wildly enthusiastic fans. Most were Boston natives, but oftentimes significant pockets of fans represented a player’s hometown. And on August 1, a couple thousand fans arrived from Springfield, Massachusetts, and Windsor Locks, Connecticut, to root for local heroes Walter “Rabbit” Maranville and Leslie Mann, respectively. The national pastime, although played on a national scale, had a provincial character: hometown Americans rooted for the local hero in the major leagues. The fans who had traveled to Fenway Park, like the ones from Windsor Locks and Springfield, held a personal investment in victory and helped bring the crowd to a fever pitch.

Ecstatic Fans

The Braves sent out emerging ace Bill James, who held the Cardinals scoreless until the eighth. When the Braves, scoreless for six innings, finally tallied three runs in the seventh on a hit by Joe Connolly and a sacrifice fly by Rabbit, fans “went into a tumult of ecstasy and cheered and yelled continuously for five minutes.” But the Cardinals fought back to tie the score, shocking the overconfident Braves fans. In the 10th inning, Stallings sent in a couple of pinch hitters, including the righty George “Possum” Whitted, to battle against the talented lefty “Slim” Sallee. With two outs, Whitted drove in the winning run. Fan excitement moved up another notch. “The game was over, but the fans were in no hurry to leave and remained to cheer. One would think from the enthusiasm manifested that a world championship had been won.”16

Whitted had batted in Johnny Evers for the winning run. Evers, who seemed to face unceasing harsh trials—even in the midst of a win streak—now suffered from both a strained neck and shoulder pain; he had missed the second St. Louis game on Friday, July 31. According to Boston Globe writer J. C. O’Leary, Evers’s pain was caused by pleurisy, an inflammation of the lining around the lungs. Yet, Evers persisted: He played on Saturday in the Fenway Park game, and on Monday, August 3, the final game of the series, the infielder turned in three sensational plays that helped Lefty Tyler hold St. Louis to no runs on three hits. Fans could see Evers “noticeably wince” during one throw. And Evers, despite the pain, knocked in a thrilling ninth-inning game winner. Tyler opened up the ninth with a single, and Josh Devore sacrificed him to second. Evers, always a tough, annoying batter, hit a foul inches to the right of first base, and then another inches to the left of third base. On the third attempt, he blasted a high chopper over the pitcher’s mound; second baseman Art Butler knew he had to make a “lightning one-handed play” to throw out the hustling Evers, but he rushed the throw, snapping it over the first baseman’s head. The Braves had secured four games in a row against the Cardinals, a highly competitive team that a week earlier, in third place, five games behind the Giants, had been talking pennant.17

Evers and the Braves pitchers carved a path forward, preserving the team’s win streak. Now, Honus Wagner, who, on June 9, had collected his 3,000th hit, and the Pittsburgh Pirates were visiting the Braves.18 Dick Rudolph tossed his second two-hit shutout in five days. And one of the hits, this time a Wagner liner to diving right fielder Josh Devore, was disputed. The umpire called Wagner out, and then, as Devore appeared to let go of the ball, safe. But it was Evers who starred for the team once again. Evers completed, as sportswriter O’Leary noted with a small degree of hyperbole, “One of the greatest plays ever seen.” Pittsburgh’s fleet, base-thieving Max Carey smashed a bounder to the back of second. With the ball five feet behind the bag, and with Carey steaming down to first, Evers “caught the ball—and this apparently was premeditated—in such a way that his arm extended so that he could make a throw to first without any backward motion. While still in the air, he let the ball go, and it was on its way to first before his feet touched the ground.” When Evers threw out the speedy Carey with his barehanded toss, the crowd cheered wildly. And although Evers’s three base hits did not contribute to the score, the Braves, manufacturing a run with Charlie Deal’s sacrifice bunt, earned a 1–0 victory.19

A Pinnacle and a Setback

As the Braves reached their pinnacle, team captain Johnny Evers, the veteran who had battled bankruptcy, suffered a traumatizing car accident, and endured depression, now faced the greatest of personal losses: the death of a child. On August 6, Evers and the Braves won, 5–4, over the Pirates, their ninth win in a row. During the game, Evers learned that his three-year-old daughter, Nellie, had been stricken with scarlet fever. Nellie’s five-year-old brother Jack had previously contracted the disease and had been isolated in the Evers’s home in Troy, but Nellie, given special permission to break the quarantine, acquired scarlet fever herself. Jack survived, but Nellie passed away before Evers could return home. Scarlet fever, a common disease that often affected children younger than 10, had no antibiotic treatment in 1914. The disease struck fast: The time between the infection and the onset of symptoms was short. The trauma of Nellie’s death strained Evers’s family life. His wife Helen and son Jack left the family home, and his wife soon filed for separation.20 In anger and despair, she blamed Johnny, saying, “Where were you? You were never around.”21

Personal traumas that touched national figures like Evers were not always highly publicized. Bostonians did not read about Evers’s marital problems. Yet, Boston fans had learned of Nellie Evers’s illness and death, and they supported Johnny in their own quiet ways, perhaps a personal note, and also through cheering fervently in the stands. The public record leaves little evidence about this event. Newspapers chose to be generally silent (rumors circulated that Evers had wanted to cease playing for the 1914 season). Evers’s primary biographer, Gil Bogen, has provided the few records that exist on the event. Still, this hyperactive, overly sensitive ballplayer unquestionably suffered deeply from this loss. On August 6, the Boston papers noted his anxiety: “Johnny Evers had much to worry him during the game. He received word early in the day that his little daughter Helen was very ill with scarlet fever.”22 Evers left the team on August 7, and the Braves, undoubtedly distracted and concerned, lost, 5–1. According to the Boston Globe, they played “without the services of Johnny Evers, whose baby died early yesterday morning, before he reached his home in Troy. The whole team was somewhat upset and did not play its usual game.”23

Braves Now Pennant Worthy

On August 10, Bill James shut down the Cincinnati Reds, 3–1, holding them to six hits, including “two infield scratches, a lucky double, and one fair by inches only.”24 Three and a half weeks earlier, Boston had lagged behind, in last place, 11 and a half games behind the New York Giants. Now the Braves found themselves in second place, six and a half games behind New York. After August 13 and 14, the Braves grew even more confident as they earned two victories from the “popularly dreaded Giants.” On August 15, the Braves, behind Tyler, beat the Giants’ Christy Mathewson. In the bottom of the 10th inning, the Giants loaded the bases with no outs, but Tyler halted the rally and preserved a 2–0 Braves victory. These victories affirmed that the Braves had moved beyond the win streak phase and stood prepared to fight for the pennant. From July 17 until August 17, they played 27 games, losing only four (one tie).25 Crushing National League opponents from mid-July to mid-August partially proved to the baseball world that the Braves could contend; sweeping the Giants offered irrefutable evidence that the Braves could triumph over any of the first-division teams.

