The First Official World Series

After the baseball wars of the early 1900s, the National League and the new American League agreed to an annual baseball event - and the World Series was born.

Taking place for the first time in 1905, there’s never been a game like it since. Baseball writer Norman L. Macht tells the full story.

The Baseball Wars

From 1901 to 1903, the old National League and the new American League were at war with each other. American League teams raided rosters, enticing players to jump their contracts and switch leagues.

Players bullfrogged back and forth between competing offers. Teams fought over players in the courts. The two leagues even played using slightly different rules.

Peace was declared in 1903. In the interests of profits and harmony, post-season series were played in two-team cities and states. The owners of the pennant-winning clubs, the Boston Americans and Pittsburgh Pirates, arranged to meet in an unofficial “world championship” playoff series.

They decided on a 5-out-of-9 format, did their own scheduling, hired the umpires, set the ticket prices and divvying of the receipts. The leagues’ officials had no part in the arrangements. The series, won by Boston in 8 games, drew overflow crowds and nationwide press coverage.

Boston finished first again in 1904. When the New York Giants won the National League pennant, manager John McGraw and club owner John T. Brush wanted nothing to do with a championship series against what they considered Ban Johnson’s “minor league.”

There was nothing in the peace agreement requiring the pennant winners to meet in a “World’s Series.” Despite public pressure, the Giants stood firm.

In 1905 the two leagues agreed to make it an automatic annual event.

The 1905 World Series

There have been more than 100 World Series since that first official one in 1905 between the New York Giants and Philadelphia Athletics, but there has never been another one like it. Every game was a shutout.

It was not just because it was the Deadball Era; the eight-game 1903 Series had produced a total of 63 runs.

Connie Mack’s Philadelphia Athletics

The Giants were the betting favorites. They had finished with a 105-48 record, scored an average of five runs per game while giving up 3.3.

The Athletics had finished 92-56, scoring four runs per game; their pitching was equally effective, giving up 3.2 runs per game.

For the third year in a row Christy Mathewson had won 30 or more games. He had worked 366 innings but pitched only 3 shutouts. Veteran Joe McGinnity was 21-15 after winning over 30 in ’03 and ’04. 

Rube Waddell

For Connie Mack, his southpaw sensation Rube Waddell had been 27-10 with a 1.48 ERA and 287 strikeouts after losing a 13-inning 3-2 duel in which he gave up 4 hits and fanned 17 in Boston the day after Labor Day.

A few days later, on the overnight train to Philadelphia, Waddell had either injured his left shoulder in a scuffle with Andy Coakley, or he had picked up a sore shoulder sitting all night by an open window on the hot ride home, which Connie Mack believed.

Whatever the reason, Waddell had nothing on the ball the next time he started –or any other time the rest of the season.

What Mack – and all the A’s players - did not believe was the rumor that gamblers had gotten to Waddell and paid him to sit out the World Series.

There were lots of rumours about Athletics pitcher Rube Waddell during the first official World Series

They knew that Rube loved the limelight too much to pass up a chance to duel with the great Mathewson. “All the gold in Christendom could not buy him,” Mack said.

There’s another reason the rumors didn’t make sense. The A’s led the second-place White Sox by only 4 games in early September. The race was far from over. Anybody gambling on the Giants would have to try to reach Chicago ace Nick Altrock too. By the last week of the season the lead was down to 1 game.

If Waddell wanted a payoff to sit out the Series, the A’s would have to be in it. But each time Mack gave him a chance to pitch, he had nothing on the ball. The pennant was in doubt until the last weekend; the final margin was 2 games.

The A’s would rely on southpaw Eddie Plank, 23-16, and Chief Bender 17-14. Twenty-two-year-old Andy Coakley had won 18, but he had pitched 255 innings and was out of gas by the end of the season. 

Demand for tickets was so high, the crowds occupied standing room behind ropes in the outfield in both the Polo Grounds in New York and Columbia Park in Philadelphia. With the two cities only 90 miles apart, there would be no travel days.

The Games

The Series opened on Monday, October 9, at Philadelphia. The Giants had 10 hits but only 3 runs off Plank, Mathewson shut out the A’s on 4 hits.

The next day in New York Bender blanked the Gants on 4 hits in a 3-0 win over McGinnity. 

It rained on Wednesday, giving Mathewson two days’ rest, enough for him to pitch another four-hitter while the Giants feasted on the weary Andy Coakley and 4 A’s errors for a 9-0 rout. 

On Friday in New York, McGinnity and Plank matched 5-hitters, The Giants won, 1-0, on an error, sacrifice and single.

On Saturday in New York, Mathewson needed only one day’s rest to finish off the A’s, beating Bender, 5-0.  Both pitchers gave up 5 hits.

In six days Matty had pitched three complete games, equaled his total shutouts for the year, and given up 13 hits and one walk.

Each team used only three pitchers in the entire Series. Connie Mack used no relievers. Even in the 9-0 loss in Game 3, he left Andy Coakley in for the entire game. Thanks to the A’s 4 errors, only 3 of the 9 runs he gave up were earned.

John McGraw used Red Ames for one inning after pinch-hitting for McGinnity in the eighth inning of Game 2.

Footnote

There is an ironic footnote to this World Series: Read the story of why Christy Mathewson should have been pitching for the Athletics instead of the Giants on this site next month.