Sunday, June 23, 2019


1929, and flashes of greatness

                In reviewing the 1929 season, flashes of offensive brilliance can be seen, only to be lost to history. For as much offense that was created in 1929, all that was upended the following season, when major league offenses dominated over the pitching in both leagues.
                In 1929, several new offensive standards were set, NL League batting average, NL leaders in doubles, runs scored, runs batted in and homers. Each of those records lasted just one season.
                But there were some accomplishments that couldn’t be undone.
                The eventual World Series champion Philadelphia A’s would win one hundred games, the first of three straight one-hundred-win seasons. They would be the first team to do this. They were buoyed by a high-powered offense and a well-balanced pitching staff.
                Across the majors, four teams scored nine-hundred or more runs, and three more scored eight-hundred-ninety on the season.
                The overall team pitching leaders were:

NATIONAL LEAGUE
A’s
Cubs
Yankees
Giants
Indians
Pirates


                And in offense, we have this list:
Tigers
Cubs
A’s
Pirates
Yankees
Giants

                Which puts our overall top five Power Ranking at:
A’s
World Champions
Cubs
NL Champions
Giants
3rd in National League
Pirates
2nd in National League
Yankees
2nd in American League

                While scoring was on the rise, it was a different time, and a different type of player. For example, Joe Sewell of Cleveland, Sam Rice of the Senators and Mickey Cochrane of the A’s, Hall of Famers all, combined for 1,708 at bats, 551 hits, 322 runs scored and 230 runs batted in. They hit a combined .323. The three combined to strike out just 21 times.
                Joe Sewell, of the Cleveland Indians, was one of the toughest strikeouts in major league history. He went a span of one-hundred-fifteen consecutive games between strikeouts, and over his career, averaged one strike-out for every 62.5 at bats. As of this writing, the current active leader is Andrelton Simmons, with 10.4 at bats per strikeout.

                Sewell, a University of Alabama alumni, was signed by Cleveland in 1920, spending half of that season with the New Orleans Pelicans of the Southern Association. He was called up to the big club in the wake of the accident that killed Ray Chapman in August. Joe began 1921 as the Indians regular shortstop. There he was a mainstay for ten years before moving to the Yankees for three years.
                He maintains the record for striking out just three times in 1932, while having five-hundred three at-bats, or once every 167.7 at-bats.
                He held the second longest consecutive games played streak, with 1,103 games. The longest streak (at the time) was held by Everett Scott with 1,307. By all accounts, Sewell was a great fielder, and a very good hitter. He finished his career with a .312 average and was selected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1977.
                According to legend, Sewell played his entire major league career with one bat, a forty-ounce model that Sewell would rub with a Coke bottle to harden the wood.
He retired and would eventually come to coach the Crimson Tide for seven years. One of his student athletes was drafted by the New York Yankees in the tenth round of the 1966 baseball draft. He opted not to sign, which was good. Ken “The Snake” Stabler went on to have a lengthy football career instead.

The Philadelphia A’s had five players score more than 100 runs, 4 players with 200 or more hits, and finished with a team average of .296.
The A’s pitchers finished with a team ERA a half run better than their nearest finisher.
History, though, is not kind of the A’s of this era. While they would win three straight American League pennants by an average of 13 games each season, and then go on to win the first two World Series appearances of this streak, they are rarely mentioned as one of the all-time great teams.
Those exultations are usually used for the Yankees, either before or after this time. Some blame the media for this, with New York being the dominant focus. In looking at the records of the 1926-28 Yankees and the 1929-31 A’s, you would find that the Yankees scored 6 more runs than the A’s, while the A’s allowed 5 fewer runs. The disparity of 1 run between the two is nominal.
The wins may be more telling, with the A’s winning 313 games to the Yankees 302.

It is worth noting that while some of the sportswriters thought the Yankees seemed to be a bit complacent, their season essentially ended in September, with the unexpected death of their manager Miller Huggins, due to blood poisoning.

The A’s did defeat the Cubs in five games to claim their first World Series title since 1913.

