1925 WS Champ Bucs Turn Back Rain, Mud, and Walter Johnson

On October 5, before the 1925 World Series began at Forbes Field, MLB Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis instructed the combatants, the Washington Senators and the Pittsburgh Pirates, to wear black armbands. Earlier that day, the great New York Giants’ Christy Mathewson---"The Big Six” --- died of tuberculosis. Fans loved the handsome, Bucknell University fullback, and dropkicking specialist who developed the unhittable fade away, known today as the screwball. During a World War I training exercise, Mathewson inhaled mustard gas which led to his untimely death at age 45. Inducted into the 1936 first-ever Hall of Fame class, Mathewson during his 17-year career won 373 games and lost 188 for a .665 winning percentage. His career earned run average of 2.13 and 79 career shutouts are milestones.

The Senators sought to repeat as World Series champions. In 1924, led by sluggers Sam Rice and Goose Goslin, the Senators edged the New York Giants four games to three. The 1925 match-up pitted the Pirates and the teams’ four .300 hitters: Kiki Cuyler, Max Carey, Pie Traynor and Earl Smith against the Senators’ indomitable infield defense: Joe Judge, 1st base, player-manager, 28-year-old Bucky Harris, 2nd base, Roger Peckinpaugh, ss and Ossie Bluege, 3rd base. The unknown variable was whether the Senators’ fire balling Walter Johnson, “The Big Train,” would be as dominant in the Fall Classic as he had been during the regular season. Now 38 and pitching in his 18th season, Johnson nevertheless racked up a typically outstanding 20-7 season. Johnson had erratic in the 1924 series as he lost the opener and the fifth game before delivering a scoreless four inning relief effort in the seventh game to wrap up the championship in front of a jubilant Griffth Stadium crowd.

The Pirates hosted the opener but unfortunately for the Buccos, Johnson was masterful and bested the Corsairs, 4-1. Traynor’s fifth inning homerun represented the home team’s only score. The Pirates prevailed in game two but the Senators captured game three. Then, Johnson returned to the slab for game four and twirled a complete game, 6-0 shutout. In game five, the Pirates won a 3-2 squeaker which sent the series back to Forbes Field with the Bucs trailing three games to two. No World Series team had ever battled back from 3-1 down, the Pirates deficit after game four. But the Corsairs won the sixth game squeaker, 3-2 which set up the seventh game finale, one of the most thrilling deciding tilts in history.

Game conditions were awful. The weather was rainy and dark. Yinzers doubted that a pivotal game could be played in such miserable conditions. “It was a great day for water polo,” wrote The New York Times, “it was the wettest, weirdest, wildest game that 50 years of baseball has ever seen. Water, mud, fog, mist, sawdust, fumbles, muffs, wild throws, wild pitches.” Commissioner Landis walked around the grounds just after noon and declared, to the shock of fans, that the game would be played. As word spread across Pittsburgh that the Bucs would send Vic Aldridge to face “The Big Train,” 42,000 flooded into Forbes Field.

Aldridge, who had beaten the Senators in his two previous starts, had nothing, retired only one batter and gave up four runs. Johnson wasn’t much better; he gave up three in the bottom of the third. Back and forth the score went. When the Pirates recorded the final out, the Bucs carried the day 9-7 and won its second World Series title. The Bucs battered Johnson for 15 hits, and 9 runs, 5 earned in 8 innings. To befuddled Senator fans, why manager Harris left Johnson in to absorb the pounding remained a mystery for years. Johnson’s catcher, Muddy Ruel, contended that Harris made the right decision. Ruel called Johnson a heroic figure, standing in the middle of the diamond, uniform muddied and shaking off heavy rain. To the Washington press, gentlemanly Johnson said, “I have no alibis to offer. All I have to say is that the better team won.”

By the time Johnson hung up his cleats in 1927, he had recorded statistics beyond belief — 417 wins, 3,509 strikeouts, 110 shutouts, 12 20-win seasons, 11 seasons with an earned run average below 2.00, and what seems almost incomprehensible a century later, 531 complete games in 666 starts. Johnson won 38 1-0 decisions that included an 18-inning gem and eight that lasted between 11 and 15 innings. Demonstrating how poorly the Senators supported Johnson offensively, The Big Train lost 26 1-0 decisions including two to Boston Red Sox lefty Babe Ruth.

Thirty-five years would pass until the 1960 Pirates won another World Series. In the meantime, Traynor managed the Bucs from 1934 to 1939 and along with Cuyler and Carey, was inducted into the Cooperstown Hall of Fame. Historians agree that the 1925 World Series was one of the most thrilling of all time. In the end, the Pirates were better mudders than either Johnson or the Senators.

Joe Guzzardi is a Society for American Baseball Research member. Contact him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com