A's roster boasted 5 future hall-of-famers and many agreed they were the better team on paper. A story told about Connie Mack during the 1914 season reflects this attitude among the A's that the Braves would be pushovers. That year, Mack gave star pitcher Chief Bender the week off and told him to scout the Braves personally. Instead, Bender took a vacation. When asked to defend his actions, he replied: "Why should I check out a bunch of bush league hitters?" Summary Matchups Game 1 26-game winner Dick Rudolph scattered five hits while striking out eight as the Braves won the opener in convincing fashion against the Athletics ace, Chief Bender. Catcher Hank Gowdy had a single, double and triple as well as a walk in leading Boston's offensive attack. He was also on the back end of a double steal in the eighth inning, with Butch Schmidt's steal of home the Braves' final run. According to Tom Meany's 1950 book "Baseball's Greatest Teams", with one chapter on each of the then 16 major league teams' one most outstanding season in the author's opinion, the chapter on the Boston Braves was naturally on their one world championship year, 1914. Meany recalled that manager Stallings and the Braves showed utter contempt for Connie Mack's heavily favored A's by spurning the Shibe Park visiting clubhouse for the one in the National League Phillies' deserted home park, Baker Bowl (the NL site of the next World Series, which again featured Boston defeating Philadelphia, but this time Red Sox 4, Phillies 1). Meany may also have been the source for the sensational sidelight that Stallings' motive for this may have been the rumor that the A's may have sabotaged the Shibe Park visiting clubhouse (with war clouds gathering in Europe as World War I was just beginning). Game 2 Bill James, Boston's other 26-game winner, hooked up against Philadelphia's Eddie Plank in a classic pitcher's duel. James allowed only three base runners in the first eight innings, picking off two of them in holding Philadelphia scoreless. Plank matched him until the ninth, when Amos Strunk lost Charlie Deal's fly ball in the sun for a double. Deal then stole third, and scored on a two-out single by Les Mann. James walked two batters in the ninth, but got Eddie Murphy to ground into a game-ending double play to give Boston a 2–0 advantage in