And now the Braves were vigorously pursuing the champions from New York, the formidable team led by Christy Mathewson and John McGraw that had secured pennants in 1904, 1905, 1911, 1912, and 1913, as well as a World Series in 1905. McGraw ultimately won 10 pennants and three World Series. Mathewson, the most illustrious athlete of his time, had averaged nearly 28 wins per season for 10 years, winning 37 games in 1908.26 This tandem of celebrity manager and superstar pitcher, probably the most popular sports figures of the time, loomed over the young Braves, new to the national stage. The Giants’ powerhouse included not only the dominant Mathewson, but a rotation that included Rube Marquard and Jeff Tesreau. These pitchers received the support of first-rate position players: George Burns (not the comedian), Fred Merkle, Fred Snodgrass, and Art Devlin, all players who, following McGraw’s tactics, could bunt, sacrifice, hit-and-run, and, above all, steal bases, to advance around the diamond.

A Fiery McGraw

The Braves and Stallings challenged John J. McGraw, the short, sturdy, fiery manager whom Grantland Rice described as “[o]ne of the greatest natural leaders any sport has ever known. Baseball to him was more than a game. It was a religion and a war combined. . . . Few can understand how he gave his very soul to the game he loved so well.”27 This most controversial of Deadball Era managers is still studied in the twenty-first century. As Frank Deford notes, McGraw acted as a “pugnacious little boss who would become the model for the classic American coach—a male version of the whore with a heart of gold—the tough, flinty so-and-so who was field-smart, a man’s man his players came to love despite themselves.”28 McGraw earned two widely known nicknames: “Muggsy,” a label that explained itself with one quick look at the man, and “Little Napoleon,” a title that branded him as a clever strategist and shrewd judge of baseball talent.

The son of Irish immigrant John William McGraw, who arrived in the United States in 1850, during one of the most devastating years of the potato famine, John Joseph McGraw, was born on April 7, 1873, the second oldest of nine children. The elder McGraw hardworking, sober, and well educated, found it difficult to buy basic necessities for his growing family. Despite 12 years of schooling, he failed to find a teaching position; after having served with the Union during the Civil War, he found maintenance work on the Elmira, Cortland, and Northern Railroad. For the McGraws, the “main ingredients of their lives were toil and denial: managing week by week to have food on the table and enough clothing to protect against the region’s harsh winter.”29

Despite improvements in public health, diseases, similar to the one that had killed Johnny Evers’s daughter, ravaged communities in the late nineteenth century. Disease compounded the McGraw’s want, and in the winter of 1884–1885, a diphtheria epidemic swept through his hometown of Truxton, New York, closing schools and forcing families to bar their doors. His mother, weakened after giving birth to her eighth child, died within five days. A week later, McGraw and his siblings watched powerlessly as his older stepsister Anna coughed, wheezed, and took in her last breath. By the end of January 1885, three more of McGraw’s siblings had succumbed to disease. His father had always treated his children with severity, and after the trauma of 1884–1885, the widower, expecting more from young John, lost patience with the 12-year-old, particularly when the young man showed his ceaseless passion for baseball by inadvertently throwing balls through windowpanes. The father once beat young John for swinging a stick at a rock; the boy simply wanted to sharpen his batting skills. One evening, nearly five months after the diphtheria epidemic, the father flew into a violent fury when he learned that John had smashed yet another window. He seized John, hurling him against the wall, flogging him and beating him in the face.30

Dedicated to Baseball

McGraw, unable to endure the sufferings any longer, ran away from home, worked at a small hotel, and dedicated himself to learning the game of the baseball. The learning curve seemed sharp, but the hard working former altar boy invested his hours memorizing and studying the annual Spalding Base Ball Guides. Ready to demonstrate his baseball wisdom to the world, he triumphed over both teammates and opponents in any disputed call. The teenager proved himself in local games as a pitcher by a tossing a remarkable, unhittable looping curveball. He soon pleaded with Albert Kenney, owner of a local boardinghouse and professional baseball team, to allow him to join his Olean club as an infielder. Not even 17 when he joined the Olean baseball team of the New York–Pennsylvania State League, McGraw initiated his career with a pitiful performance at third base and reacted anxiously to his first grounder: “For the life of me, I could not run to get it. It seemed like an age before I had the ball in my hands, and then, as I looked over to first, it seemed like the longest throw I had to make. The first baseman was the tallest in the league, but I threw the ball high overhead.” That afternoon, McGraw blundered seven more times, usually throwing over the first baseman’s head. Released after Olean’s sixth consecutive loss, McGraw found his way to the team in Wellsville, New York, where he brought his infield play up to a passable level—with fewer wild throws—and he hit for a strong .365 average.31

His career ascended higher when teammate Albert Lawson, a baseball promoter, organized a team of American All-Stars and invited McGraw to join a baseball touring group to Cuba. Playing exhibitions against local teams, his opponents affectionately called him El Mono Amarillo, the “yellow monkey,” acknowledging both his yellow uniform and high-spiritedness.32 Heading north into Florida during baseball’s spring training, McGraw’s team challenged the Cleveland Spiders, a club known for such standouts as “Patsy” Tebeau, Clarence “Cupid” Childs, and a rookie pitcher, who, whipping fastballs like a cyclone, had already earned the name “Cy” Young. After McGraw played errorless baseball and smashed three doubles in five plate appearances, telegraph reports sent to northern newspapers and baseball weeklies sparked national attention. The son of an Irish immigrant was now listening to offers from established professional baseball teams.33

