Baseball...numbers, stories and analysis: 1911...All Stars and Connecticut's Team

After reading this story of an incident a few days ago,

http://www.wvlt.tv/content/news/Greeneville-Reds-minor-league-team-help-victims-in-fatal-crash-on-I-81-490727581.html

I was reminded of this article which I had written but not published, about the 1911 season, and a similar incident...

1911, All-Stars, new baseballs and Connecticut’s team…

The 1911 baseball world was rocked with the news of the passing of Cleveland Naps pitcher Addie Joss.

Adrian Joss was born in Woodland, Wisconsin, and was one of the American League’s premier hurlers during their first decade. He joined the Cleveland Bronchos (later the Blues, Bluebirds, Naps, and then the Indians) and pitched a one-hitter in his debut. He won seventeen games that year, including a league leading five shutouts.

He won twenty or more games in four straight seasons, from 1905-1908. He won 160 games over the course of his nine-year career and finished with a lifetime earned run average below two. (1.89 to be exact)

Joss pitched the second perfect game in American League history, on the next to last game of the 1908 season, against the White Sox. Addie and Sox hurler Ed Walsh in a tight game, where both men pitched great. The 1-0 game was filled with tension, the only run scored was unearned. And Walsh, who had already won thirty-nine games, had struck out fifteen before being lifted for a pinch-hitter in the ninth.

The last batter of the game for the Sox, John Anderson, who was pinch-hitting for Walsh, smashed a grounder to third, which was bobbled by third baseman Bill Bradley, and then thrown low and in the dirt to first, where George Stovall dug it out of the dirt before Anderson reached first.

In April of 1910, Joss pitched his second no-hitter, also against the White Sox, becoming the first pitcher to no-hit the same team twice. (Tim Lincecum duplicated the feat in 2015, but it has still to be accomplished again in the American League), but he suffered a torn ligament in his right elbow, and was limited to just thirteen games, making his last appearance in July.

The ligament tear would make him a candidate for the “Tommy John” surgery in today’s game, but since this was thirty-three years before Tommy John’s birth…

Joss was one ballplayer who seemed to be concerned with a career after his playing days were over. He was hired by the Toledo News-Bee as a sports columnist, and eventually became the paper’s Sunday Sports Editor. He also wrote for the Cleveland Press.

He also dabbled in early electronics and devised what may have been the first electronic scoreboard, dubbed the Joss Indicator, which was installed in 1908 in Cleveland’s League Park. It was used to display ball and strike counts to the spectators. The original unit didn’t work too well, but the idea was expanded and improved upon, and the principles are still used today in some way or another.

Some might say he was the father of the modern scoreboard…

He was with Cleveland in 1911 for Spring Training, working his way back to the majors. On April 3^rd, the team was in Chattanooga for an exhibition game, when he collapsed due to heat prostration. He was taken to the hospital and released the next day.

He appeared to have recovered somewhat but didn’t really get better. Newspaper reports from later that week hypothesized on everything from ptomaine poisoning to stress to ‘nervous indigestion’. That he wasn’t getting better was concerning to him.

As the team traveled to Toledo for another exhibition game on the 10th, Joss took the opportunity to visit with his personal physician. His coughing and headache had become worse. The doctor, Dr. Chapman, initially diagnosed food poisoning. Then changed that to pleurisy and declared that Joss needed a week to ten days to recover and should not play baseball for a month.

As his condition worsened to where he could no longer stand on his own, Joss sought a second opinion from Cleveland’s team doctor, who performed a lumbar puncture, and diagnosed Joss with tubercular meningitis. Joss would pass away on April 14^th, just two days past his 31^st birthday.

His funeral was scheduled on April 17^th, when the Naps were scheduled to play in Detroit’s home opener. The Naps asked if that game may be postponed so that they could attend the funeral, but the Tigers denied their request. American League President Ban Johnson sided with the Tigers, but then relented, allowing the Naps to attend the services.

Former major league player-turned evangelist Billy Sunday presided over the service.

During this time, baseball players were playing on one-year contracts, and there was very little thought to long term financial stability. Joss was one of the better paid players, earning upwards of six thousand dollars a season. But his passing so unexpectedly left his family with quite a financial burden.

