1909

 

The Philadelphia Athletics won 99 games and defeated the 108 win Chicago Cubs in the 1909 World Series. The Cubs jumped out to a big lead in April and never looked back, finishing 23 games ahead of second place Pittsburgh and New York who tied for that dubious honor. And the Cubs won the first two Series games from Connie Mack’s men, and held a formidable 3-1 lead in the Series. But Eddie Plank, Chief Bender and Cy Morgan shut the Wrigleys down 1-0, 5-2 and 5-2 in the last three games to win it all for Philadelphia.

 

The Detroit Tigers, thanks to the hitting of Sam Crawford (.316) and Ty Cobb (.311) and the pitching of George Mullin (25-12, 1.87) came in second well behind the Athletics and Walter Johnson’s 23 wins got the Senators a third place finish. But Morgan, Bender and Plank and a rookie second baseman named Eddie Collins who hit .316 and led the team in batting won it for Philadelphia.  Plank was brilliant, winning 24, losing 10 and posting an amazing 1.28 ERA. But Bender was somehow even better, ending up at 24-9 and an ERA of 0.90, setting a new single season ERA record and one that will be hard to better !

 

The Cubs were even more pitching-dependent as Orval Overall went 28-4 with a 1.44 ERA, Mordecai Brown 22-12, 1.72, and Jack Pfeister 17-7, 1.34, but no Cub hit better than .260 on the season.

 

Honus Wagner led the NL hitting .309, and Nap LaJoie’s .327 was best in the majors, the only average higher than the two Detroiters, Crawford and Cobb.

 

The NL MVP award went to Sherry Magee, who hit .278, with 28 doubles, 14 triples and 6 home runs, and Sam Crawford was the AL MVP. Overall of the Cubs, and Bender of the Athletics – just ahead of teammate Plank and Walter Johnson of Washington, were the best pitcher award winners for each league in 1909.

 

Giants’ centerfielder Fred Snodgrass hit .302 to win the NL Rookie of the Year award, and Smokey Joe Wood of the Boston team now renamed the “Red Sox” won 23 games to be Rookie of the Year in the AL, ahead of Athletics’ third baseman Frank Baker, who hit .266 with 3 home runs. 

 

1910

 Rube Waddell leaves the majors and hitting makes a bit of a comeback:

In 1910 in the National League three perennial powers – the New York Giants, the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Chicago Cubs battled all season long for the league lead. In the end it was the Cubs who repeated as NL champs, finishing at 97-57, 5 games up on Pittsburgh and 7 on New York. But that outcome was in doubt until the last month of the season.

 

In the American League, the New York Highlander and Boston Red Sox rose from the near-dead – both teams had stayed at or near the cellar for the past few seasons – to once again contend through mid-season. But as the hot weather hit the New Yorkers faded to end up fourth behind Detroit, while Boston struggled on to keep up with the world champion Athletics.

 

But like the NL Cubs, the AL champion Athletics repeated as pennant winners with a 99-51 record finishing a clean 7 games ahead of Beantown.

 

The Athletics repeated as World Champions, winning the World Series in 6 games over the Chicagoans.

 

Rightfielder Frank Schulte provided a lot of Chicago’s offense, hitting .303 with 11 home runs and 92 RBI.  Messrs. Tinker, Evers and Chance (.289 on the season) continued their infield domination of opposing hitters.  And Mordecai (“Three fingers”) Brown won 23 games and posted a 1.97 ERA for the Cubs.

 

Pittsburgh’s Honus Wagner led the NL in hitting with a .315 average and his teammate Dots Miller hit .305. Mr. Wagner, one of the sterling human beings of baseball, must be glad to have some company in the .300 club again, given how pitching has dominated the game this whole past decade.

 

Ty Cobb led baseball in batting though, and pitching-dominated era it may be but no one saw fit to inform the Georgia Peach who tormented pitchers in the AL at a .365 clip. But perhaps the ice is finally thawing on 20^th Century offense in baseball as Cobb had company – Eddie Collins of the Athletics hit .351, and a rookie outfielder that the Athletics traded midway through the season to the Cleveland Naps, Joe Jackson who has been nicknamed “Shoeless” proved he does not need shoes to hit a baseball, batting .349 in his first year in the big leagues !

