BROOKLYN - September 8, 1924
I’ve been making virtual trips back to 1924 to see how long the Brooklyn Dodgers winning streak will last.
In my last article I informed you the Dodgers win streak had reached 13 games thanks to their unprecedented quadruple double - 4 doubleheader victories in 4 days (all on the road).
Thanks to this win streak, the longest in Dodgers history, they had completed an all-time classic comeback from 13 games back on August 9th to a tie for 1st place with the 3-time defending National League champion New York Giants.
You can read or listen to the story about the quadruple double at this link:
The Brooklyn Dodgers Quadruple Double (lenferman.substack.com/p/a-dodgers-quadruple-double)
The Quadruple Double was completed on September 4th in Boston.
The Dodgers had 3 more games against the Boston Braves - one on September 5th and yet another doubleheader on the 6th (their 5th double header in the first 6 days of September).
They won the game on the September 5th when Rube Ehrhardt threw a 4 - 0 shutout to extend the win streak to 14 games.
The 29 year old Ehrhardt has been brilliant since he was brought up to the majors for the first time in mid-July. He is now 4 - 1 with a 2.00 ERA. But he’s getting better and better. 3 of his last 4 games have been complete games in which he didn’t allow an earned run.
Then on September 6th, Dodgers manager Wilbert Robinson sent Bill Doak to the mound for the first game of the doubleheader. The 33 year old Doak is pitching his best in years. He had won 6 straight games coming into the contest including a 2 hit shutout just 3 days ago in Philadelphia.
Pitching on just 2 days of rest, Doak did it again, pitching another 2 hit shutout against the Braves. The Dodgers won the game 1 - 0. The lone run came on a triple by veteran right fielder Tommy Griffith who was then called out attempting to turn it into an inside-the-park home run.
The game took just 1 hour and 20 minutes.
The victory ran the Dodgers’ streak to 15 games. And even more important they now had a half game lead on the Giants. It was the 1st time the Dodgers had sole possession of 1st place in September since their last pennant season of 1920.
In the 2nd game of the doubleheader the Dodgers and Braves were tied after 9 innings.
In the top of the 10th, the Dodgers’ Zach Wheat, who is batting .377, singled to drive in the go ahead run.
The Dodgers took a 4 - 3 lead into the bottom of the 10th. Relief pitcher Art Decatur was on the mound. He had entered the game in the 7th inning. Decatur was not one of Brooklyn’s star pitchers. He had a 4.32 ERA coming into the game, but he had several solid recent appearances including a start in the first game of the quadruple double in which pitched 7 innings and allowed just 3 hits and 2 earned runs. Decatur was also rested since that last outing was back on September 1st - 5 days earlier.
But Decatur immediately got into trouble as the Braves put runners on second and third on a single and an error.
Up to the plate came Casey Stengel. Casey is 33 years old and in his 12th season in the majors. He posted batting averages of .368 and .339 in the past 2 seasons, but this year he’s under .300, and in the 6th inning his single off Dodgers’ starter, Tiny Osborne, had snapped an 0 for 17 slump.
In this at bat there was joy in Mudville as mighty Casey came through with a game tying single.
Now the Braves best hitter, Stuffy McInnis came up and Decatur gave him first base to load the bases with no outs. Decatur then got the 1st out with a pop up by Cotton Tierney.
Next up was Mickey O’Neil who had hit a run scoring triple in the 1st inning. O’Neil lifted a fly to center. Ed Brown caught the ball for the 2nd out. Now he threw to home plate to try and catch Frank Wilson who had tagged up from third base.
If Dodgers’ catcher Zack Taylor could apply the tag the side would be retired and the game would go on to extra innings and the winning streak would still be alive.
Thomas Meany in the Brooklyn Daily Times captured the play in his article on the game, “Ed made a fair throw but Wilson slid in a fraction of a second ahead and the Dodgers winning streak was history.”
The Braves had won the game 5 - 4 ending the greatest winning streak in Dodgers history at 15 games.
NOTE From The Sports Time Traveler™
The 15 consecutive wins by the Dodgers remains the franchise record 100 years later.
The loss was a hard one to take. Both the tying run and the winning runs had been unearned.
And what a loss it was.
In this tight National League pennant race, the Dodgers actually slipped from 1st place to 3rd place, as late afternoon victories by the Giants and the Pirates put both clubs ahead of the Dodgers.
On the bright side, the Dodgers were finally done playing away from New York.
Due to the way schedules are created here in 1924, the Dodgers won’t have to leave New Yor...