AL Race
April
Red Sox record: 11-2
Place: First, 3.0 games ahead of the White Sox.
Things started quite nicely for the Red Sox in the A.L. pennant chase. Fittingly, after making a pair of blockbuster deals with the A’s, Boston opened the season with Philadelphia at Fenway Park. 
The White Sox, shown here before the 1917 World Series, might have repeated their A.L. championship in 1918 if not for the war. (Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress.) They got brilliant work from Babe Ruth and Carl Mays in the first two games—they allowed just one run combined—then pulled out a win in the third game, 5-4, as ex-A’s catcher Wally Schang knocked in two runs in the ninth inning. The defending A.L. champ White Sox, meanwhile, were struggling just to get on the field. Persistent storms in the Midwest limited them to seven games (they were a very respectable 5-2) in the first month, and they played just three games in the season’s first 10 days.
May
Red Sox record: 14-12 | Overall: 25-14
Place: First, 2.0 ahead of the Yankees.
May was a watershed month for baseball history. On May 5, Ruth pitched for Boston and batted ninth, swatting a home run. On May 6, first baseman Dick Hoblitzell was out with a thumb injury, forcing manager Ed Barrow to put Ruth into the starting lineup at first base—the first time that Babe Ruth started a game at a position other than pitcher. He played first base and batted sixth, again knocking a home run. After that, Ruth was bumped up to cleanup, and hit yet another home run. By May 20, Ruth was hitting .407, while still serving as the Red Sox ace. Still, though, Boston struggled, losing all six games of an early May road trip before bouncing back with an impressive 13-5 home stand to close out the month. The Red Sox’s pennant hopes were boosted by the departure of White Sox outfielder Joe Jackson to shipyard duty, which robbed the champs of their best hitter and helped torpedo Chicago’s team chemistry. That left a couple of inexperienced and not-so-talented teams (the Indians and Yankees) to challenge Boston in the A.L.
June
Red Sox record: 14-14 | Overall: 39-28
Place: First, 0.5 ahead of the Yankees.
After splitting a doubleheader on May 30, the Red Sox headed to the Midwest for a long road trip. They started by dropping their first two games in Detroit, but got a big win when Dutch Leonard hurled a no-hitter to beat the Tigers. In Cleveland, the Red Sox lost the opener, but managed to get a 1-0 win from new pitcher Sam Jones, who had effectively replaced Ruth in the rotation. But Boston dropped the next two to fall to 28-19, percentage points behind the surging Yankees. The Red Sox took the finale from Cleveland, 2-0, and reclaimed first place as they headed into a big series in Chicago. That series, it turned out, showed how fractured the White Sox had become—Boston won three of four, with all three wins coming by shutout. The South Siders were booed by their home fans. It was so windy on the final day of the series that the 1917 A.L. pennant the White Sox had hung in the outfield ripped and had to be taken down for repairs. “The Red Sox are putting bigger holes in it than the wind did,” the Globe noted. But the Red Sox, too, had problems. Hoblitzell had left the team to join the army’s dental corps, and Leonard bolted for the Fore River shipyard. The team was suddenly lacking in depth.
July
Red Sox record: 20-9 | Overall: 59-37
Place: First, 4.5 ahead of the Indians.
With Leonard gone and both the Yankees and Indians pushing for the pennant, the Red Sox needed Ruth to resume his pitching role. But Ruth had grown too fond of hitting and was finding any means possible to avoid a return to the mound. Tension between Ruth and Barrow had been building and, finally, after Ruth struck out twice on wild swings in a game in Washington, the two got into a heated argument that nearly came to blows. Ruth bolted the team to return to his father’s home in Baltimore, and signed on with the Chester shipyard team. Red Sox owner Harry Frazee was outraged and threatened to sue the shipyard. Eventually, coach Heinie Wagner made a late-night trip to Baltimore and convinced Ruth to return to the team. Frazee worked out a bonus for Ruth, and on July 4, he returned to the field in Philadelphia. On July 5, he pitched and won, 4-3. From there, the Red Sox returned to Fenway Park to play a homestand that would see them win 14 of 17, giving them a firm grip on first place. The Red Sox were about to embark on a Midwest swing when the war department ruled baseball a nonessential occupation. Eventually, though, the government granted baseball an extension, and with a sweep of St. Louis on the road, the Red Sox were able to continue building their A.L. lead.
August
Red Sox record: 15-13 | Overall: 74-50
Place: First, 3.0 games ahead of the Indians.
Still, fatigue was setting in. Carl Mays was struggling, and he opened a series in Cleveland on August 2 by getting roughed up by the Indians, 6-3. The Red Sox lead was down to 4.5 games. Jones was knocked around by Cleveland the next day in a 5-1 loss, and the lead was just 3.5 games. Finally, with 20,000 fans on hand, Ruth stopped the losing streak with a key hit and a four-hitter over 12 innings in the opener, a 2-1 win, of a doubleheader on August 4. The Red Sox probably should have lost that one—Indians pitcher Guy Morton was ordered to intentionally walk Ruth with a runner on second, a full count and two out, but instead gave him a strike, and Ruth rapped an RBI single. Still, Cleveland won the second game and the Red Sox left town with the lead stuck on 3.5 games. That lead would shrink to 2.0 games when the Red Sox lost three straight to the Yankees, who won 11 of 17 games the two teams played in 1918, the only team against whom the Red Sox were not .500 or better. After the sweep, though, Boston took two of three from Chicago, two of three from Cleveland and three of four from St. Louis, bringing the lead back to 4.0 games. On August 30, Mays seemed to get back in form, winning both ends of a doubleheader over the A’s for his 20th and 21st wins. By the end of the month, the Red Sox had clinched the pennant.
September
Red Sox record: 1-1 | Overall: 75-51
Place: First, 2.5 games ahead of the Indians.
Boston closed out with two more games against the Yankees in New York. They won the first, 3-2, behind Sam Jones, who closed his impressive rookie season at 16-5. In the second, Boston got a home run, double and single from left fielder George Whiteman, but still lost in the ninth, 4-3. The New York Times commented, “They tucked the weak, tottering baseball season away in camphor up at the Polo Grounds yesterday afternoon. The game is interned for the period of the war along with a lot of other less useful things.”