 

But it was still the Athletics’ pitching staff that was decisive to win a championship: Chief Bender  won 20 games and gave up just 1.29 earned runs per 9, and Cy Morgan won 21 with a 1.67 ERA.

 

Walter Johnson struck out 229 batters to lead the majors and we get the impression that there a lot more K victims to come in the near future. But Johnson’s triumph, while taking nothing away from him, might have been more difficult to achieve had he been in competition with baseball’s urchin, Rube Waddell.

 

Waddell’s drinking and marital troubles led the Browns to release him and he finished the season with Joe McGinnity’s Newark minor league team. We not think, dear reader, that we will see the likeness of Rube Waddell again in the majors, nor his like ever.

 

The player awards:

 

MVP: Ty Cobb AL, Frank Schulte NL

Silver King Award:  Walter Johnson AL, Mordecai Brown NL

Rookie of the Year: Russ Ford P (18 wins, 200 Ks) New York Highlanders AL, King Cole P, Chicago Cubs, (18 wins, 2.52 ERA) NL.

1911

Year of the Hitter 

The Pittsburgh Pirates ran away with the 1911 National League pennant, winning 107 games and finishing 12 games ahead of the second place Chicago Cubs.  The American League seemed instead on the verge of seeing the Athletics supplanted by a successor as both the Red Sox and the White Sox held leads over third place Philadelphia up to the 140 game mark. But the Athletics went on a tear and Boston and Chicago both collapsed and the Athletics repeated as AL champs.

 

Pittsburgh was led by Honus Wagner who hit .340 to lead the National League in batting, Babe Adams who won 32 games and posted a 1.44 ERA and centerfielder Chief Wilson who hit .315 with 10 home runs.

 

Hitting finally made a general comeback. Second place Chicago had five .300 hitters, led by third baseman Heinie Zimmerman who hit .329 with 14 homers and 117 RBI.

 

Even the Athletics hit as well or better than they pitched for once: second baseman Eddie Collins hit .348, first baseman Snuffy McInnis hit  .328 with 5 homers, and third baseman Frank Baker hit .351 and earned the sobriquet “Home Run” by hitting 10 round-trippers.

 

Chief Bender won 20 for the AL champs, Cy Morgan won 19, Eddie Plank 16 and Jack Coombs 18.

 

 

The World Series was a classic. It went the full 7 games, and after 5 it was Philadelphia 3, Pittsburgh 2, but the Pirates scored 16 runs to win game 6, and in game 7 Coombs was outpitched by Babe Adams, whose year it was all the way through, pitching hit team to a 3-0 shutout win with a 5-hit complete game shutout to give Pittsburgh the World Championship.

 

The two best hitters in baseball in 1911 were Detroit’s Ty Cobb who hit an astounding .394, and Shoeless Joe Jackson of the Cleveland Naps who was even better, finishing at .406 to lead the majors. A .400 hitter seemed like a phantasm just a year or so ago after a full decade of pitching dominance, but 1911 broke the mold. Is it for good? We don’t know but no question game found new balance between hitting and pitching this season and it was a welcome and exciting change.

 

Phillies first baseman Frank Luderus hit 18 home runs, Frank Schulte of the Cubs hit 16 and Fred Merkle  of the Giants hit 13. The home run added an exciting new twist to the game, and one not seen in such numbers since the old days of the 1890s.

 

But even in a year of revived hitting there were superlative pitching performances: Ed Walsh of the White Sox went 26-10 with a league best 1.74 ERA.  Walter Johnson won 24 games, had a 2.16 ERA and struck out 279 batters. Smokey Joe Wood won 26 games for the Red Sox.

 

And in the Senior Circuit a rookie named Grover Cleveland Alexander won 27 games for the Philadelphia Phillies, with a 2.50 ERA, while in the Polo Grounds, another rookie named Rube Marquard won 26 for the Giants. That was better even than the 20 games won by teammate and all-time great Christy Mathewson.

