1907 Philadelphia Athletics season

1907 Philadelphia Athletics
1907 Philadelphia Athletics
League	American League
Ballpark	Columbia Park
City	Philadelphia
Record	88–57 (.607)
League place	2nd
Owners	Benjamin Shibe, Tom Shibe, John Shibe, Connie Mack, Sam Jones, Frank Hough
Managers	Connie Mack
	← 1906 1908 →

Last updated November 21, 2025

The 1907 Philadelphia Athletics season involved the A's finishing second in the American League with a record of 88 wins and 57 losses.

Preseason

1907 Philadelphia City Series

AL Philadelphia Athletics (0) vs. NL Philadelphia Phillies (4)

Game	Date	Score	Location	Time	Attendance
1	April 3, 1907	Philadelphia Phillies – 1, Philadelphia Athletics – 0	Columbia Park	1:15	-^[1]
2	April 4, 1907	Philadelphia Athletics – 1, Philadelphia Phillies – 4	Philadelphia Ball Park	1:43	5,278^[2]
3	April 5, 1907	Philadelphia Phillies – 1, Philadelphia Athletics – 0	Columbia Park	1:40	3,172^[3]
4	April 6, 1907	Philadelphia Athletics – 5, Philadelphia Phillies – 9	Philadelphia Ball Park	1:45	5,145^[4]
5	April 8, 1907	No Game - Wet Grounds	Columbia Park	-	-^[5]
6	April 9, 1907	No Game - Rain	Philadelphia Ball Park	-	-^[6]

The Phillies sweep dropped the Athletics to 18–19 against the Phillies all-time in the city series.

Regular season

The Athletics and Detroit Tigers vied for the pennant through the 1907 season. The Tigers came into Philadelphia for a three game series on September 27, 1907 in a virtual tie for first-place. Detroit took the first game 5-4 to move in front of an official attendance of 17,926, exceeding Columbia Park's capacity. Saturday's game was postponed by rain, and Pennsylvania Blue Laws precluded play on Sunday. A double-header was scheduled for Monday. Detroit's Bill Donovan had pitched a complete game in the Friday game and was slated to start both games of the double-header.

"As Jim Nasium saw the game from a point of vantage outside the grounds" following Athletics-Tigers game, September 30, 1907 at Columbia Park in Philadelphia Inquirer (October 1, 1907) 19071001Inquirer.jpg — "As Jim Nasium saw the game from a point of vantage outside the grounds" following Athletics-Tigers game, September 30, 1907 at Columbia Park in *Philadelphia Inquirer* (October 1, 1907)

With a week left in the season, Athletics fans were eager to see the team capture the pennant. It was estimated that the team could have sold 50,000 tickets to the Monday double-header. With Columbia Park's limited capacity, an overflow crowd spilled into a roped-off area on the outfield grass. The gates were locked 30 minutes before game time with thousands of fans outside unable to gain admittance. Fans stormed the gates and climbed over the outside fence, with more than the official 24,127 seeing the game. The Philadelphia Inquirer would remark on the crowd, "Never before in the history of the national game has so great and remarkable a gathering of its enthusiastic followers been held anywhere." Fans scaled trolley and telegraph poles to watch the game. Local residents charged as much as $1 to $5 a person ($35 to $125 in 2025-dollars) to watch the game from windows. On the Twenty-ninth street side of the park, a fan in the grandstand lowered a rope up which fans scrambled from the street and into the park. Large men charged ten-cents to boost fans over the fence and into the park.^[7] Down by six in the fifth, the Tigers came into the ninth down 8-6. Sam Crawford opened the ninth with a single off of future Hall of Fame Rube Waddell bringing 20-year year old Ty Cobb to the plate. Cobb crushed Waddell's pitch, clearing the right-field fence by fifty-feet and onto 29th Street for a game-tying homerun. The teams both scored in the eleventh and would battle to a 9-9 tie in 17-innings before darkness ended the game.^[8] The Philadelphia Inquirer would call it "the most remarkable game ever played on the Athletic ground."^[9] Reflecting on his career in 1930, Cobb would tell Grantland Rice, "The biggest thrill I ever got came in a game was against the Athletics in 1907 [on September 30]... The Athletics had us beaten, with Rube Waddell pitching. They were two runs ahead in the 9th inning, when I happened to hit a home run that tied the score. This game went 17 innings to a tie, and a few days later, we clinched our first pennant. You can understand what it meant for a 20-year-old country boy to hit a home run off the great Rube, in a pennant-winning game with two outs in the ninth."^[10]

