1905...debuts that
lasted more than a lifetime, and an unstoppable force
1905
brought back to us the post season championship series between the two leagues,
the World Series. After being canceled by the National League Champion New York
Giants the season before, the agreement was reached, and those same Giants then
faced the American League Champion Philadelphia Athletics.
The Giants,
led by ace pitcher Christy Mathewson were unchallenged in their pennant run. In
a sign of things to come, however, the Chicago Cubs did win fifteen of twenty
games towards the end of the season, foreshadowing their incredible 1906
performance.
Mathewson
won 31 games, as the Giants won by nine games over the Pittsburgh Pirates. The
Philadelphia A's beat the Chicago White Sox by two games.
The World
Series was unique, in that each of the five games were shutouts, and Christy
Mathewson pitched three of those shutouts himself, a record that still stands.
History was
also made by Bill Dahlen of the Giants, who was credited with the first steal
of home in a World Series game.
Bill Dahlen
Disappointment,
however, was felt by fans hoping to see the dream match up of two legends,
Mathewson and Rube Waddell of the A's. But Rube didn't pitch in the Series.
Conflicting reports as to why, and some of those reasons were very shady. While
no one knows exactly what transpired, the official story that was distributed
stated that during a train ride, Waddell 'didn't like' teammate Andy Coakley's
straw hat and tried to destroy it. Coakley didn't take kindly to his property
being destroyed by Rube, so the two wrestled over it. As a result, Waddell
injured his shoulder, and missed pitching in the Series.
There was a
story, however, that a group of gamblers from New York offered Rube $15,000 to
not play in the Series. Rube allegedly collected $500 and was swindled out of
the rest.
Rube Waddell
Amazingly, those
allegations were never investigated.
Whether it
was superior American League pitching, or weak hitting that was the cause, but
the American League pitchers were dominant over the league. The aforementioned
Rube Waddell allowed an average of just 6.3 hits per game, a record that would
stay until the 1968 season. Only three AL regulars batted over .300, with
Cleveland's Elmer Flick setting the pace with a .308 mark. That would be the
lowest batting average to win a batting title until Carl Yastrzemski's .301 in
1968.
Elmer Flick
Flick would
be the third straight time that a Cleveland player won the American League
batting title, joining Nap Lajoie, who won the previous two. (And there is a
dispute whether Lajoie won the title in 1902, or was it Ed Delahanty. Lajoie had
not garnered enough at bats to qualify for the title, but maybe he had. The
statistics are in dispute, so according to www.baseball-reference.com
Lajoie did win the title. But according to Major League Baseball and the
Baseball Hall of Fame credit Delahanty with the crown)
Regardless
of those facts, 1905 would be when the Cleveland ball-club would begin being
called the Naps (after Lajoie himself)
And in
Washington, the sportswriters voted to name their ball-club the Washington
Nationals, but the fans kept referring to them as the Senators, so that name
stuck.
But I am
getting ahead of myself a bit.
It is hard
to ignore Christy Mathewson's dominance over the National League.
He went
31-9 with a minuscule ERA of 1.28, and a runs allowed average of just 2.26. It
was the third of his three straight thirty-win seasons, and he won the
strikeout crown for the third straight season as well.
He won the
pitching triple crown for the first (of two) time in his career. (Rube Waddell
also won the triple crown, the only time that the pitching triple crown was won
in both leagues) His World Series performance was 'off the hook', as he pitched
the three shutouts, but also only allowed just thirteen hits and one walk to
the Athletics. He allowed just 4.7 base-runners per each game against the best
American League team.
Mathewson,
one of baseball early greats, was one of the original five inductees to the
Baseball Hall of Fame. He notched a whopping 373 career victories, a number
that was later tied by Grover Cleveland Alexander.
Mathewson
is the only pitcher to be ranked in the top ten in both career wins and career
Earned Run Average (taking the nineteenth century pitchers into account).
After
failing to win twenty games for the first time in thirteen years, Giants
skipper John McGraw agreed to trade Mathewson to Cincinnati prior to the 1916, where a
managing job awaited him.
He managed
the Reds for a part on 1916, all of 1917, and then a part of 1918. His managing
record was nowhere near as good as his pitching. He won just 164 games as
skipper, against 176 losses.