 

The great Cy Young finally retired, after winning one game more than 500 – a career record of 501-312 and an ERA of 2.67. The equally great Rube Waddell is officially retired as well, having left the majors last season. He leaves a lifetime record of 217-115 and a 1.76 ERA, and if his overall numbers pale next to Young’s, the quality of his pitching does not.

 

Shoeless Joe Jackson was the American League’s Most Valuable Player, finishing ahead of Ty Cobb and Home Run Baker.

 

Honus Wagner was the National League MVP for the 7^th time.  

 

Grover Alexander won the Rookie of the Year award for the NL and Ping Bodie of the White Sox hit .291 to win the ROY for the American League.

 

Babe Adams and Ed Walsh walked away with the Silver King awards as best pitcher in each league. 

 

1912

 

There were two first-rate pennant races in the 1912, involving four perennial contenders. In the National League, the world champion Pirates and the New York Giants fought it out all season, and when the dust cleared the Giants had won 102 games, five more than Pittsburgh.

 

The American League must be singing choruses of “break up the Athletics !” for after an even tighter race for the AL pennant it was Philadelphia 104-48, Boston 101-51.

 

New York won thanks to a return to its old formula of the preceding decade – as Christy Mathewson and Rube Marquard each won 25 games  with ERAs of 2.11 and 1.98 respectively. But NY catcher Chief Meyers at .314 hit over .300. And left fielder Beals Becker hit a ML leading 15 home runs.

 

The Pirates came up just short but stuck with the new fashion of hitting the ball as well as pitching it – as Honus Wagner did what he seems to do effortlessly yet again – hit .340. Rookie second baseman Jim Viox did even better hitting .348. Marty O’Toole won 28 games and Babe Adams 21 but it was not enough to catch New York in the end.

 

Shoeless Joe Jackson just missed repeating as a .400 hitter, ending up at .398, and Ty Cobb again ended up second at .385, with Home Run Baker in third at .381. Fourth best in the ever more offense-oriented American League was the graceful centerfielder for the Red Sox Tris Speaker, now in his third season, who hit. 354.

 

The Washington Senators had two marvelous pitchers – Walter Johnson, of course, who  had a 28-13 record and a 2.08 ERA, and Bob Groom who went 24-15 with a 1.93 ERA. Washington came in third at 88-64.

 

Once again the Athletics’ came up short, losing the World Series 4-2 to the Giants, as Marquard won 2 and Mathewson one, with Ames sealing the deal in game 6.

 

The MVP went to Honus Wagner for the 8^th time in 1912, and the AL award to Home Run Baker.

 

Rube Marquard and Walter Johnson won the Silver King awards. Hugh Bedient of the Red Sox won 19 games and Larry Cheney of the Cubs 21 to win each league’s Rookie of the Year Award. 

this must be very time consuming to do.

An entire season can be simmed in about 3 minutes. The rest is just the maybe 10-15 minutes it takes me to write the seasonal account. So not to worry. Though today I have not found the time or inclination to run a season, but will probably tomorrow morning. Plus it is fun to do. 

 

 

 

1913

 

What’s in a name?

 

One New York team changed its name – from the Highlanders to the Yankees. So the AL  Boston team is now the Red Sox,  , instead of the Americans, their crosstown rivals in the NL now the Braves instead of the Doves,  and the New York team is the Yankees. So goes the American League. The early effect of the new names seemed salutary, as if the New York Yankees might be destined for greatness. If so, it must be in the future as after holding first place through May and early June,  the newly christened team collapsed to finish a distant sixth, as the Athletics repeated yet again, outpacing the strong Washington Senators by two games, 92 wins to 90. The Athletics, now there is a team we can call an American League dynasty.

But in the National League, the other New York team saw no need to change their name, for Giants fits them perfectly. The Polo Grounds boys brought another world championship to Coogan’s Bluff, and John McGraw’s squad bettered Connie Mack’s by 4 games to 1.

 

Christy Mathewson returned to form, winning 26 games and catcher Art Wilson hit .338. The only team that came close to New York, winners of 93 games, were the Cincinnati Reds who traded for the great shortstop Joe Tinker, finally separating the three infield legends at the heart of the Chicago Cubs.