The Cleveland Naps decided to host a charity fund-raiser for the Joss family, which was held on July 24^th. The Naps invited players from the other seven American league teams to join in playing against the Naps.

For the first time, an All-Star Team of players was assembled. Those opponents included Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Tris Speaker, Joe Wood and others. They played in front of a crowd of fifteen thousand fans and raised a little over $13,000 for the Joss family.

For the first time, both leagues played with a new baseball, this one with a cork center, and the offense picked up dramatically. The National League scored 9.17% more runs than were scored in 1910, while the American League jumped 23.6%. Overall offense in both leagues outpaced the pitching by 22.7%.

The top hitting teams in each league were:

American League	National League
Athletics	Giants
Tigers	Pirates
White Sox	Cubs

And the top pitching teams were:

Athletics	Giants
White Sox	Pirates
Red Sox	Cubs

Overall, the top five teams were:

Athletics	World Series Champions
Giants	National League Champion
Pirates	3^rd in National League
Cubs	2^nd in National League
White Sox	4^th in American League

The Philadelphia Athletics used their “Million Dollar Infield” to defeat the Giants in the World Series, four games to two.

In 1909, Frank Baker was ‘spiked’ on a play by Ty Cobb, which opened a serious laceration on his arm. Baker bandaged the arm, and remained in the game, but to Cobb and the Tigers, Baker seemed ‘soft’. This carried over for a good part of Baker’s career.

He led the American League in homers in 1910, but his 1911 World Series performance earned him an immortal nickname.

Harkening back to the Cobb incident, Giants outfielder Fred Snodgrass spiked Baker again, forcing Baker to drop the ball, making Snodgrass safe at third. Baker again bandaged his arm and continued in the game, which the Giants won 2-1. Snodgrass scoring the tying run.

Game Two had the teams tied at one, until Baker hit a two-run home run off of Rube Marquard, giving the A’s a lead they wouldn’t relinquish.

Game Three had the Giants with a one-run lead in the top of the ninth, when Baker tied the game with a homer off of Christy Mathewson to send the game to extra innings, where the A’s won in the twelfth, on a single and a run scored by Baker.

According to the legend, the two big homers, both in critical moments, both off superstar pitchers, and in successive game, earned him the nickname “Home Run”. The reality of the nickname must include baseball’s line score. As the game stats were transmitted during that era, the main info was runs by inning for each team, then afterwards, long hits (double, triples, homers. Battery mates (pitcher and catcher, with the battery term also coming from radio dispatches of the line scores)

If you were to look at the line score for the two games in question, you would see “Home Run-Baker”. (As yet another aside, this is also how Phillies pitcher Hugh Mulcahy got the unenviable nickname of “Losing Pitcher. As in line score “Winning Pitcher-Dean, Losing Pitcher-Mulcahy)

Back to 1911…after Game Three, the rains came.

Six days later, the longest gap in World Series games until the Earthquake in 1989, featuring these same teams, play resumed. (As Mel Allen would say, ‘How ‘bout that!”)

Philadelphia won two of the next three, including a blowout in the final game, 13-2.

In all, there were twenty-six errors committed between the two teams, and the Giants struggled with a .175 team batting average, a record for a six game Series.

On Monday July 10^th, the St. Louis Cardinals were traveling by train overnight to Boston. They had just lost to Pete Alexander and the Phillies, 4-2. Their train pulled into New York City close to midnight. Initially, the Pullman cars, in which the players were booked for sleeping, were situated behind the locomotive. But they got changed in New York and placed at the back.

At the time, trains coming from Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and other points south, that were headed to Connecticut, Boston and points beyond, would arrive in Jersey City, New Jersey. At that terminal, trains were essentially disassembled, placed onto barges, and transported around lower Manhattan, up the East River, and offloaded back onto the tracks in the Bronx.

(As a side note, this was the practice until the humongous Hell Gate Bridge was completed in Queens in 1917. How humongous? It was reported in an article id Discover magazine, that after civilization dies out, barring an earthquake, it would take another thousand years before the massive bridge would begin to disintegrate. It has an incredible load capacity of 12 tons per foot)

Back to the story…conflicting reports say that the cars were rearranged due to the protests of Cardinals manager Roger Bresnahan, but other reports say it was a random change, and ‘easier on the railroad’.