Christy was a graduate of
Bucknell University, where he served as the Class President. He excelled at
both baseball and football at Bucknell, and was named to the Walter Camp
All-American Football Team as a kicker in 1900.
As his big
league career progressed, Mathewson became a poster boy of sorts, for the
National Pastime. He wasn't a drinker, or a rowdy type. His collegiate
background and stalwart Christian upbringing and beliefs were a change from the
rowdy ragtag ballplayers that were stereotypical of the time. Mathewson refused
to play on Sundays.
Mathewson
also became one of baseball's more tragic figures.
After
volunteering to join the U.S. Army as a captain during World War I, in 1918. He
served alongside fellow baseball legend Ty Cobb and commanded by Major Branch
Rickey. Mathewson was accidentally gassed during a training exercise and
developed tuberculosis as a result. He was discharged from the Army within the
year and spent a good deal of time convalescing at a retreat in Lake Saranac,
New York.
Christy Mathewson
How lasting
an impact did he have?
- The Bucknell University
football stadium is named “Christy Mathewson Memorial Stadium”
- The baseball stadium at
Keystone College, in la Plume, Pennsylvania, is named Christy Mathewson
Field
- The second Saturday each
August is a recognized holiday in Factoryville, Pennsylvania, Christy's
birthplace. It is the Saturday closest to his actual birth date, which was
August 12, 1880. The celebrations include a parade from Keystone College
to Christy Mathewson Park, a chicken barbecue, and a 6K race,
commemorating Mathewson's nickname “The Big Six”
1905 also
marked the debut of three significant players, each for different impacts that
they had on the game on the field itself, and then looming larger in the
'culture of baseball', both in reality and in fiction.
Ty Cobb
debuted for the Tigers, and would go on to have an historical, illustrious
career as one of the greatest hitters, and one of the greatest players the game
has ever seen. The first player to amass four thousand hits, stories of his
style of play, and style of living, have punctuated many pages in the annals of
baseball history.
Cobb became
the first player to homer both before his twentieth birthday, and after his
fortieth. He also established a record by homering in twenty-four consecutive
seasons, since bested by Rickey Henderson.
I will
spare you those for now, but I will revisit them in a future post.
One debut
of seeming insignificance was that of outfielder Archibald Wright Graham, of
Fayetteville, North Carolina. “Moonlight” as he was called, came from a family
of ten children, all of whom were college educated. Archibald attended the
University of North Carolina. He then attended the University of Maryland,
where he completed his medical degree.
But he
played baseball through the outset. Signing with the Giants in May of 1905, he remained
on the bench until that fateful afternoon in Brooklyn. The Giants were the
visitors against the Superbas on June 29th, when Moonlight was
called on in the top of the ninth to pinch-hit for Giants outfielder George
Browne. Graham was on deck when the previous batter, Claude Elliott flied out.
Graham took
his position in the outfield for the bottom of the ninth, where he handled no
chances, and the game ended quietly.
He returned
to the Scranton Miners of the New York State League, and played a couple of
more seasons, never getting any closer to the big leagues again.
Archibald "Moonlight" Graham
In 1906, he
obtained his medical license, and began practicing in Chisholm, Minnesota,
where he remained until his death in 1965.
That
seemingly insignificant line in the Baseball Encyclopedia could easily be lost
like so many others, but somehow, it caught the eye of baseball novelist W. P.
Kinsella, who used Moonlight “Doc” Graham as a character in his wonderful book
“Shoeless Joe” which was the basis for the movie “Field of Dreams”.
Baseball
fans of a certain age now know all about Moonlight, and his exploits off the
field. He became the doctor for the Chisholm city schools; he would collect
used eyeglasses to distribute to the children of miners, free of charge; and
the community still awards two financial assistance grants each year to a
graduating senior at Chisholm High School, through the Graham Scholarship Fund,
which was established in his honor.
The third
of the ground breaking debuts happened with the St. Louis Browns, where catcher
Branch Rickey, of Flat, Ohio, went 0-3 in his only appearance in 1905. He would
go on to bat .239 over the span of 120 career games. He allowed thirteen stolen
bases in one game, a record that still stands. (he had injured his shoulder,
but there was no other catcher available for the game)
And, like
Christy Mathewson, he suffered from tuberculosis, although Rickey's was
pre-war, and not the result of a chemical exposure. He also convalesced at
Saranac Lake, at the Trudeau Sanitarium.