 

Eddie Plank won 22 games, but the Athletics did it this year mainly with hitting – something that just a few years ago we wondered if we would ever write again in these pages: they were led by 3/4s of what some are now calling “The $100,000 infield” as second baseman Eddie Collins hit .331, first baseman Stuffy McInnis hit .320, and third baseman Home Run Baker hit .335 with 15 home runs. Shortstop Jack Barry hit just .269 but played his part in the field. Were there no team still named the Giants in the Polo Grounds, it would be hard to deny the Athletics of the past several years the title of Greatest Team Ever, with catcher Wally Schang and Rightfielder Eddie Murphy (who hit .326) thrown in the mix. A staff of Plank, Bender, Shawkey, Pennock, but still not enough to overcome New York in the Series. But the AL is starting to look like “The Athletics and the Seven Dwarfs”.

 

But perhaps we are unfair – one other giant was Senators’ pitcher Walter Johnson, who won 26 games and posted a 1.93 ERA. He also led the majors with 221 strikeouts. Chick Gandil at 1B hit .316 and the Washington’s nearly overtook the perennial AL champs this year.

 

Ty Cobb hit .344 to lead the majors, for once even Shoeless Joe couldn’t beat the Georgia Peach, ending up at .337.Frank Luderus does not have the nickname “home run” nor does Gavvy Cravath but the two Phillies made things interesting with 17 and 16 home runs respectively, outdoing the crosstown 3B. The home run is an interesting and exciting addition and the phrase “Ladies love the long ball” has been circulating during Ladies’ Days at the ballparks. Could this be a sign of baseball things to come?

 

Maybe, as the two Most Valuable Player Awards went to two home run sluggers for the first time: Home Run Baker in the AL, and Heinie Zimmerman of the Cubs who led the NL with a .338 average and hit 15 home runs.

 

Christy Mathewson and Walter Johnson were the Silver King Award Winners in each league.

 

Joe Connolly of the Braves (he hit .299 and plays leftfield), and Reb Russell of the White Sox (23-14) were Rookies of the Year.

 

1914

 

The year began with the untimely but hardly shocking death of that strange man and magnificent pitcher, Rube Waddell, taken by tuberculosis. It has ended with war in Europe. Mr. Wilson says we are staying out of the latter and Mr. Debs is working overtime to keep us out, Mr. Bryan, now Secretary of State says he would resign were we to enter such a mindless and pointless bloodbath. For all of these sentiments we may be grateful. There has been much more at stake in 1914 than merely the fate of the world or predominance in Europe. There were two pennants at stake in the baseball world.

 

In between the two the Detroit Tigers and Washington Senators made bids for the American League Pennant, trying to FINALLY unseat Mr. Connie Mack’s Athletics, who have been so invincible for so long in their own league, and so unlucky in their match ups with the Giants of Mr. John McGraw, who themselves faced a similar challenge by the Pittsburgh Pirates.

 

But in a year that seemed to herald the end of an era – a century largely of peace in Europe (except for Franco-Prussian War in 1870, which lasted only a few months, giving us hope that this war too will end so quickly), and the end of the Rube Waddell era of baseball – the end result of the season in both leagues was the same as before – the Athletics won the AL and the Giants the NL and the latter beat the former in 4 straight games in the Fall Classic. Granted, at 92-63 the Giants JUST held out against Honus Wagner and company, winning by just one game. The Athletics rolled easily to another second half of the season romp as they finished with 103 wins and a 14 game advantage over Boston and 15 over Washington and Detroit.

 

So the Athletics have now won six – SIX !! pennants in the American League in a row ! They would easily be counted the greatest team ever but the Giants, who have now won 3 straight National League pennants, have so easily disposed of their AL adversaries in the past three seasons, that it is possible that the two best teams ever have been these two over the past 3 seasons, but one is so superior to the other that it is a mismatch.