Baltimore Welcomes McGraw

McGraw, the Irish scrapper from Truxton, soon joined a group of brash, boisterous baseball combatants: the often triumphant and always infamous 1890s Baltimore Orioles. McGraw drove the Baltimore Orioles to three first-place and three second-place finishes, including two Temple Cup victories, the 1890s World Championship Series. In 1894, Orioles player-manager Ned Hanlon assembled the classic small-ball team: McGraw, as a third baseman, joined five-foot, four-inch “Wee Willie” Keeler, the on-base percentage king of the 1890s. Keeler earned fame as a bunter, a hit-and-run expert, and the inventor of the “Baltimore Chop,” a smash hit that bounded so high he could scamper safely into first before the infielder’s throw. McGraw, as the team’s leadoff hitter, would slap an infield single or walk to reach first and then dash to third when Keeler artfully poked the ball through the infield.34

The Baltimore team fought for victory by any deceitful means necessary. McGraw was known for stealthily holding the opposing player’s belt as the player attempted to run between bases (and crafty players who wanted to score learned to unbuckle their belts). Orioles groundskeeper Tom Murphy hardened the area just in front of home plate so that the Orioles could get an extra high bounce when they exercised the notorious Baltimore Chop. Murphy altered foul lines and transformed the first-base line into a slight decline, assisting the speedy Orioles, and he allowed the grass to grow high in right field, where Wee Willie Keeler could stash extra baseballs to replace those that rolled by him.35 Keeler displayed great skills and averaged .345 during a 19-year career, because, as he put it, “I hit ’em where they ain’t.”36 Accurate and timely hitting earned plaudits from opponents; Baltimore’s other tactics, however, drew reproach. Tim Murinane, the distinguished Boston sportswriter, decried the Orioles’ tactics as the “dirtiest ever seen in this country.” He listed the Baltimore team’s offenses: “[D]iving into the first baseman long after he has caught the ball, throwing masks in front of the runners at home plate, catching them by the clothes at third base, and interfering with the catcher were only a few tricks performed by these young men from the South.”37

Certainly other teams, not just the Orioles, unleashed a fighting spirit, and 1890s baseball, uncivilized by twentieth-century standards, still found itself in the formative stages: Pitchers threw 50 feet to a plate that measured a foot wide, players wore a covering for a glove, and only one umpire called balls and strikes. Fighting was common. Fans threw bottles and debris at players, players slugged umpires, and teammates beat up opposing players. The hot-tempered McGraw fought off any slight with both fists and invective, eventually earning the nickname “Muggsy.” McGraw disdained the label, and any player who dared to shout out “Muggsy” only earned a fistfight. Of course, the more frequently McGraw displayed his loathing of the name, the more players cried, “Muggsy.”38

“It’s Truxton against the World”

The origins of the slur “Muggsy,” despite varying accounts in baseball books, found its roots in McGraw’s past, a past that he desperately fought to overcome. Baltimore, McGraw’s real hometown (he chose to be buried there), had functioned as the political turf for John “Muggsy” McGraw, a ruffian ward boss, rumored to be manager McGraw’s father. McGraw wanted to cut loose from this imagined past.39 What would drive a man to wrestle with his own teammates? Why would McGraw instinctively smash a ball into the mouth of Cleveland’s tough guy, Pat Tebeau, and then spit on him?40 What would cause a man to scrap in fistfight after fistfight—and lose in nearly every battle? As the legendary Hall of Fame umpire Bill Klem noted, “It is highly doubtful McGraw ever won a fistfight. And it is highly doubtful that he ever ducked one.” It was this profound need to break from the hardship of his hometown of Truxton that drove McGraw, suggests Deford. According to Deford, McGraw, as he attained success in his career, regularly cared for a pet dog, usually a Boston bull terrier, always named “Truxton.” McGraw would “sit down with his dog and partake of the same breakfast: orange juice, scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, and coffee. He would feed his dog a little bit of bacon, and then this is the refrain John J. McGraw would scream out: ‘It’s Truxton against the world!’”41

At the turn of the twentieth century, McGraw brought his combative mind-set to his job managing the Orioles, and then later, the New York Giants. After the Orioles experienced a wholesale restructuring in 1899, with manager Ned Hanlon and such stars as Willie Keeler forming a new team in Brooklyn, McGraw signed on as a 25-year-old player-manager for the Orioles. He then began to intensify his antiumpire broadsides. McGraw’s outbursts yielded a steady revenue stream to National League president Nick Young. Young recalled, “Every other day or so—perhaps not quite so often but pretty near it—I received a five dollar note wrapped up in a business-like letter reading, ‘Dear Mr. Young, Inclosed please find $5. Which I pay for the privilege of calling Umpire So-and-so a stiff.”42

But, when, in 1901, the Orioles entered the new American League, a league designed by President Ban Johnson to promote a civilized, profamily game, McGraw failed to live up to the new, refined, genteel standards. In the American League’s first year, Johnson depended on the Orioles, and Johnson wined and dined McGraw, signing him on as a member. Yet, McGraw’s antiauthoritarian behavior conflicted with the cultured, Victorian tenor of the new league, and after umpire Jim Haskell ejected McGraw on May 7, 1901, and after McGraw battled with umpire Joe Cantillon later in the month, Johnson suspended McGraw for five days. Johnson decreed, “Mr. McGraw will not even watch the games from the bench for five days. I ordered him kept away from the grounds as a penalty for using foul and profane language on the diamond.”43 But the cursing, taunting, and even brawling continued throughout that season, and in August, Johnson banned McGraw’s top pitcher, “Iron Man” Joe McGinnity, who, as Giants fans swarmed onto the field, stomped on umpire Tommy Connolly’s feet—after having twice spat in his face. At that point, McGraw began negotiating with Andrew Freedman of the National League’s New York Giants and secured an $11,000 managerial contract, the highest in baseball at that time.44

