At the start of the season, their three best pitchers --Bill James, Dick Rudolph and George Tyler -- had exactly one winning season among them. Their first baseman had 23 games of major league experience, their catcher 87. As for their outfield, nobody even knew who was playing because manager George Stallings rotated 11 people. Entering 1914, the only thing regarded as certain about the Boston Braves was that they would finish in the second division, as they had done in each of the previous 11 seasons. As late as July 19, the club was fastened to last place with a 35-43 record.
But once the Braves began to win, they made up groupd in a closely bunched National League race. They moved up to seventh that afternoon, to sixth the following day, and to fourth a day later. They reached .500 on August 1, and second on Aug. 10, trailing only the defending champion Giants.
By Labor Day, when they opened a three-game series with New York, Stallings' club had won 33 of 43 and moved into a flat tie for the top at 67-52. More than 35,000 fans watched Boston rally for two runs in the bottom of the ninth of the morning half of a holiday double-header as Rudolph defeated the great Mathewson 5-4. New York claimed the afternoon contest 10-1 behind Jeff Tesreau before a pennant-crazed audience of more than 40,000, a record at the time. But the following day, with first place at stake, Boston pummeled Rube Marquard and two mound successors for 15 hits in an 8-3 victory. John Evers, the former Cub whose pre-season acquisition was said to have given Boston a winningcharacter, had three hits.
Now there was no letup. Boston surged to 25 victories in the remaining 31 games, breezing to the stunning pennant, then rolled past the defending world champion Athletics in four straight games, the least likely champions in major league history.
The Federal League opens for play as a "third major," as Baltimore defeats Buffalo April 13 at Orioles Park.
Philadelphia wins its third straight pennant and fifth in sixth years. But Connie Mack, strapped financially by the Federal League war, sells his best players after the season, and the A's in 1915 go "from first to worst."
IN THE WORLD
The Panama Canal is officially opened Aug. 15