Sorry, I apparently overloaded the memory or something but OOTP crashed on me and I lost all those leagues - GRR !

You can run a lot of leagues on the program, but once in a while something freezes and you can lose it. 

Okay, I have rethought it and decided to just run a historical replay of baseball history from 1901 again with just one league at a time. I will think of variations after getting through to the present day the first time, so presumably in a few weeks or months. 

I decided to run one league with exactly historical transactions and lineups, meaning no changes in rosters from baseball history, and to leave the talent variation meter at 100, which is medium, meaning that some things will change but results should be reasonably close to real life history. 

I call it the Century League, and have named the best pitcher award the Silver King Award. The first season it ended up won by none other than Cy Young ! 

Anyway, this is less time-consuming and I should be able to sim a few seasons a day budgeting myself a half hour to do each day. So stay tuned and sorry about the rewind. 

Historical Baseball Replay Results

 

Century League – historical lineups and transactions, no change from historical outcomes in sim

 

1901

 

Boston American (92-44) win World Series 4-3 against Brooklyn Superbas (84-52) who won the NL pennant in a one-game playoff versus the Phillies. Cy Young won game 7 for Boston.

 

Bill Donovan won 28 games for Brooklyn, and Willie Keeler hit .325. Cy Young went 33-8, 1.98 ERA for Boston,  and Buck Freeman hit  .326 with 12 homers. 

 

Cy Young was so dominant that some reporters joked that the Silver King Award for best pitcher should be named for him instead !

 

And indeed Young easily outpaced second play Roy Patterson  and third place Clark Griffith both of the White Sox, in the Silver King voting.

 

Donovan won the NL Silver King award ahead of Deacon Phillippe of the third place Pirates.

 

Nap LaJoie of Philadelphia won the AL MVP award with a .340 average and 38 doubles.  Honus Wagner of Pittsburgh was MVP in the NL , having hit .338.

 

Doc White’s 23-6 record for the Phillies won him the NL Rookie of the Year award.  Boston Shortstop  Freddy Parent  hit .353 to win the AL Rookie of the Year award as well as the ML batting title !

 

Mike Donlin hit 20 home runs for Baltimore to lead the majors, just 7 shy of Ned Williamson’s 1894 record of 27.

 

Rube Waddell struck out 243 batters, most in the majors and Deacon Philippe’s 1.92 ERA was  the best in baseball.

 

Frank Isbell of the White Sox was caught stealing 39 times to set a new single season record, hardly one he is proud of !

1902

 

The Pittsburgh Pirates seemed invincible all season. They finished the 1902 season with an astounding 112-27 record, 23 ½ games ahead of the defending NL champions the Brooklyn Superbas.

 

But it still took 7 games for the Pirates to outlast the tough Boston Americans, repeat AL champs , defending their 1901 World Series Championship. Boston’s 88-49, a fine record, paled in comparison

 

The Pirates finally won game 7 by a score of 10-4.

 

Pittsburgh had two 30 games winners – Deacon Phillippe who went 31-2 and posted an ERA of 1.81, and Jack Chesbro, who went 30-5 with a 1.89 ERA.

 

Fred Clarke, player manager for Pittsburgh, hit .343, best in the big leagues, and Honus Wagner hit. 325, with 7 home runs.

 

Cy Young went 32-10 for Boston with a 1.81, though Noodles Hahn of Cincinnati’s 1.68 ERA ended up the best in the majors in 1902.

 

Vic Willis struck out 224 in 410 innings pitched.

 

Ed Delahanty of the Washington Senators was MVP in the AL and Honus Wagner won the NL award.

 

Hahn won the Silver King award in the NL, beating out Phillippe and Chesbro. Hahn went 30-6 with the best ERA in baseball.  Cy Young defeated second place Jack Powell of the Browns in the AL Silver King voting.

 

The Rookie of the Year award In the AL went to Cleveland Naps pitcher Addie Joss, who went 19-12 with a 2.72 ERA and the NL award went to Cubs pitcher Bob Rhoads, who won 14 games. 

We would rather see you return to the leagues you abandoned.