Mathewson and McGraw

As the Giants manager, McGraw was able to draw away former Orioles, including McGinnity. He also built the foundation of his team with a new, young, handsome, Bucknell College–educated pitcher, Christy Mathewson. Deford writes that “Mathewson was golden, tall, and handsome, kind and educated, our beau ideal, the first all-American boy to emerge from the field of play.”45 Mathewson’s talent in the first 15 years of the new century proved simply incomparable. It was superstar caliber: “373 victories, tied for the highest in National League history, and 37 wins in 1908, a modern professional record; in four seasons, he won 30 or more games. Five times he led the league with the lowest ERA, with a lifetime average of 2.13.”46 Batters stood in awe of Mathewson, knowing that he had mastered a variety of pitches, that he exercised pinpoint control, that he had a precise memory of each pitch he had thrown, and that he might just toss his noted “fadeaway,” a pitch that broke in on right-handers and away from left-handers (the equivalent of the screwball).47 Perhaps in a slight decline in 1914 (his ERA reached 3.00), Mathewson still threw more than 300 innings, earning 24 victories.48

Mathewson achieved national repute for both his ability and great stature. The first truly national baseball hero, he served as a model for popular fictional characters: Gilbert Patten’s Frank Merriwell, and then later Howard Garis’s “Baseball Joe.” Joe Matson, or “Baseball Joe,” a character of talent and integrity, appeared in 14 boys’ sports novels produced by Edward Stratemeyer, the creator of Tom Swift, Nancy Drew, and the Hardy Boys.49 According to one observer, Mathewson “talks like a Harvard graduate, looks like an actor, acts like a businessman, and impresses you as an all-around gentleman.”50 Fans appreciated his athletic talent, intelligence, exceptional good looks, and religious devotion—he never played on Sundays; and major-league players recognized Mathewson as a Renaissance man, a college-educated professional who read William James and Victor Hugo while traveling on the road. As teammate Fred Snodgrass once recollected, “Matty could do everything well. He was checker champion of half a dozen states. He’d play several opponents simultaneously and beat them all—a good billiards player, a pretty fair golfer, and a terrific poker player.”51

McGraw and Mathewson, who took lead roles for this grand New York production, appeared as an odd couple. While McGraw, from Deford’s perspective, had gained a reputation as “hardscrabble shanty Irish, a pugnacious little boss,” Mathewson, on the other hand, achieved fame as the virile, blond-haired, blue-eyed, college-educated gentleman.52 McGraw embodied the tough immigrant’s son, the battler who had brawled his way to fame and fortune; Mathewson, the tall, graceful, naturally gifted pitcher, exemplified “muscular Christianity,” a popular Anglo-American ideal that advanced physical vitality, Christian values, and manhood. “Muscular Christianity,” a reaction to the perceived effeminate, sentimental church ceremonies of the late nineteenth century, drew the support of such organizations as the YMCA and prominent citizens the likes of Theodore Roosevelt. This new masculinity promoted the notion that Jesus Christ offered a role model, not just as a moral exemplar, but also as a physically fit man’s man. Mathewson, the robust, world champion, gentleman athlete, attained such a reputation as a respected gentleman that when umpires—and there were only two on each playing field in 1914—failed to get a clear view of a controversial call, they glanced over to Mathewson to receive a fair and honest judgment.53

Mathewson and McGraw, although so dissimilar in style, forged such a durable bond that they joined forces on the baseball field for 16 years. Off the field they were devoted friends, and the two men and their spouses shared an apartment in the Upper West Side of New York City. The two men, eight years apart in age, like older brother and younger brother, held common values. Both reveled in their role as public figures. Although Mathewson shielded himself from overbearing crowds and often pulled down the blinds in railway cars, he performed vaudeville one year and accepted endorsements for razors, sweaters, Coca-Cola, and even pipe tobacco.54

Although McGraw experienced “nerves” when on the stage, in 1913, he also took to the vaudeville stage for a successful 15-week stint. Both men enjoyed the good life, which their endorsements and high salaries had produced, and both men were fiercely competitive, game-playing gamblers, capable of coarse language. Mathewson, despite his golden-boy reputation, fought, argued, and even swore: “He could command enough four-letter words to hold his own in locker room repartee.”55 McGraw spoke with a tongue that, according to reporter John Sheridan, “would burn holes in nickel twelve inches thick.”56 In one season, 1905, his verbal tirades pushed umpires into tossing McGraw out of games 13 times, still a season record in 2014.57 In 1906, the Chicago Cubs’ Harry Steinfeldt, at the request of National League president Harry Pulliam, documented the exact words that McGraw shouted at umpire James Johnstone: “a damn dirty, cock-eating bastard, and a low-lived son-of-a-bitch of a yellow cur hound.”58

While the two men enjoyed the rough-and-tumble of the baseball world, they found intellectual pursuits beyond sports. Mathewson, as a college freshman at Bucknell, played baseball and football, joined the band, the glee club, the dramatic society, and Latin Philosophical, served as class president, and earned a 96 percent in analytic chemistry, 96 percent in German, 94 percent in Tacitus, and 93 percent in Horace.59 As a 19-year-old, McGraw, despite his basic, elementary education, negotiated a deal with St. Bonaventure College (called Allegany at the time), where, during the off-season, he would swap college courses for baseball coaching. McGraw found his part-time coursework challenging: “I find wrestling with books much harder than I find wrestling with umpires.” Still, he persisted in his studies for three years, achieving honor roll in Latin, geometry, and rhetoric. McGraw never fulfilled his degree requirements; however, in the opinion of biographer Charles C. Alexander, “He’d learned how to behave in the company of educated people, how to organize his thoughts and express himself clearly; in short, he’d learned a great deal besides baseball.”60

