A Century Ago, the Pirates Captured the World Series

The 1925 Pittsburgh Pirates opened the season on the road in Chicago and Cincinnati. After seven games, the Pirates’ record stood at a dismal 2-5 and gave little hint that before the season ended, the Bucs would be World Series champions. The Pirates edged the defending champion Washington Senators 4-3 in a thrilling series that included the controversial Game Three catch that baseball historians, a century later, still debate.

Both rosters were stocked with outstanding players. Pirates’ infielders, outfielders and catcher started seven players that hit .300 or better. They were catcher Earl Smith, .313; first baseman George Grantham.326; third baseman Pie Traynor, .320; shortstop Glenn Wright, .308; left field Clyde Barnhart, .325; center field, Max Carey, .343; and right field, Kiki Cuyler, .357. The eighth, second sacker Eddie Moore, hit .298. Mound stalwarts included Babe Adams, Lee Meadows, Emil Yde, and Vic Aldridge. The Battling Bucs averaged a blistering six runs a game. Top among the many Senators’ notable standouts were pitcher Walter Johnson who, before he hung up his spikes, won 417 games. Johnson was elected on the first-ever Hall of Fame ballot in 1936.

The Pirates split the first two games in Forbes Field, losing the opener 4-1 to the Senators’ Johnson, no disgrace. The Corsairs battled back to win game two, beating the Senators’ spit balling specialist, Stan Coveleski. When the series moved to Griffith Stadium, the Pirates lost game three, 4-3, and game four again to Johnson, 4-0.

Behind in the series 3-1, the Pirates managed to score a 6-3 win before returning to the friendly Forbes Field confines. Nevertheless, the Bucs were still in the unenviable position of trailing the Senators three games to two with only two tilts remaining. To stave off defeat, the Bucs would have to sweep games six and seven. In game six, The Pirates eked out a 3-2 sixth game win which set up the thrilling rain-soaked finale.

A rain cancellation pushed the seventh game back a day, bad news for the Pirates since the postponement gave the Senators’ ace Johnson an extra day’s rest. The Washington fireballer had already won Games One and Four, allowing just one run on 11 hits in 18 innings, and he would toe the rubber for Game Seven. But the Corsairs had regained Series momentum, having won Game Five in Washington and Game Six in Pittsburgh to tie the Series at three games each.

Rotten weather conditions continued. The field was a mass of tricky, sticky mud; the outfield was filled with puddles. Working through the morning, the ground crew burned gasoline and spread sawdust to dry the infield. Peering through a thick veil of fog, 42,856 hardy fans huddled in their seats. But before the cranks could get settled, the Senators scored four runs in the top of the first inning. Although facing Johnson with a four-run deficit in the first inning, the Bucs battled back with three in the bottom of the third. From then on, the game see-sawed back and forth until the bottom of the eighth, when the Bucs on doubles by Cuyler and Smith put the game away, 9-7. In pounding rain amidst hurricane-like winds, Pirates’ manager Bill McKechnie brought the World Series championship to the devoted Yinzers’ fans. Johnson, the 37-year-old Pirates nemesis, surrendered 15 hits and five earned runs.

The Pirates were champions, but they still felt that a Game Three bad call extended the series. With Smith at bat in the bottom of the third, Pittsburgh Gazette Times reporter Chester L. Smith wrote, “Rice and the ball reached the bleachers rail at the same instant. Sam leaned far into the crowd, with his back to the infield, and, almost hidden from the views of the grandstand.” By the time Rice got up with the ball in tow, Smith was rounding third, and veteran NL umpire Cy Rigler signaled a catch, despite his position at second base approximately 250 feet away from the action. Pirates players, led by skipper McKechnie, had a different view and poured out of the dugout in protest as the scene teetered on the verge of a melee. Generally soft-spoken, an enraged McKechnie subsequently went to the box seat occupied by Commissioner Kenesaw Landis and stated that he would lodge a formal protest if the Pirates lost. Landis rejected any protest, declaring the catch the umpire’s call.

For dozens of years following his catch, fans asked Rice if he really made the catch or picked the ball up from the bleachers where it landed and stuffed the ball into his glove. Rice always responded with the same answer, “The umpire says I caught it.” Finally, Rice promised fans to write a letter to be opened after his death. No surprise that Rice’s letter stated that he had a firm grip on the ball all the way, a response that did not end the controversy.

Joe Guzzardi is a member of the Society for American Baseball Research, Forbes Field Chapter. Contact him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com