But off the
field...Rickey was a visionary, and a shrewd businessman.
Branch Rickey
He graduated from Ohio Wesleyan
University, where he played on the school team.
After his
unsuccessful foray into the major leagues, he returned to college, earning a
law degree from the University of Michigan. During his time there, Rickey also
coached the baseball team.
He returned
to major league baseball with the St. Louis Browns front office in 1913, then
joined the crosstown Cardinals in 1920. He managed the Cards for a few years,
initially acting as the team President as well, but he turned that job over to
the new owner, Sam Breadon.
Breadon
fired Rickey as manager in 1925, but recognized Rickey's keen eye for talent,
and kept him on to run the front office. He remained in St. Louis through the
19412 season, winning six National League pennants, and four World Series
titles.
He
developed the backbone of what is now the farm system that is in place today.
Of course, at the time Rickey began, there were sixty or so leagues that
Rickey's Cardinals had a stake in. He was the driving force behind the
Cardinals dominance in the National League, acquiring talent to build the
“Gashouse Gang” of the thirties, and into the early forties.
Rickey
moved to Brooklyn to become the General manager of the Dodgers, where his
innovations continued.
He
established “Dodgertown” in Vero Beach, Florida. This was the first full-time
Spring Training facility. He also championed the use of batting helmets (more
on this below), batting cages and pitching machines.
He was the
first to hire a full-time statistician for the Dodgers, and recognized that
on-base percentage was more telling of a player's value than batting average,
and that platooning players had significant merit.
He made
history with Jackie Robinson, but didn't stop there. Rickey quickly assembled
several prominent African-American ballplayers for the Dodgers. Roy Campanella,
Joe Black, Don Newcombe. And a Puerto Rican outfielder with a cannon for an arm
named Roberto Clemente.
The story
that I have heard was that the Dodgers knew what they had in Clemente, but
tried to hide him until they could clear a roster spot. A Pirates scout saw
Clemente during batting practice, and watched him unfurl that arm, and the
Pirates drafted Roberto as soon as they were able to.
After a
shakeup in the ownership of the Dodgers, when Rickey held a quarter share, he
sold his interest to Walter O'Malley and joined the Pittsburgh Pirates
organization.
While in
Pittsburgh, Rickey mandated that all the Pirates players wear fiberglass
helmets on the field, both at bat and on defense. Rickey was a partial owner of
the company that manufactured the helmets.
This
experiment lasted a few weeks, until the players decided that he heaviness of
the helmets felt awkward, which led to their abandonment. They would later
become mandatory headgear for all major league batters, as well as base coaches
over the next thirty years.
I remember
Ralph Kiner saying that Rickey loved his ballplayers, and he loved his money,
and he never wanted the two to meet. This was the result of an attempt by
Rickey to cut Kiner's salary after a last place finish, which Rickey told
Kiner, “We could've finished last without you”.
After the
Dodgers and Giants left New York for the West Coast, Rickey was very
instrumental in developing the “Continental League”, whose plan was to become a
third major league, and bring baseball back to New York, and introduce major
league baseball to some bigger cities across the country. Rickey acted as the
League President.
While that
league never did come to fruition, the mere threat of the league, and the
cunningness of Rickey and his conspirators, led to the first expansion of Major
League baseball beginning in 1961.
So the
three men who debuted in 1905 had three distinctly different impacts on the
game of baseball, in their own ways.
The 1905
season was the first time that both league's Earned Run Average leaders
garnered more than twenty-five wins each. It only happened one other time, in
1913.
The top
team pitching performances in each league were:
|
American
League |
National
League |
|
Chicago White
Sox |
New York Giants |
|
Philadelphia
Athletics |
Chicago Cubs |
|
Boston
Americans |
Pittsburgh
Pirates |
And the top
offensive teams were:
|
Philadelphia
Athletics |
New York Giants |
|
Chicago White
Sox |
Cincinnati Reds |
|
New York
Highlanders |
Philadelphia
Phillies |
And the
overall top five in team rankings were:
|
New York Giants |
World Series
Champions |
|
Chicago Cubs |
3rd
in National League |
|
Pittsburgh
Pirates |
2nd
in National league |
|
Philadelphia
Athletics |
American League
Champions |
|
Chicago White
Sox |
2nd
in American League |
But back to
the 1905 season, and the curiosities that occurred:
In
September, the Boston Braves and the Brooklyn Superbas met for the final series
of the season. It marked the first and only time that two teams with 100 losses
each faced each other in a game.
