In 2004, the Red Sox swept the St. Louis Cardinals to win their first World Series championship in 86 years, since they beat the Chicago Cubs in 1918. To get to that 2004 World Series, they had to come back in the American League Championship series after losing the first three games and win four games in a row against the hated New York Yankees to become the first major sports team ever to come back from such a deficit.

In the intervening 86 years, since winning their last World Series, the Sox had played in — and lost — four different series, losing to the St. Louis Cardinals in 1946 and 1967, to the Cincinnati Reds in 1975 and the New York Mets in 1986.

Since losing to the Sox in 1918, the Cubs had been in six World Series, losing five times before finally beating the Cleveland Indians in 2016. They lost to the Philadelphia Athletics in 1929, the New York Yankees in 1932 and 1938 and to the Detroit Tigers in 1935 and 1945.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Cubs and Red Sox playing each other in the World Series of 1918 and they have never met again in the Series in that 100 years. How exciting would it be to have that World Series repeated exactly 100 years later with the Red Sox going after the title in the oldest ball park in baseball, Fenway Park, and the Cubs trying to get revenge for 1918 in the second oldest ball park in baseball, Wrigley Field? Fenway was opened in 1912 and Wrigley in 1914, so the series would be played on the same fields.

As of June 13, the Red Sox were tied for first place in the American League East and appeared to be on track to make the playoffs as a wild card, if not a division winner, and the Cubs were in second place, one half game behind the Milwaukee Brewers and were in line for at least a wild card berth.

Should such a World Series matchup occur this year, the game would prove to be much the same as it was in 1918 but also different in many ways. Obviously, there have been many rule changes — good and bad — over the years and many adjustments in the way the game is managed but there are still four bases, 90 feet apart, the pitcher is still 60-feet, 6-inches from home plate, there are three outs for each team in an inning and nine innings in a regulation game, although the “Idiot in the Commissioner’s Office” may change that soon..

There were no defensive shifts as there are today as Ted Williams was one month old and Lou Boudreau, who began the Williams’ Shift, was one year old. There was no designated hitter, instant replay, automatic intentional walk, limit on mound visits, etc., etc., etc.

There were eight teams in each the National and American Leagues with no divisions as opposed to 15 teams and three divisions in each league as there are today. Of the 10 different cities with at least one major League team in 1918, (New York had three, St. Louis, Philadelphia, Boston, and Chicago had two each), each of those cities still has at least one team 100 years later.

The winner of the National League played the winner of the American League, with no playoffs in between. This year, at last, the home field advantage goes back to the team with the best record in the regular season as it did in 1918.

In 1918, a young, 23-year-old, Red Sox player, Babe Ruth, tied for the home run title for all of baseball with the Philadelphia Athletics’ Tillie Walker with 11 each for the season and the Babe also led baseball with 58 strikeouts. As of Wednesday of this week, Mike Trout had 23 homers and J. D. Martinez and Joey Gallo had struck out 96 times with almost 100 games to play while Aaron Judge had struck out 208 times last season.

The Red Sox had a five-man starting pitching rotation in 1918, including Carl Mays, Bullet Joe Bush, Sad Sam Jones, Babe Ruth and Dutch Leonard. Between them they started 120 games of a 126 game season and had 102 complete games.

Through 68 games of this season, the Red Sox entire pitching staff has a total of one complete game. The Cubs’ 1918, four-man rotation with Hippo Vaughn, Lefty Tyler, Claude Hendrix and Phil Douglas had 87 complete games in 109 starts while this year’s Cubs staff did not have a single compete game.

The Red Sox won the 1918 World Series in six games. The first three were played in Chicago with Boston winning Games 1 and 3 by scores of 1-0 and 2-1 and Chicago won Game 2, 3-1. The scene then shifted to Boston where the Sox won Games 4 and 6, 3-2 and 2-1, while the Cubs won Game 5, 3-0. Although wining the Series, the Sox were outscored 10-9 for the six games. For the Red Sox, Babe Ruth pitched and won Games 1 and 4 and Carl Mays won Games 3 and 7, while

Lefty Tyler won Game 2 and Hippo Vaughn Game 6 for the Cubs.

In four of the six games, both starting pitchers (winner and loser) pitched complete games. In Game 4, the starters Ruth and Tyler were relieved for the last inning only and, in Game 6, Mays pitched a complete game for the win while Tyler pitched all but one inning and got the loss. In the six games, there were nine complete games and relievers pitched just three innings. The Sox pitchers ERA was 1.70 for the Series and the Cubs’ was 1.04 and they had a combined 1.37 ERA.

The Red Sox batters in the Series hit a combined .186 while the Cubs hit .210. In the entire six games, Sox batters struck out just 21 times and the Cubs’ batters 14 times. There was not a single home run hit in the entire series by either team.
If the same two teams should get to the World Series in 2018, I can guarantee you that there will be many more runs scored, much higher ERAs and many, many more strikeouts and home runs, in an era in which baseball management has fallen in love with home runs, strikeouts, launch angles, exit velocity and the like.

I, for one, think a World Series like the one in 1918 had more to offer the fans in terms of excitement and drama than the 2018 version will, no matter how close it is — but a World Series between the two would still be one of the classics of all time.

— Carl Johnson lives in Sanford and writes a weekly baseball column for the Journal Tribune Sunday. Contact him at [email protected] check out his blog at baseballworldbjt.com.