World's Series

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In the tabulated statistics of a baseball game, commonly known as the "box score" are from seven to fourteen columns of figures (depending on the detail with which the game is reported). The last column on the right is headed "E," which stands for "error." Here are recorded the players' single "mechanical mistakes"—the dropped fly, the fumbled grounder, the ball that should have been fielded and was not. The story of a baseball game is told largely in terms of hits by the attacking side and errors by the defense.

It was the "errors by" that made the World's Series of 1927 as one- sided as any series that ever has been played. Probably the New York American League team, the Yankees, would have defeated the Pittsburgh National League team, the Pirates, even with perfect defensive play by the Pittsburgh players. Yet but for Pittsburgh errors the New York club could hardly have won four games out of four, could hardly have made the watching thousands wonder audibly, indeed raucously, how the Pittsburgh team ever succeeded in winning the right to represent the National League in the contest for the baseball championship of the world. Errors made a lost cause almost ridiculous.

¶ It was in the first inning of the first game that the Pirates started their error accumulation. Louis Gehrig, New York first baseman, hit a ball into right field. Paul Waner, Pittsburgh right fielder, rushed in, attempted the physically impossible feat of reaching the ball before it fell. The ball struck the ground in front of him, bounced past, rolled toward the fence. Batter Gehrig reached third base on a hit normally good for only one base; fielder Paul Waner had started Pittsburgh on the road to ruin. In the third inning Second Baseman George Grantham kicked a grounder from Batter Koenig; Catcher Smith dropped a thrown ball from Third Baseman Traynor; the Yankees earned one run, had two more given them and won the game by a 4-3 score. But for the Grantham-Smith lapses, the result might well have been 3-2 in favor of Pittsburgh.