The Boston
Braves had four different twenty game losers, a feat which has also
never been duplicated. Vic Willis, Irv Young, Chick Fraser and Kaiser Wilhelm
(yes, that's really his name) were the
unlucky quartet. Willis established a record by losing twenty-nine games.
Irv Young
set a rookie record of seven shutouts, which has since broken by Russ Ford
(1910), Reb Russell (1915) and Fernando Valenzuela (1981).
In
Cincinnati, infielder Al Bridwell made his debut, and would establish a record
for the most consecutive at bats without hitting a home run. From 1905 through
April of 2013, Bridwell went 3,246 at bats before finally registering a
four-bagger.
His record
would be broken by Eddie Foster in 1923, and Tommy Thevenow in 1938.
Fred Odwell
of the Reds led the National League with nine home runs, while batting just
.241. That would be the lowest batting average by a home run leader until Gavvy
Cravath in 1918.
The next
Reds batter to lead the league in homers would be Ted Kluszewski in 1954.
Odwell
became the first player to lead a league in homers, and then never hit another
in his career.
Cy Seymour
became the first Red to lead the league in batting, hitting .377.
In Chicago,
Cubs outfielder Jack McCarthy threw 3 Pirates runners out at home plate, the
first fielder to do that in a game.
For the
Highlanders, stole 44 bases, which is the record for a player in his final
season.
First
baseman Hal Chase set the record for making 38 putouts in a double-header.
In St.
Louis, Browns pitcher Harry Howell became the first pitcher to lose twenty or
more games, but still have an ERA below 2.00.
For the Red
Sox, the team used just eighteen players during the season.
On July 4th,
Red Sox ace Cy Young and Athletics ace Rube Waddell met in the second game of a
doubleheader. The A's won the twenty inning affair, with both pitcher going the
distance for complete games.
Athletics
outfielder Topsy Hartsell est a record by drawing 121 walks, a record that
would stand until Babe Ruth walked 150 times in 1920.
Pirates
catcher Dave Brain became the first player to hit three triples in a game
twice.
1905 was
the only season between 1900 and 1912 where Pirates shortstop Honus
Wagner did not lead the National League in any offensive category.
He did
become one of the first two players to gather 100 Runs Batted In and 50 stolen
bases in the same season. Sam Mertes of the Giants was the other.
Speaking of
the World Champion Giants, it was Roger Bresnahan's first season as the full
time catcher. “The Duke of Tralee” would revolutionize the position in the
coming years, adding various pieces of protective apparel.
He also
caught the four World Series shutouts thrown by the Giants.
However,
Giants pitcher Red Ames did unfurl 30 Wild Pitches over the course of the
season, which is the record for the modern (1901-) era.
Giants
third baseman Art Devlin established a record for steals at that position with
59.
Now to the
statistics, we'll start with the American League pitchers, who held a 17.3%
advantage over their offensive counterparts.