 

So be it. Christy Mathewson won 26 games, and in a year when the world fell apart, some real continuity was comforting. Can even World War stop Christy Mathewson? Eddie Plank won 22 games in a pitchers’ year as batting averages seemed to dip again after a few years of offense. Walter Johnson won 23, and posted a 1.95 ERA, with a ML leading 246 strikeouts. Even Ty Cobb was held to a .307 average, an off year for him. His grouchy demeanor was in sharp contrast with an impressive rookie pitcher for Boston – a Mr. George Herman Ruth, whose pudgy face leads him to be called “Babe” by fans and teammates.

 

Stuffy McInnis hit. 338 and his teammate Home Run Baker hit .335. Shoeless Joe hit .326. Gavvy Cravath led the majors with a very impressive 21 homers, just 6 shy of Ned Williamson’s old record from 1884.

 

Dutch Leonard’s 1.36 ERA was the best in baseball.

 

MVPs: AL: Home Run Baker, NL: Vic Saier of Chicago, .300 17 home runs, to finish ahead of Cravath.

 

Jeff Tesreau’s 27-10 record and 2.52 ERA got him more votes than teammate Mathewson to win the Silver King Award.

 

Walter Johnson handily won the AL trophy as best pitcher.

 

Brooklyn centerfielder Jack Dalton hit .299 to win Rookie of the Year, while Doc Ayers of the Senators won 21 games to win the AL award.

 

Let us hope that next season America’s contrast with Europe, playing baseball instead of making war, rubs off on the Old World before it rends itself, or even worse, pulls us into its madness, in violation of manager George Washington’s warning that we stay out of European intrigue and “entangling alliances”. 

Italyprof, this is great great stuff. Thank you for sharing it with the WIS community.

The results are interesting to be sure. The narrative "takes the cake" though...well done and very interesting. I am rooting for Europe to come to their senses and stop this nonsense...

1915

 

 

Paris held out as taxi drivers en masse delivered reinforcements to the front to stop the German attack.

 

Europe’s madness continues and we must be grateful that we live in America and may embrace the serenity and sanity of baseball.

 

Even Ty Cobb – a man of difficult temper in the best of times – must be said to be welcome relief from the horrors that have become the daily fare in the trenches overseas.

 

And indeed it was Mr. Cobb’s year all around.  He led the majors by hitting .366. His Detroit Tigers won the World Series against the Philadelphia Phillies in a season that saw new powers arise in both leagues finally, as the Philadelphia Athletics and New York Giants’ dynasties were finally ended, and he hit.474 in the Series. What a season !

After an early bit of competition from the likes of Chicago and Boston, the Philllies went on a tear through August and September, at one point leading the second-place Braves by 13 games. They fell back toward earth later, but still ended up with a 93-59 record, 6 games better than Boston.

 

As for Detroit, their centerfielder’s philosophy that baseball is the moral equivalent at least (and too often in his case physically an attempt to mimic) the trench warfare of military conflict seemed appropriate for the tight down-to-the wire pennant race in the AL: at 94-60 the Tigers were just one game better than the Chicago White Sox and the Boston Red Sox, and at mid-season the surprising New York Yankees were even in the race, ending up fourth in the end, 12 games back.

 

The Phillies one-two punch was the great Grover Cleveland Alexander who won 27 games with a 2.03 ERA and outfielder Gavvy Cravath who hit a major league leading 21 home runs – 21 !

 

Dick Rudolph won 24 for the Braves to keep them in it, helped out by the marvelous double play combo of Johnny Evers now with Boston and shortstop Rabbit Maranville.

 

The two perennial powers in the National League – Pittsburgh and New York, showed signs of age: Honus Wagner hit just .255 and the Pirates were a distant fourth, and the heretofore invincible New York Giants wound up seventh, ahead only of lowly Brooklyn, as Christy Mathewson went 11-16, his first losing season in this reporter’s memory.

 

Harry Coveleski and Hooks Dause won 25 and 23 games for Detroit respectively.  Eddie Cicotte won 17 for the White Sox and Jim Scott 21 games, and Shoeless Joe Jackson hit .320. Tris Speaker was even better for the Red Sox, hitting .324 and two pitchers – Dutch Leonard with an ERA of 1.89 and Babe Ruth with an amazing ERA of 1.5, best in the majors - each won 19 games. But the Red Sox and White Sox would both come up just short. It was a year of conflict, and fighters. How could Ty Cobb not end up on top in such a moment in history?