But there were some things of note that happened during the 1929 season…

For the Mission Reds of the Pacific Coast League, Ike Boone collected a massive 553 total bases. (Total bases are the sum of: singles = 1 base, doubles = 2, triples = 3, and homers = 4) Babe Ruth set the Major League record with 457.
Boone hit .407 that year, with 323 hits and 55 home runs. He also played 198 games, which was not unusual for the Pacific Coast League.

Before the major league season began, the Yankees announced that they would feature numbers on the backs of their jerseys, the first team to do so. The Cleveland Indians would follow suit, announcing that they would do the same. Thanks to an opening day rain-out, the Indians were the first team to take the field with numbers. The May 13th match-up of the two teams was the first game in which both teams wore uniform numbers.

Babe Ruth became the first member of the 500 home-run club, after becoming the founding member of the 200, 300 and 400 home-run clubs.

Tom Zachary of the Yankees went 12-0 on the season, the record for the most wins in a season without a loss. Zachary was best remembered as the pitcher that surrendered Babe Ruth's 60th home run in 1927.

Brooklyn pitcher Chase Dudley became the first player to hit a home run on his first pitch in his first big league at bat.
Johnny Frederick of the Dodgers hit 52 doubles to establish a new rookie record.

Phillies outfielder Lefty O'Doul won the NL batting title by hitting .398, which remains the NL record for an outfielder. He finished with 254 hits, a new NL record that would be tied in 1930 by Bill Terry.

Cubs second baseman Rogers Hornsby hit .380 to set a new Cubs team record. That would be the fourth different team’s batting record that he would set in the decade. He was plagued by issues allegedly related to his betting on horses, and as a result, was traded off when those issues became distractions.

On May 1st, the National League had two scheduled games; Cubs at Reds and Pirates at Cardinals. At the end of the day, both games were called on account of darkness after thirteen innings. And the score of both games was 4-4.
During a July doubleheader, the Cardinals lost the opener 10-6 to the Phillies. In the nightcap, the Cards turned on the offense and trounced the Phils 28-6. The teams combined for a record seventy-three combined hits on the day.

On to the season review, looking at the pitching performances first. National League pitchers were not very productive. They were outpaced by the AL pitchers, and were serving the NL hitters some fat pitches, apparently. Statistically, the NL hitters fared 62.47% better than the pitchers.
With that being said, the initial top ten ranking for NL pitchers, featuring Pat Malone as the only twenty-game winner in the league, is as follows:
PITCHER
TEAM
W-L
ERA
Burleigh Grimes
Pirates
17-7
3.13
Red Lucas
Reds
19-12
3.60
Bill Walker
Giants
14-7
3.09
Pat Malone
Reds
22-10
3.57
Charlie Root
Cubs
19-6
3.47
Carl Hubbell
Giants
18-11
3.69
Watty Clark
Dodgers
16-19
3.74
Ray Kremer
Pirates
18-10
4.26
Dazzy Vance
Dodgers
14-13
3.89
Guy Bush
Cubs
18-7
3.66

Now the pitchers average against their team’s performance gives us this list:
Red Lucas
Above


Watty Clark
Above


Dazzy Vance
Above


Bob Smith
Braves
11-17
4.68
Socks Seibold
Braves
12-17
4.73
John Morrison
Dodgers
13-7
4.48
Pat Malone
Above


Charlie Root
Above


Burleigh Grimes
Above


Ray Kolp
Reds
8-10
4.03

This brings our final pitching ranking for the National league to:
Red Lucas
Burleigh Grimes
Pat Malone
Watty Clark
Dazzy Vance
Charlie Root
Bill Walker
Guy Bush
Carl Hubbell
Ray Kremer

Moving to the American League, where the league wide earned run average was a half a point better than in the NL, and they had three twenty-game winners, we get this initial list:
Lefty Grove
A’s
20-6
2.81
George Earnshaw
A’s
24-8
3.26
Firpo Marberry
Senators
19-12
3.06
Wes Ferrell
Indians
21-10
3.60
Rube Walberg
A’s
18-11
3.60
Tommy Thomas
White Sox
14-18
3.19
Willis Hudlin
Indians
17-15
3.34
Red Faber
White Sox
13-13
3.88
Jake Miller
Indians
14-12
3.58
Lefty Stewart
Browns
13-13
3.88

Then, as compared to their team’s performance, we get this list:
Tommy Thomas
Above


