by Bob Warrington

Introduction

Connie Mack and his Athletics brought Philadelphia its second baseball championship in 1905 by capturing the American League crown. Using many of the same players who won the A’s first league title in 1902, Mack tasted victory for a second time in 1905, but only after surviving a harrowing pennant race.

In one sense, the second championship was more significant than the first because there was no World Series in 1902. The National and American Leagues were still fighting their “war” at that point, and a post-season championship contest was out of the question. A “peace agreement” in 1903 opened the way for a World Series between the leagues’ pennant winners, and the A’s would have their first opportunity to play in one in 1905. The occasion would offer one of the most masterful pitching performances ever seen in a World Series and leave a lingering question over whether one key A’s player succumbed to the influence of gamblers determined to “fix” the contest and ensure the Athletics would lose.

Opening Months of the 1905 Race

Through the first three months of the 1905 season, the American League pennant chase featured a nip-and-tuck contest between two teams—the Cleveland Naps and the Chicago White Sox. The heavy-hitting Naps—a nickname drawn from the name of player-manager Napoleon “Nap” Lajoie—developed a big lead by the end of June and held a 100 point advantage in the standings over the third-place Athletics. However, disaster struck Cleveland on 1 July when Lajoie was spiked on his left foot and blood poisoning ensued. Although he eventually recovered, Lajoie was effectively out for the season. With subsequent injuries to other key players, Cleveland faltered and the Athletics surged into first place on 2 August.

The Race Tightens

With Cleveland fading from the pennant race, a new threat to the Athletics’ hold on first place emerged in the form of the Chicago White Sox. The Sox battled the A’s through September and were just three points behind when they arrived at Columbia Park for a crucial three-game series. The A’s little ballpark was jammed to the gunwales for all three games. In the first one, faithful Eddie Plank beat Roy Patterson in a nail-biter 3-2. In game two, “Chief” Bender worked his magic on the White Sox while the Athletics’ bat exploded for an 11-1 cakewalk. For game three, Mack again called on Plank, but George Owen of the White Sox edged him 4-3.

After the pivotal series in Philadelphia, the White Sox and Athletics went their separate ways. The Sox stayed close to the A’s, but the turning point occurred on October 5th, when the Athletics took two from Washington, putting the team only one victory away from the pennant. As it turned out, another A’s victory wasn’t necessary, as the White Sox lost to the St. Louis Browns on October 6th, and the Athletics claimed their second American League championship. It was on to the World Series and a match-up with their old nemesis, John McGraw and the New York Giants.

Battling the Giants Minus One Pitcher

Before embarking on an examination of the 1905 World Series, it’s necessary to go back a month to a bizarre incident that occurred on September 1st and cost the Athletics one of their most valuable pitchers. Back in the 1900s, straw hats were very popular for gentlemen to wear. The first of September, however, marked the beginning of the informal “closed season” for straw hats. Such hats, according to fashion dictates of the time, were meant to be worn in the spring and summer, but not after September dawned.

In observance of that dictum, A’s southpaw pitcher Rube Waddell “declared war on straw hats” as of September 1st. Waddell, in other words, would place his fist through the top of any straw hat worn by a fellow A’s player or team official. Another pitcher, Andy Coakley, happened to be wearing a straw skimmer on that day while a train carrying the team was idling at a station in Providence, Rhode Island. Waddell saw Coakley’s hat and was determined to grab it and punch out its top. A scuffle ensued between the two pitchers as Coakley attempted to save his hat and Waddell tripped over a bag and fell heavily on his left shoulder, injuring it. Waddell compounded the problem by sleeping by an open window in the Pullman coach as the train swept through the night onto its next destination. The following morning, he couldn’t raise his left arm above the shoulder.

Because of this injury, Waddell was lost for the balance of the season and the entire World Series. In late September, Waddell told Mack that he had recuperated. The A’s manager inserted him on two occasions during games against Chicago and Washington, but Waddell was ineffective on both occasions and was quickly removed. The absence of the great southpaw was sorely felt as the A’s struggled to win the pennant against the White Sox. So, the unexpected consequences of a silly prank cost the Athletics one of their greatest pitchers as they drove to the pennant and prepared for their first appearance in the Fall Classic.

Or, is there a more sinister explanation for Waddell’s absence from the A’s just when they needed him the most?

Allegations and Controversy

To continue this story, we must fast forward to 1920, when America and baseball was ensnarled in the Black Sox scandal. As the trial for the eight Sox players accused of “throwing” the 1919 World Series approached, old-time ball players and officials reminisced about efforts by gamblers to “fix” games in days gone by. One person who spoke openly about such incidents was Horace Fogel, former president of the Philadelphia Phillies. Fogel claimed in a newspaper interview that a group of New York gamblers, headed by little Tim Sullivan, approached Rube Waddell and offered him $17,000 to stay out of the 1905 World Series. The left-hander could invent his own excuse for not playing. According to Fogel, “Waddell was paid $500 in a Boston hotel, but was double-crossed out of the rest—even though the Giants won.”

