IT WAS MADNESS...MUCH MORE THAN THAT!

It was, perhaps, the most intense and outrageous and uncivilized baseball game ever played, maybe in any sport. One hundred and seven years ago at the Polo Grounds in Harlem, on October 8, 1908, the Chicago Cubs and New York Giants held a one game playoff on the last day of the season to determine who would win the pennant.

Christy Mathewson, having the best year of his career, was to pitch for the Giants...even New York had never seen anything like it.

“The Polo Grounds quit selling tickets about 1 o’clock and thousands who held tickets couldn’t force their way through the street mobs to the entrances...the umpires were an hour getting into the park.....by game time there were thousands on the field in front of the bleachers. The stands were jammed and the elevated train lines couldn’t run because people had climbed up them and were sitting on the tracks.” - Mordecai Brown

Fireman drove onlookers off the elevated tracks with hoses but they just climbed back up again...fans without tickets tried to burn their way into the park and had to be beaten back by mounted police...thousands more covered the rock faced cliff called ”Coogan’s Bluff” that offered views of only parts of the field. “Never in the history of the game,” one reporter wrote, “have their been so many to see a game, who didn’t see it.."

From the stands, ”Three Finger” Brown remembered, there was a steady roar of abuse-----”I never heard anybody or any set of men called as many foul names as the Giants fans called us that day.”

The Cub pitcher, Jack Pfiester was rattled, he hit Fred Tenney and walked Buck Hertzog, “Turkey” Mike Donlin doubled scoring Tenney...the Giants led 1 - 0. Pfiester walked the next batter then Cub manager Frank Chance sent for “Three Finger” Brown; Brown had started or relieved in 11 of the last 14 games of the season....he had received 6 letters threatening him with death if he dared pitch against the Giants...and he had to shove his way to the mound through the hostile, muttering crowds that had spilled onto the outfield...but he was ready..

“Art Devlin was up, below average hitter, great fielder, but tough in the pinches, but I fanned him....but then you should have heard the names that flew around me as I walked to the bench. I was about as good that day as I ever was in my life. - Mordecai ”Three Fingered” Brown.

In the 3rd inning the Cubs, sparked by Joe Tinker’s triple, scored 4 runs off Mathewson, despite the ceaseless angry hissing that greeted every Cubs batter. In the 7th, Fred Tenney drove in one run; the score was now 4 -2 Cubs and it stayed there till the 8th and the top of the 9th. The tension became too much for the Giants and their fans.

”The scene was really the most disgraceful ever pulled off around here...once when Kling was chasing a foul from Doyle’s bat, two beer bottles, a drinking glass, and a derby hat were thrown at him...is that baseball? Does that do New York any good? Gee Wiz , if we can’t lose a pennant without dirty work let‘s quit altogether.“ -New York Evening Journal

Play was stopped for a time because of fist fights in the stands. The newspaper reported the next day that 7 men had been carted off raving mad.

“Three Finger” Brown stayed calm...Three Giants came up in the 9th and three went down...it was all over!

The Cubs had won the pennant and had to run for their lives...”Some of our boys got caught by the Mob and were beaten up some”, Brown remembered. The manager Frank Chance was hit in the throat, Jack Pfiester was slashed in the shoulder. They just barely made it into the clubhouse and had to be driven to their hotel in a paddy wagon guarded by 6 armed officers.

Holy Cow!

The Cubs went on to win the World Series against Ty Cobb and the Detroit Tigers. It was the very last time that the Chicago Cubs have won a World Series.