Lost In History

After winning the first two games of the '29 Series at Wrigley, the A's went home to Shibe looking for a sweep. The Cubs won the third game 3-1 behind the pitching of Guy Bush, but that merely set up the most' spectacular game of the Series—one that drew upon the resources of Philadelphia's most formidable pitcher and all the power of its batting order.

By the middle of the seventh inning of Game 4, the Cubs were winning 8-0, and they were riding the A's mercilessly. In the dugout Bush had been celebrating each run by donning a blanket as if it were a headdress and doing what one writer described as "a mock Indian war dance" along the Cubs' bench.

Mack was at the point of surrendering the game when a frustrated Simmons, who earlier had swung so hard on a third strike that he had fallen down, took a cut at Charlie Root's third pitch in the bottom of the seventh and struck a thunderous home run that bounced on the roof of the pavilion in left, making the score 8-1. Four successive A's batters then hit singles: Foxx to right; Miller to center; Dykes to left, scoring Foxx; and shortstop Joe Boley to right center, scoring Miller. With the score 8-3, George Burns, hitting for pitcher Ed Rommel, popped up to English for the first out.

After Bishop singled to center, scoring Dykes, Cubs manager Joe McCarthy called on Art Nehf to relieve Root, who was booed as he walked off the field. "They ought to have cheered him," English says.

On every afternoon of the '29 Series thousands of people jammed City Hall Plaza in downtown Philly to hear the play-by-play piped through speakers and to follow the movement of steel figures on a large magnetic scoreboard. Hundreds watched from open windows at City Hall and nearby office buildings. On other city corners thousands more gathered around P.A. systems that blared the play-by-play. During Game 4 the crowd's voices rose each time the A's scored in the seventh.

Haas went to the plate to face Nehf. The Mule stroked a low liner to center. English turned and saw Wilson lose the ball in the sun. "It went over his head," English says, "and he turned and ran for it." Boley scored. Bishop chased him home. The ball rolled to the wall. Haas rounded third and raced to the plate for an inside-the-park home run. In the A's dugout Dykes pounded on the man standing next to him. "We're back in the game!" Dykes shouted. Reeling under Dykes's blows, the man fell against the bats and spilled them. It was the spindly Mack.

Never once had Dykes seen his manager leave the bench. Mack usually just sat there, dressed in a dark suit, like an undertaker, and moved his fielders around with a wave of his scorecard. But he left his seat that day. "I'm sorry," said Dykes.

The 67-year-old skipper just smiled. "That's all right, Jimmy," he said. "Wasn't it wonderful?"

At Mason's Dance Hall in Philly, in a crowd gathered around a radio set on a table, 12-year-old Carmen Cangelosi leaped to his feet, screaming, as the announcer described Haas galloping home: "They're gonna win now! They're gonna win now!" City Hall Plaza erupted in howls.

The score was 8-7. Nehf walked Cochrane and was relieved by Sheriff Blake. Simmons met Blake with a single to left. Foxx then singled through the box, scoring Cochrane and tying the game up. At Philadelphia's Franklin Field, where Allen Lewis was in a football crowd of 30,000 watching Penn play Virginia Poly, the makeshift baseball scoreboard in the west stands had shown the Cubs leading 8-0. "And then the crowd erupted," says Lewis. "In the bottom of the seventh, they put '8' up on the board. Play on the field stopped, and the players all turned around and looked up. I can still see that today."