 

MVPs: AL: Ty Cobb, NL: Gavvy Cravath

Silver King Awards: AL: Harry Coveleski, NL: Grover Cleveland Alexander

ROY: AL: Wally Pipp 1B .243 75 RBI, New York, NL: Lee Meadows, St. Louis, 13-9 2.11 ERA

1916

 

The story in Europe was that changing places was all but impossible: the vast trenches remain fixed, with only the movement forward or back by a few hundred feet here or there at most, from the North Sea to the Mediterranean.

 

In America leads changed hands all season, as in the American League, Detroit, the New York Yankees, and the Chicago White Sox all held first place several times throughout the first half of the season. In the National League, the Brooklyn Robins and Boston Braves trades places between first and second for half the season as well. In the AL, the Tigers finally fell back, not to repeat their championship season of 1915, and the Yankees ended up 8 games back in second behind the 96-58 White Sox who won the pennant.

 

In the NL, the two pretenders of the first half also faced the fate of 6^th place AL Detroit as Brooklyn ended up fifth and Boston 6^th. Instead a trio of other teams came on strong in the second half – the Chicago Cubs, who ended up third, the Phillies who came up just short in second, one game behind the pennant-winning 86-66 New York Giants.

 

The White Sox won the first two games of the Series, and then promptly got shut out by NY pitching (Tesreau and Benton) in games 3 and 4 and lost the next two as well, making the New York Giants champions of the baseball world.

 

The Giants played without their most familiar face aside from that of John McGraw himself: Christy Mathewson was released early in the season and signed on with Cincinnati, pitched a few innings with the Reds and then, released again, retired. The end of an era.

 

The Giants won anyway, even without the Christian Gentleman: Fred Anderson came through with a Matty-like season of 25-9 and a 1.75 ERA. Rightfielder Dave Robertson hit .279 with 14 homers and rookie Benny Kauff hit .301 with 11 homers for NY. Grover Alexander and Eppa Rixey each won 23 games for the Phillies, who came within a game of catching the Giants.  The Philadelphia outfielder Gavvy Cravath hit 23 home runs, just 4 short of the all-time record.

 

Shoeless Joe Jackson, whose lifetime average is now .356, highest all time if he continues at this pace for his whole career, hit .340 to come in second to Ty Cobb who hit .368 to lead the majors. Eddie Cicotte, Red Faber, Lefty Williams and Red Russell all had good seasons to give the Sox a fine rotation.

 

Kauff and Cobb were the MVPs this year, Harry Coveleski of the Detroit Tigers went 23-13 with a 2.13 ERA and Hippo Vaughn of the Cubs was 26-10 with a 2.44 ERA to win their leagues’ respective Silver King Awards.

 

The Rookies of the Year for 1916 were of course Kauff and Washington first baseman Joe Judge who hit .274. 

 

 

1917

 

And so we are in the war too, as Mr. Wilson who campaigned last Fall on the slogan “he kept us out of war” now has taken us into it. The Czar of Russia overthrown and there are Bolsheviks in his place, while Eugene Victor Debs sits in Atlanta Penitentiary for telling us to stay out of what is now three full years of slaughter with no end in sight.

 

Baseball was less an alternative to war in 1917, than a welcome distraction from it. The season saw lively pennant races in both leagues for the first half of the season, with the Indians and Red Sox moving up and down near the top of the standings, but the White Sox ended up running away with it in the second half, just as the New York Giants did in the second half of the National League’s season after facing similar challenges from the Phillies and Braves. Both pennant winners ended up at 98-56, and so seemed evenly matched for the World Series, as indeed they proved to be. Al Demaree outpitched Eddie Cicotte by a score of 3-2 in game 7 and the Giants were champions.

 

Outfielder George Burns hit .326 for the world champions, and Ferdie Schupp’s 21 wins and 2.15 ERA, and Slim Sallee’s 18-5 record and 2.08 ERA led a well-rounded staff that had five pitchers with double digit wins.

