THE LAST ONE FOR 86 YEARS

September 12, 1918 ... Money talked at Fenway Park today, after splitting up the winner's share of the World Series money, which was $20,837.45. Some of the World Champion Red Sox started for home and the rest of them will be on their way soon. After a meeting of the regulars and manager Barrow's office, shares amounting to $1108.45 were awarded to manager Ed Barrow, Capt. Harry Hooper, Amos Strunk, George Whiteman, Stuffy McInnis, Dave Shean, Everett Scott, Sam Agnew, Wally Mayer, Joe Bush, Wally Schang, Sam Jones, Carl Mays, Babe Ruth, and Heinie Wagner; $750 was given a Fred Thomas; $500 to trainer Martin Lawler; $300 to Sec. Larry Garver and players Bill Pertica, Walt Kinney, Hack Miller, Jean Dubuc, Jack Coffey, George Cochran, Dick Hoblitzell, and Dutch Leonard. Groundskeeper Jerome Kelly received $100 and the clubhouse boy and mascot $25 each.

Instead of leaving the distribution of the money deducted for the war charities to the National Commission the players instructed Dave Shean and Amos Strunk to obtain the check for $2300 from Sec. Bruce. They split 15 ways with manager Ed Barrow and each regular receiving hundred and $154.50 to divide among the war charities in their home cities and towns.  The afternoon was spent by Pres. Frazee and his secretary writing out checks for the players, all receiving their salaries up to September 15.

George Whiteman announced that he was going into ground aviation work; Freddie Thomas will return to the Great Lakes Naval Air Station; Wally Mayer will go home to Cincinnati before reporting to Camp Jackson in Columbia, South Carolina; Bill Pertica is waiting a call from the Navy, but registered yesterday; Carl Mays is expecting to be inducted into the Army any day; Hack Miller expects to land a quartermaster's department job on the West Coast; Strunk, Bush, Wagner, Agnew and Kinney have shipyard offers. Dave Shean will go back to his market job here in Boston; Harry Hooper will return to his California ranch; Sam Jones, Jack Coffey, and George Corcoran will assume employment in the Western oilfields; Jean Dubuc will become a government inspector in Montréal; and Wally Schang, Everett Scott, and Stuffy McInnis have not decided what they will do. Seventeen of the players are married with Freddie Thomas, Wally Mayer, and Bill Pertica being the only bachelors. All of them are either in or about to enter the service.

With baseball going into hibernation until the end of the war, the sports pages were filled with fond farewells to many stars unlikely to return, among them Ty Cobb, Frank Baker, Tris Speaker and Walter Johnson.  After the Red Sox team meeting, Harry Hooper added his name to the list. He told reporters that he felt that he had been with the Red Sox for 10 years and he thought that the last game of the World Series, would most likely be his last, because he did not anticipate that there would be any baseball played in 1919.

Most of the time was spent by the players putting signatures on souvenir baseballs.  The players signed baseballs for each other and beat each other good luck and goodbye. Many left the city by train in the afternoon.  After Harry Frazee had signed all the paychecks, he and Ed Barrow left Boston for New York City. After Babe Ruth pocketed his World Series share, he spent the evening acting as the official starter for bike and motorcycle races at the Revere Beach Race Track.

The Navy League baseball game between the Bumkin Island and the Cost Construction teams scheduled for the afternoon, was been postponed owing to influenza. The chances of some of the other future Navy League games being played was also poor.

The first death from influenza was reported in Quincy. The victim was 15-year-old Daniel McDougall. The boy was taken sick two days ago and died this afternoon. McDougall worked as a South Braintree factory worker and was quite strong and fit until taken ill.

September - November, 1918 ... After Carl Mays clinched game six, he stayed in Boston and on September 19th, got married. The bride and groom left on the afternoon of the wedding for a short honeymoon in Missouri before Mays reported for military service.

Mays was appointed leader of a group of 18 men traveling by train from Mansfield, Missouri to St. Louis. The men were sworn in on November 6th, only five days before the armistice was signed. Ten of those men never made it back alive from Europe. Others never even got to put on a uniform. They had arrived in St. Louis, just as the influenza epidemic was hitting its peak. Some men were quarantined immediately and Mays never saw them again. Mays called it the saddest and most ill-fated trip of his life.

Influenza had appeared in the spring, but in September it return to the East Coast with a vengeance. Boston was a busy port for returning servicemen, and American soldiers had apparently brought back with them stronger strain of the disease. From Boston, the virus spread to New York and Philadelphia, then across the country. More than 195,000 Americans died from influenza in October, 1918 alone.

Among them was Boston Globe sportswriter Edward Martin and American League umpire, Francis Silk O'Loughlin, who had been in the game for more 24 years.

The Babe contracted influenza twice. In mid-September, he fell victim and got sick while visiting his relatives in Baltimore. Roughly a month later a story from Lebanon, Pennsylvania stated that Ruth had contacted the disease and was recuperating. Neither instance was serious to him, and apparently no other Red Sox players were affected.