At any rate, as the passengers settled in, on the “Federal Express”, in various degrees of sleep, catastrophe happened. At approximately 3:30 that morning, as the train crew was hurrying to make up the hour behind schedule, the train left the tracks in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

The first six cars of the train left the track and hurtled down an eighteen-foot embankment onto the street below, near the intersection of Railroad and Fairway Avenues. Within a few seconds, Fairview Avenue was a disaster area, with twisted and damaged metal strewn along the street, and flames bursting from several parts of the wreckage.

The Pullman cars remained on the tracks, but Cardinal’s manager Roger Bresnahan quickly gathered his team, and they all went into action, as the first responders. Most of them still wearing pajamas, and some were running barefoot. They carried the injured, and the dead, from the wreckage to a triage area as the rescue personnel and equipment was arriving.

Several printed reports, as well as historical research showed that, while fourteen people perished, that number would have been much greater had it not been for the heroic actions of Bresnahan and the Cardinals. And is was also reported that the forty-seven reported injuries may have also grown substantially, if not for their quick response to the emergency.

The Hartford newspaper reported that, "Many a victim of the wreck owes his life to the promptness of the St. Louis National League Baseball team…"

Many in the northeast championed the heroics performed by the Cardinals, and several Connecticut newspapers began to refer to the Cardinals’ as “Connecticut’s Team”.

Back to baseball, the game against the Boston Rustlers was postponed, and made up on the Wednesday as a double-header. The Cardinal won the first game, and then settled for a tie in the second, due to darkness.

The Cleveland Naps were led by rookie outfielder “Shoeless” Joe Jackson. The South Carolinian hit for a .408 batting average, the most ever by a rookie. He did, however, fall short of the batting title, as Ty Cobb hit .420. He remains the only player to hit over .400 and not win the batting title.

Jackson also held the record for hits in a rookie season, which lasted until Ichiro Suzuki had 242 in 2001.

In St. Louis, Helene Britton inherited ownership of the St. Louis Cardinals franchise from her uncle, Stanley Robinson. This made her the first woman owner in professional baseball.

In Pittsburgh, Honus Wagner won the last of his eight batting titles.

In Chicago, Cubs outfielder Jimmy Sheckard walked 147 times, a record that would stand in the National League until 1947.

Boston Rustlers pitcher Cliff Curtis lost twenty-three straight decisions, and the team as a whole set a record for the worst home record, going 19-54, for a .260 winning percentage.

Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Pete Alexander tied a rookie record with seven shutouts. That record was later tied by Jerry Koosman of the Mets and bested by Fernando Valenzuela in 1981.

Alexander pitched four of those shutouts in September.

Cincinnati Reds outfielder Bob Bescher set a National League record for stolen bases with 81. That record was later broken by Maury Wills in 1962, but the record lasted longer than Babe Ruth’s 60 homers in a season, which lasted 33 years)

World Champion Philadelphia Athletics pitcher Jack Coombs scored thirty-one runs, which remains the single season record for a pitcher.

New York Giants second baseman Larry Doyle hit twenty-five triples, which remains the record for that position.

Rube Marquard became the first pitcher to pitch back-to-back one-hitters.

The Giants as a team stole a league record three hundred forty-seven bases.

And they scored a record ten runs in the first inning of a game against the Cardinals, before making the first out.

But the highlight machine was in Detroit.

First, catcher Oscar Stanage set the American League record for most assists by a catcher in a season (210).

The Tigers came back from a 13-1 deficit to defeat the White Sox 16-15.

Then Ty Cobb…

· Hit for a career best .420

· Had 79 extra base hits AND 85 stolen bases. He is the only player to reach 75/75 in those stats for a single season. Juan Samuel in 1984 is the only other 70/70 player

· He recorded his one thousandth hit at the age of twenty-four years, four months…the youngest to reach that milestone.

· He had a forty-game hitting streak, which was the longest in the American League until Joe DiMaggio in 1941.

