Book Excerpt
The Yankees lost to the Red Sox in exquisite fashion in 2004. It was horribly painful for Yankee fans and amazingly wunnerful for Red Sox Nation. Although the Sox haven’t made a custom of beating the Yankees (when both teams have been good) during the past hundred years, they did send New Yorkers home unhappy in 1904, in spite of the considerable efforts of Ban Johnson and Jack Chesbro. The following excerpt–the first of two parts–from Yankees Century details that fateful season, when the Boston-New York baseball rivalry was just beginning.
CHAPTER TWO: 1904
THE PITCH
By Glenn Stout and Richard A. Johnson
“I would have given my entire salary back could I but had the ball back.”
–Jack Chesbro
If the Yankees failure to contend in 1903 had caused some joy among some factions of Tammany Hall, elsewhere there was only frustration. Ban Johnson, Frank Farrell and William Devery were not happy. The new club had proven problematic, a failure in almost every way. All interested parties were determined not to let that happen again. They’d invested too much in the immigrants to let them flounder.
Fans were less than impressed. American League baseball in New York, while cheaper than National League ball, hadn’t been very impressive. The Yankees had failed to create their own constituency, or steal substantial numbers of fans from the Giants. Yankee rooters were foundlings who couldn’t afford to attend games at the Polo Grounds, gamblers who would bet on anything, anywhere, anyhow, or political cronies of Farrell and Devery taking a day off.
They weren’t drawing fans from downtown. Getting to the ballpark was inconvenient, and would be for several more seasons until the subway opened. By and large, the Yankees were fighting the Giants for the same group of fans – and losing badly.
