In late June, 1921, Rube Foster’s Chicago American Giants and the Indianapolis ABCs, managed by C.I. Taylor, engaged in a bizarre contest that became something of a legend among Negro League historians. Here’s one of the earlier passages about the game that I know about, from Dick Clark and John Holway’s article, “Charleston No. 1 Star of 1921 Negro League,” a statistical compilation of the 1921 Negro National League published in the Baseball Research Journal in 1985 (page 64):
For example, in a game against Indianapolis in June the Giants were down, 18-0, so Foster threw away all the books. He ordered his “rabbits” to lay down 11 bunts, including six squeeze plays in a row. Torriente blasted a grand-slam and catcher George Dixon hit another as the Giants scored nine runs in the eighth and nine more in the ninth to gain an 18-18 tie!
Here’s Holway 16 years later, in his Complete Book of Baseball’s Negro Leagues, p. 153:
In one game against the ABCs, Chicago was losing 18-0 after seven innings, and Rube ordered his “race horses” to lay down 18 bunts in a row. Cristobal Torriente, the only slugger on the team, blasted a grand slam, and George Dixon another. The Giants scored nine runs in the eighth and nine more in the ninth to end in a tie.
Paul Debono, in his book on the Indianapolis ABCs, describes the game this way (pp. 90-91):
In a much talked-about game on June 26, 1921, in Indianapolis, the ABCs were ahead of the American Giants 10-0 to start the eighth inning. The Giants chalked up nine runs in the top of the eighth, making the score 10-9. The ABCs responded confidently by putting eight runs on the board themselves in the bottom of the eighth, making the score 18-9 to start the ninth. In a move said to be “demonstrative” of Rube Foster’s coaching style and genius, in the eighth and ninth innings he ordered 11 batters in a row to bunt, executed six squeeze plays and allowed slugger Cristobal Torriente to knock a grand slam, and somehow the Giants knotted the score at 18-all in the ninth inning. The bizarre game was called on account of darkness with the score tied at 18 and the hometown fans were “sickened.”
The details shift from writer to writer (and from one Holway piece to another); and I have always been confused about the lesson we are supposed to learn about Foster. Was it that he made his teams so proficient at bunting that he could engineer big innings with what’s usually understood to be a small-ball strategy? If so, what about the two grand slams, which by themselves drove in nearly half the 18-run outburst? Patrick Rock, who compiled the 1923 Negro National League Yearbook for Replay Games (one the best and most thoroughly researched books ever written on the Negro Leagues, by the way, despite being issued only in conjunction with a board game), has responded to the bizarre and conflicting accounts of this game by speculating that it never happened at all, that it’s a sort of Negro League urban legend.
Well, it did happen. I was able to find reports on it in five newspapers: the Indianapolis Star, Indianapolis News, Indiana Daily Times, Chicago Defender, and Chicago Daily Tribune. Its date, however, was June 28, 1921, as confirmed by the four daily newspapers here, which all report the game in their June 29 issues as occurring “yesterday.”
My original ambition was to unearth as many sources as possible and create a definitive account of the game. The latter hasn’t proven possible; one major reason is that none of the newspapers I consulted printed a box score. Another is that I haven’t been able to get hold of Indianapolis’s African-American newspapers for 1921 (the Freeman, Recorder, and Ledger may have all been publishing at the time—if anybody has access to these papers [perhaps at the Indiana Historical Society?], drop me a line!).
I wasn’t able to piece together the true story of the 18-18 game; but I thought I’d go ahead and post the brief game stories and line scores I did find, which, taken together, tell a somewhat different story than the one we’ve read in history books.
It turns out that there are, essentially, two versions of the game: one reported in the Chicago papers, which became the basis for the later legend of Rube’s great bunt-driven comeback; and another one in the Indianapolis papers. For reasons that will be obvious when you read the articles, it would not be unreasonable to guess that the source for the Chicago story was the American Giants’ camp, while the Indianapolis papers based theirs on partisan ABCs’ sources.
First, let’s have the Chicago side of the story.
From the Chicago Daily Tribune, June 29, 1921:
AMERICAN GIANTS IN TIE.
Indianapolis, Ind., June 28.—The American Giants staged a sixteen run rally off eleven bunts, six successive squeeze plays, and Dixon and Tonchetti’s [sic] home runs with bases full, and held A. B. C. to an 18 to 18 tie.
American Giants…0 0 0 0 0 0 0 9 9—18 24 2
A. B. C………….......6 0 4 0 0 0 0 8 0—18 20 1
Batteries—Johnson, Brown and Williams, Dixon; Jefferies, McClure, Mackey and Powell.
From the Chicago Defender, July 2, 1921 (the Defender was a weekly paper):
Some Rally
The heavy downpour of rain caused the Monday’s game to be postponed and today’s [Tuesday’s] game was a humdinger when it came to staging a rally. Going to the bat in the first half of the eighth inning, with the score 10 to 0 against them, the Chicago gang scored nine runs only to have the A. B. C.’s come back in their half and drive Brown off the mound by scoring eight, leaving the score 18 to 9. Foster’s crew went to the bat in the ninth and tied the score by shoving nine more runs across, completely upsetting the home boys defense before the last man was put out. Tom Johnson was driven to the showers in the first inning. Tom Williams shut the Indianapolis lads out in their half of the ninth. In all, Rube Foster stood in the coacher’s box near third, causing his men to successfully bunt eleven times in those two wild eighth and ninth innings, pull off six perfect squeeze plays, coupled with Dixon’s and Torrenti’s home runs with the bases full, and saved the day. The home crowd was sick, but the followers here of the Chicago men were a happy bunch tonight. The score:
Am. Giants…..0 0 0 0 0 0 0 9 9 18 24 2
A. B. C………...6 0 4 0 0 0 0 8 0 18 20 1
Batteries: Johnson, Brown, and Williams and Dixon; Jefferies and McClure, Mackey and Powell.
