Baseball...numbers, stories and analysis: 2025

1935…A new champion, a failed return, and tragedy in the air

Ty Cobb is regarded as one of the greatest baseball players of all time. He still holds many records 100 years after he retired from playing. One of the original five inductees to the Baseball Hall of Fame, he still holds the highest career batting average at .366. He is one of just two men to reach the 4,000-hit plateau in the major leagues.

However, one thing that he was never able to accomplish was to be on a World Series winning team. It was not that he was with a bad team. Far from it, in fact. The Tigers played in three consecutive Fall Classics, from 1907-1909. But those were the only three trips to the post-season for The Georgia Peach.

His Tigers team, while he was on the team, averaged a .531 winning percentage across his twenty-three years in Detroit. They had 3 pennant winners, 3 second place finishes and 5 third place finishes.

Of course, Cobb’s Tigers lost out to the “$100,000 Infield” of Connie Mack’s A’s, The Red Sox of Tris Speaker and eventually Babe Ruth, The White Sox of Shoeless Joe, Walter Johnson’s Washington team, and the Babe Ruth led Yankees powerhouse, who won six pennants during Cobb’s playing career.

The 1920 Cleveland Indians snuck into the pennant, partially because of the ramifications of the cheating scandal of the 1919 White Sox. As that investigation was going on, the remining Sox players that were implicated were suspended for the final weekend of the season, losing 2 of their final 3 games of the season, and finished two games behind Cleveland.

Cobb was also the player-manager of the Tigers for the last six seasons of his tenure there, where he finished with a .519 winning percentage. Remember this, because we will revisit it later. Cobb never managed to finish higher than second.

The Tigers continued to play well, but were shut out of the pennant until 1934, when the played (and lost to) the St. Louis Cardinals in seven games.

But 1935, they were finally the Kings of the baseball world, winning the American League pennant by three games over the Yankees, and besting the Chicago Cubs in six games.

The Yankees, who had been one of baseball’s most dominant teams over the previous dozen or so years, were playing without Babe Ruth for the first time since 1919.

There was a combination of things that led to Ruth’s leaving the Bronx Bombers, but one involved the aforementioned Ty Cobb. Ruth felt that he deserved to be named the player-manager of the Yankees, especially after the departure of Miller Huggins in 1929.

Rather than naming Ruth the player-manager for 1930, the team named former Yankee pitcher Bob Shawkey to lead the team. Team owner Jacob Ruppert allegedly told Ruth that his extra-curricular activities made him hesitant to name the slugger as manager.

After a third-place finish in 1930, the Yankees moved on from Shawkey, and Ruth believed that he was in line to become the skipper. But the Cubs had fired their skipper, Joe McCarthy, and Ruppert thought he was a great fit for the Bombers, so Ruth was passed over again.

The thirty-five-year-old Ruth was disappointed, but didn’t let that hamper his performance. McCarthey led the Yankees to three second-place finishes and one World Championship from 31-34. At the end of the 1934 season, Babe Ruth was thirty-nine years old, and coming off of one of his worst offensive seasons. The worst since the ‘Great Bellyache’ of 1925.

Granted, Ruth’s slash lines in 1934 were 22/84/.288 and .288/.448/.537 very respectable numbers, but far from the Ruthian stats that had come to be expected. In 1934, Ruth began to show that he was mortal.

1935 would prove that.

It was always bout money. And power. And ego.

Ruth was coming off the historic contract where he earned $80,000 per year, and had taken a hefty pay cut to $35,000, which was still highest in baseball. But Ruppert was committed to McCarthy, who would manage the Yankees until 1946, winning six World Championships and one pennant. But Ruppert did offer Ruth the opportunity to manage the Newark Bears, the Yankees top farm team, but Ruth’s wife talked him out of it.

Ruth was supposedly being considered to take over the reigns for the Detroit Tigers in 1934, as player-manager, but Ruth was vacationing in Hawaii and kept delaying the meeting with Tigers owner Frank Nevin, who went with Mickey Cochrane instead. And, it shall be noted, for less money than Ruth would have demanded.

Connie Mack also considered acquiring Ruth to manage in Philadelphia, stepping down as manager, but thought better of it. Rumor was that Ruth’s wife would have interfered at some point, so Mack remained skipper.

