BASEBALL

Max and Liddy Check Out the Bank

We have the Sunday package season tickets for all the home Sunday games. Its because we dont like to go out for the night games. We did the same thing last year. It was great except when they switched a couple of Sunday games to night games because of TV contracts. This year its the same- potential ESPN Sunday night games 7/4 vs Baltimore Orioles, 7/11 vs Atlanta Braves, and 8/15 vs San Francisco Giants. Bummer.

Another bummer is our seats at the new ballpark. Oh sure its a great field green grass and all that, but they didnt tell us our seats in section 329 are at about as high as the 600 level in old Veterans Stadium. So far away we feel like we are watching from a cloud bummer. Liddy is not happy. Neither am I.

The game was good. It was very good. A sellout crowd of over 43,000 watched it with great intensity. They were quiet at the right times, appreciative of great infield defense by the Phils. Only a few boos. Good pitching in tight spots by both Randy Wolf of the Phillies and Claudio Vargas of the Expos. We got to see Billy Wagner unleash his bolts in the 9^th. Wolf gave up two homers in the first but the Phillies came back and took the lead on a two-run skyscraper from Thome in the sixth. The Expos tied it in the 7^th when Doug Glanville, in for defense in centerfield, misplayed a tough out into a triple. But Dougie redeemed himself in the 9^th with a walkoff homerun off Expos closer Rocky Biddle. What were they thinking? That Rocky could defeat Philadelphia?

Imagine that. The first walkoff homerun at the Bank, and we were there.

Rocky Down

Rocky Biddle looked in,

His margin for error was thin.

On a three and one count,

The best he could mount,

Doug Glanville cold cocked for the win.

Sunday, April 18, 2004. Citizens Bank Park, Philadelphia

Philadelphia -5, Montreal 4.

ONE MORE INNING Volume 7:No. 72 July: 2003

Babe Ruth:The Baltimore SlabArtist: Game 2 of the 1916 World's Series

by Max Blue

Both managers were playing it coy. Bill Carrigan of the defending worlds champion Boston Red Sox, and Uncle Wilbert Robinson of the recently crowned National League champion Brooklyn club. The Brooklyns suffered from an identity crisis, nobody was sure who they were; when they won they were the Superbas, when they lost they were Dodgers, but most of the time they were the Brooklyn Robins, who in 1916 delayed their trip south for t\he winter long enough to play against the Red Sox in the Worlds Series. The managers were playing thewhos-going-to-pitch game.

Game one was in the books a 6-5 Red Sox win punctuated by a furious four run 9^th inning Dodger rally that ended with the bases loaded one run shy of a tie, and with Captain Jake Daubert spitting a mouthful of Beantown dust after a head first slide trying to beat Deacon Everett Scott's eye-popping rifle throw from deep shortstop. It was the kind of play that marks the difference between champions and also-rans. The Dodgers, trying to put up a brave front, spoke of it as a win . . . We really cracked em pitcher Jack Coombs was heard to say.

So what about game two? Who would pitch? For the Sox it was almost a certainty that it would be Babe Ruth, the Baltimore slab artist, but Carrigan might go to moist baller Dutch Leonard, the other lefthander he had available. Either way the Red Sox skipper thought he was sitting pretty because he knew that Casey Stengel, the Dodgers homerun threat, Jake Daubert, the Captain, and Zack, Buck Wheat, who finished second to Cincinnattis Hal Chase in the National League batting chase, were all suckers for southpaw slants. Wilbert Robinson had informed the press that he would go with his big righthander Larry Chaney, an 18-game winning moist baller, but Hugh Fullerton, the self-styled grandoldope of the New York Times, knew it was a lie. Fullerton had written that it would be suicide to start Chaney, and insanity to boot when Robinson had 25-game winner Jeff Pfeffer, and Worlds Series veteran Long Jack Coombs rested and ready to go. Coombs, pitching for Connie Macks first great Athletics team, beat the Cubs three times in the 1910 Series, and in 1911 outpitched the great Christy Mathewson in the pivotal game three. Long Jack was Fullertons choice to stop the Sacred Codfish in game two. But Manager Robinson was not listening to Fullerton, who was still annoyed that Robinson had gone with the worn-out lefty Rube Marquard in game one. Fullerton was not annoyed at the outcome, he had predicted a Red Sox win, but at the fact that manager Robinson stubbornly refused to take his advice. The Sox were 8-5 favorites for the Series, partly because of the dope that Fullerton was posting in the Times. Fullerton had fearlessly predicted not only the results, but also the exact number of runs, hits and errors for each game; for the Series it was Boston in five with the Robins picked to win game three in Brooklyn.

