Clark Griffith never got over losing the pennant to the Boston Americans by 1 ½ games in the American League’s first great pennant race in 1904.
Clark Griffith
Over the years, he wasn’t even able to decide which of his New York Highlanders’ three straight losses to Boston in October was the most “hard luck” game, and just who he blamed for letting the season slip away.
In 1914, Griffith told Stanley Milliken of The Washington Post that second baseman Jimmy Williams, who failed to heed his instructions at the plate during the game that gave the pennant to Boston on October 10—Griffith barely mentioned the wild pitch Jack Chesbro threw which allowed Boston to score the winning run.
But two years earlier, he told a different story to Hugh Fullerton of The Chicago Examiner –in in this one he put the blame on himself and Chesbro, but not for the October 10 game:
“There never was any hard luck except mine. Whenever I hear them tell hard luck stories I think to myself that they don’t know what it is.”
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“The race had narrowed down to New York and Boston. We both came east from our last Western trip with (a half game) separating us.”
Griffith said his club returned to New York believing all five games would be played in New York as scheduled, but discovered that New York owner Frank Farrell “not thinking we would be in the race at all, had in the middle of the season leased the Highlanders park to the Columbia University team for football on Saturday.”
As a result, the two Saturday games were moved to Boston.
“We beat Boston on Friday 3 to 2, and that put us where we only had to break even in the next four games to win. Chesbro had pitched the Friday game. I did my planning and decided to pitch Jack Powell the two games in Boston on Saturday, and to leave Chesbro at home to get a good rest over Sunday and to be ready to pitch the two games on Monday if it became necessary, knowing that with two days of good rest he could do it.”
Jack Chesbro
Griffith said his pitcher had other plans:
“When I got down to the depot that night there was Chesbro begging to go with us to Boston. Some fool friends of his had notified him that they intended to present him with diamond cuff buttons in Boston, and he was wild to go. I could not refuse him under the circumstances but those $8 diamond cuff buttons cost us the championship.
“(Once in Boston) Chesbro was crazy to pitch, and he warmed up in Boston and declared he felt better than at any time during his life. I was angry because I wanted him to rest, and refused him. He almost cried and said he had repeated numerous times during the season and always had won. I said ‘no’ that we couldn’t take the chance.”
But Griffith said his team pressured him:
“Chesbro got (Wee Willie) Keeler, (Kid) Elberfeld and all the boys to come to me and beg me to let him pitch. (Jack) Powell came to me and said he would keep warmed up and ready to relieve Chesbro in the first game. I fell for it, seeing Chesbro had already warmed up and my plan for resting him was spoiled. He was good for (three innings), but before anyone could relieve him in the next Boston made six runs and the game was lost (13-2)…Powell and Cy Young met in the second game and Boston won 1 to 0.”
And Griffith was quick to blame that loss on his “hard luck” as well:
Griffith’s “Hard Luck” Highlanders
“The one run was scored on the rankest kind of luck. A ball thrown (by John Anderson) from the outfield to (third baseman Wid) Conroy got by him…allowing the run to score. The ball would not have rolled five feet from Conroy, but the crowd had pushed up to within three feet of third base.
This made it necessary for us to win both games on Monday. And in the first game, in the ninth inning, with two out and two strikes on (Freddy) Parent, Chesbro let his spitball slip for a wild pitch and gave Boston the game. We won the next 1 to 0 but the pennant was done.
“If there ever was harder luck than that, I don’t want to hear of it.”
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