For the Love of Baseball

What brought McGraw and Mathewson beyond their common background and values was a profound affection for baseball: its strategy, tactics, and, above all else, pitching. Describing the experience in the New York City apartment, McGraw’s wife Blanche noted, “Jane [Mathewson’s wife] and I led normal lives. We fed the men and left them alone to talk baseball.”61 McGraw, a former pitcher, appreciated Mathewson’s thinking approach to baseball and, early in his career, offered tips on how to improve his changeup. McGraw saw Mathewson as a like-minded baseball man and complimented him because he “mastered the science of the game from the pitcher’s standpoint.”62 Mathewson and McGraw, like typical progressives, and much like the Braves’ Johnny Evers, approached pitching in a rational, systematic manner. In McGraw’s book on baseball, Scientific Baseball, he included a chapter by Mathewson, where the pitcher broke down each element of pitching: types of pitches (fastball, slow ball or changeup, curve, spitball, and fadeaway), the physiology of a good pitcher, the grip of the ball, arm movement, arm angles, the position of the feet, the snapping of the wrist, speed of delivery, and control of pitches.63

McGraw built a baseball management strategy based on superb pitching, stellar defense, and dynamic baserunning, and McGraw would execute the strategy carefully and thoroughly. The apprentice ballplayer learned to master McGraw’s teachings; the experienced player unquestionably followed his orders. Rube Marquard, one of his star pitchers, summed up the player’s view of “Little Napoleon”: “He loved his players, and his players loved him. Of course, he wouldn’t stand for any nonsense. You had to live up to the rules and regulations of the New York Giants, and when he laid down the law, you better abide by it.”64 Marquard passed along the story of the powerful Giants outfielder Red Murray failing to abide by McGraw’s rules. With one out and a man on second, and the score tied in the ninth inning against the Pirates, McGraw ordered Murray to bunt, but Murray, eyeing his favorite pitch, a high fastball, slammed a game-winning home run over the left-field fence. In the locker room after the game, as Murray cheerily burst into song, McGraw offered no congratulations; instead, he issued a stern rebuke and a $100 fine. Murray had failed to follow orders.65 And as star outfielder Fred Snodgrass remembered, McGraw’s players needed a thick skin:

And sometimes Mr. McGraw would bawl the dickens out of me, as he did everybody else. Any mental error, any failure to think, and McGraw would be all over you. And I do believe he had the most vicious tongue of anyone who ever lived. Absolutely! Sometimes that wasn’t easy to take, you know.66

Snodgrass, however, questioned McGraw’s public persona; he knew that the dictatorial “Little Napoleon” image revealed a half-truth. McGraw, he contended, “allowed initiative to his men.” While McGraw demanded that each player know the art and science of baseball, the Giants “stole when we thought we had the jump and when the situation demanded it. We played hit-and-run when we felt that was called for.” McGraw, despite his reputation as the fierce, gunpowder-eating, blood-drinking manager, knew and understood his players.67

By 1914, John “Muggsy” McGraw and his star player, Christy “Big Six” Mathewson, both much more nuanced than their public personas, had proven themselves as high achievers, leaders of one of baseball’s greatest teams. McGraw had assembled a group of first-rate players who complemented Mathewson’s abilities, and who adapted well to McGraw’s strategy and tactics. First, he acquired topflight pitchers, including Jeff Tesreau. The six-foot, two-inch, 225-pound spitball specialist put up stellar numbers in 1914, winning 26 games; he started 41, pitching 322 innings, with a 2.37 ERA. Left-handed pitcher Rube Marquard, who had learned the fadeaway from his traveling roommate Mathewson, struggled to a 12–22 record in 1914, despite compiling a solid 3.06 ERA and a 1.15 WHIP. Marquard, who praised McGraw as the “finest and grandest man I ever met,” displayed the toughness that the manager so admired, but Marquard’s season took a turn for the worse after he gained a 3–1 victory against Pittsburgh on July 17, a game in which he and Babe Adams both threw a remarkable and exhausting 21 innings.68

Strong at All Positions

McGraw put together a stellar cast of position players, including Fred Merkle, who, according to Baseball Magazine, was the “most finished fielder in the league.” Merkle, known for his “bonehead” mental error that changed the 1908 season, was, in the view of one teammate, the “smartest man on the club,” and he could shrewdly steal third despite lacking in speed.69 Fred Snodgrass, known for his 1912 World Series “muff” (Snodgrass had dropped a routine fly ball in the 10th inning of the deciding game of the 1912 World Series), showed spectacular speed in center field and was flanked by an even fleeter outfielder, George Burns, Baseball Magazine’s 1914 National League All-American left fielder.70 Catcher Jack Meyers, a member of California’s Cahuilla tribe, and like other Native American ballplayers of the time tagged “Chief,” hit .286 in 1914, just below his outstanding .291 lifetime average. Meyers, a former student at Dartmouth, read Plato and visited art museums on his off days.71 Larry Doyle, a .290 lifetime hitter, the team captain, and second baseman, embodied the ideals of a John McGraw position player: “hustling, aggressive . . . full of nerve, grit, and courage.” Doyle, who showed surprising power for a Deadball Era second baseman, fulfilled McGraw’s last requirement: baseball intelligence. When an umpire ejected McGraw, and they did so early and often, Doyle served as his designated replacement.72 This team had lived up to its name: “Giants.” From 1911 until 1913, they rose above all other National League teams, and until August 1914, they had dominated the pennant race. (See tables 4.1 and 4.2.)

Table 4.1. New York Giants Monthly Splits, 1914
Month		Games		Won		Lost		Winning Percentage
April		8		4		4		0.500
May		24		17		7		0.708
June		28		16		12		0.571
July		27		15		12		0.556
August		27		11		15		0.423
September		35		17		17		0.500
October		7		4		3		0.571
Source: http://www.baseball-almanac.com.

Table 4.2. New York Giants Team versus Team Splits, 1914
Opponent		Games		Won		Lost		Winning Percentage
Boston Braves		23		11		11		0.500
Brooklyn Robins		22		13		9		0.591
Chicago Cubs		22		13		9		0.591
Cincinnati Reds		22		13		9		0.591
Philadelphia Phillies		22		12		10		0.545
Pittsburgh Pirates		23		13		9		0.591
St. Louis Cardinals		22		9		13		0.409
Source: http://www.baseball-almanac.com.

