Unbelievable: In Consecutive Seasons
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by user Harold Friend
The game we watch is not the game that used to be. A lot can happen in almost one hundred years and with respect to baseball, the game played in 1906 was as different from today's arena baseball as an SUV is to a Model T Ford.
Today, pitchers start but don't finish. One hundred years ago, pitchers started and finished what they started. In 2005, nine pitchers tied for most game started with 35 each. In 1906, Jack Chesbro led the majors with 42 starts. Okay, it's pretty close, but in 2005, Chris Carpenter and Dontrelle Willis led the majors with 7 complete games. In 1906, Cy Young led the majors with 37 complete games. Cy Young was not bigger or stronger than Carpenter or Willis, but it was a different game.
Jack Chesbro pitched for the New York Highlanders in 1906. Chesbro and four others had 137 of the team's 155 starts (the team had 151 decisions) and completed 90 of them. There were no seventh inning specialists, set up men, or closers. The 1906 World Champion Chicago White Sox had a pitching staff that consisted of six, repeat, six pitchers who started 152 of 154 games, completing 117 of them. The 2005 World Champion Chicago White Sox, amazingly, outdid their 1906 ancestors by having six pitchers who started 162 of 162 games but the sextet completed only 9 of them. It was a different game.
The game we watch today produces few twenty game winners. In 2005, Bartolo Colon won 21 games for the Angels while in the senior circuit (when's the last time you heard that term used for the National League?) Dontrelle Willis won 22 for the Marlins, Chris Carpenter won 21 for the Cardinals, and Roy Oswalt won 20 for the Astros. But for every winner, there must be a loser. Zack Greinke led the American League with 17 losses and Kip Wells led the National League with 18 losses. What happened in 1906 boggles the mind. There were extreme winners and extreme losers and the most extreme winner was really a loser, possibly the greatest loser of all time.
Chicago won both pennants in 1906. The Cubs set a record for the best record by a team in baseball history, but since there had been two major leagues only since 1901, its impact wasn't great at the time. However, the Cubs' record has now stood for one hundred years. They won 116 games while losing only 36 for a .763 winning percentage.
In the new league, Chicago's other team won the pennant with a 93-58 mark. Known as the "hitless wonders" because they had a team batting average of .230 and averaged 3.70 runs a game, the White Sox upset the highly favored Cubs in the World Series. The team that holds the record for the best winning percentage in the regular season lost the World Series.
While the Cubs were winning so many games, BOTH Boston teams were losing a lot of games. Now, Boston, at least with respect to baseball and, some claim, with respect to politics, is a city of losers, but Boston's baseball teams BOTH lost over 100 games in 1906. The losing reputation must not be limited to the Red Sox, who, after all, actually were modern baseball's first World Champions. The team that abandoned Boston were major losers as well. From 1901 until they left for Milwaukee after the 1952 season, the Boston Braves won 2 pennants (1914, 1948) and one World Championship (1948).
The 1906 Boston "Beaneaters" had a record of 49-102, which left them in last place. However, that is not what is amazing and what could never, never, ever happen in today. The "Beaneaters" four starting pitchers were Irv Young, Vive Lindaman, Big Jeff Pfeffer, and Gus Dorner. The quartet started 145 of the teams 152 games. You read that right. Young pitched 358 1/3 innings, winning 16 and losing 25, Lindaman pitched 307 1/3 innings with a 12-23 record, Pfeffer hurled 302 1/3 innings with a 13-22 mark, and Dorner pitched "only" 273 1/3 innings, winning only 8 while losing 25.
Notice anything unique? Go back and read the won-loss records carefully. Right. The 1906 Boston "Beaneaters" had four twenty game losers. Not two, not three, but four. And they all had respectable, if not excellent earned run averages. Lindaman had a 2.43 ERA, Young's was 2.91, Pfeffer's was 2.95, and only Dorner, the fourth starter, with a 3.65 mark, had an above 3.00 ERA. Mordecai "Three Fingered" Brown led the league with a 1.04 ERA. It was a different game.
Think you've heard it all? Just wait a second. Let's go back one year to 1905. The Boston Beaneaters won 51, lost 103, but avoided finishing last because the Brooklyn "Superbas" were 48-104. That is not special but what is special is the fact that Boston had four twenty game losers. In consecutive seasons, 1905 and 1906, the Boston "Beaneaters" had four twenty game losers. And only Irv Young did in for them each time.
In 1905, Irv Young lost 21 games, but he won 20. This is bizarre. Vic Willis was 12-29. His 29 losses are still a modern record for most losses in a season. Chick Fraser was 14-21 and Kaiser Wilhelm's 3-23 won loss record brings back memories of Don Larsen's 3-21 for the 1954 Orioles.
Maybe, just maybe, 2006 baseball strategists know something. Yes, there aren't many complete games, there aren't many twenty game winners, but there will never, ever again be a team, no matter how little money it spends, that has four twenty game losers---in consecutive seasons.
Reference:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/
Date
Tue 09/19/06, 7:38 am EST