That's a bit harsh. I for one am glad to have italyprof back. One of the finest owners on this site, a great competitor, not to mention an interesting person with thoughtful opinions on a diverse array of subjects.

All of us have had times when we've not been able to commit to WIS. Leagues are a lot of work, and you're accountable to others for deadlines. This project is just for fun, with no deadlines. I'd rather have italyprof in whatever limited capacity we can have him, than not at all.

Welcome back professor. The WIS community is better when you are part of it, in any manner.

Posted by contrarian23 on 2/9/2015 6:32:00 PM (view original):
That's a bit harsh. I for one am glad to have italyprof back. One of the finest owners on this site, a great competitor, not to mention an interesting person with thoughtful opinions on a diverse array of subjects.

All of us have had times when we've not been able to commit to WIS. Leagues are a lot of work, and you're accountable to others for deadlines. This project is just for fun, with no deadlines. I'd rather have italyprof in whatever limited capacity we can have him, than not at all.

Welcome back professor. The WIS community is better when you are part of it, in any manner.

Ditto that

Thanks all three of you for your frankness. 

Essentially I have had two minor nervous breakdowns in the past 3-4 years. The first led me to get very involved in WIS to escape from the  pressures, disappointments and stresses that my being over-committed at work, involvement in politics, publications and other commitments had caused. The second was a few months ago when I dropped out of WIS - where I had unwisely WAY over-committed myself while having a million deadlines, job searches, actual work in course etc. etc. as well as health problems and a major health crisis involving my mother in the US. 

I am happy to have returned and have rejoined two of the leagues I left, and plan to rejoin at least 1-2 others soon. But contrarian23 understands the situation well: these OOTP games are something I can do during lunch breaks or when everyone else here has gone to sleep, spending a brief moment to do something fun, without having to be online at two exact hours for drafts in progressives in two different leagues, or doing all the research to put together several proxy lists. 

Granted those are doable things as well which is why I have begun rejoining leagues. But I am trying to be careful. Add in that my participation on WIS was always a bit of a sore point with my wife who has always been convinced that it was a bad idea, rather than a way to relieve stress. 

So thanks for the show of solidarity - and the tough reminders - and I will rejoin some more leagues. But life has been crazy and precarious and unsatisfying lately and I am trying to be careful about how I go about making commitments to get things done, as it seems to be my weak point, as my "manic" phase leads me to start writing, commit to deadlines, join organizations or commit to baseball leagues and eventually I get swamped and the "depressive" side hits and ...crash !

I would not ordinarily open up like this to people I hardly know and don't know personally at all, but I am encouraged by the memory of our late friend phatkatt who always seemed to be able to tell us about his life and remind us that there is more going on here than just baseball. 

I can only speak for myself, but it's great to see you active on the site again. Though I only know 1 or 2 WISers in real life, I feel camaraderie and dare I say friendship with many on this site. It helps me to keep faith in humanity when you find that random people are generally good people. Hang in there with your trials and tribulations and hopefully you can have fun on the site again.

good luck steve...be careful about the manic thing...stay even steven...you have many pals in the sim community.

 

1903

 

The Pittsburgh Pirates had been dominant in 1902 but found themselves in a tight three-way race all of 1903 with the Giants and Cubs. The Cubs had the trio of Tinker to Evers to Chance in the infield and Jake Wiemer who won 22 games. They ended up 3 ½ back of the Pirates who won the pennant by a game and a half over the second place New Yorkers. Christy Mathewson and Joe McGinnity each won 28 games for the Giants, but the 89-53 Pirates ended up NL champs once again. Honus Wagner hit .355 to lead the National League (Willie Keeler’s .360 was 3 points better than Nap LaJoie’s .357 for the AL batting title).

 

Pittsburgh faced a new adversary in the best of 9 World Series, the Philadelphia Athletics, whose 86-49 record was 3 games better than the Boston Americans managed.

 

Cy Young won 23 games for the plucky Bostoners, but Rube Waddell went 29-8 with a 2.08 ERA and Eddie Plank won 30 games for Philadelphia.

 

The Athletics also had Socks Seybold who hit .301 with 11 homers and they went on to win the World Series, beating their cross-state rivals 5 games to 2.