When game two started a few minutes after 2 P.M. on October 9, a gloomy Monday afternoon with lowering clouds threatening to wash out the festivities, 41, 373 enthusiasts crowded Braves Field, about three miles west of Boston Common, eager to take in the show. Ticket speculators were having a better day than they did on Saturday, managing to get small premiums on choice seats. The game was played at Braves Field instead of the Red Soxs 4-year-old Fenway Park because Braves Field could accommodate about twice as many paying customers. The National League Braves collected a $1,000 rental fee for each game played, of which the players were required to pay 60 per cent. The remaining amount was split 10 per cent from the National Baseball Commission, and 30 per cent from the club owners. But nobody was complaining receipts for game one were $76,495, of which $41,303 went to the players, $13,768 to each of the teams, and $7,649 to the National Commission. Ticket prices were: boxes -$5; grandstand reserved -$3; first base pavilion reserved - $2; third base pavilion - $1; bleachers 50 cents.

Charlie Ebbetts, head of the Dodgers, had waived his right to a coin flip to decide the location of the first two games, claiming that with the pennant race going down to the last days of the season there was no time to prepare his field for the Series. Following the custom set the previous year, it would be a seven-game series, first team to win four games declared the champion. The games would alternate between the two cities, games one, two, and five if necessary in Boston, games three, four, and six if necessary in Brooklyn. If a seventh game was required, the location would be decided by lot. No games would be played on Sunday, and no days off for travel were provided. The umpires were chosen three days before Saturdays opening game Mr. Dineen and Mr. Connally of the American League, Mr. ODay and Mr. Harrison of the National League. J.G. Spink of St. Louis was appointed official scorer by the National Commission, to be assisted by two scorers appointed by the Boston and Brooklyn chapters of the Baseball Writers Association.

A couple of thousand noisy cranks made the long journey from Brooklyn to lend their support to the desperately striving Dodgers. Brooklyn team president Charlie Ebbetts is not happy when the Dodger cranks are exiled to seats in the jury box a section of the ballpark so far out in right field that players around home plate appear to be seen in miniature. Ebbetts has made his gripe known to Red Sox president Joseph Lannin in a public shouting match in the Hotel Brunswick lobby following game one on Saturday.

Back in Brooklyn more than 40,000 fans brave the cool October winds to gather at scoreboards posted all around the borough by The Brooklyn Eagle newspaper. The scoreboards feature a green baseball diamond with white bulbs at each base, on both sides of homeplate, and at each of the nine defensive positions. Lineups are listed outside the diamond, white bulbs next to each name. Red bulbs on the left and right of the diamond, and behind homeplate record foul balls. Lights are provided for every eventuality balls, strikes, hits, runs, and errors. Western Union telegraph wires bring the action straight from the press box at Braves Field . . . lights blink on and off describing the play . . . imagination is left to the fans.

No baseball game was played on Sunday, but a different kind of action occurred that day . . . the population was astounded to learn from Monday morning headlines that a German submarine chose the day of rest to sink six ships in view of Nantucket Island, no more than 50 miles from Braves Field. The European war was coming to America.

