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Baseball's 'Twain' at the Examiner, Part 11

Eleventh in a series of posts

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Like many sportswriters, Charles Dryden, the "Mark Twain of Baseball," was at his best when covering games of greater importance.

Previous posts featured excerpts from Dryden's accounts in the Chicago Examiner of the Cubs' quests for the National League pennant in 1909, when they won 104 games but finished second; 1910, when they won 104 again and claimed the title; and 1911, when they were 1 game out of first place on Sept. 8, but faltered and came in second, 7.5 games behind, with 92 wins.

The Cubs won 91 games in 1912, just 1 less than the previous season.

They lost 59, 3 less than a year earlier.

Yet they wound up lower in the standings than they had in 1911.

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The 1912 Cubs dropped their first 3 games and 4 of their first 5, and already were 4.5 games to the rear after a loss on April 30. By the end of June, they were 34-26, but trailed by 15.5 games.

They won their first 5 games of July and gained exactly 1 game on the Giants. A loss the next day, July 6, put them 15.5 to the rear once more.

Then the Cubs went 18-7 the rest of the month, including 7 wins a row, 3 of them over the Giants. On July 26-29, they took the first 3 games of a series at New York, closing to within 9 games of first.

They were beaten in the series finale, but won the next day at Brooklyn, beginning another 7-game winning streak.

After back-to-back losses, the Cubs reeled off 5 more wins, the last 4 at Boston, to conclude a 15-3 road trip that made their record 68-36.

They headed home 6 games in back of the Giants, the team they would host in their first 3 games upon their return to the West Side Grounds.

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Following are excerpts from Dryden's accounts of that game and others that followed. Dates are those on which the games were played; Dryden's stories, of course, appeared in the Examiner the next day.

Excerpts begin immediately beneath the date. Three dots then separate the end of the excerpt from commentary preceding the next date.

Paragraph breaks have been added to many stories for easier reading.

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Aug. 15, vs. Giants

It was almost a shame to do it so easily, but the Cubs felt obliged to disperse Rube Marquard in his prime and take over the first battle of this important series, 5 to 1.

All the heavy damage to Rube happened in the fifth spams after two out and with strikes on Heinie Zim[merman], sometimes spoken of as a potent swatter.

Heinie cleaned up with a two-bagger, scoring a pair of tallies behind Tinker's double, which had tied the count at one all. The Cub fifth inning netted five hits and runs.

Comedian [and Cubs starter] Lew Richie had paused the Giants except in one round. A pair of two-baggers created by [Red] Murray and [Fred] Merkle in the fourth assured the leaders one run and they were fortunate to get that rally. Blows that would have been caught went among the sod burners [i.e., fans] surrounding the playing field and became two-baggers.

But while the overflow crowd meant doubles it also meant dollars, and there is no kick coming so far as we can ascertain from box office reports. Spectators were jammed in every spot not occupied by players and peanut peddlers.

Experts placed the attendance at 25,000 gents and their vice versas and the place looked it. . . .

By a singular coincidence, as the Turks say, the 5 to 1 win puts the Cubs to within five games of the Giants and imparts a rosier hue to our prospects. From a new flag pole at the clubhouse [in center field] floated a gaudy emblem stating in plain language that the Cubs copped a pennant in 1910 and the bugs believe there is another in sight.

With a crippled team the local crew outplayed the visitors, outhit them by a slight margin [8 to 6] and have the added advantage of first blood in the most important series of the year.

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Aug. 16, vs. Giants

The moist exploits of one Jeff Tesreau more than offset the combined efforts of seventeen frantic Cubs in the second battle of the set, and at sundown the Giants were encamped on the fat end of a 7 to 4 score.

Jeff throws a cuspidorean pill of such fervent behavior that the seventeen frantic Cubs got but five hits in two and a half hours, and two of our tallies were due to main strength and awkwardness on the part of the enemy.

We are six games behind -- count' em -- six.

Not all the moisture of these gala doings was emitted by Mr. Tesreau. Do not overlook Mr. [Jimmy] Lavender, sometimes referred to as the Montezuma Marvel. He and three accomplices netted the Giants eleven blows and they had the pastime copped as early as the third round.

Lavender heaves a four-pronged spitter which breaks four ways -- north, east, south and west. It depends on which party of the country the batter hails from.

All might have been well with the four-pronged thing had not Mr. [Fred] Snodgrass knocked a horn off it on the first ball pitched. The three-pronged spitter is not what you might call a success.

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Catcher Jimmy Archer played despite a sore wrist. The Giants, showing no sympathy for him, stole 7 bases.

The Cubs also were without injured second baseman Johnny Evers for a fourth straight game.

Both would star in the rubber game of the series the next day, a titanic struggle, which Dryden did not cover, for reasons unknown.