 

Mathewson and Waddell won the Silver King Awards for each league, LaJoie and Wagner won the MVP awards for the AL and NL respectively, and the Rookie of the Year awards went to Jake Weimer in the NL who beat out the Cardinals’ Mordecai Brown and to the Americans’ Norwood Gibson who went 13-8 for the AL award, with Chief Bender of the Athletics in second place.

 

It looks to be NY and Chicago that seek to replace Pittsburgh as king of the NL in the coming years while a Boston-Philadelphia rivalry is shaping up in the American League.

 

 

1904

 Year of the Pitcher

 

The New York Giants never broke a sweat as they jumped out to an early season lead and had the pennant wrapped up by late May. Winning 110 games and losing only 43, the Giants won the NL title by 14 games ahead of second-place Cincinnati, and went on to easily beat the Boston Americans 4 games to 1 in the World Series.

 

Boston instead had to fight all season long as part of a 4 and sometimes 5-team race in the American League. The defending world champion Athletics finished a game behind Boston’s 89-65, and the New York Highlanders stayed in the race till very late, finishing three games back. The Cleveland Naps finished 5 back and were in second or third for much of the season and even the White Sox challenged on and off at times. But the Americans got it in the end only to fall to the invincible  team from Coogan’s Bluff. 

Christy Mathewson had an amazing 37-8 record and a 1.56 ERA on the season for New York, so that Dummy Taylor’s 27 wins and Joe McGinnity’s 26 wins seemed pedestrian by comparison. Mike Donlin hit .331 (Nap LaJoie’s .346 led the majors in 1904).But the Giants hardly needed much offense with the pitching trio eating up opposing lineups for breakfast.

 

Reds’ centerfielder Cy Seymour hit .338 with 10 home runs in a hopeless run at the league leaders, and Noodles Hahn won 23 games for Cincinnati.

 

Cy Young, Bill Dineen and Norwood Gibson all won at least 20 games for the pennant winning Bostoners. Only Jimmy Collins hit over .260 for the Americans though and even he missd .300 ending up at .293. Only Rube Waddell in all of baseball came close to the amazing Mathewson, winning 33 games, losing 13 and ending up with a 1.22 ERA leading all of baseball scratching its head wondering how he could have lost 13 games with an ERA like that. Waddell missed matching Denny Driscoll’s all time ERA record of 1.21 from 1883 by one point, or one-one hundredths of a run per 9 innings. The NY Highlanders’ Jack Chesbro won 28 games but lost 23 or they might have had more of a shot at the title. Addie Joss had an off-year, likewise contributing to his own team’s disappointing finish, ending up at 13-19 with a 3.03 ERA, normally a good year, but in this pitchers’ season a weak performance.

 

It was a pitchers’ year all around, with only LaJoie and  Donlin and a few other hitters showing up at all. Is offense finished forever in baseball? Are the days of 1894 with its power hitting dim memories of a prehistoric past? Time will tell but for now the advantage is to the pitcher’s mound.

 

Frank Chance of the Cubs, who hit .336 was the NL MVP and another of the only hitters to have a good year in 1904. LaJoie was the AL MVP, and of course Waddell and Mathewson walked away with the Silver King awards for the year.

 

The Reds’ pitcher Tom W. Walker won 18 games and the NL Rookie of the Year award, and the AL award went to Browns’ hurler Fred Glade who went 16-21 but posted a 2.40 ERA, still probably the first 20 game loser to win a major award in ML history. 

 

1905

 

The New York Giants repeated as World Champions. And they showed no signs of slowing down: in fact they won 112 and lost 41, two games better than in 1904. They beat the AL champ Chicago White Sox (91-61) by 4-1 in the World Series.

 

The only surprise at Coogan’s Bluff this season was that Christy Mathewson was not the best pitcher for John McGraw’s Giants: the Christian Gentleman did win 28 games and lost only 9  with a 1.66 ERA, a career season for any other pitcher but a respectable one for him. But teammate Red Ames went 27-4 with a 1.40 ERA to best even Mathewson.

 

No Giant hit .300 in yet another year of the pitcher. The second place Cubs ended up 23 games behind the champs. There was no pennant race in the National League in 1905.