But the game is on, and sure enough there is the 21-year-old Ruth out there in the middle of the diamond soaking up encouragement from his catcher Pinch Thomas, and his infielders, who, except for first baseman Dick Hoblitzel, are gathered around him for a final pow wow before the first pitch. Ruth dwarfs his mates at six feet two inches and 215 pounds he is a half foot taller and 60 pounds heavier than his runty shortstop Deacon Everett Scott. Catcher Thomas, third baseman Larry Gardner, and second baseman Hal Janvrin are not much bigger than Scott, but these guys are wiry Worlds Series veterans . . . winners almost a year ago to the day when they beat the Phillies great Grover Cleveland Alexander 2-1 on this same field in game three to turn the series in Bostons favor.

When all the fellows have had their say, Ruth is left alone on the mound to face the music of the Brooklyn bats. His mind briefly goes back to the year before . . . he was the best pitcher on the staff last year just as he is this year, but he never got a chance to pitch in the Series . . . he has something to prove. On the record, Ruth is by far the Red Sox best pitcher, why didnt manager Carrigan use him in game one? In 1916 Ruth pitched 323 innings to a 23-12 won-lost record with 9 shutouts and a 1.75 ERA. His best pitch is a sinking fastball, and he loves to throw that jug-handled curve.

Ruth toes the slab and quickly shoots two consecutive strikes past Robins rookie Jimmy Johnson, the speed boy from the coast, roaming right field today instead of Casey Stengel who cannot find the range of port side shoots. Johnson digs in and begins to flick foul balls off Ruths best pitches until, on a 3-2 count he nails one to deep centerfield that is pulled in by Tilly Walker after a long backward run. Tilly had plenty of room to spare because the centerfield fence is a yawning 505 feet from homeplate. Braves Field was constructed just last year according to the directions of owner James Gaffney who wanted a field with wide-open spaces that would generate plenty of triples and inside-the-park homeruns . . . he loved to see the lads run. The next batter, Captain Jake Daubert, holds no terrors for Ruth, but he gets a chance to run, vainly trying to beat the throw to Hoblitzel after his weak tap to Gardner at third. And now comes centerfielder Hy Myers . . . get ready to run, boys. Myers looks over a pitch up and out of the strike zone, Ruth has not found his touch. The next pitch floats up so gently that people behind home plate later claimed they could count the stitches on the ball. Myers unloads a murderous cut, and the resounding slap of willow meeting ball is heard all the way to Boston Common. Tilly Walker is on his horse again, but this time he cant reach it . . . the ball is over his head and bouncing toward the centerfield fence. Myers is tearing around second when Walker slips and falls, Myers is high-tailing it around third when rightfielder Harry Hooper finally gets to the ball. Myers completes his mad dash with a headlong slide to the golden dish even though the spheroid has just now reached relay man Hal Janvrin. The fairness of the Boston crowd becomes manifest when they rise to a man cheering the grinning Myers as he heads for the Brooklyn dugout. Ruth stalks the mound in a state of stunned disbelief; over the past two seasons the Baltimore slab artist has pitched a numbing 540 innings surrendering a measly three homeruns, and exactly zero in the regular season just ended. He cannot believe he has been thumped. He stands with his back to the plate looking resentfully out at centerfielder Tilly Walker.

Brooklyn manager Wilbert Robinson now springs his surprise . . . he sends second-rate lefthander Sherry Smith to the hill to carry the banner of Brooklyn. Smith is almost as tall as Ruth, but the Babe leads in the weight department by almost 50 pounds . . . Smith is a stringbean. Hugh Fullerton has written that Sherrod Smith is rather a joke, and according to todays dope we might expect to see Wheezer Dell on the mound for game three in Brooklyn tomorrow. On the record it seems Hugh Fullerton is being harsh . . . in 1916 Sherry Smith worked 219 innings for the Robins, he won 14 and lost 10 with an earned run average of 2.34, and pitched four shutouts. What do you want, Hughie? The Red Sox dont think Sherry Smith is a joke when he puts them down on five pitches, all sizzling speed balls, in the first inning.