· He set American League record for batting average, total bases, hits, runs and runs batted in, all during 1911. (most of these have been eclipsed by now, but no one has set so many prodigious records during one season)

In 1910, Hugh Chalmers of the Chalmers Automobile decided that he would award the top batter in the major leagues a new Chalmers model 30 car. Controversy ensued between the American League batting championship, some claiming that Nap Lajoie of Cleveland won the title, others claiming the\at Ty Cobb had won it. At the end of the day, American League President Ban Johnson decreed that Cobb was the actual winner.

Propelled by the publicity that was garnered, Chalmers awarded a new car to both Cobb and Lajoie, and then decided to continue the next year with Chalmers Award, which would be voted on by sportswriters to honor the ‘most important and useful player to the club and to the league’.

Cobb was the American League winner, while Cubs outfielder was the National League winner.

But more on that in a minute.

We’ll examine the pitching first, looking at the American League, who were weaker than the National League. Our initial top ten ranking is as such:

Pitcher	Team	W-L	ERA	RA
Vean Gregg	Cleveland	23-7	1.80	2.46
Walter Johnson	Senators	25-13	1.90	3.32
Chief Bender	Athletics	17-5	2.16	2.50
Eddie Plank	Athletics	23-8	2.10	2.98
Ed Walsh	White Sox	27-18	2.22	3.05
Russ Ford	Highlanders	22-11	2.27	3.81
George Mullin	Tigers	18-10	3.07	3.80
Smoky Joe Wood	Red Sox	23-17	2.02	3.69
Harry Krause	Athletics	11-8	3.04	3.46
Jim Scott	White Sox	14-11	2.39	3.32

And then as compared to their team performances, where the St. Louis Browns lost 107 games, with a league worst staff ERA of 3.86, we get this list:

Walter Johnson	Above
Vean Gregg	Above
Barney Pelty	Browns	7-15	2.97	3.97
Joe Lake	Browns	10-15	3.30	4.81
Russ Ford	Above
George Mullin	Above
Ed Walsh	Above
Joe Wood	Above
Jack Powell	Browns	8-19	3.29	5.20
Chief Bender	Above

Combing and consolidating, our top ten American league pitching performances mirrors exactly the initial top ten list:

Vean Gregg	10^th in Chalmers vote
Walter Johnson	5^th in Chalmers vote
Chief Bender	No vote
Eddie Plank	No vote
Ed Walsh	2^nd in Chalmers vote
Russ Ford	18^th in Chalmers vote (tie)
George Mullin	No vote
Joe Wood	No vote
Harry Krause	No vote
Jim Scott	No vote

Now to the National League pitchers, who had a 6.2% better statistical performance than the AL pitchers, we get this initial list of top ten performers:

Pete Alexander	Phillies	28-13	2.57	3.26
Nap Rucker	Dodgers	22-18	2.71	2.91
Christy Mathewson	Giants	26-13	1.99	2.99
Babe Adams	Pirates	22-12	2.33	2.98
Rube Marquard	Giants	24-7	2.50	3.18
King Cole	Cubs	18-7	3.13	3.54
Slim Sallee	Cardinals	15-9	2.76	3.75
Lew Richie	Cubs	15-11	2.31	3.13
Mordecai Brown	Cubs	21-11	2.80	3.67
Bob Harmon	Cardinals	23-16	3.13	4.01

And to the team performances. And while the National League pitchers fared better, the Boston Rustlers pitching staff was terrible. Horrendous, even. They also lost 107 games, but finished with a team ERA of 5.08, and allowed over a thousand runs.

