PITTSBURGH - October 14, 1925
OMG! I just read Grantland Rice’s column from October 14, 1925, 100 years ago today. It’s one of the most stirring pieces I’ve ever seen. The drama he builds in his preview of “today’s” World Series game (100 years ago), is the stuff of sports writing legend.
The Big Train, Walter Johnson, will be starting for the old Washington Senators in Forbes Field against the Pirates. “Barney” as they used to call the great fastball slinger, won game 1 a week ago with a 5 hit, 10 strikeout gem in which he allowed just a single run. He came back for game 4, 3 days ago, and won that one in a 6 hit shutout. But he injured his leg in the game.
In the other 4 games that have been played, the Senators’ pitchers allowed 15 runs and Pittsburgh won 3 of the games.
Now the series is locked at 3 games apiece. Walter Johnson is being called upon by manager Bucky Harris one more time to start game 7, on just 2 days’ rest and a bum leg.
Here’s a little excerpt from Grantland Rice’s nationally syndicated column on what he had to say about Walter Johnson:
“Johnson is no longer a brilliant and a bounding youth. He is nearly 40 years old and he has been whipping strikes across for almost 20 years. Yet he must carry the decisive contest with a bad leg and a weary arm that has known only two days’ rest where four or five days have usually been required to find him near the best.
If it wasn’t Walter Johnson it would be an impossible demand, a call upon aging flesh and sinew beyond all reason. But Walter Johnson happens to be Walter Johnson, one of those rare humans who at the main moment have something left for fate which the years haven’t been able to take away. If he can hurdle this barrier it will be the greatest pitching achievement of all time.
It was Johnson who saved the deciding game of the series against the Giants a year ago with an unforgettable four-inning stand at the finish of the seventh game. It was Johnson again who gave Washington its final chance of holding Pittsburgh’s young, hard hitters to one run in 18 innings through two games.
Johnson, working on two good legs would be almost a certainty in this last pop-eyed crimmage. But now, meeting the test on a crippled leg with a tiring arm, it will be largely up to a cool head and a stout heart, with the accent on the heart.
For it will take something more than Spartan courage to keep spinning the fast one across where every move means a throb of pain.”
You can read my account of game 7 of the 1924 World Series (one year prior), which Rice refers to above, at this link:
The 1924 World Series Game 7 - The Fairy Tale Finish
The Sports Time Traveler will be eagerly anticipating “tomorrow’s” newspapers to read the account of game 7 of the 1925 World Series. I can’t wait!