SPECIAL EDITION 1908

Baseball 114 Years Ago

Readers, I am hoping you will take a look at this extra post and provide me with feedback in the form of a “like” or direct comment back to me, jim@baseballandamerica.com. Doing my research in preparing 7 Decades of Baseball Pennant Races I questioned the validity of the James Earl Jones quote from Field of Dreams, “The one constant through all the years, Ray,has been baseball”. So I took a look back to its earliest years and determined that, although all the peripheral events surrounding the game of baseball have changed - Yes James Earl Jones you are right. I offer as evidence a rough draft review of 1908. Please send feedback as I may wish to consider going further on my research to review the best baseball pennant races since 1903.

Thank you and tune in on Wednesday for the 1961 National League pennant race.

       1908 Final American League Standings  

Detroit Tigers                                90 -63                                                                     

Cleveland Naps                              90-64      1/2                                                                           

Chicago White Sox                        88-64      1 1/2

St. Louis Browns                           83-69      6 1/2

Boston Red Sox                             75-79     15 1/2

Philadelphia Athletics                  68-85     22

Washington Senators                    67-85     22 1/2

New York Highlanders                 51-103   39 ½

   

  Ty Cobb, Detroit Tigers

Twenty one year old Ty Cobb won the batting title, despite hitting his lowest batting average of his career as a regular, hitting .324. It would be the second of nine consecutive batting titles by the “Georgia Peach”. The Tigers needed every hit they could get to eke out winning the pennant on the last day of the season by a half of a game over the Cleveland Naps and the Chicago White Sox. The Tigers were helped by the cancellation of a rain out which if they had played and lost, the season would have ended in a tie.  The Naps pitching staff was led by 28 game winner Addie Joss who threw a perfect game on October 2 for a critical win. It was the second perfect game in the short history of the American League. Chicago stayed in contention because of pitcher Ed Walsh. Walsh won 40 games against 15 losses.

# 1 Detroit Tigers (90-63) Cobb not only led the league in batting average he also was number one in hits, RBIS (108), slugging average, doubles, triples and total bases. Not far behind Cobb’s totals was fellow outfielder Sam Crawford who led the AL leader in homeruns with,7, and batted .311. The Tigers got by with a mediocre pitching staff with the exception of Ed Summer’s 24 wins.

#2 Cleveland Naps (90-64) Ed Walsh carried this team. Not only with his miraculous 40 wins but also led the league in saves, shutouts, strikeouts (260), and winning percentage. He appeared in 66 games, started 48, completed 46,-and threw 484 innings. These were all statistics that were over the top even in this early era of baseball games in which pitching, defense and speed were more valuable than power. (HOF) Nap Lajoie was the team’s player manager.

#3 St Louis Browns (75-79) Even with the pitching of veteran, the wacky Rube Waddell, the team could not break even. Waddell won 19 games with a daunting 1.89 ERA in 243 innings pitched.

# 4 Boston Red Sox (75-79) The Boston Beanies became the Boston Red Sox, but failed to improve their baseball team. The anchor of the pitching staff was the great (HOF) CY Young who, even though 41 years of age,  was quite a pitcher picking up 21 wins and recording an ERA of 1.51 in 300 innings pitched. Cy threw his third career no hitter. Twenty year old (HOF) Tris Speaker made his debut in limited action.

#5 Philadelphia Athletics (68-85) The A’s took a step backwards. Having either won or challenged every year since 1901.  Connie Mack’s team could not keep up in 1908. No players stood out, although the addition of pitcher Chief Bender would pay big dividends in years to come.

# 6 Washington Senators (67-85)  Fans took notice of second year pitcher Walter Johnson.  “The Train” won a pedestrian 14 games but it was his speedball that caught everyone’s attention and what would get him into the Hall of Fame. The team set an undesirable record losing 26 games by shutouts.

