by Scott Fennessy
Chicago, IL 9/19/1905
The Cubs face Cincinnati in the wrap up of this quick two game series. Frank Hahn, a once great pitcher who is nearing the end of the line faces Mordecai Brown who has come on strong of late and with the way the Cubs bats have been lately a favorite to overcome a man who really hurt them in my 1901 replay.
The Reds go down quietly in the first, and Hahn takes the mound. Billy Maloney slips what seems like a harmless single under Miller Huggins glove at second, but with that hit, the merry go round is in motion. Jim Casey gets hit by a 1-2 pitch and Frank Schulte hits a single to right scoring Maloney with the first run of the day and runners are on the corners. Schulte steals second and Frank Chance gets a 1-1 fastball and he rips it to right to score two more runs and takes second on the throw home from Jimmy Sebring. Art Hofman then gets a single to center that scores Chance and the visitors already have the bullpen going. Johnny Evers drops a soft single into left that scores yet another run. Johnny then steals second and Joe Tinker then sends Hahn’s 0-1 changeup into left and Evers scores. That ended what has to be one of the worst performances I have ever had. Hahn faced 7 batters, retired none and allowed 7 earned runs.
Since this disaster happened in the first inning the Cincinnati sends starter Orval Overall to the mound since he has a while before his next start and they need someone to eat some innings. Things don’t start off well for Overall either as Johnny Kling hits a fly ball deep to left for an RBI double. Brown then hits one to third and Kling gets caught half way and Brown is on first as Kling is tagged out for the fielder’s choice. Overall then gets the next two hitters and the very long inning ends with the Cubs on top 7-0.
With Overall in relief things suddenly go very quiet on both sides, and while the Cubs get several runners via the base on balls mixed with a few singles they don’t get anything else going and the score is unchanged until the bottom of the seventh inning when Tinker walks and moves to second on a ground out. Brown singles to right and Joe scores. The Cubs look for another huge inning as Maloney and Casey walk to fill the bases, but Schulte strikes out and Chance grounds out to end the inning.
That was it as Brown gets his shutout and the Cubs get another big day from the bats. This win ties them with the Giants. They are two ahead in the win column, but two down in the loss column.
