October 8, 1912 On batting practice before Game 1 of the World Series, Tris Speaker drove a ball not only over the right field grandstand but completely out of the Polo Grounds. The Series opened with the Red Sox as 10–8 betting favorites. Giants manager John McGraw surprised everyone by starting rookie Jeff Tesreau rather than the great Christy Mathewson against Boston ace Smoky Joe Wood. He preferred to save Mathewson for Game 2 and the hostile crowd at Fenway Park.
New York struck first. Josh Devore walked with one out in the third, and advanced to third base on a single by Larry Doyle lost in the sun by Duffy Lewis. After Fred Snodgrass struck out, Red Murray’s single scored Devore and Doyle for a 2–0 Giants lead. Tesreau and his spitball held the Red Sox hitless for the first five innings, but Boston then cut the lead to 2–1 in the sixth on a triple by Tris Speaker that fell to the ground untouched when neither Snodgrass nor Devore called for the ball (in an Alphonse-Gaston act), and an RBI groundout by Lewis. The Red Sox scored three runs in the very next inning, on an RBI double by Harry Hooper and a two-run single by Steve Yerkes, after Giants second baseman Doyle had muffed Wood’s potential inning-ending double play grounder and had to settle for the one out at second. In the bottom of the ninth, the Giants scored a run and had the tying run on third and the winning run on second, but Wood, a spectacular 34–5 in the regular season, struck out the last two batters for the 4–3 Boston win in a complete game with 11 strikeouts. Oddly, McGraw let relief pitcher Doc Crandall bat for himself for what turned out to be the last out rather than using backup catcher Art Wilson to pinch-hit. After the game Wood said, “I threw so hard I thought my arm would fly right off my body.”
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