# 8 New York Highlanders (53-103) No pitcher on this cellar dwelling teams won more games than they lost. The New Yorkers were an up and down team for the entire decade. As was the case for the Senators no pitcher won more than they lost and no hitter batted over .300.

.

             1908 Final  National League Standing

Chicago Cubs                               99-55

Pittsburgh Pirates                         98-56     1

New York Giants                         98-56     1

Philadelphia Phillies                    83-71     16

Cincinnati Reds                           73-81     25                    

Boston Doves                              63-91     35

Brooklyn Superbas                     53-101   46

St. Louis Cardinals                     49-105   50          

  

Christy Mathewson, NY Giants

This was the year that the infamous Fred Merkle incident took place that resulted in a season ending three way tie between the Cubs, Giants and the Pittsburgh Pirates. Giants reserve outfielder Merkle had been called out for not touching second base in a key game with the Cubs on September 25 resulting in erasing the winning run from crossing the plate. The playoff game left 80,000 standing room only fans heart - broken as they witnessed the playoff game loss at the Polo Grounds. For many years thereafter, when someone would make a mistake, it might be referred to as a “Merkle”. The Cubs were led that season by the fine defense of the fabled infield of shortstop Tinkers to second baseman Evers to first baseman Chance. Manager John McGraw’s Giants were in the race due to the strong right arm of Christy Mathewson) and his 37 victories. The Pirates stayed in the three way fight behind the bat of third baseman (HOF) Honus Wagner. Wagner, who had threatened to retire in March of that year, led the league in ten offensive categories.

#1 Chicago Cubs (99-55) The Cubs were built around speed, defense and pitching. They led the league in stolen bases, 212, and doubles. The pitching staff led the league in shutouts, strike outs and, due to their airtight defense, fewest hits allowed. In addition to their defense the duo of  Evers and  Chance stole 66 bases. Pitcher Ed Reulbach’s  24-7 won lost record was the highest  winning percent in the NL.

#2 (tie )New York Giants (98-56) Pretty boy (HOF) Christy Mathewson was unbeatable. Mathewson led the league in complete games (34), ERA (1.43), games (56), strikeouts (178), shutouts (11) and wins 37. Outfielder Mike Donlin challenged Honus Wagner for the batting title, hitting .334. Hard nose manager John McGraw never let up.

#2 (tie) Pittsburgh Pirates (98-56) The Pirates counted on the veteran third baseman Honus Wagner to carry the offense which he certainly did, leading the league in batting average,  doubles, hits, on base percentage, RBIs, slugging percentage, stolen bases, total bases and triples.  Wagner plus two 23 game winning pitchers, Nick Maddux and Vic Willis, allowed the Bucs to come that close.

# 4 Philadephia Phillies (83-71) The Phillies had nothing to back up a pitching staff that gave up the fewest homeruns in the NL and posted the lowest ERA, 2.11. There were no standouts on this team

# 5 Cincinnati Reds (73-81) Future New York Yankee manager Miller Huggins took over second base but batted a measly .238. The rest of the offense was not much better. The pitching staff was as meager as the offense.

#6 Boston Doves (63-91) A pitching staff with no pitcher winning more than losing and an offense whose leading hitter batted .273 was destined for failure.

#7 Brooklyn Superbas (53-101) First baseman Tim Jordan led the NL in homeruns with 12 but unfortunately his team leading batting average was a miserable .247. Like the Doves the Superbas had no pitchers with winning records.

#8 St Louis Cardinals (49-105) A team that wins less than 50 games has no highlights. Three of its starting hitters batted less than .200 and there was no help from the pitching staff.

                       World Series Chicago Cubs  (NL) 4 – Detroit Tigers (AL) 1

As was often the case of early baseball, pitching out did hitting. The Cubs pitching staff posted an ERA of under two while the Tigers pitched to over four. Only Cobb was a force for the Tigers batting .368. First baseman Frank Chance of the Cubs hit .421 and SS Tinker Evans .358.