:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/23483901/fielderjones.0.jpg)
Nov. 18 in Portland, Ore.: White Sox 2, Giants 0
The players arrived in Portland for what the papers seemed to consider the last day of the tour. They still had two games left on the schedule -- a doubleheader in Tacoma and Seattle on Nov. 19 -- but they planned to head to the boat immediately afterward and start their journey across the Pacific. So at the very least, today would be their last full day on solid ground for a while.
There wasn't much fanfare at the train station, but ex-Sox player-manager Fielder Jones (now a Portland resident) and a welcoming committee did help them get settled. The rest of the city might have been occupied with Apple Day. Some of the 6,000 fans at Recreation Park roped the players into festivities by throwing apples at them. Good ones, not rotten ones.
The rain the players endured in Medford also soaked the Portland ballpark, although they covered the field in canvas leading up to the game to ensure it remained playable. The two teams did get a full game in under overcast skies, but offense was hard to come by.
The Sox scored both of their runs in the fifth. Art Fromme gave up a single to Dick Egan, then walked Morrie Rath to bring the mercenary Sox to the plate. Tris Speaker hit a short fly to right, but Jim Thorpe slipped on the turf and couldn't get to it, loading the bases for Sam Crawford. Wahoo Sam shot a line drive single to right to drive in two, and that capped off the scoring.
The Morning Oregonian recap by Roscoe Fawcett described Thorpe's defense rather harshly:
Thorpe in right field may be 'the greatest athlete in the world,' as Umpire Klem announced in deep basso, but, as a judge of line drives, he is still a great hurdler and high jumper.
Unlike Fromme, Chicago's Jim Scott survived his only threat of the day. Thorpe came to the plate with the bases loaded and one out in the seventh. Again, from the Oregonian:
The redskin whipped one down toward second base that appeared to have more speed than the moon. But a ball player named Egan stepped in front of the flying missile, pulled it down and doubled Doolan at first base.
That catch represented the difference between pica and agate; between a headline and a headstone; between a base hit and a time at bat.
... between being and becoming.
The other news of note -- Bill Klem ejecting Buck Weaver for the third time on the tour. Weaver didn't care for the way the umpire tallked to Crawford, and accused Klem of being far more accommodating to John McGraw. The repeated run-ins raised the possibility that Klem could kick Weaver off the tour when all sides met in Washington the next day.
After the game, the teams were treated to an all-out banquet at the Multnomah Hotel, although Charles Comiskey and Jimmy Callahan were among the no-shows. They had already made their way to Seattle to prepare for the departure -- in fact, Callahan didn't even stick around for the game, which the Fawcett dryly noted at the end of his recap.
Jimmy Callahan of the Sox left early in the day for Seattle with Comiskey, so the result of the game proves conclusively that a manager is of no value to a team.
This is great and all, but I bet you're still wondering: What happened to our aged pioneer friend who made the "useless hike" to Medford? The Chicago Tribune's recap has us covered, although it circles around his name.
Al Kilgore, who yesterday walked fourteen miles through a drenching rainstorm, fording two swollen streams, to see Christy Mathewson pitch, accompanied the team to Portland. White Sox players contributed to the fund for Kilgore's railroad fare between Portland and Medford and Comiskey gave the old man a ticket to the game. Killgore [sic] is a pioneer of Oregon and lives in an isolated country fourteen miles from Medford. He had not heard that Mathewson left the tourists in California. Killgore is past 70 years old.