I found this article by Mathewson on the website baseball-fever.com, posted by someone named Bill Burgess who has very nicely and heroically typed the entire text of some once-famous old articles from Baseball magazine, Colliers and other publications, onto the site.
italyprof
-------Christy Mathewson Picks an All-America Team for Collier's------------
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A man who is known to every fan on earth here does for baseball what for years Walter Camp, writing in Collier's, has done for football. He has reviewed the season just closing and named the men who, in his opinion, have proved themselves the greatest in their respective positions on the diamond. He has chosen two teams - a first and a second. We'd go a long way to see a series of games between them.
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--------------------Collier's, the National Weekly, for October 11, 1924
In choosing the All-America Baseball Team for 1924, I am assuming the role of a manager with the material of both major leagues at his command and a baseball game to play. I am assuming the game is to be played under conditions and with equipment typical of the season of 1924 and that the characteristics of that season will still predominate.
Before I can proceed to the formation of the strongest possible combination from the players at my disposal, it is imperative that I reach a definite understanding of what those characteristics are.
The may be succinctly summarized as follows:
Nineteen twenty-four was another year of high score games hard-hit balls, and harassed pitchers. Several clubs, notably Pittsburgh and Detroit, made an early-season effort to revive the obsolete art of base stealing, but they soon found the 1924 ball as fast as ever and abandoned attempted base thefts as a useless risk. The next man up was far too likely to hit a three-bagger.
So the season, long before it had reached the halfway mark, settled down into another slugger's year. Both right-and left-handed pitching suffered. Pitching in both leagues continued the previous year's improvement as a matter of accuracy, due to the fact that balls in all parks were again left in the game longer, but hitting nevertheless maintained a sharply defined lead.
The records, still incomplete as this article is being written, seem to show that left-handed pitchers as a class fared better than right-handers this year, but paradoxically enough 1924 was also a year of sensational left-handed hitting.
This last fact is the clinching argument that 1924 was a year of batting supremacy and a true index to the requirement that any team built to win 1924 -style baseball must be a batting team. Defensive power must be there too, of course, but in choosing between two men with anything approximating equal defensive ability the player who can hit the ball hardest and oftenest must be given the call.
With that fact in mind, I start assembling my team of world beaters.
For the catching assignment, I single out Bassler of Detroit and Myatt of Cleveland.
Bassler is considered by most experts the smartest catcher of the year. He has the ideal temperament and talent for the highly specialized art of backstopping. He is aggressive in a thoroughly wholesome manner, a quick thinker, a masterful handler of pitchers, the posseser of a powerful arm, and a batter of the clean-up variety.
Bassler is exceptionally "smart around the plate," a sure guardian, and a power in stopping the double steal. He never cripples his pitcher by demanding repeated pitch-outs, and the fact that he coaxed Rip Collins, Yankee and Red Sox trade-off, Whitehill, a rookie, and Holloway to pitch Detroit into a contending position in the American League race this year is high tribute to his all-around value.
Myatt's chance came this year when Steve O'Neill went to the Red Sox, and he promptly shouldered his way into the limelight. He is faster than Bassler, but lacks Bassler's experience and skill in guarding the plate and stopping the double steal.
Myatt is a strong right-field hitter and especially valuable on his home diamond, where the right-field wall is close in, but he is a great at all times with an average that has hovered between .320 and .330 from the first.
Hartnett of the Cubs, Severeid of the Browns, and Ruel of Washington are all splendid catchers, but they haven't pounded the ball this year with the viciousness of Bassler and Myatt.
Vance of Brooklyn and Walter Johnson of Washington are unquestionably kings of the pitchers. Vance, the "Strike-out King," supplanted Adolfo Luque this year as leading "Won-and-Lost" pitcher and also shattered his own 1923 record of 197 strike-outs.
The tall Brooklynite used a fast-breaking hook such as carried Luque to glory in 1923, but mixed it with a faster ball than Luque's. Control he had in the pinches, but ordinarily he was just wild enough to make him unbeatable. Even the most daring batsman hesitates to crowd the plate on Vance.
Vance probably reached the peak of his 1924 season on August 23rd at Chicago when he struck out fifteen Cubs for the season's record to that date, six of them consecutively, lifting his year's total to 196, which is one less than his record mark for the entire season of 1923.
