As the Yankees head to Fenway for the final three games of the season with a mere one-game lead over the Red Sox in the AL East, it’s worth noting that this is just the third time in the 103-year history of the team that they’ve concluded a regular season by playing their Boston rivals head-to-head for a chance at the postseason. As we are about to watch the fourth such finish unfold before us over the next three days, I thought it would be fun to revisit those three seasons, one per day, as we anticipate what this year’s will bring. The hope is that the juxtaposition between these recaps and the games at Fenway will do far more than a lot of hype and mythmaking could to underscore the significance of this weekend’s series. I’ll start today with 1904.
But before I do, in addition to those head-to-head match-ups there have been just four other seasons in that 103-year period in which the two teams have finished within four games of one another (the maximum distance possible this year). It’s interesting to note, however, that three of those seven seasons have occurred since the American League was split into three divisions in 1994. Including this year, that accounts for a full third of the three-division era. In light of that, it is amazing that the schedule makers haven’t pitted the two teams against each other in the final series of a season since 1996, when the Yankees finished seven games ahead of the defending AL East Champion Red Sox.
Equally amazing, this is the first time since it was adopted in 2001 that the unbalanced schedule has resulted in season-ending Yankee-Red Sox matchup. In 1999 and 2000, when the Yankees finished 4 and 2.5 games ahead of the Red Sox respectively, the final regular season games between the two clubs were on September 11 and 12, almost three weeks before the season’s conclusion. All of which is even more stunning when you remember that the Yankees and Red Sox have finished first and second in the AL East respectively for the last seven straight seasons. Major League Baseball switched schedule makers prior to this season for the first time since 1981. Now, entering the season’s final weekend, four of the six teams that have niether clinched nor been eliminated from the postseason are playing each other, including the first scheduled season-ending series between the Yankees and Red Sox to mean something since 1949. Kudos to baseball and the Sports Scheduling Group for correcting an obvious flaw in the system.
In contrast to 1999 and 2000, last year’s final head-to-head match-up between the Yankees and Red Sox came with a mere week left in the season. The Red Sox won the final two games of a three-game series against the Yankees in Fenway on September 25 and 26 to pull within 3.5 games with seven left to play. They then won a pair of games in Tampa over the next two days while the Yanks traveled home and got rained out by the remains of Hurricane Jeane. That pulled the Sox within 2.5 with five to play, but the Yankees clinched a tie the next day by sweeping the resulting doubleheader from the Twins as the Sox dropped the finale of their series to the Devil Rays. The Yankees then beat the Twins on September 30 on a two-run home run by Bernie Williams in the bottom of the ninth to clinch the division with three games left on the schedule, eventually finishing three games ahead of their rivals.
A similar scenario played out in 1977, when last head-to-head match-up between the two teams came on September 21. Boston took a quick two game series from New York in Fenway on September 19 and 21 to pull within 2.5 games of first place. The Yankees then won their next six games, clinching a tie on the 28th with a 10-0 victory over the Indians at home while the Red Sox fell to the expansion Blue Jays in Fenway. Still, the Sox remained alive for two more days, beating the Blue Jays and Orioles as the Yanks fell to the Indians and Tigers. Finally, on October 1, the Sox lost what proved to be their final game of the season to Baltimore to hand the Yankees, who again fell to Detroit, their second-straight AL East crown (thus eliminating the need for the Red Sox to play a make-up game the next day when the Yankees finally won another game to finish 2.5 games ahead of Boston). But while the 1977 season technically came down to the final game of the season (at least for the Red Sox), it pales in comparison to the Holy Trinity of head-to-head Yankee-Red Sox finishes.
The 1949 and 1978 seasons, which I’ll recap in the next two days, have passed into legend, but the dramatic end to the 1904 season (the holy ghost of New York-Boston finishes, if you will) has been largely forgotten, despite the involvement of Hall of Famers Wee Willie Keeler, Happy Jack Chesbro and Cy Young. Last December, Bronx Banter ran a two–part excerpt from Glenn Stout and Richard A. Johnson’s outstanding Yankee Century that told the story of the 1904 season. Most of which follows is adapted from those pages.
* * *
Created through a series of shady back-room deals to be the signature franchise of the newly established American League, the league’s New York franchise (often referred to as the Highlanders because of the location of their home field at Hilltop Park in Washington Heights, but commonly known as the Yankees), in just its second year of existance, found itself a half game behind the defending World Champion Boston Pilgrims going into a season-ending five game series at Hilltop Park. With cross-town manager John McGraw having already stated his refusal to have his National League Champion Giants participate in what would have been the second ever World Series, those final five games between the AL’s top two clubs proved to be the closest thing to a Championship series that baseball had in 1904.