The powerful Giants, the victors in the last three National League pennant races, the team led by baseball’s most notorious manager, John McGraw, obstructed the Braves’ ascent. Yet, chasing the Giants for the pennant on August 13, the Braves had cut the Giants’ lead to five and a half games. On August 14, the Boston Globe’s main sports story mentioned “Rudolph outpitching Marquard,” and, indeed, Dick Rudolph, a Bronx native, impressed his fellow New Yorkers by holding the Giants to three runs. But the story of the day was, “Sacrifices Produce Key Runs.” Joe Connolly, the Braves’ best hitter, led off the sixth with a single; then Maranville knocked a sacrifice bunt down the first-base line. Giants pitcher Rube Marquard scooped up the ball, but after failing to touch the elusive Rabbit Maranville, wheeled and threw the ball over the head of the first baseman. Maranville held at first, and Connolly stopped safely at second. Butch Schmidt, the six-foot, one-inch, 200-pound Braves first baseman, laid down a perfect sacrifice bunt as Connolly and Maranville moved to second and third. The Braves’ third baseman, Red Smith, popped a foul for the second out, but center fielder Leslie Mann smoked a single to left, and with two more runs, the Braves had a comfortable 4–0 lead.73 As it had so many times before, the sacrifice bunt swung the game in the Braves’ favor.

The Braves clawed at the Giants’ lead in the standings, and, on August 15, the Globe’s front page shared an account of the Braves’ victory, with headlines reading, “Germans Advance on Allies.” On August 14, the Braves had played their “normal game”: Their best pitcher, Bill James, although feeling ill, scattered six hits in nine innings; their top hitter, Joe Connolly, socked a double, a single, a home run, and, in the typical Braves manner, a sacrifice fly; their best fielder, Johnny Evers, executed a brilliant fielding play as he took a wide throw from catcher Hank Gowdy “with one hand, and in a lightning-like move, clapped the ball on [Art] Fletcher as the latter was going into second on an attempted steal.” The emerging young star, catcher Hank Gowdy, called the right pitches and hit two “safe ones.”74

Gowdy stepped up as the Braves’ clutch hitter the following Saturday. The game attracted more than 33,000 New Yorkers to the Polo Grounds, where they cheered on the Giants and their pitching idol, Christy Mathewson. The Braves rarely challenged the crafty Mathewson, who limited the Braves to no runs in nine innings—the only threat was a Gowdy triple in the sixth. In the top of the 10th, Gowdy powered another triple, driving home Boston’s new third baseman Red Smith from second. Gowdy then scored an insurance run as an unnerved Mathewson let loose a wild pitch. In the bottom of the 10th inning, the Giants loaded the bases with no outs, but Lefty Tyler induced a pop fly, struck out Red Murray, a pinch hitter for Mathewson, and made center fielder Bob Bescher ground out to Evers.75 Globe writers, who tended to overuse the “Giants into Pygmies” metaphor, joked that the Giants, only three and a half games ahead of the Braves, were “reduced to the size of Lilliputians.”76

Giant Killers

Throughout August, the dominant Giants of Mathewson and McGraw fought off the bothersome, relentless Braves, often dubbed “Giant Killers” by the press. During that month, the Giants slowed down, going 11–15, with a six-game losing streak. Still, the Giants finished the month with a record of 63–50.

The Giants saw another pennant within their reach, but the Braves kept charging. Although stumbling against the Cubs, the Braves won series against the Reds, Pirates, Cardinals, and Phillies—all part of a 20-game road trip. Baseball analysts from the time noted the Braves’ stunning success against the western teams, a 45–21 record, while 14–27 against eastern teams. On August 26, a few of the Braves, as high spirited as ever, brawled with the Chicago Cubs’ infamous third baseman, Heinie Zimmerman. A highly talented, aggressive hitter who had nearly won the Triple Crown in 1912 (.372 average, 14 home runs, and 99 RBI), Zimmerman swung at Evers viciously as the second baseman tagged Zimmerman on a routine play. When Evers tagged him for a second time, “not so gently . . . by bringing the ball down rather sharply on Zimmerman’s head, behind the ear,” Zimmerman “throttled” Evers. Globe reporter J. C. O’Leary, drawing from World War I military terms, wrote that next, “Maranville got into the action like a torpedo boat attacking a battleship. He grabbed ‘Zim’ by the arms, and the latter made a swipe at him. The Rabbit came back and landed one on Zim’s mouth, badly cutting his lip.” Umpire Mal Eason reacted to the melee by ejecting Zimmerman, Evers, Maranville, and even the mediator of the free-for-all, Butch Schmidt. Losing three players from the heart of the order, three-quarters of their infield, cost the Braves dearly, and they went on to lose, 1–0.77

The Braves lost the next game, too, an extra-inning, 3–2 loss to the tough St. Louis Cardinals. The Cardinals, still battling for the pennant, moved past the Braves into second place, but the testy, fighting Braves only faltered, and after they learned that Evers and Maranville would only receive fines for their role in the Zimmerman fracas, the Braves returned to their winning ways, gaining victories in seven out of the next eight games.78

When, at the end of August, they won the second game of a doubleheader against St. Louis, with a four-run, ninth-inning comeback, O’Leary explained their success: “By fighting, fighting, fighting: fighting hard, fighting first, last, and all the time.”79 Sweeping the powerful Giants proved to the Braves and the baseball world that the win streak was not mere good fortune.