Vance is also that rare gem - a good fielding pitcher. He has a sound minor-league background and easily qualifies as one of the greatest pitchers of all time.
Walter Johnson's eighteenth season of major-league ball has found him greater than ever. Long a magnificent figure with a team never until this year in the running, Johnson has has one of his greatest seasons. His fast ball may have leaked some of its former steam, but it is still so much faster than the majority of fast balls doing business that it still has the batters lunging at the spot it just left.
Walter Johnson is also a batter of ability. He frequently goes in as a pinch hitter, and when he smacks a ball it travels. With him in the game pressure would be on the opposing pitcher all the way. There would be no respite anywhere along the line. Our offensive team would always be in danger of breaking through.
Hollis Thurston of the White Sox is a youngster who made a splendid impression in 1924. He is colorful, confident, and aggressive. He has an uncanny ability to sneak the ball by the batter. Some sixth sense seems to enable him to serve his pitch either just before of just after the batter is ready for it. He promises to become one of the very real stars of the future.
Vance, Johnson, and Thuston are right-handers. A team doing actual battle should also have a supply of left-handers in reserve. Joe Shaute of Cleveland, Earl Whitehill of the Tigers, and Jack Bentley of the Giants are three left-handers who have come to the fore this year. Artie Nehf of the Giants is a veteran of established worth, and Wingard of the Browns has looked unbeatable at times.
In selecting Fournier of Brooklyn and Sheely of the White Sox as my first basemen, I am for the first time setting aside other considerations to get men who slaughter the ball. Fournier, my first choice, isn't so perfect a target as George Kelley of the Giants, for example. He isn't the relay and cut-off man Kelley is.
He may not field his position so cleanly as Jim Bottomley of the Cardinals, Charley Grimm of the Pirates, Joe Judge of the Senators, or Lu Blue of the Tigers, but he is an all-round workman of parts, nevertheless, and he is by far the most murderous batsman of the group. As this is being written Fournier is leading the National League in home runs with twenty-five to his credit, and his batting average is .346. Sheely trails ten points below him, and Judge, the nearest of the others, is fourteen points below Sheely.
Fournier has a sufficiency of other points to supplement his slugging. He is fast, despite his years in the harness, and his throwing arm is still one of the best. He bats left-handed.
Sheely, a right-hand hitter, impresses me as one of the smartest stickmen in the game. He is invaluable on the batting end of the hit and run. He can hit behind the runner, pull his shot through short or push it through second with uncanny skill. He is a great target at first and can dig a ball out of the dirt better than Fournier. His handicap is lack of speed, but he is great despite it. Sheely at first, Eddie Collins at second, and Harry Hooper in right field bunch three of the smartest men in baseball in one corner of the White Sox defense.
The first basemen can't be passed without a reference to George Sisler. He is still great, but he is sadly not the Sisler of two years ago. The dimming of this brilliant star is one of the real tragedies of baseball history. It is to be fervently hoped that this eclipse is only temporary.
Hornsby of the Cardinals gets the assignment over Eddie Collins of the White Sox at second only because of the tremendous hitting. The only established .400 hitter in baseball, and five-time leader of the National League, Hornsby's is one of the great names in baseball's Hall of Fame.
Hornsby doesn't cover so much ground as Collins nor offer the brilliant defensive play of Frisch, but he is nevertheless dependable, with a great arm a natural flair for the game, and a pair of the fastest legs of the decade. Archdeacon of the White Sox is called the fastest man in baseball, and perhaps he could beat out Hornsby down the first base line. But I should like to see them race against each other from first to third. I think I'd back the National Leaguer to get there first.
Eddie Collins, playing his nineteenth consecutive season in the game, is second choice for the keystone assignment. He has been hitting close to .340 all year and leading his league in stolen bases despite his 38 years of age. Collins is a finished defensive second baseman in every sense of the term. He plays his position the same as Speaker plays the outfield, shifting constantly on each count and pitch. He has the knack of getting the jump on the batter and he does even the most difficult things so well that they appear ridiculously easy.
Despite the fact that three of the greatest stars of the contemporary game, Hornsby, Collins, and Frisch, are second basemen, the keystone position is the weakest in the major leagues at present. After these three the field falls rapidly away with the single exception of Maranville of the Pirates, who shifted to second this season after years of starring at short stop and continued his splendid playing.
