IN THE NEWS: An AL first: two HRs in one game, and both grand slams-by Herm McFarland and Dummy Hoy in the White Sox’ 19-9 win over Detroit. The Tigers’ 12 errors-10 by the infield-set another AL record, which the White Stockings will tie May 6, 1903, against the Tigers.
IN THE NEWS: Under overcast skies at Chicago, the Tigers score five runs in the top of the 9th to take a 7-5 lead over the Sox. Clark Griffith then decides to stall, hoping that rain will wash out the last inning out and the score will revert to the eight inning total. Umpire Tom Connolly is in no mood for the slowdown tactics and forfeits the game to Detroit, the first forfeit in the AL. Detroit will win a forfeit against Baltimore on May 31st.
Against the Philadelphia Athletics and their untested rookie pitcher Pete Loos, the visiting Boston Somersets score a pair in the first inning, explode for nine runs in the 2nd inning, then do better in the 3rd by scoring ten runs, a major-league record scoring spree of 19 runs for consecutive innings. The aptly named Loos walks the first four hitters in the 2nd, then exits after going 2-0 on the 5th batter. Vet Bill Bernhard relieves with little effect. The final score is 23-12, with a record nine players scoring two or more runs. The A's have four players scoring twice for 2-team ML-record 13, a mark not tied until the same two teams match it in 1950. For Pete Loos, it is his only major-league appearance. Parson Lewis is the winner.
IN THE NEWS: The Giants beat Boston, 2-1, as Christy Mathewson wins his 3rd straight, beating Kid Nichols, on a 3-hitter. Bobby Lowe, who has all of Boston's hits, scores the Beaneater's only run on a passed ball.
IN THE NEWS: Fire destroys the wooden grandstand at League Park in St. Louis and halts St. Louis and Cincinnati with a 4-4 tie in the 10th inning. The 6,000 fans, a third in the 35 cent grand stands beat a leisurely retreat. The city refuses to permit a duplicate park to be reconstructed, but wants a steel or fireproof grandstand instead.
IN THE NEWS: At Milwaukee, the White Sox jump to a 4-1 lead over the Brewers before the hosts roar back against Roy Patterson, scoring eight runs in the 4th on their way to a 21-7 win. The Sox make just three hits. Patterson, meanwhile faces 57 batters, 53 official at bats-both major league records-and is pasted for 25 hits. Patterson, the pitcher who won the first AL game to weeks ago, will give up 345 hits this season, a distant 2nd to Baltimore's Joe McGinnity.
IN THE NEWS: Christy Mathewson wins his fourth straight game, blanking Philadelphia, 4-0, on five hits. It is Matty's first career shutout.
IN THE NEWS: Amos Rusie, onetime Hoosier Thunderbolt, makes his first start for the Cincinnati Reds after a two-year layoff and is bombed 14-3 by the Cards. Emmett Heidrick snags five singles off Rusie. After two more appearances, he goes back to digging ditches, having won 245 games, mostly for the Giants, in nine years.
In their long-delayed AL home opener, Boston defeats Philadelphia's Bill Bernhard, 12-4, behind Cy Young, who has jumped from the St. Louis NL team. Boston is led by Buck Freeman, who has a single, triple and homer. Young complains that he does not like the rule against pitchers warming up but he will still lead the AL with his 1.62 ERA. His 33 wins are 41.8 percent of his team’s 79 victories, a post-1900 record, it will stand until Steve Carlton wins 45.8 percent of the Phils’ 59 wins in 1972. Young also complains about catchers. "I do not like the league rule compelling the catcher to stand behind the bat all the time. It handicaps a pitcher. I cannot extend myself as I would like."
In a letter to AL team owners, Ban Johnson says that the rule requiring clubs to cut their players to 14 will not be enforced until May 20th.
IN THE NEWS: In Cleveland, rookie P Earl Moore, purchased from Dayton for $1,000, allows two unearned runs but no White Sox hits through nine innings. Cleveland matches the White Sox with two runs of their own in the 3rd inning. In the 10th, with rain coming down, the Sox use singles by Sam Mertes and Dutch Hartman off Moore, "The Steam Engine in Boots", to score two runs and win, 4-2. The threatening weather keeps the crowd to 400 at League Park.
The Pirates beat Chicago, 8-1 as Deacon Phillippe tops Jock Menefee. It is the 8th game in nine days between the two teams, half in Pittsburgh and the last four in Chicago.
IN THE NEWS: The largest NL crowd of the year so far (8,500) fills Brooklyn's Washington Park to view the Boy Wonder from Bucknell, Christy Mathewson. Matty doesn't disappoint, topping Brooklyn's William Kennedy, 7-0, as Brooklyn manages just two hits off the Giants budding star. New York moves into 3rd place with the win.
IN THE NEWS: The Reds Noodles Hahn cooks the Pirates, 6-1, allowing nine hits, one to each batter.
IN THE NEWS: Trailing 7-6 to the Giants, Brooklyn loads the bases with two outs in the 9th. Bill Dahlen singles but the Giants throw out the runner going from 1B to 2B for the 3rd out. Assuming they are ahead by two runs, New York takes the field, but umpire Hank O'Day signals that just one run scored before the out. The Brooklyn players surround the ump, "gesticulating and throwing their gloves on the ground to add force to their arguments," writes the New York Times. O'Day finally has enough and calls a 9-0 forfeit in favor of the Giants.
