Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 267, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 November 1911 — TIGERS IN FREAT PLAY [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

TIGERS IN FREAT PLAY

, , 1 ” • ,7'\! Charlie O'Leary and “Germany* Schaefer Were Stars. “Impossible” Double Play Is Made by Two Detroiters During Sensational Series With the Phlladel/phis Athletics. #V {By EDGAR WILLETT.) If I live to be as old as Sam Thompson there Is ofle series of games I never will forget. And when I forget that series there will be one -play still left In my mind. The series Is the one that the Tigers and Athletics played late in that season when we fought them out to the finish away from home and won by a nose the right to play Chicago for the world's championship. For exciting situations and desperate playing, I believe that series is the greatest ever played. The nine-teen-inning game in which we beat them is only a part of it. But the play that I never can forget was one by which Charlie O’Leary and Hermann Schaefer saved one of the games for us. Just how O’Leary ever managed to make that play I can’t guess. It was one of those impossible plays that a game player sometimes makes simply because he has to make It

The situation, as I recall it was this: Detroit was one run to the good late in the game, and it looked as if that one run was about enough to win on, until, with one out either tn the seventh or eighth inning, two sharp hits put Athletic runners' on first and third and made it look bad for the Tigers. The next batter up— I have forgotten who It was, but think it was Harry Davis —hit the ball straight through .the box and as clean across the top of second base as a hit ever went Both men on the bases were running when the ball was hit and it looked bad. The ball got over second base, with Schaefer diving at it; but he couldn't reach, and then, ten feet or more back of the bag, O’Leary came from nowhere, and while going as fast as he could run scooped that ball with one hand almost on the ground. It seeme'd as If he caught

the ball and threw backward with the runner .who was coming down from same motion, and the ball went to Schaefer at second base, forcing the first. Germany’s back was toward first base. He didn’t turn or try to turn, but threw backward across his body to Itossman, straight as a die, and doubled the fellow who had hit the ball. I think that was the greatest play I ever saw. and as it turned out It saved the game for Detroit. (Copyright, by W. G. Chapman.)

Pitcher Ed Willett.