Boston lost, and the fans had themselves to blame as four routine balls, hit by the Pirates into the throng that stood only a couple of hundred feet from home plate, went as ground-rule doubles and accounted for three runs.
The overnight train to Pittsburgh carried not only the teams but also a group of Boston fans known as the Royal Rooters. Nothing kept the Rooters from Pittsburgh's Exposition Park, not even a lawsuit brought by a bandleader whom they had hired and then dismissed. They marched to the field and crooned songs and rooted tirelessly. But Boston lost Game 4 to fall behind, 3-1, in the series.
Changing fortunes
Then fortunes changed. Deacon Phillippe, the winning pitcher in all three Pittsburgh victories, was tiring and the Pirates' bats went silent. The player-manager, Fred Clarke, even postponed a game to give Phillippe an extra day's rest. Collins ranted over the tactic, but his club rallied to tie the series, then won again to go ahead, four games to three.
The teams returned to Boston to decide the series. Bill Dinneen, winner of Games 2 and 6, faced off against the exhausted Phillippe, who somehow yielded only three runs. In the top of the ninth, Dinneen had a shutout going. With two out, Honus Wagner came to bat. Wagner, who had hit .355 during the season, had no hits in the previous three games.
Wagner worked the count full. Dinneen delivered the next pitch. A reporter described the moment this way: "The big batsman's mighty shoulders heaved, the stands will swear that his very frame creaked, as he swung his bat with every ounce of power in his body, but the dull thud of the ball, as it nestled in Criger's waiting mitt, told the story."
National pastime
The first World Series also served to ratify the place of baseball as America's national pastime. The sport had been in a down cycle through the 1890s, but now commentators again saw in baseball those qualities that constituted the American character. From the beginning, the World Series served as an autumn rite in which the fans were entertained, enthralled and, if they were lucky, renewed.
Reflecting on the series, one writer observed, "The Panama Canal, the Alaska boundary question, the troubles in the East have been sidetracked, and sleep has not been thought of until an answer was obtained to this momentous daily question: `What's the score?'"
One hundred years later, the question remains as salient as ever.
Louis P. Masur is professor of history at City College of New York and author of Autumn Glory: Baseball's First World Series (Hill & Wang, 2003).
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