The Yankees got themselves in this position to a large extent on the arm of their ace, “Happy” Jack Chesbro, a thirty-year-old spitballer (the spitball still being a legal pitch) from North Adams, Massachusetts who had jumped the NL’s Pittsburgh Pirates to join the new New York team the previous year. Enjoying one of the greatest pitching seasons in baseball history, Chesbro started the opener on Friday, October 7, pitching the Yankees to a 3-2 victory. Chesbro went the distance and in the process recorded his record 41st win in front of 10,000 fans, who carried him off the field after the final out. With that victory, the Yankees moved into first place by a half game and were in position to take home the pennant with a split of the remaining games, a pair of doubleheaders to be played on Saturday and Monday (Sunday baseball still being considered blasphemy, at least on the east coast).
That the Yankees held first place at this late date was a surprise to everyone, including the team’s owners. So much so that earlier in the season, when it appeared that Boston would win the pennant outright, Yankee owners Frank Farrell and former New York City Chief of Police Big Bill Devery (both shady Tammany Hall-types) had rented Hilltop Park to Columbia University for a football game on the day of the season’s penultimate doubleheader in order to turn a better profit than would be possible from having their team play out the string. Thus Saturday’s twin bill was relocated to the Huntington Avenue Grounds in Boston. With Chesbro having pitched his 47th complete game of the season the previous day, Yankee Manager Clark Griffith instructed his ace to stay behind in New York and prepare for the season finale on Monday. Chesbro insisted on taking the ball in Game One in Boston, but after having pitched 436 innings that year, the Yankee ace had finally run out of gas and his team fell 13-2. Cy Young then won Game Two almost by himself, driving in the only run while shutting out the Yankees for seven innings for a darkness-shortened 1-0 Boston victory to give the Pilgrim’s a sweep in their own park. The Yankees now needed a sweep of their own back in New York to take the pennant.
Having had Sunday off, Chesbro again took the hill in the season’s penultimate game, his 51st and final start of the year. The Yanks took an early 2-0 lead, but a pair of errors by second baseman Jimmy Williams tied the score in the fifth. In the ninth, another error, this by shortstop Kid Elberfeld, put Boston catcher Lou Criger on first where he was bunted to second and move to third on a groundout to Elberfeld. With two out and the go-ahead run on third, Chesbro got ahead of Boston shortstop Freddie Parent 1-2. As for what happened next, I give you Glenn Stout:
There is an old baseball adage that says a pitcher shall not get beat throwing anything but his best pitch. Even in 1904, that stratagem was standard fare. And the spitball, for most of the 454 innings that Jack Chesbro pitched in the season of 1904, had not only been his best pitch, but perhaps the best pitch any pitcher has ever had.
Throwing a spitball is best described as akin to squeezing a seed out from between one’s fingers, made even more difficult by the fact that it must be done amidst the usual throwing motion. It is a difficult pitch to learn, and nearly impossible to control precisely. But no pitcher in baseball has ever been better at it than Jack Chesbro.Yet even Chesbro, despite all evidence to the contrary, was not superhuman. He stood on the mound, wet his fingertips, gripped the ball, wound up and threw, pulling his right arm down violently, his wrist and forearm stiff, as the ball left his hand.
But this time, perhaps from fatigue, the seed squirted out wide and high. One newspaper described the pitch as “ten feet over Parent’s head.” Kleinow reached for the ball – too late, according to some – but he missed it. Elberfeld later said the catcher would have needed a “step ladder” to get it. The ball reportedly soared fully seventy-five feet in the air past him, all the way to the stands, where it was variously described as either striking the chicken wire backstop that protected the fans or thudding against the wooden fence that supported it.
Criger trotted home as Kleinow scrambled after the rebound. Chesbro looked shocked. He turned away and wiped his face as if to remove the saliva from his hand. Clark Griffith fell prostrate in front of the Yankee bench and buried his face in the dirt. Boston led, 3-2. The New York crowd sat in silence as Boston’s Rooters sang and cheered and hooted for all they were worth.
A moment later, Parent singled, then was forced at second. The stunned Yankees were but three outs away from the end of the season.
Chesbro returned to bench and collapsed, alone and in tears. Over thirty years later long-time Yankee employee Mark Roth told a reporter, “Some day I’ll tell you how Chesbro cried like a baby after that wild pitch. But that always makes me sad. I’ll save it.”
