Sports History On This Day: July 14

July 14, 1914 –  This is truly a great story of overcoming much in a short time. The National Leagues’ Boston Braves had just a day earlier been swept in a double header against the Brooklyn Dodgers. These losses were enough to drop them into the basement of the NL Standings at 26-40.

To make matters worse they traveled to play an exhibition game against the franchise’s minor league club and lost to them 10-2 in Buffalo. In years past the team had been in a similar plight and they succumbed to just being a bottom feeder, but not this year. The loss to farm team Buffalo woke something in these men that played for the Braves.

Coach Evers challenged his team to respond and show some life after the embarrassing losses and they did. They won 12 of their next 16 games and climbed from the bottom to fourth place. A home stand then followed where they took 12 of 14 games and found themselves in second behind the New York Giants. With all the confidence in the world, they caught the Giants and sailed past them and then won the World Series 4 games to none over the Philadelphia Athletics.