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“DIARY OF A WINNER”
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FENWAY'S FIRST TEAM September 26, 1912 ... The Red Sox played the last of the regular season games scheduled at brand-new Fenway Park for the season, given to them by the New York Highlanders by a 15 to 12 score. It was a funny game but that doesn't properly describe it. It has several features that probably no one has ever seen before and may never see again. Ray Keating for New York and Ben Van Dyke for the Red Sox, who had been rivals all season in the New England League, were pitted against each other on the mound and it looked like it could be a great pitcher's duel. However neither boy did himself justice. Neither finished the game, although Van Dyke had to be relieved long before his opponent left the game. Van Dyke was hit hard from the start and seven runs were scored off him in five innings. Eight hits, one of which was a triple, were mixed up in the development of those runs. In addition he was very wild. Keating went through until the eighth-inning, although the Red Sox began to hit him pretty hard after the fourth inning. In the eighth however, after he passed Bill Carrigan and Harry Hooper had connected with one of his curves for a triple, and with two outs, Tris Speaker slammed another triple across. That was it for Keating. Larry Pape, who relieved Van Dyke on the mound, had two singles, two doubles and a triple recorded against him. Then after two were out another double was given up by Pape. This all happened in the sixth inning. The last out of the inning was something of a freak play. Keating hit a high pop fly ball. It took so long to come down that Speaker could have come all the way in from centerfield to get it and any player in the infield would been able to take it. It looked as if it would come down somewhere between the plate and it the pitchers mound. Carrigan was called upon by Pape to make the catch however. He got under the ball and while waiting for the come down it apparently occurred to pay that Carrigan might get overanxious because of the long wait and drop it. So at the last moment, Pape suddenly shifted his position and dropped out in front of Bill to catch the ball in case it dropped from Carrigan's mitt. The sudden move distracted the catcher's attention and he never got a hand on the pop up, it dropping about a foot from the pitcher's mound. Keating, who had run out the ball as a matter of fact, was nearly to second base when the ball fell safely, indicating how high the pop up went. The infield double let in the fifth run of the inning against the young Boston pitcher, but no more was scored against him.
But what happened the Pape was nothing compared to what happened to Keating in the eighth-inning. At the beginning of the inning the score was 12 to 7 in favor of New York. Two runs had been scored against Keating and he was pulled out in favor of Ray Caldwell. Speaker was on third and two men were out. Duffy Lewis, the first man to face Caldwell, singled and scored Speaker making the score 12 to 10. Clyde Engle doubled to left, but Lewis was held at third and Jake Stahl was passed to fill the bases. Caldwell could not get a ball over the plate to Heinie Wagner and he was passed, forcing Lewis in and making the score 12 to 11. Try as he could, Caldwell but not throw a strike and so the Red Sox players kept waiting him out. Pinch Thomas was sent in as a pinch-hitter earlier for Pape and he came up to bat for the second time. Speaker tipped him off and told him to wait. He did so until he was given four bad balls forcing Stahl in with the run that put the Sox in the lead 13 to 12. Frustrated, Caldwell was taken out in favor of Tommy Thompson. Thompson was doing his best to give the Red Sox something a hit, but he too could not get the ball over the plate. He first passed Harry Hooper and that forced Wagner home, and then he passed Marty Krug to bring in Carrigan. The score was now 15 to 12. It was growing dark and Thompson was vainly trying to locate the plate while Speaker was at bat. He managed to get a couple close enough so that Tris could reach them and they were fouled off, coming down to three balls and two strikes. He served one up that was high and wide and would have been called the ball, to force in another run, but Speaker thought he would end the agony and made a swipe at it, with no expectation of hitting the ball. In fact he couldn't have reached it with a broom. It was a strikeout and it ended the game. Umpire Dineen immediately called the game on account of darkness. The Red Sox had won the game by scoring eight runs, four of them forced over the plate by six free passes given in succession, by two pitchers. |
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