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1914 Miracle Braves Photo Gallery
The Guardians Late-Season Charge Calls to Mind Other Historic Comebacks, Including 1914 “Miracle” Braves!
“You can stick a fork in ‘em!”
-Time honored baseball axiom for a team in collapse
Whenever there’s an historic comeback in the major leagues, it usually consists of two components: a phenomenal run by a hard-charging second place team, accompanied by an equally-phenomenal collapse by the team ahead, the presumed-to-be winner, previously coasting to a title. We’re currently seeing a collapse of this magnitude in the race for the American League Central Division title.
On July 6, the Guardians were 15.5 games behind the Tigers. On that day, only three American League teams had worse records. As late as September 1, the Tigers were given a 99.8% chance by FanGraphs to win the division title. Cleveland owned the league’s second-worse on-base plus slugging percentage (OPS), second-worse slugging percentage and was dead last in on-base percentage.
September 5 has proved to be the pivotal date in the race. Cleveland was still 11 games behind the Tigers. On that day, the Guardians started on a tear, winning 17 of their next 20 games. Meanwhile, defying all odds, the Tigers went in the opposite direction and proceeded to lose 11 of their next twelve games. They began a spectacular free-fall that, before it’s over, may be of epic proportions.
The Guardians finally pulled ahead of the Tigers this week on Wednesday. As of this writing, the teams are now tied for first, with the Tigers currently mired in a slump, having lost nine of their last ten games. To make the Tigers’ plight even more bleak, the Guardians own the tie-breaker. This is the type of historic collapse that gets people fired!
Other Comebacks and Collapses of Note
Regardless of the outcome of this race – the winner is still to be determined with two games left in the regular season – the comeback staged by the Cleveland Guardians is astounding and calls to mind other such historic baseball comebacks and collapses.
Others that come quickly to mind include the 1964 Phillies and the 1969 Cubs, folding in the waning days of their respective seasons. Also, a lot has been written here on Baseball History Comes Alive about the 1951 Giants overcoming the Brooklyn Dodgers to capture the 1951 pennant. The Giants came back from a 13.5 game deficit as late as mid-August, at which point they put on a ferocious charge going 37-7 the rest of the way. They caught the Dodgers on the last day of the season and forced a three-game playoff, culminating in Bobby Thomson’s “Shot Heard ‘Round the World”
The 1914 “Miracle” Boston Braves
Much less attention is paid to the 1914 “Miracle” Braves (see featured photo – player identifications below). This team experienced possibly the greatest reversal of all time, actually going from last to first in only two months’ time. They are the only team in baseball history to be in last place on the Fourth of July and then win the pennant.
Having finished 18 games under .500 in 1913, the Braves started 1914 poorly, posting a record of 26-40 by early July, and it looked like another second division finish was in the offing. But with their strong starting three pitchers: Dick Rudolph, Bill James, and Lefty Tyler, they started to turn the season around, finally reaching the top of the standings on September 8, and then held on to win the National League pennant, going an unbelievable 70-19 over the last 89 games.
Hall of Famers Johnny Evers and Rabbit Maranville were a formidable double play combination, and led the league in twin killings. The Braves went on to sweep Connie Mack’s heavily favored Philadelphia Athletics in the World Series in four games, in which Hank Gowdy was the star, posting an unbelievable .546 average. They became known forevermore in baseball lore as the “Miracle Braves.” It may be the most storied comeback in baseball history.
In two day’s time we’ll have an answer to the questions: Will the Tigers “right the ship”? Or will they go into the record books with the dubious distinctions of experiencing one of the worst collapses in baseball history? Stay tuned…
[Update: Tigers are now assured of a playoff spot even if they lose the division title…so their collapse probably won’t be viewed as being that bad regardless of the outcome]
1914 Miracle Braves Player Identifications
Top, L-R: Bill James, Ted Cathers, Charlie Deal, George Davis, Ensign Cottrell, Gene Cochran, Otto Hess, Les Man, Hank Gowdy, Butch Schmidt, Bert Whaling. Middle Row, L-R: Possum Whitted, Oscar Dugey, Lefty Tyler, Paul Strand, Josh Devore, Larry Gilbert, Red Smith, Herbie Moran. Front Row: Joe Connolly, Fred Mitchell, Johnny Connolly (mascot), Dick Rudolph, Rabbit Maranville, Dick Crutcher, Jack Martin, Johnny Evers. Inserts: Johnny Evers, George Stallings (Mgr.), James Gaffney (Owner).
Gary Livacari
All photos from public domain.
Background information: Article on Cleveland Guardians comeback found on NBC on-line, by Andrew Greif; Other information edited from the 1914 Miracle Braves Wikipedia page
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Fine essay, Gary. Interesting side note on the Braves comeback in 1914 – they stopped playing at their home field in August, and rented Fenway Park for their remaining home games while waiting for the construction of Braves Field to be completed. So they really had no home field advantage during a good portion of the period they were making their comeback. I believe too that their four game sweep of the A’s in the Series was the first four game sweep in World Series history.
Thanks Ron…all great observations!
The 1948 Boston Braves has Spahn and Sain and two days of rain (or Spahn and Sain and pray for rain-however that goes). But the 1914 Braves had Rudolph and James who were an even more pronounced 1-2 punch. Spahn (15 wins) and Sain (24 wins) won 42.8% of their team’s 91 wins while Rudolph and James (26 wins each) won 55.3% of their team’s 94 victories.