And now, the Indianapolis side.
From the Indianapolis Star, June 29, 1921:
A.B.C.S AND GIANTS PLAY NINE-INNING 18-18 DRAW
Every description of weird baseball was played at Washington park yesterday when the A. B. C.s and Chicago American Giants slugged for nine innings to an 18-to-18 tie, darkness halting the farce in the Giants’ half of the inning immediately after they had knotted the count with three runs. Kenyon, Holloway and B. Taylor were the heavy hitters of the A. B. C.s, Kenyon twice hitting triples with the bases loaded. Tottienti [sic] of the Giants poled out four hits, including a triple and a home run. Score:
Giants…...0 0 0 0 4 0 2 9 3—18 21 4
A. B. C.s..1 0 0 6 0 2 1 8 0—18 15 4
Batteries—McClure and Mackey, Powell; T. Johnson and D. Brown, Dixon.
From the Indianapolis News, June 29, 1921:
RUNS, HITS AND ERRORS GALORE—THEN DARKNESS
The A. B. C.’s and the Chicago Giants presented a nine-act farce at Washington park yesterday afternoon. The runs made during the game, totaling thirty-six, were evenly divided. The hits, and there were thirty six of them, twenty-one going to the Giants and fifteen to the A. B. C.’s, were of almost every variety. The errors, four being accredited to each club, cost the Giants a few more runs than the locals.
Darkness came along and halted the affair just after the visitors had pushed across three runs in the ninth, tying the score.
Giants……..0 0 0 0 4 0 2 9 3—18 21 4
A. B. C.’s..1 0 0 6 0 2 1 8 0—18 15 4
Batteries—McClure and Mackey, Powell; T. Johnson and D. Brown, Dixon.
From the Indiana Daily Times, June 29, 1921:
A. B. C.s and Giants in Series Wind-up Game
[…]
Yesterday’s affair was a terrible slugging match, with all the infielders wishing they could wear masks and catchers’ gloves and all the outfielders wishing they had brought their bicycles along. The score finally ended at 18 to 18, with darkness putting a merciful end to all the hitting and running.
Kenyon, Holloway and B. Taylor hit hard and far for the A.s, and Torrienti lived up to his reputation as the Babe Ruth of the colored league by slamming out four hits, which included a homer and a triple. McClure stood all the bombardment for Taylor’s crew, while T. Johnson weathered the storm for the Giants.
The Chicago Defender, devoting the most space to the game, provides the most details, and has clearly shaped historians’ accounts of the game in casting it as virtually a victory for Foster and the American Giants (while Holway gives no source, Debono footnotes only the Defender). The 11 bunts and six squeeze plays mentioned in historians’ accounts certainly come from the Defender, as well as the emphasis on Foster’s role.
The Indianapolis papers, on the other hand, emphasize the ABCs’ accomplishments (Kenyon’s two bases-loaded triples surely counterbalancing the American Giants’ two grand slams), and say nothing about the American Giants’ bunting tactics. In fact, they characterize the game as an error-ridden slugfest, and provide an entirely different account of Chicago’s run scoring—reporting it as spread through the game, instead of concentrated into two nine-run innings at the end. According to the Indy story, the American Giants entered the top of the eighth trailing 10 to 6, not 10 to 0 (or 18 to 0, for that matter!); and it emphatically states that the Giants scored but three runs in the top of the ninth, not nine. And while the Chicago story has Tom Williams coming in to put down the ABCs without a run in the bottom of the ninth, according to Indy papers the game was called immediately after Chicago tied it up at 18-18 in the top of the inning—meaning that Indianapolis never had a chance to win in its half.
It should also be mentioned that, while the Tribune reports “six successive squeeze plays” (which the Defender does not), not one of these papers reports 11 (much less 18) consecutive bunts.
It’s not possible now to decide whether the Indianapolis or Chicago version is more reliable; my rather lame take on it at the moment is that both provide useful and unique details, and that the truth probably lies somewhere in between. The Chicago version gives us more pitchers (Jim Jeffries as the ABCs starter, and Tom Williams as the Giants’ closer, both unmentioned in the Indy papers); the Indy version gives us Kenyon’s batting details, and more information on Torriente’s hitting (four hits, and a triple unmentioned by Chicago reports). I have no idea why there’s such a discrepancy in the Giants’ run-scoring by innings and in the teams’ hit and error totals (partly an issue of scoring, but these are unusually large differences). I have no idea whether or not the bottom of the ninth was actually played. At some point, maybe we’ll be able to resolve these questions.
NOTE: Check out the wacky misspellings of Torriente’s name (Tonchetti?). It gives just a hint of all the contortions Latino names were put through in the American press at this time.
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