1924
This was a year when the whole country’s attention was focused on the life and death struggle for supremacy of two teams. But that attention was not on the baseball world but on the battle for rule over the Democratic Party which reached its climax in the 17-day long, hundred-plus ballots national convention of that Party, and the struggle was between contenders for a pennant in the National or American leagues, but between the Ku Klux Klan and the Catholic immigrant population that has flowed in large numbers into that party. The followers of Catholic, wet (anti-Prohibitionist) mayor of New York Al Smith and William McAdoo of California and his rural armies who have joined the Klan in the millions in the 1920s had been coming for some time. Already in 1923 as the Klan continued its spread north (it is already all through New York’s Hudson Valley) the immigrants of Southern and Eastern European origin and the people of African descent converged in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, black citizens busing in as well from Newark and Atlantic City, all joining together in a sort of rainbow coalition to drive the Klan physically from the streets of their city when the organization had planned two days of mass meetings.
In the end, a stalemate led to the nomination of Mr. John Davis, who will contend against the taciturn Calvin Coolidge of Vermont origin, in November to determine who shall be President for the next four years. We can therefore, finally turn our attention to what those other teams did in a less worrying but no less serious competition, that between ball clubs in 1924.
The New York Yankees, who as a team officially endorsed their mayor Mr. Smith, taking a team photo with the candidate, took the postseason off, nursing their wounds and ending up in third place 5 games back. Instead two other teams, two that have not usually been contenders, but rather more often bottom dwellers, took over the league for 1924: the St. Louis Browns and Walter Johnson’s Washington Senators. Johnson won 22 games with a 2.42 ERA and his pitching mattered more this season than Babe Ruth’s 47 home runs, or the 20 that a young first baseman named Lou Gehrig produced for New York.
But tied all through the last two weeks with the Senators, on the last day of the season the Browns won and the Washington’s did not and it was the hard-hitting Browns, led by outfielder Ken Wililams, with his .341 average and 24 home runs, and teammate Baby Doll Jacobsen who hit .321 with 14 home runs that won the day. Urban Shocker added a 21 win season and the 87 win St. Louis team defeated the seemingly more powerful other surprise team of the season, the Brooklyn Robins in the World Series 4-2. The Robins won 98 games and had the one-two punch of Dazzy Vance and Burleigh Grimes who won 47 games between them, and the hitting of Zack Wheat (.352 11 home runs), and Jack Fournier who had a marvelous year at .370 with 21 home runs and 114 RBI. The New York Giants and Pittsburgh Pirates kept chase all year, each ending up just 2 games behind the Broooklyns. Third Baseman Frankie Frisch hit .352 for New York’s well-rounded attack, which also included Ross Youngs (.333 7 home runs), Irish Meusel (.320 16 homers)and High Pockets Kelly who hit .319 with 16 home runs. Art Nehf went 15-7 with a 2.42 ERA for NY.
Rogers Hornsby led all batters with an astounding .421 batting average and 21 home runs, and Detroit’s Harry Heilmann hit .385 to lead the Junior Circuit. Max Carey seems determined to keep the older way of playing alive as he stole a major league leading 56 bases. Cincinnati did not contend this season but the ever impressive Dolf Luque had the best ERA in baseball at 2.09 in a pretty good hitters’ year. He won 19 games and lost 8.
Ruth and Hornsby show no signs of letting anyone else near the MVP award in each league as each won it yet again. Walter Johnson had the Rube Waddell Award as best AL pitcher as compensation for just missing the World Series and Dazzy Vance the Mathewson Award as best in the Senior Circuit for coming in second best in the Series. Philadelphia Athletics OF Al Simmons hit .338 to be AL Rookie of the Year, and his counterpart in the NL was Pittsburgh’s Shortstop Glenn Wright who hit .288.
And the Browns, from a great beer town, must wait to see if Mr. Al Smith can make it next time to let the beer flow again to celebrate their championships, but for now, in these Prohibition times, they must make do with the achievement itself.