Griffith pinch-hit for Chesbro in the bottom of the ninth as the Yankees rallied to put runners on first and second with two outs only to have left fielder Patsy Dougherty, a star with Boston the previous two seasons who was acquired mid-year and had since excelled against his old team, strike out to end the game and the Yankees’ pennant hopes. The Yankees then won the second game 1-0, plating the game’s lone run in the bottom of the tenth. Too little, too late. They finished the season a game and a half behind the future Red Sox, who at that point in their existence had won two of the four AL pennants and the only modern World Series. The Yankees would have to wait seventeen years before they would finally be able to call themselves the American League Champions.
1. I am heading to the airport for a weekend wedding in Maine- into the belly of the beast. I will be doling out knuckle sammiches to all deserving chowdaheads this weekend.
Play today. Win Today. Thassit.
Go Yankees.
2. When did they start playing baseball on Sundays?
3. Holy crap, can you imagine anyone today pitching over 400 innings! And winning 41 games? Man, was baseball ever a different sport back then. Good to always be reminded that Boston fans have always been obnoxious, even before they were the Sox...
4. Long time/first time and whatnot. I know it's a little off topic, but does anyone else remember this spring and early summer when people were saying things like "the Mets are a more fun team to watch this season," and "the Mets are an exciting young team?" I remember, and it makes me laugh. I'm not one of those Met haters you sometimes find, but it amuses me that come fall, ALL the excitment and tension is right where it always is, in the South Bronx.
5. Cliff,
Thanks for the article. Very well done.
We find out this weekend what kind of team we have here. Do we have hired guns, or guys who understand what it is they are playing for these next three days.
It's larger than baseball.
It's larger the individuals.
It's larger than the present day ownership.
This, my friends, is history. They are playing for a piece of it. This is as much about politics and regional pride as it is about baseball. This is about children and grandchildren, stories told wide eyed, or, stories told in lament. The fabric of our baseball memories.
Weekends such as this, are, in short, why baseball is simply, different. It's more than entertainment, more than competition, it's a part of us all.
I better stop or I'll never get James Earl Jones's voice out of my head.
Lets get them boys, there could be a plaque waiting for you someday.
Go Highlanders!
Go Yankees!
6. Zack,
Not to throw salt on the wound, but your "400 innings" question is exactly why I don't see why switching to a 4 man rotation for a short period is so out of the question these days.
No worries though. We look good going into the weekend, and that is all that matters right now.
7. Stormer Sports -
I loved your post (#5).
As for myself, I'm taking my family complete with Yankee gear, down to sunny Florida tonight where I can watch the games (well, I'll miss tonight's game) with my mom and dad. 3 generations of Yankee fans rooting together.
8. It would be sweet if Matsui could pick up atleast 6 RBI's this weekend...that would put him at 120. It's been a while since 3 players on the same team have gotten 120 RBI's. (AROD,SHEFF, and hopefully MATSUI)
9. I find myself hoping for many things:
Lots of RBIs and Homers by Matsui, Giambino, Sheff and AROD. Key hits by Jeter. Pinch hit-big hits by Bamtino and Bubba....and lots of easy innings for our pitchers.
Let's bunt, bunt, bunt on that big cow Wells too !
10. Stormer, #5 was really good. Good job. This is huge. This is payback and it's time to let them know that big brother is back to put the smack down. Wang missed the July series, he's going to show up for this one.
11. As Jack would say: "Daddy's Home!"
12. We're gonna show the RSOX who the real "Papi" is around here!
13. anyone know the line up for today's game ??? I hope Bubba Crosboy is playing...Cano at the #8 spot and Bubba @ # 9 works like a charm!
14. Someone had some comments on Mike and the Madd Dog in Alex's piece from this morning. I found these comments by Jeremy Shockey pretty funny in today's NY Newsday, Shockey is pretty dumb but anyone who rips M&MD is my friend:
"[Francesa] is just overweight and he takes it out on other people."
"Talk is cheap. Those guys have no experience whatsoever in any organized sport. It's ridiculous because they really don't have any expertise in anything they say. That's like listening to Howard Stern about sports."
"They talk about statistics because their producers have done it for them. They just read a sheet, but they don't really know."
"What goes around comes around. They'll get what they've got coming to them eventually. It's going to be a matter of time before they get old and Francesa dies of a heart attack."
Shockey was smiling and appeared to be making an unfortunate attempt at humor with that last remark. Francesa laughed when it was relayed to him, but that didn't necessarily mean he thought it was funny.
