If you missed Opening Day in 1925, well, you’re in good company.
Baseball’s biggest star, Babe Ruth, was absent, too – for reasons not quite publicly nailed down 100 years later. His ailment was somewhere between indigestion and death, both reported by at least one outlet a century ago.
Even though the Babe missed the start of the season on April 14 – and another month and a half after that – several other moments from that Opening Day have stood the test of time. The eventful day also included a pair of Hall of Fame teammates debuting for the Athletics.
Let’s look at three games from Opening Day 1925 and see how their storylines have achieved staying power.
Cleveland 21, St. Louis Browns 14
The story: The teams combined for 35 runs, an Opening Day record that still stands.
The details: It’s fitting that a game with a football score involved Cleveland and the Browns. Adding to the gridiron feel was that the winning pitcher was Garland Buckeye, who was born in Minnesota before appropriately pitching four of his five MLB seasons in Ohio.
Cleveland hit four of Opening Day’s 14 home runs, including one by their player-manager, 37-year-old future Hall of Famer Tris Speaker, and another by Charlie Jamieson, who tallied four hits and four runs scored.
Cleveland trailed 13-9 before scoring 12 runs in the eighth inning, sending 16 batters to the plate but collecting just six hits while being helped by five of the Browns’ 10 errors. Yes, the Browns made 10 errors that day.
Back then: “While he realizes he is playing at an age when the average major leaguer is thinking of getting a job in the minors or quitting the game altogether, Speaker merely grins and says: ‘I’ll quit when a better man than I makes a bid for my berth. Otherwise, I will stick until they cut the uniform off me and that’s when I think Ty Cobb will quit, also.'” --The [Cleveland] Plain Dealer, Jan. 4, 1925.
Why it resonates: Records that stand for 100 years are pretty special, and it’s difficult to see this one being threatened anytime soon – although who knows? The last time two teams combined for at least 35 runs in any game was when the Braves beat the Marlins 29-9 on Sept. 9, 2020.
Footnote: Speaker played three more seasons after 1925, batting .308 over 355 games. He led the American League in on-base percentage in 1925. Meanwhile, Cobb, like Ruth a baseball megastar, also missed Opening Day for the Tigers in 1925 due to illness. Cobb and Speaker finished their careers as teammates with the Philadephia A's in 1928.
New York Yankees 5, Washington Senators 1
The story: Babe Ruth was laid up in a New York hospital with a mysterious illness. A report from a foreign outlet that Ruth had died on a train from spring camp in North Carolina to New York was quickly debunked.
The details: Ruth collapsed at a train station in Asheville, N.C., where the Yankees were conducting Spring Training, and was ultimately hospitalized in New York for about seven weeks. Ruth underwent surgery for an “internal abscess” on April 18.
Media speculation about what happened to Ruth was rampant and often irresponsible, with several reporters blaming Ruth’s illness on his weight and off-field behavior that was perceived as reckless. He was most often said to have flu-like symptoms, leading to Ruth’s malady being labeled “the bellyache heard ‘round the world.”
Back then: “One would not jest about the wounds and sprains and fevers that torture Babe Ruth from time to time between spring and October every year. Yet he has always come through without permanent damage and he has played his hardest and best when in disrepair.” -- United News, April 10, 1925.
Why it resonates: Essentially everything that happened to Ruth in 1925 was national news, and he remains perhaps the game’s most mythical figure. His illness has been dissected in every way possible but its cause was never fully revealed.
Footnotes: Ruth returned to the lineup on June 1, going 0-for-2 with a walk against Washington’s Walter Johnson. In that game, Lou Gehrig entered as a pinch-runner for the Yankees in the eighth inning, beginning his streak of 2,130 consecutive games played.
Not exactly a footnote, right?
Meanwhile, the oft-used replacement for Ruth in the outfield during Ruth’s hospitalization, Ben Paschal, did his best Ruth impression. In 89 games that season, Paschal slashed .360/.417/.611, outpacing Ruth in each category.
Philadelphia Athletics 9, Boston Red Sox 8 (10 innings)
The story: Two future Hall of Famers make their MLB debuts as teammates.
The details: Philadelphia manager Connie Mack was eager to show off his new $100,000 pitcher, so 25-year-old Lefty Grove, after years of languishing in the Minors under stubborn ownership, got the nod on Opening Day.
Grove’s battery mate that day was Cy Perkins, but theirs was a short-lived partnership. Mickey Cochrane, who entered Opening Day as a pinch-hitter, started at catcher the next four games and became irreplaceable.
Cochrane was hitless in two at-bats and Grove gave up five runs before a fourth-inning exit, but that was not a sign of things to come. Grove became a 300-game winner [on the nose], Cochrane a two-time MVP, and both are enshrined in the Hall of Fame.
Back then: “Connie Mack of the Philadelphia Athletics is 50-50 on his expensive battery of “Lefty” Grove and Mickey Cochrane today. Grove cost Mack over $100,000 in the purchase from Baltimore. In his first start he lost. That goes on the debit side.
“Cochrane went up from Portland in the Coast league for $50,000 worth of men and cash. He’s one of the five best hitters in the American League.” --The Oakland Post Enquirer, April 24, 1925.
Why it resonates: Grove and Cochrane remain the only teammates to debut on the same Opening Day -- or any day -- and eventually reach the Hall of Fame.
Footnote: Jimmie Foxx, then 17, made his debut for the Athletics 2 ? weeks into the season. Al Simmons debuted in 1924. That gave Philadelphia four Hall of Famers who began their careers in a 13-month span.
Each player’s developmental timeline was different, but by the late 1920s their collective dominance was clear. The Athletics won the World Series in 1929 and 1930.
- Grover Cleveland Alexander hit the first Opening Day home run by a pitcher since 1904 and earned the win in the Cubs’ 8-2 victory over the Pirates.
- Rogers Hornsby went 0-for-4 for the Cardinals against Cincinnati but wasn’t deterred in his latest pursuit of a .400 average. Hornsby batted .403 in 1925, his last of three times topping .400. The NL MVP added a modest 39 homers and 143 RBIs, and he took over as Cards manager partway through the season.
- Dazzy Vance, in his first start since capturing the 1925 MVP Award, locked down the Phillies, striking out eight in a complete-game victory for Brooklyn at Ebbets Field.