IN THE NEWS: Christy Mathewson (6-0) tosses his 3rd straight shutout outpitching Jack Taylor to beat the Colts, 4-0. The Giants move into 1st place with the win over Chicago.
Washington beats the Boston Somersets, 4-0, to record the AL's first shutout. Watty Lee is the winner on a 3-hitter.
IN THE NEWS: The Philadelphia Common Pleas Court rejects the Phillies’ suit against Nap Lajoie, Chick Fraser, and Bill Bernhard. The decision is appealed to the State Supreme Court, but the trio remains with the Athletics all season. Lajoie will hit .422, while Fraser wins 22 and Bernhard 17 for the 4th-place Athletics.
IN THE NEWS: Giants fractious owner Andrew Freedman accuses umpire Billy Nash of incompetence and bars him from the Polo Grounds. Pirate Chief Zimmer and the Giants John Warner are forced to officiate. Mathewson then wins his 7th straight, 2-1, but his scoreless streak stops at 39 innings when the Bucs score an unearned run in the 9th.
IN THE NEWS: At Cincinnati, Reds ace Noodles Hahn strikes out 16 Boston batters en route to a 4-3 Reds win. The 16 K's will stand as the club record until it is matched by Jim Maloney in 1963.
IN THE NEWS: In Chicago, the A's score two in the 9th to close to an 11-7 deficit with the White Stockings. Sox manager Clark Griffith relieves with the sacks filled and no outs and pays the supreme compliment to Philadelphia’s Nap Lajoie-he issues him an intentional walk. Griff then gets three ground outs and Chicago wins. Not until (possibly) Mel Ott, on the last day in 1929, and Swish Nicholson in 1944, will a batter be passed intentionally with the sacks filled.
At Cleveland's League Park, the Blues score a major-league record nine runs with two outs in the 9th inning to defeat the Washington Nationals 14-13. Cleveland is down to one strike, on Jack McCarthy, but they put the next ten men on base, winning the game on an error. Winning pitcher Bill Hoffer, who had given up the 13 runs, is carried off the field by the delirious crowd. Patton and Lee pitch for Washington. The scoring (as noted by Bill Kirwin) occurs as follows: Hoffer K, Pickering ground out, McCarthy singles, Bradley singles, LaChance with two strikes on him) singles scoring McCarthy, Wood is hit by pitch, Scheibeck doubles (Patton, replaced by Lee), Egan walks, Beck (batting for Hoffer) doubles, Pickering singles Beck home to tie the game, and then moves to 2B on a passed ball. Mc Carthy, who started the whole thing, singles him home for the victory.
IN THE NEWS: At the Polo Grounds, Christy Mathewson wins his 8th straight, beating Cincinnati's Bill Phillips, 1-0. Matty gives up just three hits.
Reversing yesterday's 9th inning rally, the Washington Nationals, down 5-0 at the end of eight innings, score five runs to tie the Blues. When Cleveland fails to score in the 9th, the game ends at 5-5.
IN THE NEWS: 3B Jimmy Burke of Milwaukee makes four errors in the 4th inning, a major-league record tied by Cleveland’s Ray Chapman in 1914 and the Cubs Len Merullo in 1942. The A's score seven times in the frame and Eddie Plank coasts home with an 8-3 win.
IN THE NEWS: Behind the shutout pitching of Jack Powell, St. Louis hands Christy Mathewson his first loss, 1-0. Matty's lone walk, in the 2nd inning, results in the games only run.
IN THE NEWS: An NL record crowd of 28,500 sees St. Louis beat the Giants 6-5 in 10 innings in the afternoon game of a split holiday doubleheader at New York. Christy Mathewson takes the loss in relief, after coming on in the 7th with the game knotted at five apiece. A passed ball with a runner on 2B and a sacrifice fly is Matty's undoing. New York wins the a.m. game, 6-4 in front of 2,500 fans.
The Boston Americans play their first doubleheader, dropping both to Chicago, 8-3 and 5-3.
| SCOREBOARD: MAY 30, 1901 |
| Chicago Cubs 4, Boston Braves 3 at South End Grounds III |
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| Boston Braves 5, Chicago Cubs 3 at South End Grounds III |
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| Pittsburgh Pirates 4, Brooklyn Dodgers 3 at Washington Park III |
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| Brooklyn Dodgers 8, Pittsburgh Pirates 2 at Washington Park III |
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| New York Giants 6, St. Louis Cardinals 4 at Polo Grounds IV |
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| St. Louis Cardinals 6, New York Giants 5 at Polo Grounds IV |
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| Philadelphia Phillies 2, Cincinnati Reds 1 at Baker Bowl |
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| Cincinnati Reds 4, Philadelphia Phillies 3 at Baker Bowl |
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| Chicago White Sox 8, Boston Red Sox 3 at South Side Park III |
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| Chicago White Sox 5, Boston Red Sox 3 at South Side Park III |
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| Philadelphia Athletics 3, Cleveland Indians 1 at League Park I |
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| Philadelphia Athletics 8, Cleveland Indians 2 at League Park I |
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| Baltimore Orioles 10, Detroit Tigers 7 at Bennett Park |
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| Detroit Tigers 4, Baltimore Orioles 1 at Bennett Park |
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| Milwaukee Brewers 5, Washington Senators 2 at Lloyd Street Grounds |
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| Milwaukee Brewers 13, Washington Senators 3 at Lloyd Street Grounds |
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| Compiled by Retrosheet (www.retrosheet.org) |