15. Hollywood Yankee, You'll be able to find the lineup around 5ish or so on http://www.yesnetworktv.com/.
16. When this season is over, the Yankees will be the only team left standing, and we will all be here celebrating and cheering them at the Bronx Banter.
17. Enjoy the game everyone.
Thanks to everyone at Bronx Banter - I'm off to Tampa -
GO YANKS !
18. thanks alot Dimelo...And it's good to know that Tocho is back to his positive self...Anyone worried b/c Randy Johnson doesn't exactly like pitching in cold weather???
19. yankee fan in Hollywood, fortunately the forecast for Fenway for tomorrow is sun and a high of 71 - and its an afternoon game.
Safe travels to Tampa, joe. Do you folks have a computer? Get your dad on here!
20. Yankee fan in Hollywood -
It's going to be warm here in boston this weekend...
21. Sorry, should have been "your" - as obviously joe has a computer. =)
22. Thanks Shaun -
Yes, and since dinner is at 4:30 (early bird special and 2 for 1 drinks), I hope to be online soon thereafter !
23. Question for you guys...I have the MLB extra innings package w/ DirecTV ; only to watch Yankee games...Should I just buy the YES network instead ????
Sorry for being off the subject !
24. 2 for 1 drinks. Sounds like a survival plan for this weekend.
25. Last year was so tough. I've been a fan of NY sports teams my entire life (Giants, Yankees and Knicks) and we've all been through some tough times with our teams. But one thing about NY teams, they play tough, they play with the same mindset as its people. Never quit, fight till the end, New Yorkers aren't cocky, we are confident. Last year's ALCS was such a nightmare because the Yankees were all those things for those first 3 games and to see a team take what's ours from underneath us sure killed me and many Yankee fans. We lost and we cheered them for beating us, we knew on April 11th that we'll get our chance at revenge. The time is fucken NOW!!!!!
I feel this team understands that more this year, they saw what happened to them and they've been waiting for redemption for quite some time. The Red Sox have no idea what rabid animal will be unleashed on them tonight. Everything the Yankees were playing for this year, was for this moment and it is here, right-here-right-now. It has played itself out perfectly. The Yankees played like crap parts of the year and at times I wondered if they forgot what they were playing for…..who knows?....But I do know that since the All Star they have played the way all Yankee fans have expected them to play. There were so many things that didn't look to be in our favor, the tough schedule after the all-star break, the # of games back, the loss to the Sawx with Schilling on the mound, the Devil Rays taking 2 - 3 at the stadium., Embree pitching to Kornecko, etc, etc. It has been a crazy fucken ride, but this team overcame every challenge in front of them. They have persevered, even though they were counted out, they refused to stay down for the count. They took blow-after-blow, but they got up again. Here we are, in the 12th round, all bloodied but still standing. The Yankees are ready to deliver the knockout fucken blow and represent New York and its people the only way we'd want to be represented. By beating the FUCKEN Sawx. Let's get'em boys….I'm charged and ready.
26. yankee fan in Hollywood, re 23 - you can subscribe to the Sports Package and get YES (and a bunch of other regional sports networks) but none of them carry any regular season games EXCEPT for your local sports network - which depends entirely on where you live. You get no choice.
I know only because I tried this (get YES not Extra Innings) in '04 when I first had DirecTV. Its a stupid FCC blackout rule and the way the country is divided up into media areas. Makes no sense, except that its a clear way for MLB to make money through Extra Innings. Sigh.
27. Great fucking post 'Dimelo'...You got me pumped biotch!!! I'm ready baby! I'm pupped...and yet the game is still hours away...damn you 'Dimelo' !!!!!
28. yankee fan in Hollywood -
Move from the Bronx to NC and wouldn't have without the package. Be for warned. Plenty (30 or 40) games will be blacked out. Whether because the game is a local game in the home team city (I don't seem to get all of the Yanks v. Baltimore games for some odd reason) and Fox has exclusive right to Saturdays. So understand of 162, you'll get about 100 of them. When I think out loud like I'm doing now, it doesn't see so bad. But when the Yanks are playing against Baltimore for the division league and I can't get it even though I have the package I look like I'm going thru detox. Truthfully, I can't live with out it (or the NFL package for that matter).
29. Oh yea, forgot to add as Shawn P mentioned. You will not (if you live outside of NY) get any Yankee game (even on Yes) without the package. Directv's way to make sure they get there money....
30. Petitioning our minor league team, the Cleveland Indians, to stop this non-sense and let the big boys go to the playoffs.
http://new.petitiononline.com/5115152/petition.html
31. I've heard of people having their bills sent to relatives in other areas in order to get around blackout rules and the like. Whether you're blacked out or not depends on your zip code.