Stanley Harris, the young manager of the Senators, and Aaron Ward of the Yankees were the other outstanding second-sackers of the year.
-------------------------------Frisch is Best at Third----------------
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Frank Frisch of the Giants and Joe Dugan of the Yankees are my nominations at third. Frisch's normal position is at second base, of course, but he was a star third baseman before he became a star second baseman, and any team defending the honor of American baseball would be foolishly discounting its strength if it failed to avail itself of his spectacular defensive play and his sharp work with the willow.
Frisch has a marvelous pair of hands. He is a courageous, desperate, try-for-everything type of player. He is lightning fast of brain and body. He has a powerful, arm and can throw from any angle. He hits from either side of the plate and clubs at a .330 clip. In short, he is a Fielding third baseman who gets the call over other fielding third basemen because of superior hitting ability.
Joe Dugan is the best of the bona fide third basemen. Although barely in the .300 class, he is a hitter of the clean-up category with an especial perchant for the two-baggers and three-baggers. He too has great hands. They have a particular affinity for balls that take wicked hops, and many apparent base hits are tamed by his spectacular knockdowns.
Traynor of the Pirates and Kamm of the White Sox are other star third sackers. Traynor batted for .337 in 1923 but he wallowed in a slump until midseason of 1924. Both Frisch and Dugan are more versatile batsmen that Traynor and will hit the ball harder to the different fields.
All these men are exceptional on bunts laid down their alley, and Dugan and Kamm are wonderful handling that more exacting chance - a topped ball. Traynor has the best throwing arm of the lot perhaps, but Frisch and Dugan will shade him getting the ball away. Walter Lutzke of Cleveland is a marvelous fielding third baseman, but his hitting ability isn't so marked.
For shortstop, my first choice is Bancroft of the Braves. I have never seen more brilliant shortstop play than Bancroft's while he was in the game this year. The ease with which he plays a ball would appeal to these efficiency experts who go into the different trades to eliminate lost motion. He can go farther to either side to get a ball and cut off his man than any shortstop since Hans Wagner.
Banny covers a huge amount of territory, and he is near perfection in the all-important item of midfield defense. He is an adept on relays and cutoffs with throws from the outfield; he is the best man in either league handling the long or short throw against the double steal, and he puts the ball on a runner with the best of them. He is sure fire on either end of the double play and like Frisch, is reversible at bat. He was hitting like a demon when illness removed him from the battlefield.
Young Glenn Wright, the brand-new Pittsburgher, is my second choice for the short field, although he is quite a drop from Bancroft. He is a youngster of great promise. He takes a hard cut at the ball and is a busybody at all times. He is exceptionally fast for a big man and he fields the position cleanly. The fact that he jumped from the minors into the pivotal position of a contending major-league club and made good from the start gives a true line on his ability.
Walter Gerber of the St. Louis Americans is even a faster fielder than Bancroft. He can make a play faster when he has to than any shortstop I have ever seen, but he is not so dependable at bat as Bancroft and Wright.
Peckinpaugh of the Senators, Joe Sewell of Cleveland, and Everett Scott, the wonderful veteran of the Yankees, are the other great shortstops of the year with Chick Galloway of the Athletics and Travis Jackson of the Giants close behind.
From the plenitude of outfield material the 1924 season produced, I am selecting Babe Ruth of the Yankees, Edd Roush of Cincinnati, and Bib Falk of the White Sox for my first string, with young Hazen Cuyler of the Pirates, Ty Cobb of Detroit, and Zack Wheat of Brooklyn in reserve.
These are six of the most murderous sluggers in baseball. If any one of them had a real batting weakness in the season just closed, the pitchers in their respective leagues failed to discover it. But they were also considerably more than mere sluggers. They exhibited a sterling brand of defensive play that was usually overlooked because all eyes were riveted upon their tremendous hitting.
Babe Ruth in right field is an unquestionable nomination. His record as the leading slugger of all time is too well known to require amplification here. He is unquestionably the most valuable player in the game. Most enthusiasts think of Ruth only as a mighty batsman. As a mater of fact, he is a very finished outfielder with a marvelous throwing arm; and the fact that he was one of the greatest left-hand pitchers in the game before he became an outfielder is now generally forgotten.
