THE 1915 BOSTON BRAVES ...

The Braves began the defense of their championship in 1915 with a new slugging outfielder in Sherry Magee, a new business manager in Walter Hapgood, in the same old fighting spirit. An extra incentive to repeat, was that they felt they were not champions by a fluke of fate. Manager George Stallings argued that a fluke does not last from July through the middle of October. He felt that they had fought for their title, and had more ability than most people thought.  But it looked to be a fluke indeed.

During the off-season Stallings had been annoyed by President Gaffney's trading of Possum Whitted and Oscar Dugey for Magee, the Philadelphia outfielder, who batted over .300 three years in a row. Stallings was glad enough to have another strong hitter, but he hated to see Whitted go. He regarded Whitted is a key player in the 1914 Braves championship, because he could fill-in acceptable he for Johnny Evers at second base, aside from playing a good game in the outfield.

If anything, the Braves were less dignified than ever, even though they were champions. Spring training was a three ring circus. Once a week Stallings would take his club from Macon, Georgia to his 6000 acre plantation 20 miles away. There they would have a party with hunting and fishing, popped up with a big dinner roast turkey and country ham. Stallings was a generous host. Players kidded him and played practical jokes on him, yet he always remained the boss.

The defense of the National League pennant was unsuccessful. The Phillies won their first pennant under Pat Moran. While the Phillies won only 90 games, the Braves finished in second, seven games behind them. The Phillies had built up their margin in part by winning 14 and losing only 7 games to the Braves during the season.

A collapse by Bill James, the injuries and sickness of Johnny Evers, Dick Rudolph's inability to equal his 1914 performance, and Sherry Magee's disappointing hitting, were the major reasons for the Braves failure. James became sick and spent most of the season at home. Paul Strand, a promising young right-hander, also got sick and sat out the season. It took him 10 years to get another shot at playing in the majors.

Johnny Evers injured his ankle sliding into second base on April 18th, as the Braves played Brooklyn, and he had to be carried from the field. He did not play again until June 29th, when he took part in the second game of a doubleheader with the Giants, hitting a home run, a double and a single. Evers played in only 83 games and batted .263 It was here that Stallings longed to have Whitted, who could have taken over for Evers.

One of the Braves' highlights happened on April 20th. In this game, the Braves won their fourth straight from Brooklyn at Fenway Park, by a score of 4 to 3. Brooklyn tied the score in the ninth-inning, but in the 10th inning, Red Smith, who would been conspicuous in every game of the series against his old club, came to bat with the bases loaded and two outs. He met a pitch and sent the ball crashing up against the scoreboard on the left-field wall to drive in the winning run with his walkoff hit.

Another extra inning walk-off win came on May 8th. In the 11th inning, the New York Giants were up 3 to 2. In the Braves half of the 11th, Hank Gowdy got a pitch to his liking and sent it against the left-field wall for two bases. Pinch hitter, Larry Gilbert, laid down a good bunt that the Giants' catcher, Chief Meyers, should have allowed to roll foul, but instead he picked it up and threw late to first base too late. Now with runners on first and third, Herbie Moran dropped a bloop hit into short left field that scored Gowdy with the tying run. Gilbert made it to third base on a ground out and at this point, a wild pitch hit the dirt in front of home plate, and bounced by Meyers' shoulder, allowing Gilbert to score the winning run and give the Braves a thrilling 4-3 win.

On May 17th, 128 Americans died when the British passenger ship "Lusitania" was sunk ny a German submarine. President Woodrow Wilson was determined not to get drawn into a foeign war and demanded an apology, but got none.

On July 9th, the Braves got another lucky break in extra innings against the Cardinals. With one out in the 10th inning, Sherry Magee walked and stole second, going over to third on a ground out. Red Smith came up and hit a hot grounder down to short which was picked up nicely, but a poor throw to first, got there on the hop. It allowed Smith to reach safely and brought in Magee with the winning run, 4 to 3.

Dick Rudolph won 22 games, one of them with his own grand slam home run, but he was almost a .500 pitcher, suffering 19 defeats. He probably would have done better if the team behind him had played as well as the team did in 1914.

With the breaks of the game in their favor, the Braves beat the Pittsburgh Pirates at Fenway Park by a 3 to 2 score on July 15th. Rudolph pitched a great game, in spite of some rather discouraging breaks early on, and deserved to win. Down 2-0 in the eighth inning, Sherry Magee opened by drawing a pass and Butch Schmidt hit a grounder near second base that Wagner grabbed and in his haste to start a doubleplay, let the ball go between his legs and both runners were safe. Red Smith then shot one into the left-field corner for a double that scored both Magee and Schmidt to tie the game The Rabbit then sacrificed Smith over to third. Now, with only one out, Hank Gowdy was passed to take a chance with Rudolph. It didn't work, when Dick sent a fly to centerfield, and Smith just beat the throw to the plate. Rudolph got the Pirates in the eighth and ninth innings and preserved a nice 3 to 2 victory.

