Baseball History Comes Alive

Wacky Blue Jays/Red Sox Game Recalls Cubs/Phillies 26-23 Slugfest From August 25, 1922

Gary Livacari

7 years ago

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Cubs-Phillies Historic Slugfest, August 25, 1922 Photo Gallery
Click on any image below to see photos in full size and to start Photo Gallery:

Lefty Weinert was one of the two pitchers used by the Phillies. Later in his career, he pitched for the Cubs

Art Fletcher was the former Giants shortstop and later long-time Yankee coach

Rookie Cub catcher, Gabby Hartnett

Headline from the Philadelphia Inquirer, August 26, 1922

The Cubs Tiny Osborne pitched the Cubs’ ninth, which almost turned into a disaster.

Butch Henline was the Phillies starting catcher. He had two hits in the game

Hack Miller, reportedly one of the strongest players ever, had 4 hits and 6 RBIs in the game.

Tony Kaufman was the starting pitcher for the Cubs

Jimmy Ring was the starter and loser of the game

The Cubs Oscar Dugey at spring training on Catalina Island, 1922.

Cub shortstop Charlie Hollocher had 6 RBIs in the game.

Bob O’Farrell was the Cubs’ starting catcher. Later with the Cardinals, he threw out Babe Ruth to end the 1926 World Series.

Cy Ringler

Cubs’ first baseman Cliff Heathcote later played on the Cubs 1929 pennant winner

Russ Wrightstone, grandfather of one of our readers, Denn Corby, was at third base that day for the Phillies

Wacky Blue Jays/Red Sox Game Recalls Cubs/Phillies 26-23 Game From August 25, 1922!

My post the other day about the wacky game last Friday in which the Blue Jays beat the Red Sox 28-5, reminded me of the historic game between the Cubs and Phillies played on August 25, 1922.

It was played at Cubs Park (as it was called then), in front of 7000 fans. The Cubs beat the Phillies by the remarkable score of 26-23, the highest run-scoring game in baseball history!

The two teams managed to combine some terrible pitching with some timely hitting to set the post-1900 record for runs scored in a single major league game with 49 and most hits with 51, records that still exist and may never be broken.

It was not a pretty sight with the Cubs collecting 26 hits and committing four errors, while the Phillies had 25 hits and five errors. There were a combined 21 bases on balls. At one point, the Phillies actually led 3-1 until the Cubs came up in the bottom of the second.

And then all hell broke loose…

In the featured photo above, we see the two managers, Phillies’ Kaiser Wilhelm and the Cubs Bill Killefer who had to endure the onslaught.

I decided to take a “deep dive” into the details of this ugly slugfest, and, sure enough, it’s full of some interesting tidbits:

At one point the Cubs led 25-6. And yet they had to hold on to win the game, with the Phillies leaving the bases loaded in the top of the ninth. The Cubs almost blew a 19-run lead!
“Only” 28 of the 49 runs that scored were earned, so there were 21 unearned runs.
The Cubs had a 10-run second inning, and followed that with a 14-run fourth inning…and still almost blew the game.
The Cubs’ second inning is particularly interesting. The inning started off innocently enough with a ground out, a walk, a single, and a strikeout. So men on first and second with two outs. Phillies’ third baseman Russ Wrightstone then dropped a foul popup for an error. The Cubs proceeded to reel off 10 unearned runs before the third out was recorded.
Amazingly, the game was played in only three hours and one minute. Today such a game would easily go five or six hours.
Both lineups are populated with the names of obscure ball players that even the most devoted baseball historian would hardly recognize: Frank Parkinson, Bevo Lebourveau, Johnny Mokan, Butch Henline, Uel Eubanks, Bernie Friberg, and George Stueland, just to name a few.
Since I’m familiar with the 1918 pennant-winning Cubs, I recognized a couple hold-overs from that team, like Charlie Hollocher, Bob O’Farrell, and Turner Barber. The only easily-recognized names on either team are Cubs’ rookie catcher, Gabby Hartnett; the Phils Art Fletcher, the former Giants shortstop and later long-time Yankee coach; and former Cincinnati Red Jimmy Ring, who pitched in the 1919 World Series.
One interesting Cub player is Hack Miller. He was considered one of the strongest men ever to play the game. He’s the player Hack Wilson was nicknamed after, due to their similar stocky, barrel-chested physique.
The Phillies scored all 23 of their runs without the benefit of a home run and only six extra-base hits.
In spite of all the runs the Cubs scored, the Phillies used only two pitchers for the entire game, starter and loser Jimmy Ring, and Lefty Weinert.
Only two umpires were on hand to endure the onslaught: Bob Hart and Cy Ringler, in a game I’m sure neither ever forgot.

I think it’s safe to say baseball will never see a game like this again…or at least let’s hope not!

Gary Livacari

Photo Credits: All from Google search

Information: Excerpts edited from the Retrosheet box score for the August 25, 1922 Cubs-Phillies game.

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