Here are the top performers against their team averages:

Nap Rucker	Above
Buster Brown	Rustlers	8-18	4.29	6.01
Pete Alexander	Above
Slim Sallee	Above
Bob Harmon	Above
Babe Adams	Above
Bobby Keefe	Reds	12-13	2.69	3.38
George Suggs	Reds	15-13	3.0	3.80
Lefty Tyler	Rustlers	7-10	5.06	6.42
Christy Mathewson	Above

Combing and crunching, our top ten National League pitchers also match our initial list, as such:

Pete Alexander	3^rd in Chalmers vote
Nap Rucker	27^th in Chalmers vote (tied)
Christy Mathewson	2^nd in Chalmers vote
Babe Adams	27^th in Chalmers vote (tied)
Rube Marquard	7^th in Chalmers vote (tied)
King Cole	No vote
Slim Sallee	No vote
Lew Richie	No vote
Mordecai Brown	17^th in Chalmers vote (tied)
Bob Harmon	14^th in Chalmers vote

Now, turning to the offensive performances, our initial look at the American League batters, who fared 3.1% better than their National League counterparts, looks like this initially:

Hitter	Team	Runs	RBI	SB	RCG	AVG
Ty Cobb	Tigers	147	127	83	1.82	.420
Sam Crawford	Tigers	109	115	37	1.49	.378
Joe Jackson	Cleveland	126	83	41	1.37	.408
Frank Baker	Athletics	96	115	38	1.35	.334
Birdie Cree	Highlanders	90	88	48	1.27	.348
Eddie Collins	Athletics	92	73	38	1.23	.365
Jim Delahanty	Tigers	83	94	38	1.21	.339
Danny Murphy	Athletics	104	66	22	1.16	3.29
Stuffy McInnis	Athletics	76	77	23	1.19	.321
Tris Speaker	Red Sox	88	70	25	1.06	.334

Comparing these players to their team’s performances, our list is:

Ty Cobb	Above
Joe Jackson	Above
Frank LaPorte	Browns	70	82	4	1.10	.314
Birdie Cree	Above
Sam Crawford	Above
Doc Gessler	Senators	65	78	29	1.09	.282
Harry Lord	White Sox	103	61	43	1.14	.321
Tris Speaker	Above
Germany Schaefer	Senators	73	45	22	0.94	.334
Duffy Lewis	Red Sox	64	83	11	1.10	.307

This brings our overall top ten American League hitters to this:

Ty Cobb	Chalmers Award Winner
Joe Jackson	4^th in Chalmers vote
Sam Crawford	14^th in Chalmers vote (tie)
Birdie Cree	6^th in Chalmers vote (tie)
Frank Baker	11^th in Chalmers vote
Eddie Collins	3^rd in Chalmers vote
Frank LaPorte	20^th in Chalmers vote
Jim Delahanty	No votes
Tris Speaker	6^th in Chalmers vote (tie)
Harry Lord	No votes

Now, looking at the National League offensive performances, our initial top ten list is as follows:

Honus Wagner	Pirates	87	79	20	1.28	.334
Frank Schulte	Cubs	105	107	23	1.24	.300
Sherry Magee	Phillies	79	94	22	1.31	.288
Larry Doyle	Giants	102	77	38	1.16	.310
Buck Herzog	Rustlers	53	41	26	1.13	.310
Fred Clarke	Pirates	73	49	10	1.06	.324
Chief Wilson	Pirates	72	107	10	1.13	.300
Bill Sweeney	Rustlers	92	63	33	1.11	.314
Ed Konetchy	Cardinals	90	88	27	1.09	.289
Heinie Zimmerman	Cubs	80	85	23	1.09	.307

Then against their team’s averages, we get this list:

Sherry Magee	Above
Honus Wagner	Above
Zack Wheat	Dodgers	55	76	21	0.90	.287
Frank Schulte	Above
Jake Daubert	Dodgers	89	45	32	0.87	.307
Buck Herzog	Above
Ed Konetchy	Above
Fred Luderus	Phillies	69	99	6	1.04	.301
Hans Lobert	Phillies	94	72	40	1.07	.285
John Hummel	Dodgers	54	58	16	0.78	.270

Combining and consolidating gives us this top ten list for National League hitters:

Honus Wagner	3^rd in Chalmers vote (tied)
Sherry Magee	No votes
Frank Schulte	Chalmers Award Winner
Larry Doyle	4^th in Chalmers vote
Buck Herzog	No votes
Ed Konetchy	22^nd in Chalmers vote (tied)
Fred Clarke	No votes
Bill Sweeny	21^st in Chalmers vote
Chief Wilson	No votes
Fred Luderus	27^th in Chalmers vote (tied)