SHE seen a beauty on Sunday. I beat Chicago, the first game I won since the tail end of the western trip in St. Louis 17 days before, and Boston took a doubleheader, and the cushion was 2. She went home on Monday, and Knuckles and Hams beat St. Louis on Tuesday and Wednesday, and the winning streak stood at 6, though St. Louis snapped it on getaway day, blasting Sam from the box, and we moved out for Friday and the weekend in Washington, Boston hot but a 2½ cushion between us.
We had time on our side, and the 2½ looked big. It looked a good deal fatter then it looked on Labor Day, even fatter then the 3½ after the first game of the Boston series on the third of September.
It was 2½ almost all the month, a little 1 way, a little the other, and the later it got the better it looked. We was ready to settle for 2½. We would of loved 4 and we would of been in heaven with 5, but it was 2½ most of the way and we got used to 2½.
You have got to hand it to Boston. They clung to our tail, refusing to be shook, hanging on, hanging, hanging, knowing that with every passing day their chances took a downwards dip, yet clinging, fighting, tore through the middle with friction and illness (at 1 time there was 6 Boston players with a cold in their head because the weather was miserable up there all through September) yet never saying “Die,” but seeing things through to the bitter finish, and you have got to admire them for that.
The west went west for good and the east settled down for the last 10 days, and we worried, for worry was a habit by now, and we fretted and snapped, and Dutch rode us, first pleading then scolding then pleading again, and I counted the days and the hours until it would be over and settled 1 way or the other, and sometimes I hardly cared which.
I beat Washington Friday night. That was number 25 for me. I was the first and only pitcher in the league that won 25, the first Mammoth that done so since Sam Yale turned the trick in 45. Outside of Sam I was the only Mammoth in history that won 25. The nearest anyone else ever come was Egg Barnard in 1920, with 24 wins, and Peter Rosegrant in 1916, also 24, Peter now a turnstile turner in the grandstand section back of the plate. Boston beat Brooklyn, and it was still 2½.
It turned hot in Washington, like summer again, and World Series seats went on sale at the Stadium. The front office seemed to figure that the 2½ would be good forever, and most folks figured the same, I suppose. According to a pole that was took at the time 66% of the people considered the Mammoths would win, 26% thought otherwise, 8% had no opinion.
Keith Crane went after his second win on Saturday. He had not won a ball game since Labor Day, his first and only big-time win, and he needed relief in the sixth, first putting the winning runs on base, and Boston beat Brooklyn again and the cushion was 1½.
But even then nothing broke, nothing flared. There was only a quiet amongst the boys, a silence and a quiet, and for fear of breaking silence you did not speak except when spoke to, and the safest thing to do was find yourself a corner in the lobby and slouch down and pull it in after, and that is what I done.
I sat in the lobby until half past 1 that night, and then I went up, and even then I could not sleep. Bruce sat by the window and said he knowed now we would lose for sure, and I did not answer. I got up and wrapped my sheet about me and went down the hall to Pisses room, and I laid on the empty bed with the pillow under my back, and I could not sleep on account of the heat and on account of my back and on account of the noises from Pisses sinuses, and I went back and dressed and laid in the park near the reflecting pool, and I slept a bit and was woke by the sun.
Lindon pitched the first game of the Sunday doubleheader. He had not worked since St. Louis when he froze and throwed to the wrong base and lost his own ball game. Dutch had no faith in him ever after, but he was trying to work out his rotation so as to aim with his lefthanders against Boston the last 3 days, and he gambled on Lindon, and he lost the gamble. Lindon was as wild as his wildest day back in Q. C., and Boston beat Brooklyn in the first of 2 at Boston, and the cushion was one half a game.
There was actually a period of nearly an hour that afternoon when in a manner of speaking Boston led the league. Dutch had no choice in the nightcap but throw Sam with only 2 days rest, and 2 was not enough and he fell apart in the fifth from simple weariness. We trailed 4–1 when he left the game, Boston leading Brooklyn at the time until Brooklyn busted loose with a big sixth inning and sewed it up, and a little while later—in the top of the eighth—the Mammoths come to life.
