Finding superlatives worthy of the 1908 pennant races is no small challenge. “Classic,” “legendary” or “unforgettable” are just a few attempts to do justice to two of the most dramatic finishes in baseball history. But somehow the excitement didn’t carry over to the World Series. Not only did Chicago win four games to one, the 1908 Fall Classic was a continuation of the Cubs 1907 domination of the Tigers when Detroit didn’t win a single game (there was one tie).
On closer examination, however, the 1908 series wasn’t quite as one-sided as it seems. While the Cubs’ 10-6 win in the opener appears to be a comfortable victory, the Tigers were only two outs away from a 6-5 win before Chicago’s bats came to life. And after the Cub’s easy 6-1 win in the second contest, Detroit won the third game, making the fourth game critical for both teams. Another Cubs win would give them a commanding three games to one lead, but a second Tiger victory tied the series.
Chicago did, of course, win the fourth game, and ultimately the series which may partially explain why Cubs catcher Johnny Kling chose it as his “Biggest Baseball Day.” The choice, however, had far more to do with how Kling “got” Ty Cobb to end a Tigers fourth inning rally (Kling incorrectly remembers it as being the eighth.) Detroit came to bat trailing 2-0, but singles by Charles O’Leary and Sam Crawford put the tying runs on base. Next up was Cobb, followed by Detroit cleanup hitter Claude Rossman.
With the bunt in order, Mordecai Brown intentionally threw a pitch Cobb could only bunt down the third base line even though third baseman Harry Stienfeldt wasn’t there to field it. Instead Steinfeldt stayed at third for a throw from Brown who, after making the pitch, had to field the bunt and throw out the lead runner. Brown, despite a “perfect” bunt by Cobb, did just that for the first out. Tim Murnane of the Boston Globe, who had seen his share of baseball, called it “one of the most remarkable plays ever witnessed.”
But the Cubs had just gotten started. On the very next pitch, Kling rifled the ball to second, picking the unsuspecting Crawford off base for the second out. On just two pitches, the Cubs had stopped the Tigers rally dead in its tracks. Even this, however, wasn’t enough because the Cubs “wanted Cobb” himself. And they got him, when Kling threw out Cobb stealing by what Kling remembered as about 20 feet. The combination of inside baseball, aggressiveness and peerless execution, vividly demonstrated what Deadball Era baseball was all about.
Unfortunately, however, there’s a problem with the most important part, at least from Kling’s point of view, of this story of stellar Chicago defense. Kling didn’t or rather couldn’t have thrown Cobb out stealing because Rossman struck out on the pitch. Was the caught stealing an invention on Kling’s part? A close reading of contemporary newspaper accounts reveals a more subtle story, best told by the Evening Star of Washington, D.C.
“Brown and Kling were maneuvering to catch him [Cobb]. Two strikes they got on Rossman. Then Kling flashed Brown a signal to pitch out – that is, to throw wide from the plate. Brown shot a high fast one to his battery partner as Cobb was stealing. Like a flash Kling drove the ball toward second. The throw was high, and Evers, leaping stuck out one hand, grabbed the ball, and as he came down, holding it in his hand, swept his arm downward and applied the ball to Cobb’s ribs five feet from the base. The only thing that marred the pleasure of the Cubs was that Rossman had swung when Brown pitched out and was struck out, so Kling was deprived of the credit of catching Cobb.”
Why did Kling tell the Chicago Daily News a story he knew wasn’t true? It’s certainly possible Kling wanted to enhance his own role by remembering “with advantages, what feats he did that day.” There is, however, another possibility. Omitting the strikeout was Kling’s attempt to have the last word in a long ago, but far from forgotten, feud with Cobb. Kling began and ended his “Biggest Baseball Day” story talking about Cobb, so clearly time hadn’t healed any wounds.
Before the 1907 World Series, Cobb allegedly boasted that he would hit .800 against the Cubs pitching staff. Needless to say, Kling didn’t appreciate the comment and when Cobb batted for the first time, Kling called him a “southern rebel” who would be lucky to hit a foul ball. This was only the beginning of constant harassment that contributed to Cobb’s .200 batting average and failure to steal a single base.
Predictably, a year later, Cobb hadn’t forgotten the insults and repaid Kling in kind in Detroit’s third game win. With the Tigers well ahead in the top of the ninth, Cobb got his fourth hit of the day. From first base he warned Kling he was going to steal second and did just that. In no way satisfied, the Detroit star then warned Kling of an impending steal of third, and he was once again successful.
Kling’s memory, as he freely admitted, may have failed him on some details of his special day. He hadn’t, however, forgotten his feud with Cobb and wasn’t above a selective use of the facts to embellish his, and his team’s, triumph over the Detroit star. And since Cobb’s own “Biggest Baseball Day” story was published just a week earlier, Kling may have thought there was a chance Cobb would read Kling’s story. If so, he wanted to remind Cobb how soundly the Cubs had whipped his team in two straight World Series. Some 36 years later Kling’s desire to get Cobb hadn’t faded a bit.
Johnny Kling's Greatest Day in Baseball as told to Ernest Mehl
Jogging the memory back 35 years is a pretty good trick for an old fellow like myself but once I get it under way it usually arrives from force of habit on the season of 1908 and my mental image of Ty Cobb tearing down to second and little Johnny Evers, wearing a big grin and waiting there with my throw is as bright as ever it was. In fact, it may be brighter because, as I recollect it now, Ty was out by 20 feet. It may not have been that far but that’s the way with memories.