Clancy Cutshaw leads off the Brooklyn second with a smash off Ruths leg, but the Red Sox luck holds when the ball goes straight to Larry Gardner who fires to Hoblitzel for the out. Mike Mowrey continues the Brooklyn assault, and the Red Sox luck, with a stinging liner straight into the hands of second baseman Hal Janvrin. Ruth gathers himself, and on a 2-2 count whiffs Ivy Olsen on a sweeping curve to record the games first strikeout.

With one out in the second the Red Sox get their first hit, a clean single to center by Duffy Lewis. Larry Gardner makes solid contact, but his hard ground ball though fumbled by Mowrey, is picked up by Olsen in time for a force out at second. The inning ends when Gardner strolls away from first too far, and is picked off on a splendid throw from Brooklyn catcher Mooney Miller to first baseman Captain Jake Daubert.

The Robins dodge a chance to pick up another run in the third when, with one out, pitcher Smith turns into hitter Smith, and slams a terrific drive against the right field fence, but loses all sense of reality rounding second base, and ignoring the frantic stop sign of Long Jack Coombs in the third base coaching box is thrown out by 10 feet trying to reach the third base. Jimmy Johnson follows with a single to center, but Smith cannot score from his seat in the dugout.

Deacon Scott leading off the third, throws the Red Sox Royal Rooters into a whirl of joy when he picks out a two ball one strike pitch, and drills it between Buck Wheat and Hy Myers to the wall in left . . . only perfect fielding and fast chasing keeps it from being a homerun. Pinch Thomas belts Smiths next offering with fierceness on the ground toward Clancy Cutshaw who makes a wonderful stop, holds the runner at third and throws out Thomas. Next comes Ruth, batting last in the Red Sox order, with a chance to put the game back on an even level. Ruth, like Thomas, does not wait around, he goes after the first pitch, and also like Thomas hits it on the ground to Cutshaw. But this time, with Scott in his sights heading into a sure out at home, Clancy fumbles the ball; he recovers to get Ruth at first, but the score is tied at one, and will remain so for the rest of the long afternoon and into the evening.

The Red Sox miss a chance in the fifth when Ruth swipes air three times leaving Pinch Thomas stranded on third. Thomas had hit to deep left, and was tripped by shortstop Ivy Olsen halfway between second and third, an action that brought third base coach Heinie Wagner charging onto the field ready for battle. Umpire Dineen stopped the fight and awarded Thomas the extra base.

The Superbas begin to slip when Ruth gains strength as the light begins to fade. Both teams flub chances to put the game away in the late innings. The Dodgers flunk base running in the top of the eighth . . . Mowrey on second after a single and a sacrifice, mysteriously stops at third on Mooney Millers long single to center when anyone with eyes could see he might have scored standing up. When Smith rolls to Scott, Mowrey gets in a pickle, and after a professional exhibit of dodgeball that brings the cranks screaming to their feet, is finally tagged out lunging for the golden dish by Ruth who has joined the rundown to lend support to his flagging mates.

Ruth now takes up the bat in the bottom of the eighth, and gives the crowd a thrill when he sends Buck Wheat to the wall in deep right field where the Superbas worthy fielder hauls in his first putout of the day. Harry Hooper follows with a drive to almost the same spot with the same result, and the game heads into the 9^th inning tied at one, and darkness becoming a factor. Betting under the grandstand has been hot and heavy throughout the game with the odds shifting after every inning though continuing to favor the Red Sox. But now, as the game draws to an uncertain end, a curious thing happens . . . ignoring the home team advantage stemming from the last at bat, the line has become even money and take your pick.

