1924 World Series: 'Big Trail' rolls in

It took 18 years for Walter Johnson to reach a World Series in his immortal pitching career. And it took a ninth-inning relief appearance in Game 7 for him to win his first World Series game and for his Washington Senators to capture their first Fall Classic title.

By Phil Ellenbecker

  When Walter Johnson strode to the pitching mound for the start of the ninth inning on Friday, Oct. 10, 1924, it was a sentimental journey.

  Not so much for Johnson, who'd strode through his share of trials, tribulations and triumphs with the Washington Senators, but for Washington fans at Griffith Park who'd watched the humble Humboldt, Kan., native survive and thrive through thick and thin for 18 years, with never an American League pennant or World Series to show for it.

  Wouldn't it be great, they thought, if the Senators could pull out this seventh game of the Series and win the Fall Classic for "The Big Train," for "Barney," as a fitting reward for an immortal pitching career?

  Well, it took some pluck and some luck, but pull it out the Nats did, winning 4-3 on Earl McNeely's double off Jake Bentley with one out in the bottom of the 12th inning before a delirious crowd of 31,667. Washington, which had only six winning seasons before 1924 since joining the AL in 1901, was not, as had been infamously described in the words of sports writer  Charley Dryden, "first in war, first in peace, and last in the American League," but on top of the world.

  It took some help from the Giants, who lost the Series for the second straight year after winning it all in 1921 and 1922, for Washington to pull through. But that just followed the pattern of a somewhat sloppy (seven errors between the two sides), scintillating, seesaw game.

  Opportunity began to smile on Washington with one out in the 12th when Giants catcher Hank Gowdy dropped a foul pop by fellow catcher Muddy Ruel. Gowdy, as described in an article by Stew Thornley for the Society of American Baseball Research's Games Project, had trouble on the play from the start.

   "He circled under it, then flung his mask away as he seemed to figure out the spot it would drop," Thornley wrote. "However, at the last instant, Gowdy had to lunge to his right. He might have still made the catch if he hadn’t stumbled over his mask. Nearly falling to one knee, Gowdy dropped the ball."

  Ruel took advantage by doubling down the left-field line, his second hit of the game after being 0-for-16 coming in. The Giants' gifts continued when shortstop Travis Jackson booted Johnson's grounder for New York's second error of the inning and Jackson's second of the game. Ruel held at second on the play.

  Then, one last break for the Senators when McNeely, who'd gone 0-for-5 in the game, hit a sharp grounder toward third baseman Fred Lindstrom. According to Thornley, accounts differ on how the ball ended up going through for a two-bagger to score Ruel with the game-winner.

  Washington Post sports editor N. W. Baxter wrote of Lindstrom's attempt to corral the ball, "His outstretched hands missed the ball completely, despite a marvelous dive."

  However, the conventional story is that the ball took a bad hop over Lindstrom's head, similar as to how it did on a two-run eighth-inning single by Bucky Harris, the Senators' "Boy Wonder" player-manager who'd turn 28 just after the Series, that extended the game into extra innings.

  From The New York Times: “Earl McNeely hit another hopper over Lindstrom that was twin brother to Harris’s hit of the eighth, except that it was a little harder and, therefore, a more legitimate hit."

  However the ball ended up out there, Ruel was able to scurry home without even drawing a throw from left fielder Irish Meusel -- an anticlimactic end to a game full of twists and turns.
  Johnson, who'd started and lost 4-3 in 12 innings and 6-2 in two previous games in the Series, including Game 5 two days earlier, was called on in relief of Fred Marberry to begin the ninth with the score tied 3-3. He was the Senators' fourth pitcher of the game.

  The Giants threatened with one out on a Frank Frisch triple. Ross Youngs was intentionally walked, and Johnson then struck out cleanup hitter George "High Pockets" Kelly on three pitches. After Youngs stole second, Johnson got out of the inning when Meusel grounded out to third baseman Ralph Miller. First baseman Joe Judge saved Miller by stretching to spear his wild throw.

  "The Big Train" -- so dubbed in his earlier days because of the blinding speed of his fastball -- kept the Giants off the scoreboard without too much trouble the next three innings, New York getting one runner as far as second in that span.

  The Senators moved 90 feet away from the winning run in the ninth. Judge singled with one out and reached third when, on a grounder by Ossie Bluege to Kelly at first, Jackson was late in covering and bobbled Kelly's throw to second in a double-play attempt. But Hugh McQuillan, who'd just been summoned out of the bullpen for Art Nehf, got Miller to hit into a double play to remove that threat. Jackson atoned for his error the batter earlier by starting the twin killing, sending the game into the 10th.

  Washington threatened again with two out in the 11th when Goose Goslin doubled off Bentley, who'd come on to start the inning, and Judge was intentionally walked. But Bluege's fielder's choice grounder ended the inning.

  Johnson yielded a single to Meusel to start the 12th, then struck out Wilson, and a fielder's choice by Jackson and fly out by Gowdy set the stage for the Nats' winning rally.

  "Barney" -- nicknamed after the race-car speed demon Barney Oldfield -- had a final pitching line of no runs, three hits and three walks allowed while striking out five in his four innings of work, making him 1-2 with a 3.00 ERA for the Series.

  Bentley went to 1-2 in the Series with the loss. He allowed three hits with the one unearned run and one walk in 1 1/3 innings.

Bucky Harris, the Washington Senators' "Boy Wonder" player-manager, led the Nats from the dugout and on the playing field to a 4-3 Game 7 victory and the 1924 World Series title. Harris went 3-for-4 with a solo homer and a two-run eighth-inning single that extended the game into extra innings in the 12-inning win. He turned 28 just after the Series was over.

