1907 Philadelphia Athletics season

Preseason

1907 Philadelphia City Series

The Phillies sweep dropped the Athletics to 18–19 against the Phillies all-time in the city series.

Regular season

The Athletics and Detroit Tigers vied for the pennant through the 1907 season. The Tigers came into Philadelphia for a three game series on September 27, 1907 in a virtual tie for first-place. Detroit took the first game 5-4 to move in front of an official attendance of 17,926, exceeding Columbia Park's capacity. Saturday's game was postponed by rain, and Pennsylvania Blue Laws precluded play on Sunday. A double-header was scheduled for Monday. Detroit's Bill Donovan had pitched a complete game in the Friday game and was slated to start both games of the double-header.

With a week left in the season, Athletics fans were eager to see the team capture the pennant. It was estimated that the team could have sold 50,000 tickets to the Monday double-header. With Columbia Park's limited capacity, an overflow crowd spilled into a roped-off area on the outfield grass. The gates were locked 30 minutes before game time with thousands of fans outside unable to gain admittance. Fans stormed the gates and climbed over the outside fence, with more than the official 24,127 seeing the game. The Philadelphia Inquirer would remark on the crowd, "Never before in the history of the national game has so great and remarkable a gathering of its enthusiastic followers been held anywhere." Fans scaled trolley and telegraph poles to watch the game. Local residents charged as much as $1 to $5 a person ($35 to $125 in 2025-dollars) to watch the game from windows. On the Twenty-ninth street side of the park, a fan in the grandstand lowered a rope up which fans scrambled from the street and into the park. Large men charged ten-cents to boost fans over the fence and into the park. Down by six in the fifth, the Tigers came into the ninth down 8-6. Sam Crawford opened the ninth with a single off of future Hall of Fame Rube Waddell bringing 20-year year old Ty Cobb to the plate. Cobb crushed Waddell's pitch, clearing the right-field fence by fifty-feet and onto 29th Street for a game-tying homerun. The teams both scored in the eleventh and would battle to a 9-9 tie in 17-innings before darkness ended the game. The Philadelphia Inquirer would call it "the most remarkable game ever played on the Athletic ground." Reflecting on his career in 1930, Cobb would tell Grantland Rice, "The biggest thrill I ever got came in a game was against the Athletics in 1907 [on September 30]... The Athletics had us beaten, with Rube Waddell pitching. They were two runs ahead in the 9th inning, when I happened to hit a home run that tied the score. This game went 17 innings to a tie, and a few days later, we clinched our first pennant. You can understand what it meant for a 20-year-old country boy to hit a home run off the great Rube, in a pennant-winning game with two outs in the ninth."

Season standings

Record vs. opponents

Roster

Player stats

Batting

Starters by position

Note: Pos = Position; G = Games played; AB = At bats; H = Hits; Avg. = Batting average; HR = Home runs; RBI = Runs batted in

Other batters

Note: G = Games played; AB = At bats; H = Hits; Avg. = Batting average; HR = Home runs; RBI = Runs batted in

Pitching

Starting pitchers

Note: G = Games pitched; IP = Innings pitched; W = Wins; L = Losses; ERA = Earned run average; SO = Strikeouts

Other pitchers

Note: G = Games pitched; IP = Innings pitched; W = Wins; L = Losses; ERA = Earned run average; SO = Strikeouts

Relief pitchers

Note: G = Games pitched; W = Wins; L = Losses; SV = Saves; ERA = Earned run average; SO = Strikeouts

References

• 1907 Philadelphia Athletics team page at Baseball Reference
• 1907 Philadelphia Athletics team page at www.baseball-almanac.com

References

1. . (April 4, 1907). "Phillies Defeat Athletics in First Game of Inter-Club Series". *Philadelphia Inquirer*.
2. . (April 5, 1907). "Phillies Take Game By 4 to 1". *Philadelphia Inquirer*.
3. . (April 6, 1907). "Phillies Take to Vickers’ Curves". *Philadelphia Inquirer*.
4. . (April 7, 1907). "Philies with Four Straight Victories Capture Series". *Philadelphia Inquirer*.
5. . (April 9, 1907). "Wet Grounds Too Much for Teams". *Philadelphia Inquirer*.
6. . (April 10, 1907). "Here’s Hoping for Fine Weather for the Opening of the Base Ball Season Tomorrow". *Philadelphia Inquirer*.
7. . (October 1, 1907). "Darkness Stop Grand Struggle; Nearly Twenty-five Thousand Witness the Game From Inside and Thousands of Others Take It In From Neighboring Roofs". *Philadelphia Inquirer*.
8. Belleville, Gary. "September 30, 1907: Ty Cobb and Bill Donovan lead Tigers to pivotal 17-inning tie with Athletics". Society for American Baseball Research.
9. . (October 1, 1907). "Athletics Foozle it in the Seventh". *Philadelphia Inquirer*.
10. (March 19, 1930). "Film from Baseball's Past". Baseballspast.com.