Ruth continues to gain strength and easily puts down the Robins in the 9^th. The Red Sox 9^th is a different story as Sherry Smith is put to the supreme test. He begins by getting Janvrin to hit a ball to left that Wheat handles, then drops, allowing Childe Harold to take second. Tilly Walker is up to bunt the runner over, but after a feeble first attempt resulting in a foul pop, Tilly is unceremoniously yanked by Manager Carrigan in favor of Jimmy Runt Walsh. Carrigan has allowed his emotions to overcome his judgement; this move makes no sense. Walsh came to the Red Sox late in the season from the Philadelphia Athletics and has only batted 17 times for his new team. But what baffles most is that Carrigan has pulled the right-handed Tilly Walker and substituted a left-handed hitter to face the left-handed Sherry Smith. And now, instead of bunting, Walsh swings away, and raps back to the pitcher. Smith snares the bouncer and fires to Mowrey at third who puts the tag on a sliding Hal Janvrin. Umpire Quigley signals out then safe when he sees that Mowrey has dropped the ball. First and third, nobody out. Smith stays cool facing Richard Doc Hoblitzel the Red Sox cleanup hitter who he has avoided pitching to all day, handing him two free passes. Hobby takes a pitch for a ball then hammers a drive to center that starts the crowd moving toward the exits. But ho! Hy Myers to the rescue. The Superbas hero-of-the-day snags the drive, and unloads a one-hop throw to Mooney Miller who puts the tag on Janvrin a heart-beat before the Sox second-sackers spikes secure the sacred saucer. The hometown crowd knows baseball when they see it they stand and cheer the alien centerfielder for his fine throw; it seems there will be at least one more inning.

The 10^th is a waste for Dodger bats, but their fielding is superb. With Scott on second after a single and sacrifice, Ruth strikes viciously at three pitches to no avail, and takes his seat. He watches Hoopers slashing bid for a game winner get knocked down by Mowrey who recovers the ball, fakes a throw to first then pivots to fire behind Scott who has rounded third. Ivy Olsen puts the tag on the trapped Scott and the game goes to the 11^th inning.

Ruth holds fast in the 11^th as the Dodgers go down one, two, three; Jake Daubert fans to end the inning, Ruths third strikeout. Ruth is mostly a ground ball pitcher, for the day first baseman Dick Hoblitzel records 21 putouts. When the Red Sox come to bat in the 11^th they are greeted by a spree of music from the Royal Rooters and their red-coated band . . . they want this thing to end and soon. The Hubtown band is blasting over and over . . . Tessie . . . the so-called war-song of the Royal Rooters. Manager Robinson can stand it no longer . . . he emerges from the Brooklyn dugout to plead silence from Mr. Dineen the arbiter of things happening at the plate. Dineen, too, has heard enough, and puts the damper on the music, but cannot silence the rooters who raise the roof at the band ban. All the commotion is to no avail as the Red Sox fail again.

The 12^th is uneventful, ending with the improbable sight of Babe Ruth bunting back to pitcher Sherry Smith who happily throws out the bumbling Bambino who barely remembers to run.

And somehow, through the gathering gloom they manage to play into the 14^th, Ruth and Smith, aided by the dusk, still firing their blanks. In the bottom of the 14^tthand last inning Smith begins by walking Hoblitzel for the fourth time, Lewis bunts him to second, and the stage is set for the final act. Manager Carrigan, sensing that this is it, pulls Hobby for pinch-runner Minooka Mike McNally, and sends up Sheriff Del Gainer to bat for Larry Gardner.

Only Wilbert Robinson can say why he allowed Sherry Smith, who had toiled so true all the long difficult day, to face the right-handed hitting Gainer in this crucial situation. Robinson had a benchfull of well-rested right arms that might have prevented the Sheriff from delivering the decisive single to left that made a winner out of the Red Sox and Babe Ruth, the Baltimore slab artist. The time of game Two hours and twenty nine minutes.

