Jimmy Scott's High & Tight: The Mike Vaccaro Interview

Think about every great world's series (changed to World Series in 1913).  There was 1991, with Kirby Puckett's Game 6 heroics and Jack Morris going 10 innings for a Twins over the Braves championship.  There was 2001, with the Yankees coming from behind in both Games 4 and 5 with big home runs and the immortal Mariano Rivera blowing a 9th inning lead in Game 7 to give the series to the Diamondbacks.  There was 1975, with Carlton Fisk's extra-inning Game 6 home run and a Cincinnati Reds Game 7 comeback, giving them the first of two consecutive championships.  There were legendary contests in 1986, 1960, and 1964.  But the first world's series that really changed baseball forever and is still considered by some to be the best of all-time took place long before the Yankees and their 27 championships, long before the Orioles of the 1960s and the A's of the 1970s.  It was the 1912 world's series between the New York Giants and the Boston Red Sox.

In his most recent book, The First Fall Classic: The Red Sox, the Giants and the Cast of Players, Pugs, and Politicos Who Re-Invented the World Series in 1912, author and New York Post columnist Mike Vaccaro takes readers back to that year, before the first World War and not as long after the Civil War as you would think.  And while the true story takes place nearly 100 years ago, there are more parallels to today than you would think too.

Long before blogs and Twitter and 76 years before David Cone's first postseason appearance, athletes and baseball players were "writing" (in most cases, having somebody ghost write) for one of the local papers.  This was especially the case in 1912, when participating players like Christy Mathewson and non-participating players like Ty Cobb, were publishing their thoughts on particular games, teams and strategy.  Vaccaro details this with quotes and thorough research, the first hint that the commonalities between yesterday and today are many.

There was a meddling owner named James McAleer (think George Steinbrenner or Charlie Finley in their "best" years) who manipulated Red Sox manager Jake Stahl into pushing star pitcher Smoky Joe Wood back one day to give the series a chance to go an extra game, lining McAleer's pockets with additional profits.  Yes, money meant as much to the owners and players in 1912 as it does now.

There was a fiesty celebrity manager in John McGraw (think Joe Torre or Bobby Cox), an incredibly talented centerfielder named Tris Speaker (think Willie Mays), a guy who came off the bench and had the career-defining moment in Olaf Henriksen (think Francisco Cabrera), and one particularly botched defensive play that has been ultimately blamed for the Giants' defeat, although a subsequent defensive lapse deserved greater blame (see the 2003 NLCS Steve Bartman Game 6).

In the bottom of the 10th inning of Game 8, New York Giants centerfielder Fred Snodgrass failed to catch an easy fly ball.  The Giants had a 2 to 1 lead with ace Christy Mathewson on the mound.  This gaffe led to an inning in which the Sox would ultimately score 2 runs and win the series.  For the rest of his life, Snodgrass was blamed for the Giants losing the series.  "Hardly a day in my life, hardly an hour, that in some manner or other the dropping of that fly doesn't come up, even after thirty years," Snodgrass would eventually say.

But...

It wasn't completely his fault.  One pitch later, Snodgrass "made one of the most extraordinary catches in baseball history" author Mike Vaccaro writes in The First Fall Classic.  "I saw thousands of games," Hall of Famer Tris Speaker said in 1949, "and I never, ever saw a catch like that before or after.  It was like a magic trick."

One out.  Man on second.  The Giants still had the lead and were 2 outs away from winning the series.  After a walk, Speaker himself came to the plate.  On the first pitch, he popped up, straight up over the right side of the field.  It was first baseman Fred Merkle's ball.  It was obvious that it was his ball.  But 4 years earlier, Merkle had failed to touch 2nd base in a key game that the Giants ultimately lost, a game in which the Cubs secured the National League pennant with the victory.  So pitcher Mathewson, remembering "The Merkle Boner," yelled for catcher Chief Meyers to catch it.  Merkle backed away and Meyers was too far from the play to make it.  Instead of 2 on and 2 outs and a feared batter in the dugout, the ball fell in foul territory, giving Speaker life.  On the next pitch, the Red Sox centerfielder laced a single to right, scoring the tying run.  It was a matter of time, and a few more pitches, before the game and series was over.

Yet it was Fred Snodgrass who was blamed, much like Steve Bartman.  Mathewson should have kept his mouth shut and Merkle should have made the catch - just like Alex Gonzalez should have turned a double-play in 2003 after the Steve Bartman interference.  Those parts of the sequence are forgotten.  Giants fans forever blame Fred Snodgrass, just like Cubs fans blame Steve Bartman.

In the Jimmy Scott's High & Tight Mike Vaccaro Interview, you'll hear more about the 1912 world's series and more.  You'll find yourself wanting to get your hands on a copy of The First Fall Classic and then, as you read it, you'll find yourself pulling for the Giants or Red Sox, even though the outcome was decided long ago.  You'll find yourself wishing there were more books like this one, books that are historical but also relatable to readers.  You'll find yourself wishing you could be at any one of the 8 games played in that postseason.  In fact, because of McAleer's meddling and subsequent 2 Red Sox losses, (not just the 1 the owner had hoped for), Game 8 was played to a less-than capacity Fenway Park, a stadium in its inaugural season.  Tickets were available.  You could have been there.  But, as Vaccaro quotes Casey Stengel in the interview, you'd be dead today.

Maybe it's best that you pick up The First Fall Classic and let your imagination transport you back to 1912, to the October that put baseball on the map forever and set the course for the game as we know it today.  If you've got a few bucks, buy the book.  It's well worth a weekend of reading.

THE MUSIC

The music of Pete Townshend is featured in various parts of the Mike Vaccaro interview.  Songs heard are:

Man Machine

Give Blood

Behind Blue Eyes

Street In The City

Rough Boys

The background music is pulled from an album called A Different Prelude.