 

The Junior Circuit instead had its usual 4 team race to the finish, with the usual suspects – Boston, Philadelphia and Cleveland all ending up just 3 or 4 games behind the league leaders. The Highlanders were not  in it this year, finishing dead last. But in a surprising fifth place were the heretofore unnoticed Detroit Tigers, whose rookie outfielder Ty Cobb hit a sharp .318 in a tough season for hitters, impressing many by his intensity and bad temper.

 

But the real surprise was Chicago, which outlasted the rest to win the AL pennant. Frank Owen won 26 games and Doc White 25 for the Sox, though George Rohe and George Davis tied for the team lead with a whopping .263 average. It was that kind of season.

Honus Wagner managed to outhit Frank Chance .344 to .342 for the batting title of the majors.  Harry Davis hit 13 home runs. Rube Waddell as usual won both the ERA title (1.38) and the strikeout title (284), and easily won the Silver King award in the AL.

 

The top 3 vote getters for the Silver King award for best pitcher in the NL were all New York Giants. Mathewson got it, with Ames second and Joe McGinnity third.

 

Orval Overall won 21 games for the Reds to be ROY in the NL, and the AL award went to George Stone of the Browns who hit .302. Ty Cobb, despite hitting  for higher average than Stone, did not finish in the top 3 vote getters, perhaps for his personality defects.

 

LaJoie and Donlin were the MVPs in each league, the latter hitting .339 with 12 homers for the world champs, while the former hit .319 with 20 triples for Cleveland. 

 

1906

Year of Transitions

 

The New York Giants did not quite establish a dynasty, if by a dynasty we mean at least three straight world championships. The Chicago Cubs jumped out to a lead in the NL on opening day and never let that lead go. They held a double digit lead nearly all season over all challengers…and then just when the Cubs seemed to be in like Flynn, here came John McGraw’s boys on a rampage, eating up the space separating them from the Wrigley Field gang day after day as the season wound down.

 

But they came up just short – Cubs 106-47, Giants 105-48. And by that thin a margin the Giants went down as merely back to back champs and it was time for a new ruler of the baseball world, the Chicago Cubs, who then swept the revived Philadelphia Athletics, the AL pennant winners in four straight games. The Athletics had no easier time of it than did the Cubbies as they had to fight off the Cleveland Naps in a one-game playoff to decide the AL pennant the day after the season ended. What a season !

 

The perennial contenders the Boston Americans collapsed, following the New York Highlanders into ignominy, the New Yorkers having fallen from grace last season and ending up dead last this year, with Boston barely ahead of them.

 

Cy Young went 19-15 but the Bostons won only 68 games all year. The Cubs instead had Jack Pfeister and Mordecai Brown both winning 21 games, Pfeister with an ERA of 1.56, best in the NL, though 25 points higher than – yes you guessed it, Rube Waddell’s. Jack Chesbro won 26 games for otherwise hapless New York, tied with Irv Young of the Boston Doves of the National League for most wins. Only Harry Steinfeldt hit over .300 and then only .302 for the world champs, who relied on Tinker to Evers to Chance to back up their pitching staff. Mathewson and McGinnity both won over 20 games again for NY to help them almost pull off a miracle at Coogan’s Bluff. The Athletics had Waddell, Plank and Bender but none of these could beat the Cubs in the Series and Harry Davis who hit a ML leading 13 home runs. Addie Joss went 23-8 with a 1.73 ERA for the Naps who came even closer than the Giants but likewise ended up just shy of the mark. Ty Cobb hit .322 to lead the AL in batting in only his second year in the big leagues, but it was another pitchers’ year in general.  Honus Wagner beat him out for the major league title with a .338 average.

 

The Rookie of the Year awards went to St. Louis’ Fred Beebe who won 15 games in the NL, and and Philadelphia center fielder Rube Oldring, whose .281 average got him more votes than the Highlanders’ first baseman Hal Chase. Waddell and Pfeister won the Silver King awards for best pitcher in each league.