So, 1935 rolls around. Forty-year-old Ruth was traveling around the world with his wife, while still trying to find a place to manage. He began conversations with Emil Fuchs, who owned the Boston Braves.

The Braves were floundering, and not drawing well at the ticket window, and Fuchs thought of Ruth as an attraction that might help the attendance. Ruppert had agreed to let Ruth go, on the promise that he would no longer be a full-time player.

Fuchs offered Ruth the world to return to Boston. He would name Ruth a Vice President and co-manager of the Braves, with the possibility to replace Bill McKechnie as full-time manager at the end of the season. Ruth, as VP, would be consulted on all club transactions, and would earn a cut of the team’s profits. That latter item was odd, considering the Braves were having a hard time paying the rent on Braves Field. It was so bad that Fuchs considered hosting dog races at the stadium while the Braves were out of town. (Commissioner Landis put a stop to that idea)

At one point in 1935, for a Sunday doubleheader in July, the paid attendance was reportedly under 100 fans. Three days later, the Braves game against the Dodgers was postponed in favor of a wrestling match.

So, Ruth returned to Boston as a member of the Braves, to great fanfare. But time had caught up with the legend. His body was beginning to fail him, and he was just a shadow of the legendary slugger that was bigger than the game.

He hit his first Spring Training home run after the team had broken camp, and were working their way barnstorming into the season. He hit a homer and drove in all runs in the season opener victory against the Giants, 4-2, but began to deteriorate rapidly. He could still hit, or put the bat on the ball, but running the bases became more burdensome. Eventually, he played less.

He also realized that his position as co-manager and Vice President of baseball operations were just empty titles. Manager Bill McKechnie seemed to ignore the suggestions that Ruth would make, and he noted that it was hard to discipline his players with Ruth around.

He was angry and disappointed, as he realized he was just the shell of his former self. He played even less, and his hitting prowess was no more. He asked Fuchs to let him retire in mid-May. But Fuchs asked him to reconsider. Mainly because the team was about to embark on a western road trip, and some of the teams had planned to honor Ruth. So, he agreed to remain until Memorial Day.

Ruth, and the Braves, stumbled into Pittsburgh, losing seven of their previous nine games. Red Lucas started for the Pirates, and Bab touched him for a homer in the top of the first. Lucas couldn’t finish the inning, so manager Paul Gibson brought in Guy Bush to relieve Lucas.

Guy Bush, called the “Mississippi Mudcat” had faced Ruth before in the 1932, when he pitched for the Cubs. He was reputed to be the main heckler of Ruth during that Series, and was supposed to be the reason for Ruth’s infamous “Called Shot”, where Babe pointed to centerfield, and promptly hit a prodigious blast off of Charlie Root, right to where he had pointed, adding even more to his legend.

But…some say that Ruth stepped out of the box to answer the chirping from the Cubs, looked at Bush and pointed to the mound (the same direction as centerfield, as if you didn’t already know) and said something to the likes of “You’ll have your chance at me out there (pointing at the mound) tomorrow.”

This time around against Bush, the Babe hit two homers, and went 4 for 4 in the game. The three homers for Ruth doubled his season output. And history shows us that Babe Ruth and future home run king Hank Aaron both had 1 three-homer game for the Braves franchise,

The Great Bambino would not get another hit, retiring a few days later. His last appearance would be against the Phillies on May 30^th, in the first game of a doubleheader in Philadelphia, and finishing out the road trip.

Ruth officially retired on June 2nd, following an argument with Fuchs. The Braves would finish 1935 with the worst record in baseball history, going just 38-115 for a .248 winning percentage. The 1962 Mets, who lost more games (40-120) had a higher winning percentage (.250) and the 2024 Chicago White Sox, who went 41-121 bested those two (.253).

And financial difficulties caused the National League office to take control of the team late in the season. The bitter taste left by the 1935 Braves led the new ownership group to rename the franchise as the Boston Bees, and would remain as such through the 1940 season.

Revisiting the Yankees, this would be Lou Gehrig’s chance to step out from behind Ruth’s shadow. As great as Ruth was, Gehrig was always the runner up. Those Yankee teams were Ruth’s. But were they?

In looking at the nine years that they played together, starting with 1926, which Gehrig was the starter from opening day, and Ruth was over his intestinal issues, they both were phenomenal.