Beginning
with the raw numbers, the top league performers, featuring Runs Allowed and
Earned Runs Allowed, were:
|
Pitcher |
Team |
W-L |
RA |
ERA |
|
Rube Waddell |
Athletics |
27-10 |
2.35 |
1.48 |
|
Nick Altrock |
White Sox |
23-12 |
2.54 |
1.88 |
|
Addie Joss |
Cleveland |
20-12 |
2.83 |
2.01 |
|
Doc White |
White Sox |
17-13 |
2.32 |
1.76 |
|
Eddie Plank |
Athletics |
24-12 |
2.93 |
2.26 |
|
Jesse Tannehill |
Boston |
22-9 |
3.01 |
2.48 |
|
Frank Owen |
White Sox |
21-13 |
2.75 |
2.10 |
|
Ed Killian |
Tigers |
23-14 |
3.10 |
2.27 |
|
Cy Young |
Boston |
18-19 |
2.78 |
1.82 |
|
Frank Smith |
White Sox |
19-13 |
2.99 |
2.18 |
Then
bringing up pitching performances against their team averages, we get this top
ten list:
|
Addie Joss |
Above |
|
|
|
|
Ed Killian |
Above |
|
|
|
|
Harry Howell |
Browns |
15-22 |
3.04 |
1.98 |
|
Jesse Tannehill |
Above |
|
|
|
|
Barney Pelty |
Browns |
14-14 |
3.69 |
2.75 |
|
Tom Hughes |
Senators |
17-20 |
3.49 |
2.35 |
|
Cy Young |
Above |
|
|
|
|
Rube Waddell |
Above |
|
|
|
|
Bill Donovan |
Tigers |
18-15 |
3.56 |
2.60 |
|
Bob Rhoads |
Cleveland |
16-9 |
3.68 |
2.83 |
|
Andy Coakley |
Athletics |
18-8 |
3.28 |
1.84 |
And then
our final overall ranking would be thus:
Rube Waddell
Nick Altrock
Addie Joss
Doc White
Eddie Plank
Cy Young
Ed Killian
Frank Owen
Jesse Tannehill
Andy Coakley
Looking,
then,at the National League pitchers, our initial raw numbers brings us this
list:
|
Christy
Mathewson |
Giants |
31-9 |
2.26 |
1.28 |
|
Bob Wicker |
Cubs |
13-6 |
2.33 |
2.02 |
|
Ed Reulbach |
Cubs |
18-14 |
2.19 |
1.42 |
|
Mordecai Brown |
Cubs |
18-12 |
3.22 |
2.17 |
|
Carl Lundgren |
Cubs |
13-5 |
3.08 |
2.23 |
|
Jake Weimer |
Cubs |
18-12 |
3.01 |
2.26 |
|
Deacon
Phillippe |
Pirates |
20-13 |
3.06 |
2.19 |
|
Sam Leever |
Pirates |
20-5 |
3.68 |
2.70 |
|
Red Ames |
Giants |
22-8 |
3.87 |
2.74 |
|
Hooks Wiltse |
Giants |
15-6 |
3.38 |
2.47 |
For the
record, while there are four Cubs pitchers listed, the Giants posted a better
overall pitching record, statistics wise.
|
Team |
W-L |
RA |
ERA |
BB |
|
Giants |
105-48 |
3.32 |
2.39 |
364 |
|
Cubs |
92-61 |
2.83 |
2.04 |
385 |
At first
glance, the Cubs look better, but the two differences are walks, which the
Giants allowed less of, and more importantly...wins. The formula I use places a
high emphasis on wins, since that's what the game is about...scoring more runs
on offense, while allowing less runs on defense, will result in more wins than
losses. And winning is the ultimate goal for any team.
As it
stands, the Giants were 2.17% higher than the Cubs performance wise.
If I remove
the Win factor, then the Cubs would be a better pitching team. How much so?
9.9% better. But they didn't win as many games. Not yet anyway. As I mentioned
earlier, the Cubs were on the verge of becoming dominant in the League for the
next couple of years. But for 1905, this is where they were.
And
speaking of team performances, this is the pitcher rankings against their
teams:
|
Doc Scanlan |
Brooklyn |
14-12 |
4.29 |
2.92 |
|
Irv Young |
Boston |
20-21 |
3.48 |
2.90 |
|
Bob Ewing |
Reds |
20-11 |
3.61 |
2.51 |
|
Buster Brown |
Cardinals |
8-11 |
4.03 |
2.97 |
|
Jack Taylor |
Cardinals |
15-21 |
4.51 |
3.44 |
|
Christy
Mathewson |
Above |
|
|
|
|
Jake Thielman |
Cardinals |
15-16 |
5.13 |
3.50 |
|
Bob Wicker |
Above |
|
|
|
|
Ed Reulbach |
Above |
|
|
|
|
Tully Sparks |
Phillies |
1411 |
2.98 |
2.18 |
The final
rankings in the National League would be:
Christy Mathewson
Ed Reulbach
Bob Wicker
Mordecai Brown
Jake Weimer
Carl Lundgren
Deacon Phillippe
Tully Sparks
Sam Leever
Red Ames
And on to
the hitting, where the National League batters bettered the American League by
10%, we start with this National League initial ranking:
