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Leaving Chicago and already down two games to none to the Chicago Cubs in the 1907 World Series, the Tigers, led by their legend hitter Ty Cobb, look to rebound in game four with the help of their faithful Detroit rooters as the series now heads to the Motor City. The first game ended in a 3-3 tie after 12-innings and called because of darkness. But in games two and three, the Cubs would handily beat the Tigers by 5-1 and 3-1 scores.
In this photo, the first batter of the fourth game, Jimmy Slagel, would pop up to Tigers shortstop Charlie O’Leary for the first out of the game. Later in the inning the Tigers ace Bill Donovan would hit the Cubs shortstop Frank Chance in the hand that would set the mood for the game. But Wild Bill would get out of the first inning as Chance was thrown out trying to stealing second and Harry Steinfeldt flied out to Cobb in right field.
On the other side of the mound, Cubs righty Orval Overall, one of the great names in baseball history, gave the Tigers batters fits holding them scoreless for the first part of the game, including shutting down a very frustrated Ty Cobb by getting him to ground out on a play where the Georgia Peach went sliding into Chance, still sore after being beaned, with spikes up and resulting in both having to be separated after having words.
Cobb, now hitting .154 in the series, would finally have a moment when he tripled with two out in the bottom of the fourth inning, he would come home to score on a Claude Rossman single for the first run of the game.
But the Tigers lead would be short-lived when the Cubs next at-bat would score two runs in the fifth inning with Overall helping his own cause knocking in two runs with a base hit. From there, it was all downhill for Detroit as the Cubs would keep tacking on runs and Overall continued to stonewall Tigers bats with his brilliance on the pitching slab. In the end, Chicago would win the contest by a 6-1 score and in taking a commanding three games to none lead in the series.
Some notes of the photo and the series:
– You can see rooters on top of the wooden-built Bennett Park. Another note, the crowd of just over 11,000 was very disappointing; it was almost half of the size of the games in Chicago at West Side Grounds and empty seats were aplenty.
– Also in the photo is Tigers catcher Boss Schmidt, home plate umpire Jack Sheridan and if you look hard into the background you can see the Cubs left fielder Jimmy Sheckard on deck holding a bat.
– The Cubs would take the series in game five when their own ace, Mordecai Brown, would shut out Detroit 2-0 and limiting them to just seven hits.
– Cobb would finish the series with a very disappointing .200 average, a 150 points below his season average of .350.