And sometimes they just screw up. I remember once fX blacked out some evenings for me, and I wasn't in either team's home area. A phone call fixed it. They just plain screwed up. Apparently, I was the only viewer who complained in 2-3 nights.
32. Thanks fellas....I'll stick with the MLB Extra innings....I always wondered why Saturday games never came on...thnx BxSparksNYC!
33. I have been ready since 6 this morning when I was awoken by Howard the Great.
34. Personally, I think the amount of games the Yankees and Red Sox play in the regular season as a result of the unbalanced schedule makes these games a little boring.
35. Our favorite baseball writer Bill Simmons had this to say today:
"Either way, I guess I'm never dying in peace, because this feud with the Yankees is much deeper and more personal than I ever imagined. I want to beat them. I always want to beat them. I will never stop wanting to beat them. And everyone else feels the same way."
No offense to Dimelo or anyone with like-minded thoughts about crushing the Sox, but my feeling is that I don't care who the Yanks beat to win, as long as they win win. Winning is what matters. NOTHING is more important.
My experience is that its a different equation for most Sox fans - they want the Sox to beat the Yanks as much, if not more, than they just want the Sox to win. Its not "We want to win!", its "We want to destroy the hated Yankees!" That destroying the hated Yankees means the Sox win seems to be of lesser concern than just wanting to win.
Some things never change.
36. Enjoy this series, guys. This is really special stuff. We're all lucky to be a part of it.
37. "That destroying the hated Yankees means the Sox win seems to be of lesser concern than just wanting to win."
Please.
Pick up any New York paper when the Yanks and Sox are playing and it's loaded with Sox-coverage. There's more than enough evidence suggesting the obsession works both ways.
38. If it wasn't only the fourth time it was happening - and thus wasn't of historical importance - I'd be more inclined to agree with Rich in 34. This seems almost anti-climactic, after what we've been through since '03.
39. Maybe in the City's tabloids, Sully, but never in the upstate NY papers (or the Times, for that matter).
And if so, such an obsession may only have come out in the last year, from the Yanks having lost for a change.
40. Shaun P, no offense taken. If the Yankees don't win it all, then beating the Sox is meaningless. I want them to win, and win it all. It's just that one part of the equation for us to win it all this year is standing right in front of us, and that variable is commonly referred to as the Boston Red Sox - a team with which we have so much history with and who handed us the worse loss in the storied history of the New York Yankees. So in order for us to win it all, we must beat them and it's all part of this great script that was planned out by some unknown entity.
But make no mistake about it....the winning will not stop after Sunday's game. NO ONE WILL BE SATISFIED TILL THE YANKEES WIN 11 GAMES IN OCTOBER.
41. I will not be satisfied with anything less than a WS championship, but beating the Sox enables the Yankees (or perhaps more accurately, their fans), to avoid humiliation.
42. Shaun P is right. The cover of El Diario read "Duelo a Muerte". Now, I don't know what it means... But it doesn't sound good.
43. Something like "I hurt like Death" or something like that...it's not too clear even for a spanish speaker...
44. #42 it means "Duel to the Death"
45. "i was way off" jim carrey -Dumb & Dumber
46. Right, 2003 SUCKED because we lost. Game 7 was great, and I was stoked, but only because we were going to the World Series with a great to chance to win, not because we beat the Red Sox. It was no more gratifying than 2001 or 2000 or 1998 - just a bit more exciting.
47. Per ESPN radio: Guillen has none of his regulars are in the starting lineup tonight.
48. The starting lineups:
Jeter
Arod
Giambi
Sheffield
Matsui
Posada
Sierra
Williams
Cano
Damon
Renteria
Ortiz
Ramirez
Nixon
Varitek
Olerud
Mueller
Graffanino
49. For those had hopes of Joe not being Joe, well, tonight's lineup is as follows:
Jeter SS
Rodriguez 3B
Giambi 1B
Sheffield RF
Matsui LF
Posada C
Sierra DH
Williams CF
Cano 2B
Of course Sierra is in because he "has been there" and "has hit him well in the past" and worst of all "is a warrior." I would have said to DH Giambi and put tino at first as this is Wang we are talking about, but no dice. Sheff usually hits the Sox, so maybe bat him third, but can't really argue with the top of that lineup...
50. Damn Jutin, how did you beat me?? too quick
51. The problem with that is that Giambi doesn't hit nearly as well when he is the DH.
52. Wang can do all the fielding himself.