1910: White Sox Postmortem

By the end of August 1910 the Chicago White Sox were out of pennant contention in the American League. Depending on exactly how many ties needed to be made up they were eliminated on 29 August or about a week later. When the season was over they finished 68-85, 35.5 games out of first.

You can’t say the Sox weren’t trying to fix the problem. Manager Hugh Duffy used 25 position players (and pitcher Doc White put in 14 games in the outfield), an AL leading number. The problem was that most of them weren’t all that great. Of the bench players who got into 20 or more games (12 of them), only five hit above .200. Harry Lord, who took over as shortstop after coming over in a trade, had the best year hitting .297 (20 points better than the next bench player), stealing 17 bases, and showing a .370 slugging percentage.

The starters weren’t any better. Outfielder Patsy Dougherty led the starters with a .248 batting average and 43 RBIs, while center fielder Paul Meloin led in slugging with .324. Second baseman Rollie Zeider stole 49 bases to go with 62 walks. The problem was that first baseman Chick Gandil (yes, that Chick Gandil), starting shortstop Lena Blackburn (of baseball mud fame), and right fielder Shano Collins all hit under the Mendoza line. Obviously it wasn’t much of a hitting team finishing last in average, slugging, and hits. There were a couple of hopeful signs. Only Dougherty was over 30 (33) and rookie Collins had 10 doubles and 10 stolen bases in only 62 hits.

The hope lay in the pitching staff. With all that weak hitting, the pitching was going to have to carry the team and some of it actually held up. Doc White still had a few wins in him going 15-13 with more innings pitched than hits allowed and more strikeouts than walks. Frank Lange pitched in 23 games, 15 of them starts. He managed 9-4 and also had more innings than hits and more strikeouts than walks. Then there was Hall of Famer Ed Walsh. Walsh went 18-20 over 46 games (36 of them starts and 33 of them complete games). In 370 innings (second in the league to Walter Johnson) he gave up only 242 hits. He walked 61 and struck out 258 men (again second to Johnson). He led the league with a 1.27 ERA. He was also only 29, so barring arm injuries he had a long career ahead of him at the end of 1910 (his injury came in 1913).

As a brief aside, stats like Walsh’s always fascinate me. He led the AL in ERA and had a losing record. That’s happened a few times. I remember Nolan Ryan doing it while at Houston. It shows how unrelated those two stats are even though they are frequently linked.

Unlike the Browns, there are a few promising things about the White Sox. Walsh is good, Collins looks promising, and Lord just might pan out (He went to third in 1911 and had a few good years). So it least there was a little something to build on in Chicago.

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Opening Day, 1910: Chicago (AL)

Ed Walsh

This is going to sound a little redundant, but Chicago was, like Boston, Philadelphia, and Detroit, one of the mainstays of the American League since its start. The White Stockings won the first AL pennant in 1901, then pulled off arguably the greatest World Series upset ever by knocking off the 1906 Chicago Cubs in six games. They remained close in both 1907 and 1908, but had dropped back to 20 games out in 1909. That set up wholesale changes in the team.

Out went the entire infield. In came four new players. Rookies Chick Gandil  and Rollie Zeider were now at first and second. Former bench player Billy Purtell took over third base, and another rookie, Lena Blackburn of baseball mud fame, was at short. Former starters Frank Isbell and Lee Tannehill were still around, but relegated to the bench.

The outfield was mostly new. Right fielder Patsy Dougherty remained. Newcomers were rookies Shano Collins and Pat Meloan at the other two spots. Collins was to remain until 1920.

The catcher remained Freddie Payne. Backups were Bruno Block and Billy Sullivan. Sullivan was the manager in 1909, replaced in the offseason by old-time outfielder Hugh Duffy. Sullivan stayed with the team the entire year, playing in 45 games. I’ve no idea how he and Duffy got along and if there was tension between them. If there was, no idea how it rubbed off on the rest of the team.

Little of the 1906 team remained among the hitters (only Sullivan, Isbell, and Dougherty), but the pitching staff was led by two veterans of the pennant winning team. Doc White (he was a practicing dentist in the offseason) was 11-9 in 1909, played 40 games in the outfield, and pinch hit. In 1910 he was expected to do better on the mound and keep up with the other aspects of his game (for 1910 he played 14 games in the outfield and hit .196). The other veteran was Hall of Famer Ed Walsh. He was 40-15 in 1908 and it took a toll on his arm. In 1909 he dropped to 15-11. He was still not fully recovered by 1910. Frank Smith and Jim Scott were holdovers from 1909 and Fred Olmstead, who had pitched n eight games the year before, became a starter.

The White Stockings were dropping fast in the standings. They moved to get younger, but it would take time for the rookies to become regulars. the pitching staff was a mixture of veterans and new guys and anchored by a man with a sore arm. Hugh Duffy would have his work cut out for him in 1910.

1908: That Other Race

The 1908 season is most famous for the National League pennant race and the Merkle Game. but there was a heck of a race in the American League too. Three teams were in contention on the last day.

After five months of solid baseball, the American League race came down to September and October. Detroit was in first place with St Louis (the Browns, not the Cardinals), Chicago, and Cleveland all bunched 2.5 games or less behind. By the 23rd, the date of the Merkle Game, St. Louis had fallen off, but the other 3 were still tightly bunched with Cleveland 2.5 games ahead. On the 25th, Detroit would begin a run that led to 10 consecutive wins against the A’s, Washington, and St. Louis. Then they dropped two in a row to the White Sox.

Meanwhile the ChiSox and Cleveland had kept pace. On 2 October they met each other in one of the finest pitching duels ever. White Sox pitcher Ed Walsh, on his way to a 40 win season, struck out 15 and gave up a single run. Addie Joss, the Naps hurler, was even better. He threw a perfect game.

By 6 October, the end of the regular season, Detroit was a half game up and played Chicago. They won 7-0 to put the Sox back 1.5 games. Cleveland beat St. Louis 5-1 to finish a half game back. Detroit ended the season 90-63, Cleveland 90-64, and Chicago 88-64. Only the Naps had played a complete schedule, both Chicago and Detroit losing a game to a rainout. Under the rules of the day, the  game didn’t have to be made up. So the Tigers went to the World Series and promptly lost in 5 games. The American League moved to change the rules requiring ties and rainouts be made up if they impacted the pennant. There is no record of the Naps’ asking “What took so long?”

On an individual basis, Walsh ended the season 40-15 over 66 games (49 of them starts) and led the league with 269 strikeouts and 7 saves (a stat not yet invented). Joss’ 1.16 ERA topped the league. In hitting Ty Cobb won the batting, slugging, hits, doubles, triples, and RBI titles, while outfield teammate Wahoo Sam Crawford took the home run crown (in 1909 Cobb would complete the Triple Crown). The other Tigers outfielder, Matty McIntyre, led the league in runs scored , making it one of the more productive outfields ever. Chicago’s Patsy Dougherty led in steals with 47.

Over the years the American League race has been obscured by the National League. That’s a great shame because it was equally sensational. There just wasn’t one game and one incident that turned the season quite so dramatically as Fred Merkle’s dash toward second.