  In a signal of things to come, it took some good fortune to prolong the game when Harris, who'd added managing duties to his second-base job this season, singled in two runs to tie the game at 3-3 in the eighth inning.

  Pinch hitter Nemo Liebold set the table for the Senators when he doubled with one out off Giants starter Virgil Barnes. He advanced to third when Ruel's grounder went off Kelly's glove at first for a single. Bennie Tate, batting for Marberry, walked to load the bases.

  One out later, Harris scored Liebold and Ruel when his bad-hop grounder got past Lindstrom, who at 18 years, 10 months, was the youngest participant in a Series game to date.
  "Harris didn’t hit the ball hard,” The New York Times reported, “but just as the grounder hit in front of Lindstrom, the pellet took a sudden leap, cleared the fielder’s head by a foot and rolled out to left field.” Harris' hit ended the day for Barnes, who yielded to Nehf.

  In this game of omens, Washington took the early lead when Harris, who went 3-for-5 in the game with three RBIs, clouted a solo homer with one out in the fourth. On a 3-2 pitch, Harris just cleared the low wooden fence in left field for his second homer of the Series -- one more than he had in the regular season.

  A pair of errors helped the Giants move up 3-1 in the sixth. Youngs led off the inning with a walk and, running on a 3-1 pitch, went to third on Kelly's single, the only hit in five at-bats on the day for the future Hall of Famer. With  Bill Terry due up next, Giants manager Johnny McGraw sent the righty-swinging Meusel up to gain an advantage against Senators southpaw George Mogridge. Although a future Hall of Famer, Terry at this stage was being reserved for right-handers.

  Harris countered by calling on righty Fred Marberry, first of the game's premier relief aces. Meusel tied the game with a sacrifice fly. Kelly went to third on a single by Hack Wilson, and he scored when Judge bobbled a soft grounder by Jackson for an error.

  (The normally sure-handed Judge was second in the American League in fielding percentage among first baseman that year and a five-time league leader in that category.)

  Washington's rickety defense continued when Bluege let a grounder by Gowdy roll through his legs for another error, allowing Wilson to score and make it 3-1.

  The back and forth nature of the game was amplified by managerial moves such as the ones in the sixth. It began from the beginning, as Harris plotted to get a platoon advantage against Terry, who'd gone 6-for-12 in the Series with a homer and a triple. He did this by starting a right-hander, Curly Ogden, then planning to replace him with a lefty after the game started. And McGraw bit, starting Terry, and Ogden was replaced by southpaw Mogridge after the second batter. But Terry stayed in, only to be hit for when he came up against Mogridge in the sixth. And so the game of cat-and-mouse went.

  McGraw, the legendary manager then in his 24th year at the Giants helm, played a bit of musical chairs with his outfield late in the game. Youngs went from left to right and Meusel right to left in the 11th, and the two switched back to start the 12th.

  There were a total of eight pitchers used in the game as managers were beginning to go more and more to the tactical use of relievers, as shown by the use of Marberry, rather than leaving it all up their starters. Marberry relieved in 36 of 50 games in 1924, and of 55 appearances in 1925 all came in relief.

  As it turns out, Johnson, who'd waited all this time to just get to a World Series, wasn't done pitching into October yet. The Senators repeated as AL champions next year, but this time the Pittsburgh Pirates prevailed 4-3 in the World Series.

  Johnson won his first two starts in the Series, only giving up one run in 18 innings including a Game 4 shutout. And he appeared headed toward a third win. Alas, his heroics gave out as the Piraters scored five runs in the eighth and ninth innings to pull out a 9-7 Game 7 win.

  With his 2-1, 2.08 record in '25, Johnson finished 3-3 with a 2.52 in his two years of World Series action.

  Johnson went on to pitch two more years and finished his 21-year career with a record of 417-279, a 2.17 ERA, 3,509 strikeouts and 110 shutouts. He's the all-time leader in shutouts and ranks second in victories, ninth in strikeouts (and led for many years before the likes of Nolan Ryan came along) and 12th in ERA.

  In WAR, the modern-day wins above replacement metric that attempts to summarize a player's total contributions to their team in one statistic, he ranks second among all players.

  And in many people's minds, he's the best all time among all pitchers.

  And amid a career in which he started 666 games, it was a relief appearance Oct. 10, 1924, that might have been his most memorable moment.

The Fame game

  As can be ascertained in the above paragraphs, the Giants had quite a few Hall of Famers on their team -- seven, in fact, if you include their manager McGraw. The others, who may or may not have been noted above, include Frisch, Jackson, Kelly, Lindstrom, Terry and Youngs.

  But an asterisk has to be included with some of these selections as Youngs, Kelly and Lindstrom were selected in the 1970s by the Veterans Committee, of which Frisch was a prominent member. Noted baseball analyst has called Kelly's selection "a bad joke."

  From a BR bullpen article on baseballreference.com:  "The old Hall of Famer, backed by former teammate Bill Terry and sportswriters J. Roy Stockton and Fred Lieb, who covered Frisch's teams (including the St. Louis Cardinals), managed to get five of his teammates elected to the Hall by the committee."

  The Senators weren't represented too badly in the Hall of Fame department, either, with Johnson, Harris, Goslin and Sam Rice.

Sources:

Play-by-play: https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1924/B10100WS11924.htm and https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/october-10-1924-big-train-finally-wins-biggest-one-all  

Johnson biography: https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/0e5ca45c  

Baseball Hall of Famers by team:  https://www.mlb.com/news/hall-of-famers-broken-down-by-mlb-team-c302916132

Frankie Frisch influence on Hall of Fame: https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Committee_on_Baseball_Veterans 
Additional background came from various sources on the Retrosheet and Society for American Baseball Research's Biography Project and Games Project websites, as well as baseballreference.com.