No use spending too much time on the preliminaries leading up to this game although they were so tremendous they constitute a big part of baseball history. I mean the Fred Merkle boner which gave the Cubs victory in the last game of the regular season against the Giants and made it necessary for us to go to New York to play off the tie. That part has been worn slick and yet I guess it’s always a good story and always will be. We were grateful to Fred when we boarded the train for New York but John McGraw and his boys weren’t sharing our feelings and I doubt whether a personal appearance in this country by Hitler would make the New York fans any madder.
That was a wild year from the spring on and I imagine about half the swear words used today originated in those games we played against the Giants. McGraw and our skipper, Frank Chance, got in a few swings at each other in the clubhouse after one game but they were pulled apart, which was a break for McGraw. Frank was too big for him, a fact everybody knew except McGraw.
So when that playoff game began in New York the scene was the wildest of any I ever have known and our sensations so confused I still can’t straighten them all out. We knew the Giants were out to make us mad enough to fight and they hoped in that way to get rid of at least a few of us but somehow we managed to absorb their verbal wallops even though we cut our batting practice down to five minutes. McGraw hurled a water bottle at me while I was standing by the batting cage and I luckily saw it just in time to get out of the way.
That was plenty close but nothing to the scare I got in the eighth when, as I remember it, the Giants filled the bases. In the third we had cut loose with a barrage against Christy Mathewson. Joe Tinker opened that round with a triple. I guessed the fadeaway and singled Joe home. It was the only hit I made against Matty. We scored four runs in that inning and had a 4 to 2 lead in the eighth. One of the Giants – I’ve forgotten who – hit a high foul near the stands. I had plenty of time to get under it but in looking up I saw not only the ball coming down but a dozen or more bottles. Others, thrown by the bug-eyed spectators, were sailing awfully close. Or so I later was told. At the time I was too intent on catching the ball and when it had dropped into my glove I had a tough time keeping my legs from buckling.
Of course, the finish is well known – how we ran for the clubhouse in right field ahead of the screaming, murderous mob; how we hovered together in one corner of the shower room while rocks and bottles splattered down through the glass part of the clubhouse roof; how we vaulted the back fence (taking my memory’s word for it that fence was at least 20 feet high) and escaped.
We were on our way to Detroit to open the World Series of 1908 and, despite what Cobb was saying, we had a team good enough to battle anybody. I remember when the series opened Ty sneered off our pitching staff to me.
“We’ll hit .400 against those bush leaguers you got,” he said.
I had been catching Three-Fingered Brown, Reulbach, Pfeister and Overall all season and to me they were the best in the National League with the exception of Mathewson.
“You’ll be lucky to hit .200,” I told Cobb. I’ll always remember that declaration with a lot of satisfaction because – and here goes my memory again – I believe he hit .211. [Cobb hit .368 in the 1908 series. Kling is probably thinking of the 1907 World Series where Cobb hit .200).
Ty and his Tigers had done a lot of boasting. He had said he would steal everything I had, including my glove. And he did steal a couple of bases, too. He was quick as a gopher and as daring as anybody I ever saw. And he didn’t have many chances to steal, either. He wasn’t on base very often.
Well, we won the first game behind Brown’s pitching, 10 to 6, and then we took the second with Overall on the mound, 6 to 1. But the Tigers came back to win the third game, 8 to 3, and with their confidence restored they set out after us in the fourth game. By winning that one they would even the series. If we won, the affair was as good as over.
Which brings me down to the inning which furnished me with my greatest thrill in baseball. I’m sure of that because it has remained the most vividly with me.
Brown was out there pitching again for us and Summers, whom he had beaten in the series opener was back for the Tigers. Old Three-Fingered was tough, too, as he dropped Cobb and his gang inning after inning.
It was the eighth, as I remember, and we had a 3 to 0 lead and felt pretty cocky when that big, handsome Claude Rossman got on and Davey Jones followed him with a hit. [It was the fourth inning and the runners were Charles O’Leary and Sam Crawford).
Men on first and second with nobody down and Cobb coming up there. Now we were in a spot. We talked it over. Brown was going to cover any bunt towards third, Evers was watching second and it was up to me to take care of any bunt towards first. We weren’t dead certain Cobb would bunt although that was the play.
And he bunted – towards third – and here was Brown making the play and forcing Rossman at third. One down with Jones on second and Cobb on first.
As Brown faced the next batter, Evers gave Jones the chance to take a long lead off second and Davey fell for the trap. I got the pitchout, threw to Johnny and Davey was tagged before he could get back.
Only Cobb was left now on first with two out and there wasn’t a single doubt in his mind what Ty would do. He was going down on the first pitch.
In came the pitchout from Brown and I suppose I never made a better throw. Cobb was out before he started to slide out it seems to me now by 20 feet.
The Tigers were through after that inning. We finished a 3 to 0 winner in that game and then made it four out of five and the world’s championship by winning behind Overall in the last game 2-0.
In the space of ten days had come to us Cubs, the experience of suffering and then enjoying almost every human emotion and the exultation which came to me in that fourth game of the series (Cobb had told me could steal against me on his hands and knees) is greater than any I ever since have felt.”