 

Grover Cleveland Alexander and Eppa Rixey together won 47 games for the Phillies, but Philadelphia hit little all season-long and ended up 12 games behind NY. Cicotte won 19 games for the White Sox who had a varied attack including Eddie Collins who hit .297, Buck Weaver and Chick Gandil who each hit .279.

 

Ty Cobb was the best hitter in baseball again, with a .376 average, and Tris Speaker and Shoeless Joe both hit over .320 as well, while Burns led the NL in batting. Home runs fell back to the kind of numbers we saw last decade, as Giants’ Rightfielder led the majors with 12, one more than Brooklyn’s Casey Stengel, a gregarious and deceptively intelligent player.

 

Alexander and Chicago’s Reb Russell (23-5) won the Silver King awards, Cobb and Burns were the MVPs, and White Sox shortstop Swede Risberg (.264 on the season), and Pittsburgh third baseman Chuck Ward (.273) were the Rookies of the Year.

 

Let us hope that by the time we report on 1918’s results dear reader that baseball, which offers us such inner peace and tranquility, if also excitement and anxiety at its best moments, may be played and watched and enjoyed and read about in a world free of the horrors about which  you may read in the other pages of this same noble newspaper.

 

1918

 

The war is over at last, the Kaiser overthrown by workers and soldiers and sailors who are insisting on electing their own officers or running their own factories.

 

The troops straggle home, which horrors and nightmares they carry with them, God only knows.

 

The calming effect of baseball, its stark contrast with the upheavals of the world of politics, and of conflict, would be of salutary effect were the world leaders of the Great Powers now meeting at Versailles to shape the peace to pay due attention to its lessons and its wisdom. We may only hope.

 

Two big changes came off the field this year: Christy Mathewson, who we must sadly report was seriously harmed by an accidental gassing in a training session during the war, and  now retired with lifetime numbers of 363-196 and a career ERA of 2.46 and his counterpart, the late Rube Waddell are honored now with awards in their own names – as memories of Silver King fade from memory, the best pitcher awards in each league will now be named the Christy Mathewson Award in the National League, while in the Junior Circuit it will be called the Rube Waddell Award.

 

And the great Honus Wagner, perhaps the greatest player ever, has retired.  He played from 1897 to 1917, and hit .327 lifetime with a .391 on base percentage, a .466 slugging percentage, and 101 home runs. He won the Most Valuable Player award for the National League 8 times.

 

1918 saw good pennant races for at least two-thirds of the season, though this means through about 80 games or so as the season was shortened to a little under 130 games (with schedules a bit variable) due to government pressure in wartime. The Indians (74-53) beat out the Red Sox by one game, and the Pirates (76-49)  finished 6 and 7 games ahead of the Braves and Giants respectively. Wilbur Cooper won 22 games for the Pirates.

 

Stan Coveleski (19-13) and Tris Speaker (.305) led the Indians. The Red Sox almost caught the Indians largely because they  moved Babe Ruth to the outfield where he hit .320 with 11 home runs. But in general hitting has not yet made a comeback, as pitching again dominated this season as it did last year.

 

The Pirates swept the Series in four straight games, the Indians held to 7 runs all told in that quartet of matches.

 

Two Tigers’ outfielders – Bobby Veach ast .349 and Ty Cobb at .337 led the majors in batting, and Gavvy Cravath had an amazing year for the Phillies, hitting .328 with 14 home runs. But these were exceptions.

 

Cravath and Veach were the MVPs, and Hippo Vaughn of the Cubs (25-8, 1.96 ERA) and Bullet Joe Bush (23-10, 2.15) were the winners of the – we must now call them, Mathewson Award for the NL, and Waddell Award for the AL as best pitchers.

 

Red Causey went 12-4 for the Giants to be Rookie of the Year in the NL in 1918, and Mule Watson won the award for the AL with a 10-6 record. 

great piece italyprof in reading these accounts one thought seems to come to mind nearly every season.  Hitting seems to be down compared to my experience in these years with SIM and conversely pitching ERA seems to be lower. And i think that statement carries over in regards to real life numbers. Do  think that is a fair statement and do you think there is a clear difference in the way the OOTP and SIM programs work insomuchas maybe SIM favors hitting and OOTP favors pitching.