 

George Stone of the Browns was AL MVP – he hit .315. Cobb was not even in the top 3. Honus Wagner was MVP for the NL. Stone adds the MVP award – which broke three straight MVPs in the AL for Nap LaJoie, to his Rookie of the Year award last season. Waddell wins his fourth straight Silver King Award and there is talk that the award may be renamed for Rube when he retires, at least in the Junior Circuit. Honus Wagner has won four MVPs since 1901, though he had three straight from 1901-3 and then had not won the award for the past three seasons. And Christy Mathewson, did not keep up with Waddell – he had won the Silver King award for 1903-5 but did not repeat this year, losing out to Pfeister.

 

Some career stats to this point:

 

The great Rube Waddell now has an overall record of 160-77 with a lifetime ERA of 1.83 and 1994 strike outs in 2270 innings pitched.

 

Cleveland’s Addie Joss is 89-63 with a 2.29 ERA lifetime. Cy Young of Boston has been pitching since 1890 and his career record stands at 438-240 with an ERA lifetime of 2.73.  Nap LaJoie has hit .338 lifetime since 1896. Honus Wagner of Pittsburgh is also hitting .338 lifetime since 1897. Christy Mathewson is 153-75 lifetime with a career ERA of 2.48. 

 

1907

 

This season ended up the same way as the previous one: The Chicago Cubs (96-56) beat the Philadelphia Athletics (89-56) by 4 games to 1 in the World Series.

 

But there was nothing inevitable about this outcome this time – 1907 saw tight pennant races in both leagues all season long: in the AL Philadelphia and Cleveland were neck and neck for most of the season, with Chicago always just behind and even Detroit menacing at one point in mid-season. In the NL, the Phillies were right in there with Chicago all season as well, and toward the final weeks, the Giants nearly caught the Cubs on several occasions. In the end the Naps finished 2 games back and the Giants 3 behind.

 

On paper the Cubs did not look that intimidating: only Mordecai Brown won 20 games and only Frank Chance hit .300. But Jack Pfeister, last season’s Silver King winner won 19 and had a 1.34 ERA and the unpronounceable Orval Overall won 17 with a 1.42 ERA. By now it is not the “Year of the Pitcher” but the Decade of the Pitcher !

 

Christy Mathewson pitched in hard luck all season, so that his  2.49 ERA earned him only an 18-18 record, perhaps because the top hitter on his team was Roger Bresnahan at .280. Yet that was still one point higher than John Titus the Phillies’ rightfielder who lead the third place team in the NL at .279 !

 

Except for Frank Chance, the ONLY other .300 hitter in the whole National League was – of course, Honus Wagner, whose .324 average was 4 points higher than Nap LaJoie’s .320, which led the AL this year.  With Chance in third place, the fourth top hitter in the whole Major Leagues was Detroit’s Ty Cobb, who clicked in at .298, the first time this young player has failed to reach .300 despite the overwhelming advantage that pitching seems to have permanently now in baseball.

 

Brooklyn first baseman Tim Jordan’s 11 home runs were the most in baseball.

 

In the AL, Cleveland’s Addie Joss led their almost successful pennant run, with a 23-11 record and a 1.96 ERA. Elmer Flick led the teams with a .289 average.  The Athletics arguably had an even more tepid offense than the other contenders in both leagues,  as Harry Davis led the team with a .257 average – yes you read that right fans ! But the Athletics have Rube Waddell whose 20-14 record and 1.62 ERA seemed to be an off-year for him, perhaps the greatest pitcher ever.  Eddie Plank was on instead in 1907, with 25 wins and 1.48 ERA.

 

Ed Walsh and Doc White won 25 and 21 games respectively for the White Sox, but the team hit just 2 home runs all told all season and just did not have the horses in the end to compete effectively against the Naps and Connie Mack’s team.

 

Cleveland’s Elmer Flick however hit .289 with 21 triples to be AL MVP and yet another National League  MVP  award went to Pittsburgh’s great Honus Wagner, now talked about as maybe the greatest player ever.

 

In fact Pittsburgh won the two top NL individual player awards, as pitcher Vic Willis’ 24-11 record and 1.72 ERA earned him the Silver King award for 1907, and the AL award went to Ed Walsh, whose 25-17 and 1.80 ERA just beat out Eddie Plank and Addie Joss who finished second and third in the balloting respectively.