The next day, July 16th, in a stubborn and hard-fought 15 inning contest with the Pirates, the Braves had a come from behind 6 to 5 win. In the 15th, Joe Connolly shot a single up the middle and Magee pulled one to left that put Connolly on second. Schmidt came up next he slammed into right-field that scored Joe with the winning walk-off run.

On July 17th, the Braves swept a doubleheader, taking each game from the Cincinnati Reds by a score of 3 to 2. The Braves came from behind in both games. Down 2 to 1 in the ninth inning of the first game, with the bases full, Butch Schmidt sent a ball sailing out to right-center, to score the tying and winning run with a walkoff double.

In the second game, down 2 to 0, the Braves got to work in their half of the seventh inning. Hank Gowdy drew a walk. Herbie Moran smashed a double to left field and Johnny Evers who singled to right, scoring one run and putting Moran on third. Connolly hit a long fly ball out that scored Moran with the tying run allowed Evers to scamper over to third. Sherry Magee brought him home with what would be the winning run, when he singled to right, making it 3 to 2 in favor of the Braves. Dick Rudolph then went into pitch and held Cincinnati for the next two innings, earning a save and only allowing one scratch infield hit.

On July 23rd, the Braves and the Cubs tightened up their belts and played one of the most stubbornly contested games seen in Boston this year. The battle lasted 11 innings and the Braves were again victorious by a 2 to 1 score.  The game itself was a thriller. Hippo Vaughn and Lefty Tyler made a pitcher's duel out of it. In the 11th inning, Sherry Magee plunked a single into left field. Butch Schmidt followed with another to center and Red Smith set the stage by moving both runners over with a sacrifice. The Cubs closed in on the diamond for a play at the plate and Rabbit Maranville put on the finishing touch of a great day's work, by shooting the ball into centerfield and scored Moran for the walk-off.

An injured shoulder bothered Magee, but probably not so much as a loss of Baker Bowl's short fences. That he had batted over .300 for the Phillies three years in a row, and in 1914 and hit 15 home runs. But for the Braves he batted .281 and hit only five homers. In spring training, while shagging a short fly, Magee stepped in a hole, fell and hurt his shoulder. He never was good again.

Pat Ragan, bought from Brooklyn in April, and Tom Hughes, the 30-year-old veteran who had been bought from Rochester in September of 1914, were right behind Rudolph on the Braves staff. Ragan's record was 17-12, Hughes' was 16-14. Lefty Tyler had an off season, winning 10 and losing 9 games. He pitched and lost a one hit games to Brooklyn, 1 to 0, in September.

In midseason, the Braves picked up two youngsters who were to become outstanding pitchers. Jesse Barnes was bought from Davenport on July 25th and went on to win three games and lose none before the season closed. Ten days later a 23-year-old southpaw, named Art Nehf, was bought from Terre Haute. He won five and lost four the Braves, but four of his five victories were shutouts. One of his shutouts, against Brooklyn, was a one-hit game in which Brooklyn did not have a man left on base. Both Nehf and Barnes were to do their best pitching later for the New York Giants.

The Braves did not have a .300 hitter in 1915. As a team they batted .240 which was the lowest in the National League. Joe Connolly had the best batting average, hitting .298

In midseason the Braves picked up veteran Fred Snodgrass, who had been released by the Giants, but he batted only .215 In one game, a single, that he hit, kept the Braves from being victims of a no-hitter pitched by Fred Toney of the Cincinnati Reds.

There was a lot of talk of another miracle, when on July 15th the Braves were in last place. They climbed steadily until they were in second place on September 24th, but was as close as they would come to the Phillies. Grover Cleveland Alexander was winning 31 games and losing only 10. He hurled his fourth no-hit game of the season against the Braves on September 29th, clinching the pennant for Philadelphia.

Losing the pennant was a bitter pill for the Braves, especially Evers and Stallings. Evers drew a five day suspension for badgering umpires in the final month. Stallings slid up and down the bench yelling at his players.

The major event 1915 was the opening of Braves Field. Gaffney had been looking for a site for a new ballpark ever since buying the Braves in 1912. He found what he wanted in the old Allston Golf Club on Commonwealth Avenue. It was a pretty location, with the Charles River meandering lazily in the background between grassy banks and locomotives belching smoke and cinders in the Boston and Albany Railroad Yards in the foreground.

The park was built for $600,000, on a lot that measured 850' x 675', containing 593,718 sq ft of land. It was big enough so Gaffney would build, what he thought was the perfect ballpark. He wanted the playing field to be so large that would be possible to hit a home run inside the field in any direction. The Left-field foul line originally measured 402 feet, the right-field line 402 feet, and it was 550 feet to centerfield. Gaffney announced the purchase of the golf course on December 1, 1914 and ground was broken on March 20th. As they had at the end of the 1914 season, the Braves continued to play their home games at Fenway Park until they moved to Braves Field on August 18th.