Glassboro, New Jersey

April 16, 2003

ONE MORE INNING June 2004

SIXTEEN IN SIXTEEN

The Renowned Quaker Sets the Bar

By Max Blue

Opening day: April 12, 1916. Its a cold, blustery day in Philadelphia, but the baseball cranks in this gritty manufacturing city dont mind at all. They come from up and down Broad Street, from the Main Line, from across the Delaware River in Camden, and from all around the Delaware Valley to see the defending National League champion Phillies open the defense of their title against what looks like a giant mismatch against John McGraw's New York Giants, dead last in 1915, 21 games behind the champs.

They are here to see the great Alexander, Phillies ace pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander, spin his magic one more time. In five seasons with the Phillies, Old Pete has racked up 190 decisions in 188 starts, winning 127 and losing 63. In the 1915 championship season Alexander lead the league in almost every pitching category: Wins-31; Winning percentage-.756; Complete games-36; Shutouts-12; Innings pitched-376; Fewest hits per game- 6.05; Strikeouts- 241; Earned run average- 1.22; Opponents batting average- .191. In short, when it comes to pitching, nobody is even close to the man the New York Times beat writer calls The renowned Quaker. In 1916 the 29-year-old righthander will set the bar even higher.

The streets around Baker Bowl on Huntington Avenue in north Philadelphia are jammed with far more than the 21,000 lucky bucks who eventually squeeze their way in before the gates are slammed shut. Many of the overflow will take up roosts on rooftops affording a far-off view of the action on the field. But first there are the opening ceremonies. The club owners take the opportunity to present the champion Phillies with handsome monogrammed gold watches as a mark of appreciation for last years good work.

Let the season begin. The 61 185 pound Alexander toes the rubber, eyes Giants leadoff man Georgie Burns standing in on the right side, and goes into his short economical windup. Alexander is an odd sight on the mound, somehow his uniform is all wrong; it hangs in odd folds from his long, sloping shoulders, and his cap seems too small for his head. But there is nothing wrong with his delivery. His right arm comes across his body turned sideways to the plate, and the ball seems to come out of his shirt front. You have to be quick. Burns sees it only as a blur sinking low and away over the outside corner. It is vintage Alexander, some have called him Old low and away. On this day, after a two-inning tune up two days earlier in an exhibition game at Washington, Alexander is in mid season form. Only two putouts are recorded by outfielders, 14 by first baseman Fred Luderus. Alexander himself records seven assists on weak taps from frustrated Giants batsmen. Typically Alex fans five and walks one. But the Giants make a game of it thanks to a wild throw in the first inning by normally steady Phillies shortstop Dave Beauty Bancroft allowing two runs to score. In the fifth inning Giants first baseman Fred Bonehead Merkle catches a rare Alexander hanging curve and lofts it over the 272 foot right field wall. But never mind, these are the woeful Giants. The Phillies win it in the ninth when, with two out, Stock, the diminutive third sacker grabs a free pass, steals second, and scores after a passed ball and a wild pitch for a 5-4 win. Old Pete chalks up win number one and the Phillies are on their way.

Six days later on April 18^th at Baker Bowl, Alex blanks the Boston Braves on five hits for his first shutout of the year. There will be 15 to follow. Sixteen shutouts in 1916, a major league record never challenged.

On April 23^rd, a much anticipated Polo Grounds matchup of Alexander with Jeff The Ozark Bear Hunter Tesreau is postponed because of the threatening aspect of low-hanging clouds. Polo Grounds impresario Harry Stearns takes the opportunity to put his foot downfrom now on the peanut vendors and beer hawkers are ordered to speak at all times in low voices to protect the sensitive ears of Polo Grounds fans. The sellers had been shouting as if they were calling to someone a mile away and it will no longer be tolerated.

April ends with the Phillies at six wins two losses and locked in a season-long battle for first place with the Brooklyn Robins and the Boston Braves. Alexander is 3-1 with one shutout.

Alex opens May with a 3-0 win over the Braves, blanks Pittsburgh 3-0 on the 17^th, and Brooklyn 1-0 on the 26^th. Four of the 16 shutouts will be by 1-0 scores. Alex loses 3-0 to Brooklyn on May 8^th and on May 30^th is hammered by the Giantsfive earned runs in seven innings. He never pitches well in New York. On the season, four of his 12 losses will be by shutout.

