Giants Manager John McGraw, whose team had won the National League pennant by 12 1/2 games, did have the services of pitching aces Rube Marquard, Christy Mathewson and Jeff Tesreau throughout the Series, which conceivably could have been enough to overcome Connie Mack’s Philadelphia Athletics. Conceivably . . .
The Athletics roughed up Marguard in the opener, shelling him for five runs and eight hits in five innings. Home Run Baker singled home a run in the fourth and launched a two-run homer in the fifth in support of Chief Bender, who yielded 11 hits while struggling to a 6-4 victory.
Mathewson, coming off his next-to-last 20-victory season in the majors (he posted a 25-11 record), was vintage Matty in Game 2. The old Bucknell University star, matched against former collegiate rival Eddie Plank (Gettysburg), broke a scoreless tie with a l0th-inning single and New York went on to a 3-0 victory. Mathewson permitted eight hits, and Plank gave up seven.
Bullet Joe Bush, a 20-year-old rookie who won 14 games for Mack in 1913, shut down the Giants on five hits in Game 3 as Philadelphia battered Tesreau in an 8-2 victory. The next day, catcher Wally Schang drove in three runs with two singles and helped Philadelphia to a 6-0 lead after five innings. Merkle then fueled a Giants comeback bid with a three-run homer in the seventh, but Bender and the A’s held on for a 6-5 victory. The win was Bender’s fourth straight in Series competition.
With the Athletics in three games to one, Plank and Mathewson went at it in Game 5. This time, Plank was the master as he allowed only two hits — the first coming with one out in the fifth — in a 3-1 decision. The Giants had been outmanned and outplayed, losing in the World Series for the third consecutive year.
Baker, whose homer in Game 1 was his third and last in Series play, led Philadelphia with a .450 batting average and seven runs batted in. Eddie Collins hit .421, while Schang contributed six RBIs and a .357 average.
Bender’s conquests in Games 1 and 4 boosted his Series victory total to six. Mathewson, pitching in what would be his final Series, wound up with a 5-5 lifetime mark in the fall classic — he was 4-0 at one point– after splitting two decisions in 1913.
Mathewson’s Series slippage having mirrored the Giants’ recent postseason problems, McGraw was fiercely determined restore his club to fall-classic glory. But it would be four years before McGraw’s New Yorkers would take the field again for a World Series game.
This article was originally published on TSN
Game Recaps from Retrosheet
1913 World Series Stories
The 1913 Post-Season Games
World Series: Philadelphia Athletics (4) defeated New York Giants (1)
World Series Game 1 Played on Tuesday, October 7, 1913 (D) at Polo Grounds V
PHI A 0 0 0 3 2 0 0 1 0 - 6 11 1 NY N 0 0 1 0 3 0 0 0 0 - 4 11 0
BOX+PBP WP: Bender (1-0) LP: Marquard (0-1) HR: Baker (1)
World Series Game 2 Played on Wednesday, October 8, 1913 (D) at Shibe Park
NY N 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 - 3 7 2 PHI A 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 - 0 8 2
BOX+PBP WP: Mathewson (1-0) LP: Plank (0-1)
World Series Game 3 Played on Thursday, October 9, 1913 (D) at Polo Grounds V
PHI A 3 2 0 0 0 0 2 1 0 - 8 12 1 NY N 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 - 2 5 1
BOX+PBP WP: Bush (1-0) LP: Tesreau (0-1) HR: Schang (1)
World Series Game 4 Played on Friday, October 10, 1913 (D) at Shibe Park
NY N 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 2 0 - 5 8 2 PHI A 0 1 0 3 2 0 0 0 x - 6 9 0
BOX+PBP WP: Bender (2-0) LP: Demaree (0-1) HR: Merkle (1)
World Series Game 5 Played on Saturday, October 11, 1913 (D) at Polo Grounds V
PHI A 1 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 - 3 6 1 NY N 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 - 1 2 2
BOX+PBP WP: Plank (1-1) LP: Mathewson (1-1)
