CHICAGO, Sept. 5- Not the blasting big black bat of Babe Ruth, but his potent left arm quelled the Chicago Cubs 1 to 0 in the opening game of the war-time world series this afternoon at Comiskey Park. Twice did the colossus fall down on strikes at the bat, but his fiery southpaw service, fast ball and curve alike, proved more than enough to smash the haughty champions of the National League.
A huge asset it is to come into such a partisan city and take first blood, the while Jim Vaughn, truly mighty southpaw of the Cubs was vainly trying his utmost to start the series with a Chicago win.
Bust Comes in Fourth
Search all the way through the big book of history of world series games and you never will find the yarn of such a contest. It was a battle of mighty flingers, both left-handers, both proven demigods of the hill, huge and powerful beyond the average of the diamond, which is unusually high. Neither team made an error and nothing that looked like a misplay. Mistakes of judgment there were, but of such is the entire story of baseball.
There are those who wail that the game was below the world series standard in thrills. This is hardly the case. It is true that the crowd was slightly below 20,000, which was a disappointing feature, but it must be recalled that the morning was chilly and that there were little squalls of light rain during the middle of the day, just at that hour when many fans are thinking of making a start for the ball park, only to be turned back if conditions are inauspicious.
By the margin of one hit the Cubs outwhacked the American league champions - six hits to five. But this means little, since Ruth was positively potent in the pinches, tighter than two adjoining seconds when the Cub threatened to become a bear.
The big bust of the game, the only run of the contest, came in the fourth inning when Shean walked, Strunk popped up in a futile attempt to sacrifice, and Arlington Dave scored on successive base hits by George Whiteman and John Stuffy McInnis. You see, it was a succinctly Greater Boston victory since an Arlington lad paved the way for the tally by waiting out a walk, only to have the lad from Cape Ann, John Stuffy, hammer out the all important crash. Three cheers for the old Day State!
It surely comes down to telling the story of how Vaughn pitched that fourth inning. Therein you get the full and complete story of the game since no other run was made. Big Jim lost out because he used his curve ball too much.
Vaughn has only himself to blame for the use of the curve ball on right-hand batters of the Whiteman and McInnis type, lads who are known throughout professional baseball as vicious batters against left-handers, particularly when said southpaws take the liberty of throwing in dinky curves.
Big Jim's best is his fast one. His curve ball is more or less dinky. You can see it coming and handle it fairly well. But his buzzer, the speedball, is a mighty breeze and is difficult to hit. I do not know whether Bill Killefer called for curve balls on McInnis and Whiteman, but the fact remains they were curve balls, and just busted up the ball game, giving Boston the all-important advantage of the first game.
Cannot Fool Dave
Shean drew two passes during the afternoon. The important one was in the fourth. Vaughn tried hard to get Dave by pitching on the inside, but the Arlington lad would not stand for it a moment and just looked them over with that calm, gentlemanly, reproving way of his, actually acting as if he were playing a practice game between the married and single men on Spy Pond Field.
The old army game then was resorted to by the Bostonese. Amos Strunk, left-hand batter and very fast in getting down to first base, was told to bunt. He dropped his bat a little too far. The ball popped innocently to Jim Vaughn, and it was only alert, heads-up base running by Shean that prevented a double play.
Georgie Whiteman, grizzled veteran of many big and little league campaigns, who was playing ball for money before Freddy Thomas started to get pennies for running errands for ma and the woman upstairs, already had hit one clean single to centre field. Vaughn pitched just the same, however, and with the count 3 and 1, Whitey hit a curve ball, one of those dinky things, to centre field, too wide for Charley Hollocher and on to Dodo Paskert in centre. Dode played the ball rapidly and held Sean to second.
Dave Dashes Over
Then McInnis called the turn. A high fast one whizzed by and ump-in-chief Hank O'Day called it a ball. Stuffy was set for the next. He was not looking for a pass, but for the old base blow, one to score Shean.
Sure enough, it was that same dinky curve ball, and maybe you don't think John was ready for it. He slammed it to left field and Shean, who did not wait at all to see whether the ball might be caught by Mann, started a mad dash for the plate, and made it ahead of Less Mann's frenzied throw. The fact of the matter is that Stuffy did not hit that ball very hard. It took Mann quite a time to get the ball in his hand. He has a powerful throwing arm and it is well that Dave got the good start and that Stuff's whack did not get to Mann, some thrower, any sooner.