The Greatest MLB Comeback: Tigers Win Down 12

So imagine it's nineteen eleven and the Detroit Tigers are facing off against the Chicago White Sox and the game is thirteen to one. It's over right, let's go ahead and leave. We don't need to see the end. Let's beat the horse. But that's not what happened. On June eighteenth, nineteen eleven, baseball legend ty cob led his Detroit Tigers back from what seemed insurmountable to a comeback win against the White Sox, the largest comeback in baseball history. And join us and we dive into this historic games today on Daily Sports History. Let's go. Welcome to Daily Sports History. I'm Ethan Reese, your guide because my idea of cardio is getting my heart racing during a close game. So let's meet this legendary Tigers team as they were coming off a strong season last year and had high expectations for this nineteen eleven season. Their heart and soul of the team, ty cop. He was in the prime of his career and would lead the league with the batting average of four to twenty, had two hundred and forty eight hits and one hundred and twenty seven runs batted in, was the reigning batting champion and a perennial MVP candidate, but he wasn't the entire team. Their shortstop had a steady leadoff man in Donnie Bush, who was the defensive anchor in the top of the lineup for the team. At third base, George Monterey held down the hot corner while helping give an offensive punch to the team. Oscar Strange, their catcher, had a strong arm and could guide all his pitchers to success, and they had success. This team started on a terror. They went twenty one in two to start the season, one of the best starts in Major League Baseball history, even over one hundred years since, and Ty Cobb was on a forty game hit streak, a personal best for him and the longest at the time. And the team's chemistry was great. They were playing aggressive both at the plate hand on the bases, and they were leading the league in stolen bases and they run scored things in large part do this aggressiveness. And they were also led by Huey Jennings, their fiery, innovative manager who was famous for his yeehaul yell from third base in the coach's box, and he kept the team's focus, motivated through his discipline and kept them always running using a hit and run strategy of stealing as many bases and the more bases we got, the more chances they had to score. But after their great start, you know, they started to slump a little bit. They had injuries, as many teams do, and they had to adjust their style, try not to be as aggressive because they were losing players. And you have to understand how baseball was different back then, and this was known as the dead ball era, so home runs weren't common. They were actually pretty rare. Games were often won by small ball tactics, bonds, steals, hitting runs. It was more about your defense and less about hitting the home runs. That didn't come about, tell Baby Ruth years later. So on a Sunday afternoon, as all games were in the afternoon at this point, they didn't play night games yet, the Detroit Tigers at Bennett Park in Detroit were hosting the Chicago White Sox, who were a competitive but inconsistent team, but they were showing signs of life and started to climb the standings. There was over ten thousand people in attendance, all rooting for the Tigers to get back on track. It was electric and Ed Summers for the Detroit Tigers was taking them ount He was a twenty four game winner back in nineteen oh eight, but was struggling to recapture his form as he came into this game just one and two on the season, just shaking it in his confidence and the game started with a disaster for the home team. In the first inning, the White Sox sent twelve men to the plate. Seven runs would score before the Tigers even recorded their very first out, and this wasn't a high scoring time. Seven runs would win you just about every single game, and was lots of singles and doubles just running around the bases, which is even more demoralizing. And it didn't help that the team was struggling. They were having blunders. Ty Cob dropped a fly ball, Oscar Strange threw the ball away trying to catch a runner. It was just terrible and the fans were like, what what just happened? The second thirty innings kind of didn't change much. The Tigers were able to readjust and keep the White Sox off the scoreboard, but the Tigers couldn't score at that pace. They only scored one run in a short lived rally, making it a seven to one game. But then came the fifth inning. The White Sox scored three more runs, and on the top of the fifth they scored three more so heading into the bottom of the fifth, the score was thirteen to one. If you've ever been to a game and you see a score like this, have you ever thought about it's a blowout? I mean, what are we gonna see that's enjoyable? Is there gonna be anything fun that comes from this? No, you get you're like today, We're like, we should be we should go just beat the traffic head home. This time they were like, okay, we should go beat the horses so we can head home and some of them might have cars. It was still very horse driven. But after this there was a turning point. Even though fans were starting to leave, the crowd was silent. The Tigers began to work their way back. In the bottom of the fifth, Charlie Mullens comes in as a pinch hitter and gets them a leadoff runner, and this sparks signs of life. They would continue hitting until they scored five runs, making the score thirteen to five, which seems more manageable. Then in the sixth, they got another leadoff single to start it out, and single after single loaded the bases with no outs. Then a wild pitch goes and the runners advance, and then there's another ground out and another run scores, and now it's thirteen to seven, and then another run scores, another single scores, and it's thirteen to eight. It was the most chip away at the score ever, single single single, So heading into the seventh, thirteen to eight, it seems actually a doable thing to make a comeback. The fans are getting excited. And on top of the seventh, what did the White Socks do? They, of course score two more runs as a Tigers pitcher Bill Covington struggles and gives up four singles in the seventh, leading to two runs. So now the score is fifteen to eight. But the White Sox sub in a new picture Fred Olmstead, and I may have been with her worst choice under this. He started to feel the pressure as the Tigers were coming back, and he put together five singles and two walks which led to five more runs in the eighth, So heading into the ninth inning it was fifteen to thirteen. Hard to believe the score was once thirteen to one, and Detroit was able to hold them back in the top of the ninth, not allowing a single run, and in the bottom of the ninth, Davy Jones leads off with a single, putting the tying run at the plate, and Donny Bush doubles, putting the winning run at the plate. Then ty Cobb comes up and hits a high bounder to third base, and the White Sox third baseman Harry Lord was rushing the ball thrown to first, but he bundled it and the throw went wild, allowing both Davy Jones and Donny Bush to score, tying the game fifteen all, with ty Cobb standing on second as the winning run. Sam Crawford would come to the plate and hit a double over the center fielder's head as ty Cobb becomes the hero of the story, going all the way from second to score the winning one in walk off fashion, completing the largest comeback in Major League Baseball history and had since only been tied when the Cleveland team came back against the Seattle Mariners in two thousand and one, but they had to do so in extra innings. This was the only one done in regular nine INNY format. So after this Tigers were related. They moved two and a half games ahead of their rivals, the Philadelphia Athletics. They continue their success as they held first place all the way into August, but unfortunately they had some more injuries and fatigue and fell out and lost their chance to win the World Series that year as they did not make as they lost first place to the Philadelphia Athletics and the Chicago White Sox were sunned by the loss and they would not really recover. Ended up, they would get swept by the Saint Louis Browns in four games following this and would finish the season in fourth place behind the Boston Red Sox with no chance of winning the World Series. And this game really shows you what it means to be a sports fan. Whenever you go to a game or you watch a game, you never know what's going to happen by the fifth inning. I honestly would have left, who was like, this is boring we're getting especially if I was a Detroit fan. It's no fun to watch your team get demolished. But if you would have stayed, he would have witnessed something amazing. The question is, what's the greatest comeback you've ever seen. If you like this, please make sure you like and subscribe wherever you're at. It really helps us out as I want to grow this as big as possible because the more I grow it, the more sports history I can bring you. And we'll see you on the next one.