God gave us baseball, but he gave it to us with the expectation that we would find pitchers and fielders who wouldn’t give up 19 runs to the other team in a single inning of play.
Back in 2005, Tom Kaiser and David King put together one of the most entertaining and informative little books that’s ever come along about the fabled minor league baseball organization we still know today as The Texas League. It was entitled “The Texas League’s Greatest Hits: Baseball in the Lone Star State” by Trinity Press and you can probably still find it through Amazon or E-Bay and be well worth the better part of twenty bucks that $19.95 with sales tax will more than consume.
The book is a treasure of baseball stories that often cross the line as downright freakish records. The one I chose to share with you today is just such an item too.
Get this.
I think the game was played on June 29, 1896 since the only reported date is a newspaper edition story from the June 30, 1898 of the San Antonio Express as, I presume, a next day account. I also have to assume that the game between the Galveston Sand Crabs and the Fort Worth Panthers was being played in the latter mentioned city since the big action of note here happened in the bottom half of the fourth inning, the normal spot for home teams batting.
I could be wrong. Back then, teams often flipped for bats first and second and it might have been one of those times the visitors chose to bat last. Off hand, I don’t know if the 1898 Texas League had a rule in place that set the alignment as visitors first and home second. Since that’s not the material part of the story, let’s just assume that the game being played as Galveston@Fort Worth.
At any rate, when Fort Worth came to bat in the bottom of the fourth, they had a6-4 lead over Galveston. By the time this inning of bat was finally completed, the Fort Worth lead had swelled to 25-4. That’s right. The Panthers had scored 19 runs on the Sand Crabs in a single inning. They would go on to score 6 more for a 31-4 final tally over the thoroughly deflated and flattened Sand Crabs.
Much detail about the inning has been lost, but we do know this much: Fort worth had 12 hits in the fourth, including 8 singles 2 doubles, 1 triple, and 1 home run. The Sand Crabs also kicked in 4 errors and a passed ball to intensify the self-immolation process and gulping Texas League record the most most runs ever surrendered in one inning as a mark that still stands to this day, 114 years later.
That June 30th San Antonio Express game article bore with it the title that “Even the (1898 San Antonio) Bronchos Never Did Anything Quite So Bad as This.”
To that, we would quickly add: “Neither Have the 2012 Houston Astros.”
The Pecan Park Eagle 
September 17, 2012 at 5:25 pm |
The 1989 Astros did give up 14 runs in one inning during a loss to the Reds. And they weren’t as bad as the 2010-12 Astros.
September 24, 2012 at 3:06 am |
Bob, I was at that game with my parents. If memory serves, all those runs were scored in the first inning. Needless to say, there weren’t many people left in the ballpark by the second inning. I think we left in the 4th or 5th.
I’d love to hear something along the lines of what Theo Epstein had to say, in the article at the following link, from the current Astros management. I still don’t recall reading or hearing about any sort of coherent plan. I’m assuming they do have one. Why not share it with the fans?
http://espn.go.com/chicago/mlb/story/_/id/8378766/chicago-cubs-president-theo-epstein-levels-fans-future?ex_cid=2012_local_ob_chi_ban_lnk
Mark