<< Back to Start | < Previous Slide | Next Slide >

Frame 2 of 15

Opening the season the day after the Titanic sank, the Giants floundered in last place for the first two months of the 1912 season. Then Northwest baseball legend Tealey Raymond, a mainstay in the Seattle infield since 1908, took over as manager at mid-season, and “Seattle Bill” James won 15 games en route to a 27-win season. Taking 27 of their last 31 games, the Giants finished with a 99-66 mark, five games ahead of their nearest challenger, and claimed the Northwestern League pennant at Dugdale’s Yesler Way ballpark.

After season's end, three Giants players, pitcher Bill James, catcher Bert Whaling, and outfielder Lester Mann were sold to the Major League Boston Braves. Two years later, they played a major part in one of baseball’s greatest stories: the 1914 “Miracle Braves.” Not unlike the Bill James-led Seattle Giants of 1912, the miracle Braves moved from last place on July 4th to the pennant, and a World Series sweep of Connie Mack’s vaunted and heavily favored Philadelphia Athletics.

A young outfielder from Los Angeles, Fred McMullin, was also on the 1912 Seattle squad. Seven years later, he was a member of the 1919 Chicago “Black Sox,” and tragically, one of the “Eight Men Out” involved in the gambling conspiracy that nearly destroyed Major League baseball.

The Giants passed out of Seattle history in 1918. They were briefly succeeded by the Purple Sox and then the Rainiers in the Pacific Coast League.

<< Back to Start | < Previous Slide | Next Slide >