 

 

The Rookies of the Year were Athletics’ Shortstop Simon Nicholls (.247) and Lew Moren of the Phillies, who turned in an amazing first season at 22-11 and a 2.04 ERA.

 

But as we near the last third of the opening decade of the 20^th Century, it is fair to ask: Is hitting finished for good in baseball ? Will we ever see a real offensive game again? 

1908

 

John McGraw is no William Jennings Bryan. Mr. Bryan, who now that the baseball season is over will make his case to the American people for the third time to become President of the United States, (and whom this writer admits to being likely to vote for once again), is known for his magnificent oratory though at times for his verbosity. Mr. McGraw by contrast is a man of few words. But it is John McGraw who had the last word in the baseball season in 1908, just as the American voters will have the last word on election day in November.

 

After an off-year in 1907, the New York Giants made a comeback and renewed their case for dynasty status in 1908, winning 104 games, and finishing 9 ahead of second –place Pittsburgh, before disposing of the AL champion White Sox(94-58)  by 4 games to 2 in the World Series.

 

But for much of the season it was not NY, Pittsburgh or even the Comiskey boys that held the nation’s attention and that of the baseball world, but two teams that did finally fade into obscurity in the end, but only after having made the first half of the season exciting and unpredictable. And this largely thanks to just two individuals. Ty Cobb hit .325 on the year with 5 homers and while his Tigers ended up in fourth place at 80-73, they spent the first half of the year trading first and second places in the AL with an even more surprising new arrival: the Washington Senators and a young pitcher in just his second season. Walter Johnson went 5-5 with a 2.22 ERA in his rookie year in 1907, but he finished 18-14 with a 2.04 ERA and for the first half of the year had the Senators in the pennant race neck and neck with the Tigers, before they finished at 74-78 behind the Tigers.

 

But in the end both these newcomers proved to be a year or more away from real contention, though the arrival of two new stars has the baseball world looking forward to next Spring regardless of who the next President is.

 

Instead it was the White Sox who easily outpaced the Browns and Naps who tied for second place. Ed Walsh went a staggering 32-15 and a 2.05 ERA for Chicago and that was enough as no one hit .300 for the AL champs. The Browns of course were just as new on the scene as a would-be contender as were Detroit or Washington, but in their case it was a presence that was new to them but not to baseball that was decisive: Rube Waddell, purchased before the start of the season from the Athletics, went 21-13 with a 1.30 ERA for St. Louis and won his 200^th career victory – well behind Cy Young to be sure, but an accomplishment of the first order all the same. Young by the way was 17-15 on the year for 7^th place Boston and now has 472 wins on his career. George Stone’s .286 was the best for the Browns, as the pitching continues to overwhelm the hitting in baseball throughout this young century. Addie Joss of course led the Naps with a 22-15 record and a 1.94 ERA.  But even Nap LaJoie could not hit much this season, ending up with a team-best .276 average. Only the Giants’ Mike Donlin hit better than Mr. Cobb this season, ending up with a .334 average, and Honus Wagner hit .323, two points lower than the Georgia Peach.  Pittsburgh’s Tommy Leach hit 12 homers to lead the majors. Waddell as usual led them in ERA and strikeouts.

 

Honus Wagner again won the MVP award and Ty Cobb won the first of what we suspect with be other MVPs in the AL.

 

Even Rube Waddell couldn’t beat out Ed Walsh for the Silver King award this season.

 

As for the National League, the Silver King Award for best pitcher went to Christy Mathewson, back from a relatively (for him) slow year last season. This season he was every bit as good as Walsh:  33-10 and a 1.73 ERA on the season for the Christian Gentleman. Giants’ leftfielder Moose McCormick hit .291 to lead the world champs. But second best on the Giants was second baseman Larry Doyle whose .286 average won him the NL Rookie of the Year award, ahead of second-place vote getter for the ROY, team mate Doc Crandell who pitched well enough to go 14-10 on the season.

 

Ed Summers of the Detroit Tigers was the other major contributor to the Detroit revival this season, and his 21 wins got him the ROY in the junior circuit ahead of Eddie Cicotte who won 13 games for Boston.