|
Player |
Team |
HR |
RBI |
AVG |
RC/G |
SB |
|
Cy Seymour |
Reds |
8 |
121 |
.377 |
1.40 |
21 |
|
Honus Wagner |
Pirates |
6 |
101 |
.363 |
1.42 |
57 |
|
Frank Chance |
Cubs |
2 |
70 |
.316 |
1.36 |
38 |
|
Mike Donlin |
Giants |
7 |
80 |
.356 |
1.31 |
33 |
|
John Titus |
Phillies |
2 |
89 |
.308 |
1.27 |
11 |
|
Sherry Magee |
Phillies |
5 |
98 |
.299 |
1.25 |
48 |
|
Sam Mertes |
Giants |
5 |
108 |
.279 |
1.23 |
52 |
|
Dan McGann |
Giants |
5 |
75 |
.299 |
1.16 |
22 |
|
Roger Bresnahan
|
Giants |
0 |
46 |
.302 |
1.00 |
11 |
|
Shad Barry |
Cubs/Reds |
1 |
66 |
.304 |
1.09 |
21 |
And then
against the team averages, our list is then:
|
Frank Chance |
Above |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Honus Wagner |
Above |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Cy Seymour |
Above |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Mike Grady |
Cardinals |
4 |
41 |
.286 |
0.78 |
15 |
|
Homer Smoot |
Cardinals |
4 |
58 |
.311 |
0.91 |
21 |
|
Cozy Dolan |
Boston |
3 |
48 |
.275 |
0.79 |
12 |
|
Jim Delahanty |
Boston |
5 |
55 |
.258 |
0.80 |
12 |
|
Fred Tenney |
Boston |
0 |
28 |
.288 |
0.75 |
17 |
|
John Titus |
Above |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Ed Abbaticchio |
Boston |
3 |
41 |
.279 |
0.71 |
30 |
Which
brings our overall National League hitter ranking to this:
Honus Wagner
Cy Seymour
Frank Chance
Mike Donlin
John Titus
Sherry Magee
Sam Mertes
Dan McGann
Shad Barry
Roger Bresnahan
Over to the
American League, our initial list is as follows:
|
Harry Davis |
Athletics |
8 |
83 |
.285 |
1.12 |
36 |
|
Frank Isbell |
White Sox |
2 |
45 |
.296 |
1.04 |
15 |
|
Elmer Flick |
Cleveland |
4 |
64 |
.308 |
1.00 |
35 |
|
Charlie Hickman |
Tigers/Senators |
4 |
66 |
.267 |
0.89 |
6 |
|
Sam Crawford |
Tigers |
6 |
75 |
.297 |
0.92 |
32 |
|
Jiggs Donahue |
White Sox |
1 |
76 |
.287 |
0.98 |
32 |
|
Jimmy Callahan |
White Sox |
1 |
43 |
.272 |
0.96 |
26 |
|
Jimmy Collins |
Boston |
4 |
65 |
.276 |
0.97 |
18 |
|
Danny Murphy |
Athletics |
6 |
71 |
.277 |
0.90 |
23 |
|
Socks Seybold |
Athletics |
6 |
59 |
.274 |
0.88 |
5 |
Then
against their teams, our top performer list is:
|
Sam Crawford |
Above |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Elmer Flick |
Above |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Charlie Hickman |
Above |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Frank Isbell |
Above |
|
|
|
|
|
|
George Stone |
Browns |
7 |
52 |
.296 |
0.79 |
26 |
|
Harry Davis |
Above |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Bobby Wallace |
Browns |
1 |
59 |
.271 |
0.80 |
13 |
|
Jimmy Collins |
Above |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Jiggs Donahue |
Above |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Frank Huelsman |
Senators |
3 |
62 |
.271 |
0.88 |
11 |
Bringing
our top overall American League hitters to this list:
Elmer Flick
Frank Isbell
Harry Davis
Sam Crawford
Jiggs Donahue
Jimmy Collins
Jimmy Callahan
Charlie Hickman
Frank Huelsman
George Stone
Again,
since there was no post season award voting, I have free reign to bestow the
honors on whomever I feel deserving. As such, as in the previous season,
pitchers would have dominated the voting, and done so by far.
In the
American League, the Player of the Year would have been Addie Joss of
Cleveland, while teammate Elmer Flick would have been the offensive player,
should I have had to chose one.
Addie Joss
In the
National league, Christy Mathewson of the Giants was far and beyond the beast
player in the League, and in all of baseball for that matter. He would have
easily won the Player of the Year, while perennial favorite Honus Wagner would
have been the offensive player choice.