Observe:

	HR	RBI	AVG	RUNS
Babe Ruth	399	1258	.342	1175
Lou Gehrig	327	1369	.347	1260

Gehrig, obviously played every game of those nine seasons, while Rut averaged 141 games. But it is striking the difference.

Also, since Ruth famously batted in front of Gehrig, when Ruth homered, Gehrig would not have been able to drive in Ruth. With that said, over the nine-year span when they played together, Gehrig drove in 1042 teammates. (RBI-HR is that easy formula in case you were wondering)

More eye-opening to me is that Gehrig scored more runs than Ruth, figuring the lineup there would be no way for Ruth to drive Gehrig in, so a majority of those were score without Ruth’s help. Averaged per season Gehrig scored 140 runs to Ruth's 130.

1935 was Gehrig’s show, and while he performed admirably, the team failed to win the pennant, finishing second, three games behind Detroit. That was the only real season the Gehrig shared the spotlight with no one.

In 1936, the Yankees debut their hot shot rookie centerfielder Joseph Paul DiMaggio.

DiMaggio was a highly sought after youngster, who was playing for the San Francisco Seals in the Pacific Coast League. While the PCL was not officially recognized as a major league, they were knee deep in talent, and did ‘feed’ a lot of players to the big leagues.

So valuable was this commodity, that the Seals’ owner, Charles Graham approached a major league club with an offer to sell the contract of this “can’t miss” prospect to this team for a reported $25,000. The owner, leery of a supposed knee injury to the youngster, declined initially, so Graham upped the ante. He would let this team have DiMaggio on a trial basis, and if he didn’t live up to the expectations, Graham would refund the money, and bring DiMaggio back to San Franciso.

The owner in question contemplated the offer, but declined it any way.

That’s how close the Chicago Cubs were to obtaining Joltin’ Joe. And honestly, The Cubs Clipper does not have the same ring of importance as does The Yankee Clipper.

In Brooklyn, all eyes were on young Len Koenecke.

Koenecke hailed from Baraboo, Wisconsin. He made his professional baseball debut in 1927 playing for the Class D Moline Plowboys of the Mississippi Valley League, where he batted .343 with 20 homers. He began the following season in Moline, and then moved over to the AA level Indianapolis Indians of the American Association. He batted .390 for both teams, along with 26 homers. He hit well at each level before being traded by Indianapolis to the New York Giants for four players.

For New York, he hit a modest .255 in limited games, and was assigned to Buffalo for 1933, where he resumed his hot hitting, finishing with a .334 average with 8 homers in 161 games for the Bisons.

He was acquired by Brooklyn for the 1934 season, and he was a standout. He batted .320 with 14 homers. He finished with the infamous 3/4/5 stat line, as in .320 average/.411 On Base Percentage/.509 Slugging Percentage. I use the 3/4/5 as a guide to pick out exceptional seasons.

He also established a new fielding record for outfielders, with a .994 fielding percentage (since broken)

1935, however, was a different story. Perhaps it was a sophomore jinx, or he was believing his own publicity. He was feted back home in his native Wisconsin, where he was wined and dined at numerous banquets, which caused him to report to Spring Training overweight. He started getting in trouble for “breaking training” during the Dodger’s Spring Training. It was speculated, but never confirmed, that drinking was at the core of the issue.

As the season went on, his performance on the field was respectable, but was far from his previous year. He had been plagued by a nagging foot injury that appeared to have had an impact on his home run output, which fell to just 4 in 100 games, his lowest output in any of his professional seasons.

Following a game in St. Louis against the Cardinals, manager Casey Stengel informed Koenecke and two r players that their season was done. The Dodgers were going to use their roster spots to call up some minor leaguers for some seasoning.

Len and the two others, pitchers Les Munns and Bob Barr were given plane tickets to return to Brooklyn via a layover in Chicago and then Detroit. The three had been paid what they were owed by the Dodgers, salary-wise.

The first leg of the trip was uneventful. They touched down in Chicago for a brief layover and as they were boarding for the next leg of the flight, the stewardess noticed that Len was carrying a bottle of liquor, and appeared to be intoxicated. They did allow him to board, but just a few minutes into the flight, he got into a heated argument with a fellow passenger. As the stewardess tried to intervene, Koenecke knocked her down with a punch. Koenecke then threatened to fight another passenger but found himself restrained, and under the watchful eye of the co-pilot.

The plane landed in Detroit, and Koenecke was ordered not to board the plane again, and was refunded the cost of his ticket to New York.

