Game 4 - We Win!

April 17, 1911
Boston 0, Philadelphia 1

												R	H	E
Boston	0	0	0		0	0	0		0	0	0	--	0	7	0
Philadelphia	0	1	0		0	0	0		0	0	x	--	1	8?	2

At last a win! The Athletics finally get the monkey off their back by toppling the visiting Boston Red Sox in a 1-0 contest at Shibe Park. HOFer Eddie Plank gets his first start of the season and throws a real gem - a 7-hit complete game shutout. Plank (see previous post) will end up having a really nice year for the A's, and this won't be his last shutout. The Red Sox countered with Ed Karger, a 28-year-old in the last year of a relatively short career. It looks like he pitched well, but the A's put together just enough offense to back Plank's handiwork. The A's aren't setting the world on fire yet, but at least they finally get rid of that goose egg in the W column.

At the end of play, the Red Sox and A's are sporting identical 1-3 records, so tomorrow's game will be a battle to avoid last place in the American League.

The good news is I joined SABR, which gives me access to, among other things, the entire archives of the Sporting News, which printed box scores for every major league game. The bad news is they're grainy as hell, so they won't be quite as useful as previous documents I've found. I'm still on the lookout for good sources of box scores and first-hand game accounts.