Waddell could not respond to the allegation. He died in 1914. But Connie Mack, in Frederick Lieb’s biographical treatment of the A’s skipper, “Connie Mack: Grand Old Man of Baseball,” addressed the allegation directly. According to Mack, “Anyone who knew Waddell knew how silly and ridiculous such rumors were. Money meant little to the Rube. He loved to play ball and to win, and he always was loyal to me. As a matter of fact, at the time of Rube’s injury I wasn’t thinking of the World Series, but of the pennant we were trying to win. We were still far from being out of the woods.”

Mack’s defense of Waddell has some resonance. It does seem odd that gamblers would approach Waddell about the World Series at the beginning of September when a full month of the regular season remained. Moreover, as Mack correctly points out, the A’s were far from clinching the pennant at that point. On the other hand, the team had built up a comfortable lead by Labor Day that only vanished as the month progressed and the White Sox went on a tear through the American League. Gamblers may have felt confident enough by early September that the Athletics would win to seek to corrupt one of the team’s star pitchers. Moreover, they wouldn’t be obliged to pay Waddell until after the World Series to guarantee that he didn’t play. The $500 he allegedly received, as Fogel claims, probably would have been a down payment with the rest promised once the Series was over.

Of course, if Waddell didn’t play and the Athletics lost to the Giants, the gamblers would have very little incentive to pay the A’s pitcher the rest of his money. They would have already won their bets on the Giants and Waddell would have very little recourse to obtain the money he was promised. What could he do? It’s unlikely he would expose himself by suing the gamblers in court or going public with a claim that they had cheated him out of the rest of his payoff money. By the way, that lesson was learned all too cruelly by the 1919 “Black Sox” players when they threw the Series but received only a small portion of the bribe money promised them by gamblers.

Newspapers of the time clearly anticipated a closely fought World Series. The baseball writer for the Public Ledger proclaimed, “It should be a fight to the bitter end.” The Giants themselves thought their chances were no better than even against the Athletics. Under the World Series rules then in force, 70 percent of the money paid to the players went to the winners and 30 percent went to the losers. Some Giants’ and Athletics’ players made side arrangements to pool the winning and losing shares and divide it evenly regardless of which team won.

While intriguing, such information leaves unanswered the basic question of whether Waddell had taken bribe money to betray the Athletics. The injury he suffered could have been deliberately self-inflicted, exaggerated in severity, or genuine. Given the primitiveness of medical diagnosis in 1905, the only person who would truly know whether he could pitch was Waddell himself. The possibility that gamblers “got” to Waddell can be forever debated and never settled. Still, it’s a fact that he didn’t pitch and suspicions that have been raised cannot be dismissed entirely. In his book, “The Athletics of Philadelphia,” David Jordan has written, “There were occasional hints, although nothing was ever substantiated, that he (Waddell) was sometimes controlled by gamblers.” Each reader can draw his own conclusion about the validity of Horace Fogel’s allegation.

The 1905 World Series

As noted, the Philadelphia Athletics faced John McGraw’s New York Giants in the 1905 Fall Classic and encountered a human buzz saw in the form of the great Christy Mathewson. In summarizing the results of the contest, one cannot emphasize too strongly that Mathewson delivered one of the greatest performances in World Series history. Starting the first game against the A’s Eddie Plank, Mathewson pitched a masterpiece and surpassed the fine work of Plank. The Giants won 3-0.

The score for the second game was also 3-0, but this time, the Athletics came out on top behind the first-rate pitching of Charles Albert “Chief” Bender. It was to be the A’s only victory in this World Series, as Mathewson came back again in game three to beat pitcher Andy Coakley and blank the A’s 9-0. The Giants’ Joe “Iron Man” McGinnity won a close contest against Plank 1-0 in game four. The end for the Athletics came in game five when Mathewson pitched his third straight shutout of the World Series, besting Chief Bender 2-0.

In reviewing the 1905 Fall Classic, it’s interesting to observe that every game was a shutout. This would suggest that Waddell’s absence from the A’s pitching staff had relatively little to do with the outcome of the World Series. Mack acknowledged, “I got great pitching in 1905, and even Rube couldn’t have won without any runs.” Nevertheless, if Waddell had been available to pitch, he almost certainly would have started game three instead of Andy Coakley.

Nothing, however, can overshadow the tremendous achievement of Christy Mathewson. He pitched three games within six days and held the Athletics scoreless for all 27 innings. He gave up only 14 hits, walked only one man, and struck out 18. Many people have attempted to explain the A’s anemic performance—especially their hitting—by pointing to the fact that the close pennant race had exhausted the team by the time the World Series was played. There may be some truth in that observation, but David Jordan has offered a simpler one, “The Athletics were overmatched by a Christy Mathewson at the peak of his powers.”