The Cubs trailed, 0-4, after the top of the fourth inning, then tallied 3 runs in the bottom half and tied the score with a run in the seventh.

The Giants regained the lead in the ninth on a 2-out RBI hit.

Vic Saier led off the Cubs' ninth with a double into the crowd in center field. Evers bunted him to third and Archer singled him home.

In the 11th, Saier singled, Evers doubled and Archer delivered a walk-off single.

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That was on Saturday. On Sunday, the Cubs split a doubleheader with the Phillies. Then they beat the guests twice on Tuesday.

Next up: a single game against the Giants, who returned to the West Side Grounds after having won 3 in a row at St. Louis.

It was not a makeup of a postponement. The schedule called for the Giants to play their final game of the season at Chicago as a standalone contest.

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Aug. 21, vs. Giants

In a battle scene fit for the [moving] pictures, with an illustrated song and some shivery music, Comedian Lew Richie played the best joke of the season on the Giants.

He shut them out 4 to 0 on their farewell appearance here, and late last night the Prides of Broadway beat it out of town on the way to Pittsburg, leading the fleet by a narrow margin of four and one half games.

Coming on here from a feed of soft stuff at St. Louis, the Giants were not well prepared for the rough diet handed them by the Cubs' comedy man on the slab.

Richie was in no more danger than an ice cream cone at the North Pole. He teased the enemy along with seven hits and but two of the blows happened in one inning. His pals accorded Lew airtight support and with the team intact and free from aches and pains, the outcome was never in doubt after we got four runs.

For quite a spell Jeff Tesreau was the whole thing in the moist line. He seemed about to repeat his success of last week. For a matter of five rounds Jeff bore this aspect.

In the sixth the Cubs spilled the contents of Jeff's hopper. We cleaned him for three run on four knocks and a wild pitch, and thereafter the said Jeff was as useful as a high diver who had mislaid his tank.

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Aug. 22, vs. Braves

Your old friend, Noisy John Kling, and thirteen of his feeble Braves gave the Cubs some help in tearing off a massive chunk of the national pastime.

It was not much that John and the others could do, so the Cubs were obliged to wallop them, 17 to 5.

This afternoon the Braves are going down to Joliet [to play an exhibition game at the state prison]. Why not?

While these 17 to 5 statistics are being ground out the Giants and Pirates halved a double header, whittling down the lead of the former to an even four games. John and his accomplices have two more to play here and the belief is current in sporting circles that the Cubs will win them.

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And why not? The lopsided victory made the Cubs' record 75-38. The loss left the 32-80 -- 46.5 games behind the Giants, 42.5 behind the Cubs and even 9 behind the seventh-place Dodgers.

You can guess what happened next.

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Aug. 24, vs. Braves

After going to Joliet and see what happens to people who do not lead an upright life, the Braves came back and lit into the Cubs like a bunch of wildcats.

For two hours the air was filled with profanity, the wails of orphan children (special guests) and tufts of fur with hide sticking to them.

The Cubs batted nobly, but it was no use. They lost, 6 to 4, and are now six games behind the Giants.

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Aug. 25, vs. Braves

Here is another sad narrative. John Kling and his brutal dynamiters desecrated the Sabbath, blasting the Cubs away. . . . This disaster sets the West Siders back six and one-half games, said disaster being marked up with the figures 7 to 6.

It was a grand little pastime while it lasted. Had they pastimed another hour neither side would have won.

We had the result salted away in the last of the eighth. [Catcher] Kling muffed a pop fly in the middle of the diamond, and the winning run, for the time being, oozed in. That was pretty good for a while.

In the first of the ninth the Braves stocked the corners with none out on one hit, Evers' boot and a force play that did not go through.

Evers committed another fumble and the tying run scored.

Bill Sweeney flied to Ward Miller and Hub Perdue, looking like a drowned muskrat, stagger home with the tally that won.

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Aug. 26, vs. Dodgers

Living just across the river from New York leads the misguided Dodgers to imagine themselves champions.

Goaded along by this brainstorm, Bill Dahlen's gang walloped the Cubs, 12 to 3, and acted as if they were accustomed to such doings.

By a baseball miracle of some sort the Reds beat the Giants and the same time and the Cubs suffered only in their finer feelings.

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Thanks to the Reds, the Cubs remained 6.5 games behind the Giants.

The next day, Tuesday, the Red prevailed again, while the Cubs blanked the Dodgers: 5.5 back.

With wins over the Cardinals on Wednesday and Thursday, the Cubs gained a further half-game, as the Giants were idle the first day before winning the second.

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Aug. 30, vs. Cardinals

Mr. [Frank] Schulte's twelfth home run, touched off in the seventh spasm, trimmed the Cards 5 to 4 and lifted the Cubs to fourth speed ahead. That is to say they are only four games behind owing to the noted behavior of the Dodgers in beating the Giants.

