1910 Chief Bender Game 1 Phil 4 Cubs 1 Game Score 85
1911 Jack Coombs Game 3 Phil 3 NY 2 (10 innings) Game Score 88
1912 Hugh Bedient Game 5 Bos 2 Giants 1 Game Score 80
1913 Eddie Plank Game 5 Phil 3 NY 1 Game Score 81
1914 Bill James Game 2 Bost 1 A’s 0 Game Score 88
1915 Rube Foster Game 2 Bost 2 Phillies 1 Game Score 81
1916 Babe Ruth Game 2 Bost 2 Brook 1 (14 innings) Game Score 97
1917 Rube Benton Game 3 Giants 2 White Sox 0 Game Score 82
1918 Hippo Vaught Game 5 Cubs 3 Red Sox 0 Game Score 80
1919 Dickie Kerr Game 3 White Sox 3 Reds 0 Game Score 84
For those of you who missed part one, I’m going through every World Series and trying to pick the best pitched game. Then I let my friends from Bill James online pick the best pitched World Series game of the decade for your reading pleasure. Here are comments on the games I selected:
1910 Chief Bender Game 1 Phil 4 Cubs 1. Before making my selection I was favoring Jack Coombs who won three games in the series. I found out Coombs was helped a lot by the A’s offense. They scored 28 runs in his three starts. I thought maybe game 5 as he clinched the series and gave up only 2 runs. However, Benders start was a lot better. He gave up 3 hits and two walks and struck out 8.
1911 Jack Coombs Game 3 Phil 3 NY 2 (11 innings) Great pitchers duel, great game. Coombs outpitched Mathewson, but the Giants almost had it won in the 9th. Then Homerun Baker hit his most famous homer tying the game at one. In the 11th with 1 out Baker singled Eddie Collins to third for the second biggest hit of the game. Later Collins and Baker scored to give the A’s a two-run lead going into the bottom of the 11th. Coombs held on giving up only one run with the last out being on an attempted steal of second. Coombs was a bit wild giving up four walks.
1912 Hugh Bedient Game 5 Bos 2 Giants 1. Again, looking for a Joe Woods game as he won 3 games for Boston in the series. However, Bedient’s performance was more impressive. Again, he beat Christy Mathewson in another well pitch game by both pitchers. The win put Boston up 3 games to 1.
1913 Eddie Plank Game 5 Phil 3 NY 1. Plank had only had one strikeout but gave up two hits and a walk. Again, poor Christy Mathewson was the losing pitcher with a solid performance. I almost picked Mathewson in game 2. The difference was this was the clutching game.
1914 Bill James Game 2 Bost 1 A’s 0. Boston held the A’s to 6 runs in 4 games, not giving the pitchers much of a chance to win. James gave up 2 hits walked 3 but had 8 strikeouts.
1915 Rube Foster Game 2 Bost 2, Phillies 1. The first of three consecutive 2-1 victories for Boston. Foster not only pitched great 3 hits and 0 walks, but he also drove in the winning run with two outs in the top of the 9th with a single before retiring the side in order in the bottom of the ninth. It should have been no surprise as he batted .500 for the series and was actually an above average hitter for a position player during the regular season. Speaking of hitting game 5, which Foster also won, was a high scoring affair after all those 2-1 games of 5-4. Down 4-2 coming in the eighth Boston’s Duffy Lewis hit a two-run homer to tie the game. In the ninth Harry Hooper hit a series winning homer in the top of the ninth. It was his second homerun of the game. Both Lewis and Hooper each hit two home runs during the regular season.
1916 Babe Ruth Game 2 Bost 2 Brook 1 (14 innings). This is a really famous game. Of course, both starters pitched great as both had complete games. I didn’t know until doing this that Ruth’s game score was so high.
1917 Rube Benton Game 3 Giants 2 White Sox 0. Rube Benton was the first pitcher I chose that was on the losing World Series team. I doubt I will choose a losing pitcher when doing this, but I am just starting. The Giants lost the first two games of the series and evened the series with 2 shut outs in a row. Then the White Sox scored plenty of runs the last two games to win the series. Benton allowed 5 hits and no walks to beat game 1 winner Eddie Cicotte. Neither pitcher gave up a walk in the game.
1918 Hippo Vaught Game 5 Cubs 3 Red Sox 0. Another pitcher who pitched for the losing side in the series. Spoiler it will be three in a row in 1919. I almost picked Babe Ruth’s shutout, but the two games were really close, and I didn’t want to choose Babe Ruth a second time.
1919 Dickie Kerr Game 3 White Sox 3 Reds 0. This was after the White Sox threw the first two games and weren’t really trying in this game. Jimmy Ring threw a shutout for the Reds in game 4, but that was against a team that wasn’t trying that hard.
Babe Ruth in 1916 game 2 won easily. It is a famous game, and it took 14 innings, So both pitchers not only pitched long they pitched under a lot of pressure in the later innings. Ruth pitched a complete game with a game score of 97 which is excellent. Sherry Smith pitched a complete game of 82 which was excellent, but not quite enough on this day.
Ruth gave up an inside the park homerun in the first to Hi Myers, then pitched 13 scoreless innings. He drove in Everett Scott, who hit a triple in the third, with a groundout. There were only 6 strikeouts in the game. Ruth pitched four of the strikeouts.
When I was in elementary school I used to read these biographies which would be about the subject’s childhood for 9 chapters, then have a cheesy chapter telling you about the subject’s accomplishments as an adult. In the one about Babe Ruth, the adult chapter had two adults at a World Series game arguing whether Ruth was a better hitter or pitcher. The nine-year-old me was saying this was dumb as it was obvious that Ruth was a better hitter. However, looking at this game, I can see why someone would make the argument on Ruth being a great pitcher.