Season standings

v
t
e
American League
Team	W	L	Pct.	GB	Home	Road
Detroit Tigers	92	58	.613	—	50‍–‍27	42‍–‍31
Philadelphia Athletics	88	57	.607	1½	50‍–‍20	38‍–‍37
Chicago White Sox	87	64	.576	5½	48‍–‍29	39‍–‍35
Cleveland Naps	85	67	.559	8	46‍–‍31	39‍–‍36
New York Highlanders	70	78	.473	21	32‍–‍41	38‍–‍37
St. Louis Browns	69	83	.454	24	36‍–‍40	33‍–‍43
Boston Americans	59	90	.396	32½	34‍–‍41	25‍–‍49
Washington Senators	49	102	.325	43½	26‍–‍48	23‍–‍54

Record vs. opponents

1907 American League record v t e Sources:
Team	BOS	CWS	CLE	DET	NYH	PHA	SLB	WSH
Boston	—	10–11–3	8–13	6–16	8–12–1	8–14–2	10–12	9–12
Chicago	11–10–3	—	10–11–1	13–9–1	12–10	10–12–1	16–6	15–6
Cleveland	13–8	11–10–1	—	11–11–1	15–7	8–14	12–10–2	15–7–2
Detroit	16–6	9–13–1	11–11–1	—	13–8	11–8–1	14–8	18–4
New York	12–8–1	10–12	7–15	8–13	—	10–9–1	8–14–1	15–7–1
Philadelphia	14–8–2	12–10–1	14–8	8–11–1	9–10–1	—	14–6	17–4
St. Louis	12–10	6–16	10–12–2	8–14	14–8–1	6–14	—	13–9
Washington	12–9	6–15	7–15–2	4–18	7–15–1	4–17	9–13	—

Roster

1907 Philadelphia Athletics

Roster

Pitchers

Catchers

Infielders

Outfielders

Manager

Connie Mack

Player stats

Batting

Starters by position

Note: Pos = Position; G = Games played; AB = At bats; H = Hits; Avg. = Batting average; HR = Home runs; RBI = Runs batted in

Pos	Player	G	AB	H	Avg.	HR	RBI
C	Ossee Schrecongost	101	356	97	.272	0	38
1B	Harry Davis	149	582	155	.266	8	87
2B	Danny Murphy	124	469	127	.271	2	57
SS	Simon Nicholls	124	460	139	.302	0	23
3B	Jimmy Collins	99	364	99	.272	0	35
OF	Topsy Hartsel	143	507	142	.280	3	29
OF	Rube Oldring	117	441	126	.286	1	40
OF	Socks Seybold	147	564	153	.271	5	92

Other batters

Note: G = Games played; AB = At bats; H = Hits; Avg. = Batting average; HR = Home runs; RBI = Runs batted in

Player	G	AB	H	Avg.	HR	RBI
Monte Cross	77	248	51	.206	0	18
Bris Lord	57	170	31	.182	1	11
Doc Powers	59	159	29	.182	0	9
John Knight	40	139	29	.209	0	12
Eddie Collins	14	23	8	.348	0	2
Claude Berry	8	19	4	.211	0	1

Pitching

Starting pitchers

Note: G = Games pitched; IP = Innings pitched; W = Wins; L = Losses; ERA = Earned run average; SO = Strikeouts

Player	G	IP	W	L	ERA	SO
Eddie Plank	43	343.2	24	16	2.20	183
Rube Waddell	44	284.2	19	13	2.15	232
Jimmy Dygert	42	261.2	21	8	2.34	151
Chief Bender	33	219.1	16	8	2.05	112
Jack Coombs	23	132.2	6	9	3.12	73
Charlie Fritz	1	3.0	0	0	3.00	1

Other pitchers