With a little more expert assistance of this sort they will have to use the long haul between this port and Boston for the world's series.

At the time Schulte knocked his homer off a perspiring youth entitled [Rube] Geyer the mighty swat did not figure as the winner. That run put the Cubs two to the good but as the Cards sneaked one marker in the ninth it became an easy matter to sift back to the homer as the important thing of the day and place the honored name of Schulte in the headlines.

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The final line of the multiple headlines above the start of the story was: "Chicago Fans Can Hear the Pennant Flapping."

The Cubs' record now was 79-41 for the season and 40-14 since July 6, a surge that had reduced their deficit in the standings by 11.5 games.

They had gone 23-8 in July. With another win over the Cardinals the next day, they could wind up 23-7 in August.

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Aug. 31, vs. Cardinals

Had it rained here as well as at New York the Cubs would now be rocking along four games behind the leaders. Bad weather stopped the Giants and simultaneously with that glad event Slim Sallee stopped our lads, 5 to 1, and we missed a chance to gain half a loaf instead of losing it.

[St. Louis Manager] Roger Bresnahan went and trotted Slim out one day ahead of schedule. He was to have pitched to-day and the Cubs intended to maul Sal as well as the geek who worked yesterday and thus gain a full game, on the theory that the Giants idle again to-day [Sunday, when baseball was prohibited by law in New York].

It all worked out fine in the dope, but not in the ball yard.

Sallee pitched a whale of a battle and so did Jim Lavender until things went [illegible] in the seventh [when the Cards scored 3 runs].

The count had stayed a tie since the second and the going by both sides was fierce. Heat affected the athletes to such an extent that [umpire] Bill Brennan canned eleven Cardinals, sending them from the bench to the stable [i.e., clubhouse] for sassing him.

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The next, disaster struck.

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Sept. 1, vs. Cardinals

Five games behind and Jimmy Archer severely enough injured to in all probability put him out of the game for the remainder of the season was the dismal outlook which confronted West Side fans when they left the Cubs' park after the game yesterday.

The P.L.'s [Peerless Leader's, i.e., Frank Chance's] crew came up to the home half of the ninth with the score 5 to 3 against them and [Bob] Harmon still going strong.

Evers, the first one up, doubled. [Dick] Cotter drove one to [third baseman Mike] Mowrey and was out at first. One on and one out, the case was not yet hopeless, and looked none too good with [pitcher and notoriously poor hitter Ed] Reulbach the next one up.

Chance wanted the game and wanted it badly. He had previously sent to the skirmishing line all his available militia [i.e., reserves], and not one was left, with the exception of Archer, who had been kept out of the game on account of the uncertain condition of his knee.

The Big Bear took a look at his star backstop and waved him to the plate. There is no impugning the judgment of Chance, but his act of that instant probably cost the Cubs the 1912 pennant.

Archer picked up his war club, strode to the plate and sent a sharp drive to Mowrey. He grabbed the pellet and hurled it to Koney [first baseman Ed Konetchy].

That much everybody saw at once, but it was not until the crowd wondered why Jimmy was not dashing to second that they discovered him lying on his back at the plate, writhing in agony. His first step toward the initial sack had proved his undoing, for he again wrenched his weak knee and tumbled to the ground.

Doctors were hurriedly called and worked over Jimmy fully five minutes before the pain would permit his being carried off the field, and with him undoubtedly went the pennant hopes of the Cubs.

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The loss left the Cubs 5 games behind the Giants.

A game the next day at Pittsburgh was postponed because a railroad bridge was washed out, delaying the Cubs' arrival by half a day and setting up a doubleheader the following day, Sept. 3.

The Cubs won the opener, then lost the rematch, 0-1. They lost the rubber game to the Pirates, too . . . and 3 of 4 at Cincinnati . . . and 2 of the first 3 at Boston.

At end of the day on Sept. 12, the Cubs were 10.5 games to the rear, having fallen 5.5 more off the pace in a span of 11 days.

Even after winning the final at Boston, then 2 of 3 at New York and 2 of 3 at Brooklyn, they cut the gap to only 9 games.

Then the Cubs dropped their final 2 road games of the year at Philadelphia and went 4-5-1 at home to wrap up their schedule.

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From July 1 through Aug. 30, the Cubs had gone 45-15, a .750 winning percentage.

From Aug. 31 through Oct. 6, they were 12-18-1, .403.

They not only wound up 11.5 games behind the Giants, they also slipped to third place, 1.5 in back of the Pirates, who finished 93-58-1 to the Cubs' 91-59-2. The Giants were 103-48-3.

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TOMORROW: Dryden on the Cubs' 1913 season

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