Pirates Won 1902 'World’s Series;' That’s No Misprint

The Pirates Were 1902 Champions

The Pirates easily finished the 1902 season as National League champions for the second consecutive season. “The Champion Pirates Finish the Season of 1902 by Breaking the World’s Record of Games Won,” said the headline of the October 5 Pittsburg Post. (Pittsburgh was spelled without the “h” in those halcyon days.) Indeed, the Pirates finished with a record of 103-36, 27 ½ games ahead of the second-place Brooklyn Superbas. The Pirates dominated the NL in all facets of the game. Pittsburgh’s .286/.344/.374 slash line led the league. Their 2.30 ERA was second to the NL team known simply as “Chicago.” Their .958 fielding percentage – the only real defensive measure that existed in 1902 – was just .001 behind the leading Boston Nationals.

Today, Pittsburgh sports fans will tell you that the city has seen 16 major league sports champions: five World Series, six Super Bowls, and five Stanley Cups. However, three other championships where the team went as far as it could go in a professional league should be recognized. Two of those were, as noted, the NL championships of 1901 and 1902. The third was the ABA title won by the Pittsburgh Pipers, led by Connie Hawkins and Art Heyman, in 1968. The ABA and NBA champions never met in a series to determine the overall champion.

“Championship of World Will Be [at] Stake”

So said the headline (with my minor edit in brackets) in the Pittsburgh Weekly Gazette (sometimes it was spelled with the “h,” too) announcing the series that would pit the Pirates against the All-Americans, an all-star team comprised of the best players in the American League. Arrangements were hammered out between Pirates owner Barney Dreyfus and AL umpire Joe Cantillon. (Why this was any of Cantillon’s business is lost to history.) The Pirates were expected to employ their regular lineup. It was announced as a four-game series. The first two games would be played at Exposition Park in Pittsburgh. Then the series would move to Cleveland for two games.

If the series were tied after four games, a fifth game would be scheduled at a neutral site to be determined. (That sounds like a best-of-five series to me, but what do I know?) The paper said, “This series will no doubt be one of the most interesting ever played.”

The umpires were Hank O’Day of the NL and Silk O’Laughlin of the AL, each regarded as the best in his league. O’Day, a former player, would become forever famous as the umpire in the “Bonehead Merkle” game of 1908.

The All-Americans

The All-Americans roster that opposed the Pirates for the 1902 championship was as follows. Their apparent strategy was to overwhelm the Pirates with second basemen.

Boston Americans: Cy Young, P

Chicago White Sox: Fielder Jones, CF; Billy Sullivan, C

Cleveland Blues: Bill Bernhard, P; Bill Bradley, 3B; Addie Joss, P; Nap Lajoie, 2B

Detroit Tigers: Dick Harley, RF; Win Mercer, P

Philadelphia Athletics: Monte Cross, SS; Harry Davis, 1B; Topsy Hartsel, LF

St. Louis Browns: Dick Padden, 2B; Bobby Wallace, 2B

Washington Senators: George Carey, 2B; Wyatt Lee, P

Joss, Lajoie, Wallace, and Young were inducted into the Hall of Fame after their careers were over. Bernhard and Lajoie didn’t play in Pittsburgh. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court enjoined them from playing baseball in the state for any team other than the Philadelphia Phillies. They were former Phillies who jumped to the upstart AL despite having signed contracts with reserve clauses. Thus, Padden and Young replaced them for the games in Pittsburgh.

The 1902 Pirates

The star-studded Pirates had one of the best rosters in baseball history. They sported three future Hall-of-Famers of their own in shortstop Honus Wagner, left fielder/manager Fred Clarke, and pitcher Jack Chesbro. Clarke and Frank Chance are the only two members of the Hall of Fame who could have been inducted as either a player or a manager.  Pittsburgh’s pitching staff had three 20-game winners in Chesbro, Deacon Phillippe, and Jesse Tannehill. Center fielder Ginger Beaumont won the NL batting title with a .357 average. Speedy Tommy Leach, the third baseman, led the NL with six home runs and all baseball with 22 triples. Wahoo Sam Crawford of the Tigers called Leach “a beautiful ballplayer to watch” in Lawrence Ritter’s The Glory of Their Times. Crawford should know. Leach gave his Tigers fits in the 1909 World Series when he hit .360/.429/.520.

The 1902 “World’s Series”

Although he went just 1-for-4 with an inconsequential single, the Pittsburgh papers praised Leach as the hero of Game 1, won by the Pirates, 4-3. Leach was responsible for three sparkling defensive plays, running down a line drive and two foul pop-ups, “all of which would have reached the ground if any other third baseman had been in the game,” according to The Pittsburgh Press. Wallace was the batter all three times. Game 1 was played in a steady rain. The Press opined that Young and the Pirates’ Sam Leever pitched equally well, but Leever benefited from superior defense. The Pirates wrapped up the game with two runs in the third inning to extend their lead to 4-0. The big blows were Beaumont’s triple and Clarke’s ensuing RBI double. Clarke then advanced to third base on a passed ball and scored on a groundout.

Heavy rain then set in after the third inning. The Press attributed the weather and the darkness to the lack of scoring for most of the rest of the game. The All-Americans managed three runs in the ninth before Leever settled down and recorded three outs.

The headline in the sports section of the Weekly Gazette on October 9 read, “Pirates Only Need One Game to Clinch World’s Series,” which may have been the first-ever reference to a World Series. In Game 2, Phillippe outdueled Joss, 2-0, with a complete game three-hitter. The local papers crowed that the All-Americans’ hits were “little hits” and that they’d been shut out in 17 of the 18 innings played so far. Not the Pirates were killing the ball against Joss, however. In the fifth inning, Wagner scored from second when Claude Ritchey’s single “caromed off Monte Cross’ spare shins.” Wagner’s double scored Clarke in the ninth.

“A Remarkable Game” Makes Pirates Champs of 1902

The Pittsburgh Gazette called Game 3 “a remarkable game.” Bernhard and Leever pitched to a 0-0 tie in 11 innings, each giving up four hits. Then darkness set in, and the umpires called the game, declaring it a tie. That clinched the 1902 “World’s Series” for the Pirates.

Although meaningless, Game 4 was played, and this time, Young bested Phillippe to give the All-Americans their only victory. Young scattered five hits to shut out Pittsburgh, 1-0. The Pirates and Americans would play in the first official World Series the following year. With a second crack at the Pirates, Young was 2-1 with a 1.85 ERA and 1.029 WHIP in three games.