Mordecai Brown by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Mordecai Brown

Page 73

It was among the most exciting seasons ever played. Both the American and National league pennants were decided on the last day of the season, with the visitors winning on hostile ground. During the season, none of the contenders could build a big lead. In the American League, Detroit, Cleveland and, until the last two weeks of the season, St. Louis contended, with Detroit winning by a half game over Cleveland. In the National, Chicago, New York and Pittsburgh vied for the flag, with the Cubs beating the Giants on the last day to win the pennant.

If one could ask Morecai Brown when his greatest game was, as many did when he was still living, he’d still say October 8, 1908, at New York’s Polo Grounds. Brown said; “I was about as good that day as I ever was in my life.”

Brown referred to that playoff game as a time when having nerve served him well in baseball. He had plenty of “pluck,” as he put it, to pitch in front of a hostile crowd after receiving death threats signed by the Black Hand’s black handprint

Gambling was commonplace in those days, Giant fans were mad as hell, and many had everything they owned riding on that game.

It was not only New York, this was common for baseball and its fans of that time. As pictorial fortification of that here is Brown warming up at his home field, Chicago’s “West Side Park,”