He fell asleep in the terminal, which was enough to seemingly clear his head. Awaking a short time later, he met William Mulqueeny, a charter pilot. Koenecke negotiated a charter flight to Buffalo, presumably to try to get a spot with the Bisons, where he found success in 1933.

They were joined on the flight by Irwin Davis, a friend on Mulqueen’s. According to the reports, Koenecke was sitting up front next to Mulqueeny, and began to act erratically. Several time he tried to wrest control of the aircraft, but Mulqueeny, who played football at the University of Detroit was able to keep control.

He ordered Koenecke to the back of the six-seat aircraft, where he got into a fight with Davis, who was of a smaller stature, and was easily overpowered. That was when Mulqueeny took matters into his own hands, and clocked Koenecke over the head with a fire extinguisher. Several times. Koenecke, the athlete, wasn’t going to be subdued that easily. According to Mulqueeny, he delivered “three or four good hits” for good measure to ensure the safety of the plane and its occupants.

The struggle lasted approximately fifteen minutes, and with the distraction, Mulqueeny had no idea where they were located. He struggled to locate an appropriate landing area, and found a racetrack near Toronto to land safely. When the emergency personnel arrived on the scene, Koenecke had expired.

Based on their statements, Mulqueeny and Davis were held by Canadian authorities and charged with involuntary manslaughter, pending a coroner’s inquest.

Both men were acquitted.

Koenecke was buried in the Mount Repose Cemetery in Friendship, Wisconsin.

But now onto the season at hand.

In the American League, there was only one 90 game winning team. The Tigers won 93 times, and bested the second place Yankees by three games. There was parity withing the league, as four teams finished above .500, and four teams were below.

The National League also had four teams both above and below .500, but there was more disparity. Three of their teams won 90 or more games. The Cubs won 100, the Cardinals 06, and the Giants 91. The Cubs won the pennant by four games. On the flip side, the Boston Braves lost 115 games, as mentioned above, while the Athletics pulled up the rear in the AL with 91 losses.

Looking at the top pitching teams, they are as follows:

National League	American League
Cubs	Yankees
Cardinals	Tigers
Pirates	Indians

The National League pitchers performed, as a whole, 13.14% better than the AL, statistically speaking.

As for the offense, the top teams were:

Cubs	Tigers
Pirates	Athletics
Cardinals	Yankees

The American League hitters outpaced the NL by 8.27%

The ‘power rankings’ for 1935 top five were:

Cubs	National League Champions
Tigers	World Series Champions
Cardinals	2^nd in National League
Pirates	4^th in National League
Yankees	2^nd in American League

Various odds and ends from around baseball in 1935:

The National League, back at a time when each league was run separately, decided to allow night games. Each team were allowed to schedule up to seven games. Any more games scheduled would result in a $15,000 fine for the hosting team, and all of the gate money would be confiscated.

On May 24^th, the Reds hosted the first night game in major league history, beating the Phillies 2-1. The lights were ceremoniously turned on remotely by President Franklin Roosevelt from the White House. It was more likely someone else throwing a switch at Crosley Field, with FDR getting the assist.

The Brooklyn Dodgers were the home to one of baseball’s most colorful characters, one Stanley George ‘Frenchy’ Bordagaray. In his first year with the Dodgers, Frenchy had a penchant for getting picked off of second base. Including once while he was standing on the bag.

During a game against the Cubs on August 14^th, Bordagaray reached second base. Manager, and first base coach Casey Stengel called time out to instruct Frenchy on strategy. With his penchant for getting picked off, Stengel instructed him to stand on the base until the ball was hit by the batter. Frenchy understood.

Well, you can imagine Stengel’s surprise when Cubs pitcher Larry French turned and threw to shortstop Billy Jurges, who tagged Bordagaray out. As Frenchy ran past Stengel to the dugout, the skipper asked what had happened, to which Frenchy replied, “I was standing on second just tapping my foot. I guess he tagged me between taps.”

Cardinal’s ace Dizzy Dean would win 28 games in 1935, following a 30-win season in 1934, giving him 58 wins in consecutive seasons, a number that has not been matched since.

The lowly Boston Braves may have finished even worse were it not for the slugging of Wally Berger. Berger led the National League with 130 runs batted in, becoming the first player to lead the league in that category for a last place team. He drove in an amazing 22.61% of the team’s total runs, a number that was matched by slugger Nate Colbert of the 1972 Padres.

