October 15, 1925: The Pittsburgh Pirates won the World Series in a Game 7 filled with drama, sloppiness, and controversy. Their opponent was the Washington Nationals, as they were then known, of the American League. (They were officially the Senators from 1901-04, the Nationals from 1905-55, and the Senators again from 1956-60, after which they became the Minnesota Twins and Washington got an expansion team, which was called the Senators. The local papers continued to refer to them as the Senators. We’ll just go with Washington hereinafter.) The Pirates came from behind after being down 3-1 in the Series. In Game 7, they came from behind twice against future Hall of Fame pitcher Walter Johnson on a dreary, rainy day, after somebody’s bright idea to douse the field in gasoline and set it on fire didn’t produce the intended result.
100 Years Ago: Pirates Win 1925 World Series
What better way to set the scene than to borrow this introduction from James R. Harrison, writing for the New York Times Service: “Water and mud and fog and sawdust, fumbles and muffs and wild throws and wild pitches, one near fist fight, impossible rallies – these were mixed up to make the best and the worst game of baseball ever played. Players wallowing ankle deep in mud, pitchers slipping as they delivered the ball to the plate, athletes skidding and sloshing, falling full length, dropping soaked baseballs – there you have part of the picture that was unveiled on Forbes Field on a dripping afternoon.”
The Pittsburgh Pirates win the 1925 World Series, defeating the Washington Senators 9-7 in Game 7 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh.
Much of the game is overshadowed by a bizarre event in which officials attempted to dry the wet field by dousing the infield in gasoline and lighting… pic.twitter.com/TxQnzwlScg
— 1925 Live (@100YearsAgoLive) October 15, 2025
Ring Lardner, covering the game for the Bell Syndicate with his usual trademark humor, was more succinct: “The final game was played in semi-darkness and on a field that resembled nothing so much as chicken a la king. The next serious [his word for “Series”] will be played during the night with no lights on the field so that no one can possibly tell what happened.”
The game was not without controversy. Why was the game not postponed after it had been postponed the day before due to rain? (Lardner theorized it was because commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis didn’t want to miss Thanksgiving dinner.) Did Washington’s player/manager Bucky Harris stick with Johnson too long? Did home plate umpire Barry McCormick miss a call that cost Washington the Series? But let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves.
“A Wonderful Marksman”
Pittsburgh was stark-raving mad about the 1925 World Series. Despite the rain and gloom, 42,856 fans crammed into Forbes Field for the 2:00 PM start. Important national and world news took a back seat to the Series in Pittsburgh’s newspapers. Prisoners deemed to have been on good behavior in the Allegheny County Jail and the Pennsylvania State Penitentiary were permitted to gather and listen to the radio broadcast of the game. At the jail, the radio’s batteries died in the sixth inning. Another example of why crime doesn’t pay.
On the mound for the Pirates was right-hander Vic Aldridge, 15-7 with a 3.63 ERA in the regular season. Struggling with the conditions, he retired just one of the six batters he faced. Otherwise, there were two singles, three walks, and two wild pitches as Washington jumped on him for two runs. Johnny Morrison relieved, and this time it was the Pirates’ defense that succumbed to the conditions. A catcher’s interference call against Earl Smith and an error by second baseman Eddie Moore let in two more runs. For Washington, a 4-0 lead with Johnson on the mound seemed insurmountable.
The 37-year-old Johnson already had two complete-game victories in the Series, allowing just one run. However, on this day, according to Lardner, “Walter proved to be a wonderful marksman and hit bat after bat.” Honus Wagner, in a guest column for The Pittsburgh Press, allowed that Johnson “didn’t have [any] zip to his pitches.”
“You’re the World Champions”
Back and forth it went. The Pirates got to Johnson for three runs in the bottom of the third inning. After four innings, Washington led 6-3. The Pirates added a run in the fifth. After a scoreless sixth inning, according to Johnson biographer Henry W. Thomas – this was Johnson’s grandson, not the Henry Thomas who “dug the dog the cat dragged in” in the Lovin’ Spoonful song – Landis, drenched from the increasing downpour, turned to Washington owner Clark Griffith, seated next to him, and said, “You’re the world champions. I’m calling this game.” Oddly, Griffith talked him out of it. “Once you’ve started in the rain, you’ve got to finish it,” he reasoned. (Thomas’s detailed book is Walter Johnson: The Big Train, and it’s a definitive biography.)
The Pirates tied the game with two runs in the seventh. Fighting the adverse conditions, Washington shortstop Roger Peckinpaugh dropped Moore’s pop fly for a two-base error. Speedy Max Carey followed with a double to score Moore. Doubles would become the theme for the rest of the day for Pittsburgh. Wrote Lardner, “It is a terrible strain [for a pitcher] to have a runner on first base. Walter avoided this by having most of them on second.” A sacrifice bunt moved Carey to third, and a groundout froze him there. Next, Pie Traynor lined a ball into the deep right-center field gap. Carey scored easily, but Traynor was thrown out at home trying for an inside-the-park home run.
