On September 20th, 2012, the Phillies scored 8 runs in the first inning against the New York Mets. Elias Sports Bureau said that the last time the Phils had scored that many in the first inning of a game on the road was 1912. I wanted to know who they were playing that day, so I hit up the one man on twitter who I thought would know: Reuben Frank, probably even more of a Philly sports history junkie than I am. Roob did not disappoint. He reported that the last time it happened was on April 15th, 1912, when the Phillies took on the Brooklyn Dodgers (also known as the Robins at that time) at Washington Park. It was the 4th game of the 1912 season, with neither team on its way to a particularly memorable season. But the Phillies 8-run explosion did happen on a very memorable day: At 2:20 a.m. that morning, the Titanic had sunk entirely beneath the waves. The sinking was in the newspaper that morning, but all that was known was that it had struck an iceburg. As the day went on, and reports continued to pour in, you have to think that the talk of the ballpark that day wasn’t the Phillies big first inning, but people spreading gossip and asking for updates. There were all sorts of crazy rumors going around New York that day, as some papers reported that the ship had been rescued and was being towed in and others reporting that it had sunk.
It was a big week for baseball as well. Five days after the Phillies 8-run inning, the Red Sox began play at their new stadium, Fenway Park. (Here is a spectacular panorama of Fenway taken two years after it opened.)
The Phillies would go on to win that game, 10-6. They would finish the season 73-79, 30.5 games behind the pennant winning New York Giants. The team contained a few of our old favorites, like Gavvy Cravath and Sherry Magee. They were led by player-manager Red Dooin, who claimed that to have introduced the shinguard to baseball, and featured pitching stars Lefty Alexander and the enigmatic Tom Seaton, who would be embroiled in controversy a year later.
Philly.com posted an awesome tribute to the 1912 Phillies here, with lots of photos. Well worth a look.