Berger also led the league with 34 home runs, and batted a robust .295.

Cincinnati Reds catcher Ernie Lombardi hit four consecutive doubles in a 15-4 over the Phillies on May 8^th.

Jo Jo Moore of the Giants was the first to amass 200 hits in a season, but not bat over .300 for the season. It has been done nine times since.

Hal Trosky of the Indians became the third player in American League history to drive in 100 runs or more in their first two seasons in the league.

Teammate Joe Vosmik hit 20 triples, the second time it was done in the AL since 1930. That has only been done nine times since, most recently by both Curtis Granderson and Jimmy Rollins in 2007.

Vosmik led the AL in both doubles and triples, which was the fifth time in AL history, but oddly enough, the first time that it was not done by a Tigers player.

Vosmik batted .3484 to finish second to Buddy Myers of Washington, who batted .3490, the closest margin between the top two hitters in AL history. (Since bettered in 1945}

On July 26^th, in a game against Washington, Yankees hitter Jesse Hill lined a pitch that struck Washington pitcher Ed Linke’s forehead, and ricocheted straight back to the catcher Jack Redmond, who caught the ball and threw it to second base to get the out on Ben Chapman, who was doubled off. The Nationals would win the game 9-3, but Linke would not be the winning pitcher, as he left the game in the 3^rd, and would spend two days in the hospital with his injury.

Not to be outdone, on September 7^th, at a game against the Indians, the Red Sox had the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth, and Oral Hildebrand on the mound. Future Hall of Famer Joe Cronin came to the plate and hit a line drive to third base, which struck third baseman Odell Hale in the head and it ricocheted to shortstop Billy Knickerbocker, who caught it on the fly. Billy threw it to second baseman Roy Hughes, who stepped on second, beating the runner back, and then threw to Hal Trosky at first, beating that runner back. A game ending triple play, giving the Indians a 5-3 victory

Pirate’s shortstop Arky Vaughn set the record for the highest batting average for a National League shortstop with his league leading .385. In 499 at bats, Vaughn struck out just 18 times. The 18 strikeout was the ninth lowest strikeout total for the league batting leader. As a comparison, the 2025 National League batting champion, Trea Turner struck out 107 times in 589 at bats, finishing at .304.

Vaughn also homered 19 times. There were two others who had less strikeouts than homers. Bill Dickey of the Yankees homered 14 times, and struck out 11. And Ernie Lombardi had 12 homers, but only 4 strikeouts.

Again, compared to 2025, Cal Raleigh led the American League with 60 homers, struck out 188 times. Kyle Schwarber of the Phillies led the NL with 56 homers, striking out 197 times.

Further comparison shows that in 1935; Dizzy Dean led the majors in strikeouts a s a pitcher. He struck out 190 batters, 7 less than the amount Schwarber struck out by himself.

Today’s game is vastly different.

Pirate teammate Lloyd Waner made 18 putouts in centerfield in a double header on June 26^th against the Braves.

Cubs second-baseman Billy Herman established the National League record for that position with 57 doubles, a number that he would match in 1936. He also had 24 sacrifices in 1935.

The Cleveland Indians started the season by playing three consecutive extra innings games. The first two games went fourteen innings each, and then a thirteen-inning game, for a combined 41 innings in the first three games, where they were 2-1.

White Sox rookie Vern Kennedy became the second American League hurler to pitch a no hitter in his freshman season, besting Cleveland 5-0 on August 31^st.

1935 saw the third All-Star Game, held in Cleveland. Lefty Gomez of the Yankee started and pitched 6 innings, giving up 3 hits and 1 run before handing the ball to Mel Harder to finish up the AL 4-1 victory over the Senior Circuit.

On August 27^th, in the first game of a doubleheader against the White Sox, Yankees slugger goes 3 for 5 in a 130-10 Yankees win. In the second game, Gehrig walks five times, twice intentionally, in a 4-3 loss in the nightcap.

The St. Louis Browns drew 80,922 fans for the season, or an average of 1,051 fans per home game. The 1993 Colorado Rockies debut in Denver drew 80,227 fans to that one game.

In Detroit, where they celebrated their first World Series Championship, Herman Earl “Flea” Clifton would go a dismal 0 for 16 in the Series.