The Comeback
In the top of the eighth, Peckinpaugh atoned for his error by launching a long solo home run to left field against Ray Kremer, the Pirates’ third pitcher. Faced with another deficit, the Pirates roared back against the great Johnson in the bottom of the inning after he retired the first two batters. Smith doubled, and Pirates manager Bill McKechnie took over like a chess master. He sent in Emil Yde to pinch-run for Smith and Carson Bigbee to bat for Kremer. Bigbee, a left-handed-hitting outfielder, hit .238 during the season and, according to the Gazette-Times, “was benched once as a weak hitter.”
In 1925, the media didn’t grill managers on strategy, not even in the World Series, so McKechnie’s reasons for choosing Bigbee are lost to history. McKechnie looked like a genius when Bigbee’s double scored Yde to tie the game. Johnson then walked Moore. A throwing error by Peckinpaugh on Carey’s grounder loaded the bases, setting up an epic battle between two future Hall-of-Famers.
The Battle
To the batter’s box stepped Kiki Cuyler. The right-handed-hitting outfielder hit .357/.423/.598, 18 HR, and 102 RBI in the regular season. Incredibly, that wasn’t good enough for the National League batting crown, but he led the NL in several categories and finished second in voting for the Most Valuable Player. (Just as incredibly, it took until this year for the Pirates to induct him into their Hall of Fame.)
Johnson requested sawdust for the mound. With the game in the balance, he wasn’t risking a slip. Cuyler, hitting foul line drives, worked the count to 2-2. Then Johnson pumped a belt-high, center-cut fastball that Cuyler looked at. Johnson and Muddy Ruel, his appropriately named catcher for this day, started for the dugout. But McCormick called it a ball.
On the next pitch, Cuyler hit a ball over the first base bag and into right field. By the time the ball was retrieved and thrown back into the infield, all four runners had crossed home for an apparent inside-the-park grand slam. However, the umpires conferred and determined that the ball had rolled under the tarpaulin that was stored in right field. Thus, despite McKechnie’s protests, they ruled Cuyler’s hit a ground-rule double, sending Carey back to third base and Cuyler to second base. Johnson retired the next batter, Clyde Barnhart. Johnson’s season was over after 130 pitches (I can’t believe his pitch count is available) and with the Pirates ahead, 9-7.
“Rube”
The wheels kept spinning in McKechnie’s head. To pitch the ninth, he called upon left-hander Red Oldham. Oldham had pitched for the Detroit Tigers from 1914-15 and 1920-22, several minor league teams in between, and nobody from 1923-24. He began 1925 in the minors until the Pirates added him in August. He pitched in 11 games for Pittsburgh in 1925 and hadn’t yet pitched in this World Series.
Wrote Lardner, “Some of us who have followed the serious through don’t remember the last time Rube [Oldham’s nickname] pitched. It must have been some time during the Spanish War.” Lardner continued, “’Oh,’ said one centurian [who probably existed only in Lardner’s mind], ‘that must be the Rube Oldham who used to be with Detroit and they asked for death certificates on him years ago and Pittsburgh claimed him.’” In reality, Oldham was 32 years old at the time. McKechnie’s reasoning for this choice is also lost to the annals of baseball.
Oldham retired all three Washington batters in order. The Pirates were world champions, and the wildest World Series Game 7 ever seen – at least until 1960 – was over.
Landis dropped by the Pirates clubhouse to issue a brief statement of congratulations to the winners before disappearing into a waiting taxicab. Off he went, presumably to get a good seat for Thanksgiving dinner.
The Last Words
Wagner, from his Press column: “In analyzing the series, I believe that Pittsburgh’s speed was the determining factor in the final game. The slow field didn’t prove any handicap to McKechnie’s fast runners. . .”
Johnson, to Associated Press: “It [the weather] was as fair for one as for the other. I gave them all I had, but it wasn’t enough. My arm and my injured leg, wrapped in bandages, felt all right all the way. They beat us, and I guess that’s all there is to it.”
Telegram from AL president Ban Johnson to Harris: “You put up a game fight. This I admire. Lost the series for sentimental reasons [by keeping his star pitcher in the game too long.] This should never occur in a World’s Series.”
Harris, according to International News Service: “Ban Johnson’s statement is impudent and uncalled for. He knows very little about baseball, and certainly he knows nothing about the management of the Washington team.”
Main Photo Credit: Bob Kupbens-Imagn Images
The post 100 Years Ago: Pirates Win World Series in Wild Game 7 appeared first on Last Word On Baseball.