Table 1. Alexanders 1916 Season by Month

Month     Starts Comp Games Innings Pitched Wins     Losses      Shutouts

April         4                   4                 36              3            1                1

May           6                   5                 53              5            2                3

June           7                   6                  60              5            2                1

July            8                   7                  69              6            2                4

Aug.           8                   8                  75              6            2                4

Sept.          10                  8                  86             7            3                2

Oct.             1                  1                     9            1            0                1

Totals         45                 39               388              33          12             16

On August first it is time for the team to turn it up a notch. They are five games behind the first place Brooklyn club and one game behind second place Boston. Alex does his part with four consecutive shutouts. He gets help with solid pitching from Erskine Mayer, Al Demaree, and Eppa Rixey. From August first through the 19^th the Phillies win 13 of 15 but then stumble in Pittsburgh and St. Louis, losing six out of eight. But for the month they are 17-10 and open September only three games behind Brooklyn and Boston who are in a virtual dead heat for first.

And now the fun begins. The Phillies are home for eight straight games against Brooklyn and Boston and win them all to storm into a two-game lead in the pennant race. It begins with Alexander recording his record-breaking 14^th shutout beating Brooklyns Jack Coombs who set the record in 1910. But then a funny thing happens. The Giants become unbeatable. They pound Alexander for 13 hits in seven innings and sweep a four game series on their way to a 26-game winning streak. The Phillies make 12 errors in the four games.

After the giant debacle Alexander takes a step back to look at the situation. He takes a deep breath and loads the team on his back for the stretch run. Beginning on September 12^th with a win over St. Louis, he will go the rest of the way pitching every third day. On the 16^th he beats Chicago, on the 19^th he loses 2-0 to the Cubs. On the 23^rd he pitches a doubleheader, beating Cincinatti 7-3 and 4-0, his 15^th shutout.

Its down to the wire. Three games in Brooklyn and a season-ending five games at home against Boston. On Thursday, the 28^th at the three-year-old Ebbetts Field in Brooklyn, a record crowd for a week-day game, 20,000 wild and unruly fans do their best to unravel the great Alexander as he carries the banner of Philadelphia to the mound looking for his 32^nd win of the season. When the game begins the teams are tied at 57 losses each but the Dodgers/Robins have 90 wins to only 87 for the Phillies. At the end of the day Alexander stands triumphant and the Phillies trail by only a half game, but lead in the loss column.

On Friday it rains so a morning-afternoon showdown is scheduled for Saturday. The Phillies take the morning game behind Eppa Rixey to move into first place and hand the ball to Old Pete who knows what is at stake when the teams square off in the afternoon. Pitching with one days rest Alexander needs all the help he can get, but when shortstop Beauty Bancroft breaks an ankle in the first inning the defense collapses. Alex battles five innings to a 1-1 tie until Casey Stengel, the half-nuts Brooklyn rightfielder, kites one onto Bedford Avenue to put Brooklyn ahead to stay.

Two days later back in Philadelphia Old Pete finds a way to blank the Braves on three hits for his 16^th shutout, once again putting the Phillies back into first place. But before Alex can get back on the mound the Phillies lose three straight to the Braves while Brooklyn cools off the sizzling Giants to win the pennant.

Incredibly Alex is called on for a save the next day.