The Labor Day Pennant Crescendo

The pennant race reached a crescendo on Labor Day weekend: The Braves and Giants both held first place in the National League, and on Monday morning, September 7, Labor Day, the Braves faced the legendary Mathewson in the first game of a doubleheader at Fenway Park. Mathewson’s status as a living legend usually shielded him from the verbal attacks that many teams regularly inflicted upon the starting pitcher. The Braves’ youth, under the brash leadership of Evers and Stallings, pierced right through the Mathewson aura, and Braves players shouted, “You think you can stop us Mathewson? Not a chance?”80 The Braves taunted “Big Six,” even deriding him as “Milk Legs” for his knock-kneed gait. Mathewson, the coolheaded veteran, held the Braves to three runs for eight innings as the Giants took a 4–3 lead. But in the 10th, Josh Devore beat out an infield hit, and Herbie Moran, who three days before had been knocked unconscious by a pitch, walloped a ball into the overflow crowd at Fenway. The ground-rule double put Moran on second and Devore on third. With the crowd yelling—and now they cheered for Johnny Evers more than before—the Braves’ captain smacked a liner into left that drove home the winning run.81 The Fenway fans, 36,000 of them, morphed into an “outdoor asylum” and swarmed onto the field. Stallings, blocked by hundreds of well-wishers, could move off the field only with a help of a police escort.82

In the afternoon game, a second phase of fans poured in, this time, 40,000. With the Braves and Giants still one game apart, it was no surprise that both sides played aggressively, intimidating one another at every opportunity. In the sixth inning, the Giants scored four times, and Lefty Tyler threw high and inside twice, the second time grazing Fred Snodgrass, who, according to the New York Times, “twinkled his fingers at Tyler, forgetting to remove his thumb from the nose.” The nearly riotous Boston fans “shrieked in anger,” and Tyler, catering to the crowd, pantomimed Snodgrass’s famous World Series muff. In the next inning, after Snodgrass fended off a fusillade of bottles in center field, Boston mayor James Michael Curley rushed onto the field, and “[l]aying aside his official dignity, he precipitated himself . . . upon Umpire Emslie, demanding that Snodgrass be fired from the game.”83 Emslie resisted Curley and the policeman, but McGraw, probably seeing that the game was firmly in control—the Giants were up by eight runs in the eighth—put Bob Bescher in as a replacement for Snodgrass.84 The Giants went on to win, 10–1, and the two teams, tied for first place, then battled one another for the deciding game of the series the next day. On Tuesday, McGraw inserted the declining Rube Marquard as pitcher—Marquard had lost his last eight; Stallings slotted his new superstar, the spitballing Bill James. James tossed a three-hitter, securing an 8–3 victory and the Braves’ grip on first place (see table 4.3).85

Table 4.3. National League Standings at the Close of Play, September 8, 1914
Team		Games		Wins		Losses		Ties		Winning Percentage		Games Behind		Runs Scored		Runs Allowed
Boston Braves		124		69		53		2		0.566		—		475		442
New York Giants		123		68		54		1		0.557		1.0		545		454
Chicago Cubs		130		69		59		2		0.539		3.0		526		534
St. Louis Cardinals		132		67		62		3		0.519		5.5		479		464
Philadelphia Phillies		122		57		65		0		0.467		12.0		510		558
Pittsburgh Pirates		127		57		66		4		0.463		12.5		399		420
Cincinnati Reds		128		56		70		2		0.444		15.0		455		508
Brooklyn Robins		124		55		69		0		0.444		15.0		493		502
Source: http://www.retrosheet.org.

In retrospect, the Labor Day games seem like a turning point in the pennant race; however, throughout most of July and August, the Braves, because of their timely hitting, fighting mentality, and, above all else, phenomenal pitching, found themselves on an upward trajectory. The Giants, in turn, especially because of Marquard’s poor showings, spiraled downward. Yet, the 1914 National League chase for the pennant sparked interest throughout the summer and fall. Fans sensed that after the Giants and Braves played through the September schedule, they would meet on September 30, for a final showdown. On September 16, the Braves stood only three and a half games ahead, and, on September 19, after the Giants had taken three from the Reds, the New Yorkers remained just three games back.

Giants players still acted shocked to see Boston as the frontrunner; earlier in the season, a few players had quietly rooted for the Braves, hoping to see the team progress, but “never expecting they would have a chance to win a flag.” McGraw, in spite of the surge by the Braves, anticipated his fourth pennant in a row: “My club has not quit. . . . I have been through too many campaigns to believe that a small lead such as Boston holds at this state of the race will decide the outcome.”86 Nonetheless, the Braves charged onward, exuding as much confidence as McGraw. Owner Jim Gaffney decided on a celebratory “Johnny Evers Day,” to be held on September 16, in a game against the Cardinals, well before the season’s end, and even though the Braves were just three games ahead of New York. Organizers designed a day to congratulate the team captain for his baseball successes, indirectly offering solace for his recent troubles. On September 16, the Braves players, represented by George Stallings, presented Evers with a silver service. Evers played his best, with six putouts and five assists, and he helped on two double plays. He also scored one of the Braves’ six runs, most dramatically in the eighth inning. With the game tied at three runs apiece, Evers singled and then perilously reached third on an error. As he reached home on a sacrifice fly, the band played “When Johnny Comes Marching Home.” The crowd yelled “itself hoarse.”87

Ahead Near the Finish

Soon the Braves tore off to the finish line, and, on September 21, as they defeated the Pirates, 6–5, the Giants lost to the Cubs, 5–0. Throughout the final phase of the season, Stallings showed unwavering support for his pitchers. On September 21, in the seventh inning, with one out and the go-ahead run on third, even after Dick Rudolph had allowed three hits, and even after Evers had pleaded with him, Stallings kept Rudolph on the mound, and the Braves beat the Pirates, 6–2. The next day, the Braves beat the Pirates for a second time, 8–2, and the Cubs again defeated the Giants, hammering Mathewson for five runs in the first inning.88 The Braves’ lead grew to five games.