I will never forget that half inning. We played a desperate kind of baseball, Gene opening with a ground ball deep to short that he beat by an eyebrow, moving as fast as I ever seen him do before, Perry then pinch-running for Gene and going clear to third on a very shallow single by Red that Teddy Cogswell almost took over his shoulder going away. God, what a difference a couple inches can make!
Dutch took a long time deciding on a pinch-hitter for Horse, and finally he settled on Swanee, and he sent Coker down to pinch-run for Red. Swanee was a good choice, having been through fire many a time before, an old war horse without a nerve in his body. He finally worked himself a pass and loaded the bases, and Bruce rushed down from the bullpen to pinch-run for Swanee, and Red hustled down to the pen and kept Knuckles warm, and everything looked crazy, nobody where they ought to be, Red in the bullpen, Knuckles warming for relief, Dutch throwing his strongest card at every turn of events, the boys playing now with their back to the wall as tight and close as ever it was or ever it could be, and knowing it, every 1 of them, knowing it was now or never because if once we fell behind we would be behind forever, no Series melon, no rich and happy winter, nothing only drag home your unhappy ass and explain to the folks and the friends how come you was tops on paper and second in the standings.
George clubbed 1 in the dirt, a weakly little bounder. But it bounced the long bounce towards short, and Cogswell brung the play home, and Perry actually beat the throw to the plate, Coker and Bruce moving up 1 base apiece, the bags still jammed. Coker scored a minute later when Canada hoisted a long fly to left, and 1 thin run now stood between us and a tie ball game, Dutch fuming and swearing because Bruce had not took third on the play and sending out Herb Macy to run for Bruce, something I never seen before—a pinch-runner running for a pinch-runner—and Bruce slinking off down along the fence to the bullpen again. Vincent Carucci singled, scoring Herb, and it was 4–4.
Sid run the count out and then fouled off a couple. There was points while Sid was at bat where I thought my heart would absolutely give out from the suspense and excitement. I would not of been Sid for I don’t know what. He kept rubbing his hands with the resin, they was sweating so, and finally he got what he was looking for and punched it into right, and George roared in from third and give a leap like a broad jumper and come down on the plate with both feet with the tally that busted the tie, and we met him in front of the dugout, all of us, every goddam 1 of us, up on our feet, and he was grinning and blabbering away in Espanyol (Spanish). You would of thought the flag was clinched right then and there. The relief from the tension was almost more then a fellow could bear.
That was the end of the scoring. Knuckles pitched 2 perfect innings and we squeaked through 5–4 and then dashed back in the clubhouse and listened in complete and absolute silence to the last inning of the nightcap in Brooklyn, won by Brooklyn. The cushion was 1½ when we boarded the train out of Washington.
So we settled for an even split on 4 in Washington, and we done the same in Brooklyn on Tuesday and Wednesday and the Thursday doubleheader, almost the whole staff working but me and Sam and Keith Crane, and Boston took 2 out of 3 from Washington, chipping another half a game off of what was left of the cushion. There was just that 1 game between us when Boston moved in at the Stadium. Homer B. Lester, in the Sid Yule story books, could not of set it up so neat if he tried.
We was favored in the betting. We had 3 lefthanders rested and ready to go, Henry Wiggen with an ailing back, a tired old man called Sad Sam Yale that had not won a start in 2 weeks, plus a AA ballplayer name of Keith Crane. I do not know who figured the odds. I doubt that much was bet.
Friday Morning, September 26
| Won | Lost | Pct. | Games Behind | |
| New York | 95 | 56 | .629 | — |
| Boston | 94 | 57 | .623 | 1 |
Games to Play
New York: With Boston, 3
Boston: With New York, 3