George Uhle
Tigers
15-11
4.08
Firpo Marberry
Above


Red Faber
Above


Danny MacFayden
Red Sox
10-18
3.62
Milt Gaston
Red Sox
12-19
3.73
Ted Lyons
White Sox
14-20
4.10
Wes Ferrell
Above


Ed Morris
Red Sox
14-14
4.45

Which brings us to our overall top ten American League pitchers to this list:
Firpo Marberry
Lefty Grove
Tommy Thomas
George Earnshaw
Wes Ferrell
Willis Hudlin
George Uhle
Lefty Stewart
Jake Miller
Red Faber

No, on to the National League hitters, who fared 7.2% better than the AL hitters, finishing with a league average of .294 to the AL average of .284. Our initial top ten list is:
HITTER
TEAM
HR
RBI
AVG
RC/G
Rogers Hornsby
Cubs
39
149
.380
1.71
Hack Wilson
Cubs
39
159
.345
1.70
Mel Ott
Giants
42
151
.328
1.65
Lefty O’Doul
Phillies
32
122
.398
1.57
Chuck Klein
Phillies
43
145
.356
1.53
Chick Hafey
Cardinals
29
125
.338
1.47
George Grantham
Pirates
12
90
.307
1.48
Jim Bottomley
Cardinals
29
137
.314
1.48
Pie Traynor
Pirates
4
108
.356
1.52
Kiki Cuyler
Cubs
15
102
.360
1.42

And then, comparing performances to team statistics, we get this top ten list:
Babe Herman
Dodgers
21
113
.381
1.35
Mel Ott
Above




Lefty O’Doul
Above




Chick Hafey
Above




Rogers Hornsby
Above




Chuck Klein
Above




Jim Bottomley
Above




Harvey Hendrick
Dodgers
14
82
.354
1.25
Hack Wilson
Above




Curt Walker
Reds
7
83
.313
1.08

Combining and compiling, we get this final top ten list of National League offensive performances:
Rogers Hornsby
Mel Ott
Hack Wilson
Lefty O’Doul
Chuck Klein
Chick Hafey
Babe Herman
Jim Bottomley
George Grantham
Pie Traynor

Shifting over to the American League, which is very top heavy with Hall of Famers, our initial top ten list is:
Babe Ruth
Yankees
46
154
.345
1.70
Al Simmons
A’s
34
157
.365
1.66
Mickey Cochrane
A’s
7
95
.331
1.49
Harry Heilmann
Tigers
15
120
.344
1.53
Jimmie Foxx
A’s
33
118
.354
1.40
Lou Gehrig
Yankees
35
125
.300
1.41
Dale Alexander
Tigers
25
137
.343
1.43
Charlie Gehringer
Tigers
13
106
.339
1.45
Tony Lazzeri
Yankees
18
106
.354
1.29
Lew Fonseca
Indians
6
103
.369
1.31

Then, as compared to their team performances, we get this list:
Babe Ruth
Above




Lew Fonseca
Above




Al Simmons
Above




Mickey Cochrane
Above




Earl Averill
Indians
18
96
.332
1.24
Carl Reynolds
White Sox
11
67
.317
1.05
Lou Gehrig
Above




Harry Heilmann
Above




Jimmie Foxx
Above




Bibb Falk
Indians
13
93
.312
1.16

Which brings us to this top ten American League hitters list:
Babe Ruth
Al Simmons
Mickey Cochrane
Jimmie Foxx
Lou Gehrig
Dale Alexander
Lew Fonseca
Charlie Gehringer
Tony Lazzeri


                In 1929, there was only one post season award given, and that was the National League Award, deservedly won by Rogers Hornsby.   
My top five vote for players of the year in each league features only offensive players. So, I added the top pitcher in each league, which doesn’t necessarily mean that they were the sixth best performer, but they were the top pitcher.
That list:

National League


Rogers Hornsby
Player of the Year

Mel Ott
Hack Wilson
Lefty O’Doul
Chuck Klein


Red Lucas
Pitcher of the Year


American League


Babe Ruth
Player of the Year

Al Simmons
Mickey Cochrane
Harry Heilmann
Jimmie Foxx


Firpo Marberry
Pitcher of the Year