At five games back, the Giants would have to play spectacularly well. Globe writers realized that with 19 games left, the Braves’ lead was nearly insurmountable. If, for instance, the Braves slowed to a 12–7 record, the Giants would need to go 15–4 to catch them, a possible but demanding effort. The final blow to the Giants came on September 23, when their best pitcher, Jeff Tesreau, lost to the Cardinals, 2–1, and then Marquard lost his 13th straight game; for the first time all year, the Giants lost both games of a doubleheader.89 The Braves split a doubleheader with the Reds, and the Giants dropped to six games back. The Giants played, according to Boston writer Melville Webb, the worst ball seen at the Polo Grounds in years; they “not only have ‘cracked,’ but seemed to have ‘busted,’ and beyond all possible repair.”90

Long after the Braves clinched the pennant, they continued to fight relentlessly, showing the same feistiness and determination they had exhibited in July, when they had begun to scrap their way out of the basement. On the last day of the season, although 10 and a half games ahead of the Giants, Evers kept battling umpires. On that final playing day, Evers was thrown out of the game for “kicking over a decision.” When umpire Bill Hart paused at length before calling Brooklyn third baseman Gus Getz safe, Evers threw his glove into the air and complained incessantly for an entire inning. Hart had no choice but to toss him.

The most trying part of the season finale was the Braves’ loss of one of their best players because of aggressive baserunning. The Braves had picked up Brooklyn’s Red Smith in early August. Smith had batted .245 for Brooklyn, but .314 for the Braves. He finished the year with a .395 slugging percentage, seven home runs, and 85 RBIs (sixth in the league). Despite being perceived as a relatively weak-fielding third basemen, he had played respectfully, earning a .937 fielding percentage, third for third baseman.91 On the last day of the season, Smith broke his leg in the ninth inning of the first game of a doubleheader. Playing as hard as ever, he tried to stretch a single into a double. After sliding into second, he raised himself into a sitting posture and said to the Dodger second baseman, “I think that I have broke my leg.” Cared for by a physician from the stands, and driven to the hospital in a touring car, Smith suffered a broken ankle, an injury that kept him out of the World Series.92

“Gameness”

Without Smith, the Braves lost one of their strongest bats, the player who followed the team’s best power hitter, Butch Schmidt. Smith had played with a determination that had inspired his teammates. While the Braves and their fans appeared heartbroken, and although oddsmakers reduced the Braves’ chances to win the World Series, Stallings and Evers expressed their usual resolution: “We will go right on and fight it out . . . the boys will go in and fight all the harder for his sake, as well for their own.” Evers recognized the loss but claimed, “I don’t believe the absence of Smith is going to make such a difference in the strength of the team as appears to be generally thought.”93 It was this “gameness,” this blend of recklessness and grit, that had led to Smith’s injury, but it was the same fierceness and tenacity that had pushed the team from last to first. Stallings and Evers maintained such a high level of confidence largely because they understood the remarkable quality of the Braves’ comeback. The Braves, at a low point in July, were soaring high that August. By August 15, they had won 27 out of the last 33 games.

Battles in Europe

Three weeks later, during the Giants–Braves Labor Day weekend series, just as the pennant had reached its turning point, the German army arrived just 30 miles outside of Paris, and British and French troops defended their positions at the Battle of the Marne. The world sensed a great turning point in history. Generals and soldiers alike grasped the meaning of this battle; as France’s General Joseph Joffre asserted on September 5, “At the moment when the battle upon which hangs the fate of France is about to begin, all must remember that the time for looking back is past; every effort must be concentrated on attacking and throwing the enemy back. . . . Under present conditions no weakness can be tolerated.”94 The Great War had already reached incomprehensible proportions, with both the Germans and French suffering nearly a quarter of a million men missing, wounded, or killed.95 The Battle of the Marne would decide whether the Germans would capture Paris, and, as we now know, and as eminent historian Barbara W. Tuchman observed, the battle “determined that the war would go on.”96

If the Germans could seize the French capital, as they had in the culmination of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871, they could dominate Western Europe and, no doubt, rule colonies throughout the world. The Germans had annihilated the Russian Second Army just a week earlier at the Battle of Tannenberg. At the same time, the western German offensive had set the Belgians, French, and British reeling backward in an uncoordinated retreat. The two major allied commanders, Sir John French of the British Expeditionary Force, and French general Charles Lanzerac, cast blame upon one another for the chaotic pullback. But just as the Germans stood on the threshold of triumph, they faltered and ultimately failed. “Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory” is a cliché often associated with Helmuth von Moltke, German chief of staff at the Marne. How Moltke and his commanders decided on tactics, and how the Allied Powers formed a military response, is still unclear, yet we do know that the Germans swept down toward Paris—minus two corps that had been sent to the Eastern Front—and when German general Alexander von Kluck, leading the First Army, progressed to the east of Paris, he left his right flank exposed. Trying to swing back, Kluck separated his army from General Karl von Bulow’s Second Army, and when the French and British diagnosed this flaw, the British Expeditionary Force moved into the gap. The Germans, beset by overextended supply lines and hampered by ineffective wireless communication, were forced to retreat.97

The September victory proved decisive for the Allied Powers. The British and French had formed a successful partnership. The French had new heroes: General Joffre was now celebrated as France’s new Napoleon; General Ferdinand Foch earned glory for his battle tactics and his belief in the mystique of the will. Foch, who famously preached, “The will to conquer is the first condition of victory,” had called for his troops to “Attack, attack,” just when retreat appeared to be the most rational move.98 The people of France could thank their most celebrated defenders, the 600 determined taxicab drivers who transported 6,000 troops during a crucial juncture of the battle. The heroic effort stunned the Germans: “The French élan,” wrote Moltke, “just when it is on the point of being extinguished, flames up powerfully.” Henri Bergson, the French philosopher who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1924, expressed wonder at the event: “Joan of Arc won the Battle of the Marne.”99 This unexpected occurrence, an Allied victory just when the Germans appeared triumphant, rightfully earned the title “Miracle of the Marne.”

But in the Battle of the Marne, thousands perished, and, of course, this 1914 slaughter had no match in the United States. For Boston baseball fans, the pennant race, in fact, offered a respite from the headlines of the war. As the Braves won in September, as they surged by other contenders, newspapers gave manager George Stallings the title of “Miracle Man.” The Braves now forged their own “miracle season.” Journalists were now paying tribute to the Boston team as the “Miracle Braves.”