Ruth plays a hard-hit ball as well as any outfielder in the business. He goes after a ground ball like an infielder, and for all his size he is a smart and daring base runner.
Vicing for Ruth I should place Hazen Cuyler, who broke in as a regular this year with Pittsburgh and became the sensation of his league. Cuyler is young, strong, and fast. He can throw and run with the best of them and his hitting for the season has been better than .380.
---------------------The Years Keep Cobb Off----------------------------
In Center Field, I select Edd Roush over Cobb and Speaker because he is still great in every department, while time has begun to take its toll of the remarkable Tris and Ty; I place him ahead of Archdeacon of the White Sox because Archdeacon eventually faltered after a sensational start, while Roush started poorly, then blazed his way to heights never attained before in his career.
Roush is a finished outfielder in every sense of the word. He is a great ground covered, a shifting ball hawk, and a clean-up slugger of the .350 class.
Ty Cobb, like Babe Ruth, is far too well known to require comment here. Ty is slowing a little but he is still one of the greatest of them all.
Bib Falk in left is a fitting teammate for Ruth and Roush. he is wonderful on a fly ball, and with Ruth is the best throwing outfielder in the game. He hits better than .350 and, like Roush, plays all over his field. Like Ruth and Roush, Falk can also go back after a ball. This is the ultimate test of outfield greatness. When a man can play in close enough to snare short hits and still go back fast enough to pull down the long ones, he is of double value to his club.
Zack Wheat get the alternate assignment in left chiefly because of his hitting. Wheat's arm isn't so good as it once was and he doesn't handle a ground ball so well as the first stringers, but his .350 batting average would fit in handsomely with any plan of attack.
--------------------------The Question of Batting Order----------------------
Having selected this first team of heavy-hitting stars, I should next build me a batting order that would enable me to utilize their several talents to the fullest. This is the order in which I should send them to the plate:
1. Bancroft
2. Roush
3. Ruth
4. Hornsby
5. Falk
6. Fournier
7. Frisch
8. Bassler
9. Vance
Bancroft is an ideal lead-off man. He hits either right-handed or left-handed. Bancroft is a good waiter and is presented with many a base on balls. He hits hard enough to keep the infielders back, but he is also fast enough to make a bunt extremely dangerous.
Roush as second man is not only a long slugger who could be depended to bring Bancroft in, but he is also fast enough to make an infielder hustle to double him at first. Roush can lay down a bunt expertly when that strategy is resorted to or he can take a free swing if that seems advisable.
Although Ruth and Hornsby both bat third for their respective teams, I should send the Babe up ahead of Hornsby here because he is a long hitter, while Hornsby's specialty is base hitting. Ruth would either clean the bases or clout a long sacrifice fly. In case of a shorter hit or a base on balls, he is fast enough to stay ahead of Hornsby, who, batting as clean-up man, could do whatever Ruth failed to in the matter of cleaning house.
The heavy artillery would already be under way, with Falk, Fournier, Frisch, and Bassler waiting in line to keep up the drum fire. The batting average of this team, based on 1924 figures and exclusive of Vance, is something over .350.
Vance is not a hitting pitcher, but Walter Johnson is, and with the latter in there, terrific pressure would be on the opposing battery all the way. The opposing hurler would have to pitch his hardest at every stage, for all these men are smart batsmen. They don't go after the bad ones. The all have to be pitched to.
The opposing infield would be under a severe strain also, for any one of these batters is smart enough to cross up the defense with an unexpected bunt at any stage.
The fact that Roush, Ruth, Falk, Fournier, and Bassler are all natural left-hand hitters may draw the criticism that this is a left-handed batting team. That criticism won't hold because players with the batting averages of these stars have proved that they can hit any kind of pitching.
This team of mine may never be assembled as a unit on a playing field, but if it could, and would play up to its capabilities, I fail to see how it could be defeated. It boasts the best of everything that makes baseball a game - tremendous hitting power, sensational fielding ability, and pitching of unbeatable class. With a manager like John McGraw to guide its destiny, there is no limit to the heights it might attain. ( He also chose Ty Cobb of Detroit, to manage his second team) (End of article)
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