Goose Goslin would hit a walk off single in the bottom of the ninth, with two outs in the Sixth Game off of Cubs pitcher Larry French to cement the Tigers victory.

Detroit starters Tommy Bridges and Schoolboy Rowe were the top two in strikeouts, in the AL.

*As happens when I look things up to verify, I wind up down a rabbit hole and come across random tidbits. Here is this one: Tommy Bridges holds the record for the most career wins by a player from the University of Tennessee, 194.

Tigers Jo Jo White drew 5 walks in a game against the White Sox in a 5-4 Tigers win on April 18h, their first win of the season.

Hank Greenberg would bat just .167 in the Series, but his regular season was spectacular. He led the American League in runs batted in with 170, which was a record 51 more than the second-place finisher, Lou Gehrig. Hank averaged 1.12 runs batted in per game played.

For that performance, Greenberg became baseball’s first unanimous Most Valuable Award winner, as voted by the BBWAA.

So, let’s look at the top performers in each league, looking at the pitchers in the National League, where the pitchers performed 13.14% better than the American League hurlers, our top ten initial performances were:

Pitchers	Team	W-L	ERA	Svs
Cy Blanton	Pirates	18-13	2.58	1
Hal Schumacher	Giants	19-9	2.89	0
Dizzy Dean	Cardinals	28-12	3.04	5
Bill Lee	Cubs	20-6	2.96	1
Lon Warnecke	Cubs	20-13	3.06	4
Carl Hubbell	Giants	23-12	3.27	0
Bill Swift	Pirates	15-8	2.7	1
Larry French	Cubs	17-10	2.96	2
Paul Derringer	Reds	22-13	3.51	2
Charlie Root	Cubs	15-8	3.08	2

Then comparing them to their team’s performances, we get this list:

Syl Johnson	Phillies	10-8	3.56	6
Paul Derringer	Above
Bob Smith	Braves	8-18	3.94	5
Curt Davis	Phillies	16-14	3.66	2
Roy Mahaffey	Phillies	8-4	3.90	0
Hal Schumacher	Above
Watson Clark	Dodgers	13-8	3.30	0
Cy Blanton	Above
Van Lingle Mungo	Dodgers	16-10	3.65	4
Bucky Walters	Phillies	9-9	4.17	0

In analyzing and crunching the numbers, we get this finalized top ten National League pitchers list, along with their post season voting results. Remember, this was before the Cy Young Award, so the pitchers and the batters were combined.

As such, here is the list:

Cy Blanton	15^th in MVP vote (tied)
Hal Schumacher	No votes
Dizzy Dean	2^nd in MVP vote
Carl Hubbell	6^th in MVP vote (tied)
Paul Derringer	17^th in MVP vote (tied)
Bill Lee	24^th in MVP vote (tied)
Lon Warnecke	12^th in MVP vote
Bill Swift	No votes
Watson Clark	No votes
Larry French	No votes

Over in the American League, we have this initial top ten list:

Lefty Grove	Red Sox	20-12	2.70	1
Ted Lyons	White Sox	15-8	3.02	0
Red Ruffing	Yankees	16-11	3.12	0
Wes Ferrell	Red Sox	25-14	3.52	0
Mel Harder	Indians	22-11	3.29	2
Tommy Bridges	Tigers	21-10	3.51	1
Johnny Allen	Yankees	13-6	3.61	0
Johnny Broaca	Yankees	15-7	3.58	0
Schoolboy Rowe	Tigers	19-13	3.69	3
Willis Hudlin	Indians	15-11	3.69	5

And against their team’s performances, we get this list:

Ted Lyons	Above
Johnny Marcum	A’s	17-12	4.08	3
Lefty Grove	Above
Ivy Andrews	Browns	13-7	3.54	1
Vernon Wilshere	A’s	9-9	4.05	1
Earl Whitehill	Washington	14-13	4.29	0
Bobo Newsom	Washington	11-18	4.52	3
Mel Harder	Above
George Blaeholder	A’s	7-11	4.32	0
John Whitehead	White Sox	13-13	3.72	0

Combining and comparing brings us this overall top ten AL pitchers:

Ted Lyons	14^th in MVP vote
Lefty Grove	14^th in MVP vote
Wes Ferrell	2^nd in MVP vote
Mel Harder	22^nd in MVP vote (tied)
Red Ruffing	No votes
Tommy Bridges	11^th in MVP vote (tied)
Johnny Marcum	20^th in MVP vote
Johnny Allen	18^th in MVP vote
John Whitehead	19^th in MVP vote
Johnny Broaca	No votes

Switching gears to the batters, the American League hitters performed 8.27% better than the National Leaguers. The offense across the majors outpaced the pitchers, using a baseline number that was set by the actual mean numbers. The National League batters performed 14.97% better on average than the NL pitchers, while the American League batters fared 40.84% petter than their pitchers. This essentially shows that the offenses were definitely on display. This was evidenced by a combined .278 average.