Table 2. Alexanders 1916 Season Versus Opponent

Team                                                                        Alexander

                                       W           L        W             L          Shutouts

1. Brooklyn                    94       60           5              3                    2

2. Philadelphia              91       62           -               -                    -

3. Boston                       89         63         5               2                     3

4. New York                  86         66         2               3                     1

5.Chicago                     67           86       5               2                      1

6. Pittsburgh                 65         89         4               1                    2

7. St. Louis                    60        93         5               1                    2

8. Cincinnati                 60        93         7               0                    5

FORTY THOUSAND PITCHES

One hundred sixty two games¾ no playoffs for the 2002 Phillies, enough is enough. Two hundred fifty pitches per game more or less . . . forty thousand pitches. Forty thousand pitches, and God help me, from my comfortable chair right behind the mound, I watched them all. Four seam fastball, two seam fastball, curve ball, slide ball, circle change, straight change, knuckle curve, bow tie, high and tight, low and away, dirt ball, cookie, fat pitch, wild pitch¾plenty of those, we led the league . . . I saw them all. And I listened¾I didn't have to listen, I could have hit the mute, but I listened, even though I knew what they were going to say : "So and so likes to get his arms extended" . . . "Right down the middle for a ball" . . . "He likes the ball middle-in." I watched and I listened, I couldn't help myself, even those games in Detroit, Cleveland, and Baltimore where they employ the worst threat to civilization to come out of the twentieth century¾the designated hitter (the bile rises in my throat to write those two ugly words)¾no use trying to disguise it with code, I know what DH means. It means damned hard, as in damned hard to take. Maybe the Baseball Guru should run a contest on the true meaning of DH¾disgusting habit?

It's hard not to learn something about your guys when you watch that many pitches. You get to know that Doug Glanville can't lay off that low and away slider, and that it helps not a bit to yell, "Don't do it, Dougie". You wake up in a cold sweat at the image of Jimmie Rollins jumping out of his shoes flailing at high cheese. You learn that Pat Burrell can hit a 98 mph fast ball about three city blocks, or at least a country mile, and if he would cut down on his swing with two strikes on him he would hit about 50 points higher. But you also learn that Pat Burrell ain't cuttin' down on his swing for nobody, no way, no how, and that when he gets a few years older he will be pulling chest muscles from all that whoosh. You wonder why the rest of the team don't learn something from Bobby Abreu and Jeremy Giambi about working the count, since they have on base percentages over .400 and nobody else is close. You learn to live without Scott Rolen¾don't get me started on Rolen. Its too late, Im already started¾for five years this guy has been playing third base like nobody could believe, even Mike Schmidt, who won nine gold gloves at third for the Phillies, says he couldn't carry Rolen's glove. When he was a rookie I wrote a story about Rolen called 'Wonder Pup, the Sunshine of Hope', I loved him, and several million people around the Delaware valley loved him as well ¾he was the ultimate blue-collar ballplayer, he made Charlie Hustle look like a slacker. And then last summer something happened, nobody knows for sure what, but it seemed to start when Dallas Green made some snotty remarks about Rolen on a local talk radio show. The next thing we hear is that Rolen is starting to make demands on Phillies' management, which he must have learned from Curt Schilling the year before . . . "Don't be so cheap, go out and sign some free-agents, I want to play for a winner."

I wonder how guys like Schilling and Rolen can face their teammates when they start making public cracks like that? No wonder the word leaks out that Rolen is considered a cancer in the locker room. I wonder how guys like Schilling and Rolen can so easily discard the love and adulation bestowed on them by millions of people, to say nothing of their place in the 100 year history of the team.

So the Wonder Pup is gone, and I have to explain to my eight-year-old grandson why his favorite player has jumped to the St. Louis Cardinals. And I, along with all the rest, have to face another bleak example of the depressing dictum that only selfishness motivates human actions when the first thing we hear after the trade is that Rolen is talking about going to baseball heaven in St. Louis after escaping a different fate in Philadelphia.

And what is to save us from this melancholy sewer of cynicism? Forty thousand pitches. Somebody is still swinging the bats, somebody is still going from first to third, some little kid is still sitting beyond the left field wall calling, "Hit it to me, Jimmy, hit it to me".

Get a life, you say? I have a life, thank you very much.

Max Blue ,

Glassboro, New Jersey

October 15, 2002

WILLIE AT THE PLATE