Autumn Glory: Baseball's First World Series
by Louis P. Masur
Publisher: Hill and Wang

book reviewed by Elliott A. Shaw, Jr.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the first World Series. 2003 is also the 100th anniversary of the New York Yankees (known as the Highlanders from 1903-1913). Sharing this anniversary seems fitting since the World Series and the Yankees have come to be nearly synonymous. It was not always the case. The Yankees first appearance in the World Series did not come until 1921. The American League's entry in 1903 was the Boston Pilgrims (who became the Red Sox in 1907).

It is remarkable how much baseball has remained the same as it was a hundred years ago; the pitcher stood 60 feet 6 inches from home plate, the bases were 90 feet apart and each team had 3 outs per inning and 9 innings per game. A cleanly fielded ball to an infielder would nip the runner by half a step as it does today.

Louis Masur's book, Autumn Glory: Baseball's First World Series, is a timely recounting of these and other marvels of the game from the 1903 season.

Whether the American League's best team would even play the National League's best -- the Pittsburgh Pirates -- was in doubt until the second week of September. Infighting between the two leagues created significant obstacles to fulfilling the intense desire of the fans to see the two teams square off. Much of the bad blood could be traced to the upstart American League's pilfering of the National League's roster of players. The Pilgrim's team in 1903 was proof -- many of their players had a National League lineage.

Only after careful negotiations between Boston's first-year owner Henry Killilea and Pittsburgh's owner Barney Dreyfuss was the series officially on. The owners agreed to a best five out of nine games beginning October 1 at the Huntington Avenue Base Ball Grounds in Boston.

The Sporting Life declared: "The great series for the championship of the world between the champions of the National League and the American League is now on." The Sporting News similarly declared: "The whole country is watching with great interest the world's championship contest between Boston and Pittsburgh."

The teams had finished remarkably similar seasons. The Pirates were 91-49 and the Pilgrims were 91-47. Each were led by a future member of the Hall of Fame. It would be the Pirate's Honus Wagner and his league-leading .355 average, vs. the great Cy Young who was coming off a 28-win campaign.

Masur gives a detailed play-by-play of each game. Perhaps too detailed. The out-by-out description may not be as tantalizing for casual fans, but far more suited for card-carrying members of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR).

Grandstand seats for game one were a dollar and a bleacher seat cost 50 cents. A scorecard was a dime. The biggest outlay for many fans was how much they wanted to wager on the outcome, with ample opportunities to find an outlet to place a bet. At 3:00 p.m. the two umpires took their positions and play began.

Honus Wagner forever holds the distinction of driving in the first World Series run as the Pirates jumped out quickly to a 4-0 lead in the first inning. This was no shock. The Pirates had dominated the National League the previous three years and most people were betting the domination would carry-over against the best team the Americans could field. It proved true in game one. The Pilgrims never recovered from their shaky start and Cy Young and his Boston teammates were suddenly 0-1 in the series.

After the chapter on game one, Masur chooses to go back and give the reader a dose of early 1903 baseball history. He follows this style throughout, by alternating between chapters on the games and chapters about events that occurred earlier in the season, such as spring training. It causes the book to be somewhat disjointed. It might have been more smoothly-told if Masur stuck to a strictly chronological recounting.

The Pilgrims sent Bill Dineen to the mound for game two. Dineen compiled a 21-13 record in 1903. A Syracuse native, Dineen later became an American League umpire and participated in an additional forty-five World Series games in that capacity. His job on October 2 was to even the series for Boston at 1-1. He delivered by pitching a magnificent nine-inning, three-hit shut-out.

The competition from the first two games generated even greater enthusiasm for the series. At noon on October 3 when Boston opened the gates for game three, a "surging, struggling mass" rushed into the park. At the time there were no outfield fences. Thousands of fans were secured behind a rope stretched along the deepest part of the outfield grass. Law enforcement had their hands full trying to quell the crowd so the game could start.

The Boston team had their hands full with the Pittsburgh nine. Cy Young pitched better than he had in game one, but was out-dueled by Pittsburgh's Deacon Phillipe. After three games in Boston, the players hopped the train for a nearly twenty-four hour trip to Pittsburgh taking them through Albany and Buffalo.

After a full day of travel, game four lasted just 90 minutes. That's all it took for Pittsburgh to dispatch with Boston and give them a three games to one edge. Little did the Pirate's players know it would represent the pinnacle of the series for their team.

Boston's Young was victorious in games five and seven and his teammate Dineen won game six. The duo was responsible for all four Boston victories and they had combined to pitch 60 of the 62 innings they played. This was long before the advent of pitch counts and four days of rest between starts.

The teams returned to Boston for game eight. The intensity of the hard ball on the field did not show itself in bad blood off the field. The Pirates even held their train in Albany so Boston's train could catch up. "Players on both sides mingled and chatted on the way to Boston."

Dineen was given the ball for his fourth start in twelve days. After being hit in the hand in the early innings he gamely continued pitching. When he took a 3-0 lead into the top of the ninth "the skin had peeled away...and was raw as a piece of meat." Avid baseball fans may appreciate this example of Masur's extensive research. Some passages bring those long-ago games to life.

As fate would have it, Honus Wagner came to the plate with two out in the ninth. After working the count full, Wagner swung and missed making the Pirates collapse complete.

How did the World Champion Boston Pilgrims celebrate? With a trip to the theater with the opposing team. The Pirates sat in the lower boxes as the two teams took in a performance of The Billionaires. The Pirates would have to wait until 1909 before they were crowned champs.

The next day the Pilgrims returned to the Huntington Avenue Grounds to receive their winner's share ($1,182 per player) and a nice medal courtesy of the Boston Globe. It read simply: "Boston American League Team -- World Champions 1903."

There will be no book next year commemorating the 100th anniversary of the 1904 World Series. Boston repeated as champions but the National League's New York Giants declined to play. No book next year will be okay. It is difficult to keep such a specialized baseball book interesting beyond 200 pages. Autumn Glory is proof.

*******

10/17/2003