The Pittsburgh Press (October 5, 1946)
Background of news –
Remember the 1903 Series?
By Bertram Benedict
The World’s Series beginning tomorrow is like the first World’s Series, played in 1903, in that the Boston team of the American League is in it. The National League contender this time, however, is St. Louis – not Pittsburgh.
The Boston Americans of 1903 weren’t the Red Sox, though. They were called the “Beaneaters” – and they won the series.
The National League, organized in 1876, was fora long time the only major league in baseball. The American League was formed to challenge it in 1899, establishing clubs in six of the eight National League cities.
For several years the two leagues raided each other’s clubs for players. In 1903 peace was established; a National Commission was created to control baseball, a series was arranged between the winners in each league to decide the baseball championship of the world.
It was ‘Pittsburg’ then
In 1903, Boston won easily in the American League with a final percentage of .660. Pittsburg (the name was then spelled without an “h” at the end) won just as easily in the National League, with a .650 percentage.
The Pittsburgh manager was Fred Clarke, who played left field and batted second; the Boston manager was Jimmie Collins, who played third base, and also batted second.
Each team had an outstanding player of all time. Honus Wagner was shortstop for Pittsburgh; he led the National League in batting that year with .362, but hit only .214 in the Series. Cy Young was the mainstay of the Boston pitching staff.
The 1903 Series was for five games out of nine; betting was even when it began. It opened in Boston, and Pittsburgh won by 7 to 3, with Philippe and Young the pitchers – in fact, with rain and railroad travel causing delays, these two did most of the pitching in the entire series.
Admission in Boston was 50 cents for the bleachers, $1 for the grandstand; in Pittsburgh, 50 cents for the bleachers, 76 cents for the grandstand, $1 for box seats.
No women in evidence
A photograph of the grandstand at the first game showed most of the men wearing derby hats, also “handlebar” mustaches extending to points due south of the ears. No women seemed to be present. Of course, no games were played on Sundays.
The series created little interest except in the two cities in which it was played; The New York Times gave each game about four inches of space, with headlines like: “Baseball for Championship.”
The attendance averaged 18,000 in each city, except for the last game, when threatening weather cut down the figure to 7,500. Boston won the second game, Pittsburgh the next two, Boston the next four.
The newspaper accounts seem incredibly stilted today How would you like to read about the 1946 series in language like the following? (no, it is not from the scholarly Boston Transcript of that era):
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“Wagner made two awful lunges to hit the ball.”
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“The Boston ‘rooters’ lost all control of themselves.”
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“Parent singled to life, a splendid effort.”
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“Three more good warn cheers came from the ‘rooters.’”
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“Wagner went out to Daugherty, wherest the crowd waxed exceeding glad.”
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“There was a scene of the utmost jubilation when the game ended (but) the Pittsburghs felt very badly indeed.”