Looking at the National League batters first, our initial top ten list is as such:

BATTER	TEAM	HR	RBI	AVG	RCG
Arky Vaughn	Pirates	19	99	.385	1.37
Gabby Hartnett	Cubs	13	91	.344	1.25
Joe Medwick	Cardinals	23	126	.353	1.53
Wally Berger	Braves	34	130	.295	1.25
Ripper Collins	Cardinals	23	122	.313	1.39
Mel Ott	Giants	31	114	.322	1.29
Hank Leiber	Giants	22	107	.331	1.27
Augie Galan	Cubs	12	76	.314	1.28
Billy Herman	Cubs	7	83	.341	1.23
Paul Waner	Pirates	11	78	.321	1.19

Then as compared to their team’s performances, we get this list:

Wally Berger	Above
Mel Ott	Above
Hank Leiber	Above
Arky Vaughn	Above
Joe Medwick	Above
Babe Herman	Reds	10	58	.335	1.00
Gabby Hartnett	Above
Johnny Moore	Phillies	19	93	.323	1.03
Ethan Allen	Phillies	8	63	.307	0.93
Ripper Collins	Above

So, combining and crunching brings us this top ten National League offensive players:

Wally Berger	6^th in MVP vote
Arky Vaughn	3^rd in MVP vote
Joe Medwick	5^th in MVP vote
Gabby Hartnett	National League MVP
Mel Ott	20^th in MVP vote
Ripper Collins	21^st in MVP vote (tied)
Hank Leiber	11^th in MVP vote
Augie Galan	9^th in MVP vote
Billy Herman	4^th in MVP vote
Paul Waner	24^th in MVP vote

Now to look at the American League, where the batters performed 8.27% better than their National League counterparts, our initial top ten performances were:

Hank Greenberg	Tigers	36	170	.328	1.66
Lou Gehrig	Yankees	30	120	.329	1.44
Jimmie Foxx	A’s	36	115	.346	1.34
Charlie Gehringer	Tigers	19	108	.330	1.41
Buddy Myer	Washington	5	100	.349	1.39
Mickey Cochrane	Tigers	5	46	.319	1.17
Pete Fox	Tigers	15	72	.321	1.32
Joe Vosmik	Indians	10	110	.349	1.27
Moose Solters	Browns	18	104	.330	1.30
Bob Johnson	A’s	28	109	.299	1.25

Solters spent time with the Red Sox and the Browns. He was traded from Boston for Oscar Melillo in late May. These statistics are from his time with the Browns, only, where he appeared in 127 games.

Now, the top performers as compared to their team’s averages, we get:

Jimmie Foxx	Above
Moose Solters	Above
Lou Gehrig	Above
Bob Johnson	Above
Hank Greenberg	Above
Joe Vosmik	Above
Zeke Bonura	White Sox	21	92	.295	1.29
Harland Clift	Browns	11	69	.295	1.16
Ed Coleman	Browns	17	71	.287	1.11
Buddy Myer	Above

And that brings us to the top overall American League performers:

Hank Greenberg	American League MVP
Lou Gehrig	5^th in MVP vote
Jimmie Foxx	11^th in MVP vote (tied)
Buddy Myer	4^th in MVP
Charlie Gehringer	6^th in MVP
Moose Solters	9^th in MVP (tied)
Joe Vosmik	3^rd in MVP
Mickey Cochrane	7^th in MVP
Bob Johnson	No votes
Zeke Bonura	15^th in MVP (tied)

As I stated earlier, this is in the BBWAA era of post season awards voting, but it predates the Rookie of the Year and Cy Young Award voting. So were I eligible, here are my top five votes for the post season Most Valuable Payer awards in each league, starting with the NL:

Wally Berger