Historic Photos: 1905 Philadelphia Athletics

The Philadelphia Athletics were one of the original American League franchises in 1901, with Connie Mack (center, with suit) as the manager.  Four years later, Mack led the A's to their first World Series appearance, where this photo was taken, at the New York Giants' Polo Grounds.  The A's lost 4-1, but Mack was just getting started - he would lead his team to five World Series championships during his unprecedented 50 years as their manager.  He finally retired after the 1950 season at the age of 87, and five years later the team moved to Kansas City, and later to Oakland.  Connie Mack died in 1956, having accumulated 3,731 managerial wins - nearly 1,000 more than second place John McGraw, who defeated Connie Mack in the 1905 World Series.

Player identification, courtesy of Boston Public Library:

Standing, left to right: George Hall. Athletics, George Bechtel, Athletics, William Craven, Athletics, Adrian "Baby" Anson, Athletics, Ezra Sutton, Athletics, John E. Clapp, Athletics, Jim White, Red Stockings, Al Spalding, Red Stockings, George Wright, Red Stockings, Cal McVey, Red Stockings, Harry Wright, Red Stockings. Seated: Weston Fisler, Athletics, David Force, Athletics, David Eggler, Athletics, Dick McBride, Athletics, Andy Leonard, Red Stockings, Jim O'Rourke, Red Stockings, Ross Barnes, Red Stockings, Harry C. Schafer, Red Stockings.

Photo courtesy of Boston Public Library.

Greatest Pitching Matchup Ever?

What are the chances of the two greatest pitchers in baseball history facing off in a game?  Probably not great, considering it would require two pitchers to have overlapping careers, play in the same league but on different teams, and have their rotation schedules coincide so that they end up starting against each other.  However, there just may have been three such games like that in baseball history.

It obviously depends on the answer to the highly subjective question of who the two greatest pitchers in baseball history are.  According to Bill James, it's Walter Johnson and Lefty Grove, and I tend to agree with him.  I won't get into all of the details as to why I think so in this post, but suffice to say they both have legitimate claims to being the two greatest ever.  And they started against each other three times in their careers.  So, I decided to take a look at what the outcomes were.

They played in the same league together for just three seasons: the last three of Johnson's career, and the first three of Grove's.   So, there are no intense pitcher's duels here, and likely the fans who saw the game didn't appreciate much about it.  Likely, all they saw it as was a washed-up veteran against a somewhat decent young player.  But in retrospect, these three games probably had the greatest pitching matchups in baseball history, when the whole of a pitcher's career is taken into account.

Game #1 - June 26, 1925, Shibe Park, Philadelphia.  Washington Senators 5, Philadelphia A's 3

This was the only one of the three games in which both starters pitched complete games.  Neither pitcher was amazing, but Johnson pitched well enough to earn the win, which at the time improved his record to 11-4.  Rookie Lefty Grove, on the other hand, gave up five runs and lost the game, lowering his record to 7-5.  However, he did strike out 7 batters, compared to none for Johnson.  Apparently it was a sign of things to come, because Grove ended up leading the league in strikeouts that year, and for the next six years after that.

Game #2 - September 7, 1925, Shibe Park, Philadelphia.  Washington Senators 2, Philadelphia A's 1

In a game that was played exactly 87 years ago yesterday, both Johnson and Grove pitched very well, but in the end it was Johnson again who earned the win.  Along the way, he gave up 9 hits but just one run, while Grove, who was taken out after 8 innings, gave up 8 hits and two runs.  It was definitely the best-pitched of any of the three games that they started against each other.

Game #3 - April 23, 1926, Shibe Park, Philadelphia. Washington Senators 9, Philadelphia A's 5

Johnson and Grove did not start against each other at all in 1927, so this was the last time they would do so.  For Grove, it would turn out to be his last chance to defeat the greatest pitcher in baseball history, but sadly for him he was unable to even record an out.  He gave up a hit, two walks, and four runs before being pulled from the game, while Johnson pitched another complete game to give him a 3-0 record against Lefty Grove.

1952 Cy Young Awards

1952 American League - Bobby Shantz, Philadelphia Athletics

24-7, 2.48 ERA, 152 K

This was a close call both for me and for the MVP voters in 1952, but I ended up agreeing with them and giving the Retroactive Cy Young Award to Shantz, who led the league in wins, winning percentage (.774), and WHIP (1.048).  New York's Allie Reynolds also had a great season, though.  He led the league in ERA (by nearly a half a run over third place Shantz) and strikeouts, but overall their ERA+ stats were pretty close, with Reynolds leading over Shantz 162 to 160.  This is because Reynolds had one distinct advantage; he didn't have to pitch against the 1952 Yankees.  Shantz did have to, and he excelled nonetheless.  The MVP voters agreed with me; he received 16 first place votes to Reynolds's 4, and the WAR figures agree as well; Shantz led all pitchers at 8.7, compared to Reynolds, who finished at 4.5, tied for fifth place.  Interestingly, to this day Shantz, at 5'6", remains the shortest player ever to win an MVP Award.  He is also the first living player who I have recognized with a Retroactive Cy Young Award; all of the winners before 1952 died before I started working on this blog.

1952 National League - Robin Roberts, Philadelphia Phillies

28-7, 2.59 ERA, 148 K

I don't know how Hank Sauer won the MVP Award over Roberts in 1952, but it was close; Robin Roberts finished second, although I would have to say he deserved it over Sauer or anyone else.  Roberts was a workhorse who pitched over 300 innings for six seasons in a row, including 1952, when he led the league with 330.0.  To put that into perspective, no pitcher has pitched 300 innings in a season since Steve Carlton in 1980.  For Roberts though, it was his second of five consecutive years of leading in innings pitched, and the first of four seasons in which he led in wins.  And he led in wins by a lot - his 28 wins were 10 more than the runner up.  He also had a decent ERA, which was good for third in the league, and he finished second in WHIP despite actually leading the league in hits allowed.  Overall, it was a great season for the future Hall of Famer, whose peak unfortunately occurred right before the Cy Young Award was instituted.

1933 Cy Young Awards

1933 American League - Lefty Grove, Philadelphia Athletics

24-8, 3.20 ERA, 114 K

It was Lefty Grove's last season in Philadelphia, and although it wasn't quite as dominant as some of his previous seasons were, Lefty Grove was still, for the sixth time in a row and seventh time overall, the best pitcher in the American League.  He led the league in wins, but finished a distant sixth in strikeouts, and fourth in ERA.  Still, the only people ahead of him in ERA were Mel Harder, Tommy Bridges, and Lefty Gomez.  None of them pitched as many innings as Grove, and both Harder and Bridges had mediocre win-loss records.  I only briefly considered Gomez, before realizing that his low ERA was a product of the fact that he didn't have to pitch to his own team, unlike Grove and the others.  In any case, his contemporaries agreed; he finished fifth in MVP voting, ahead of any other pitcher, and using the modern WAR statistic, which he led all pitchers in, it shows that the voters were justified in their choices.


1933 National League - Carl Hubbell, New York Giants

23-12, 1.66 ERA, 156 K

For the past few seasons, Hubbell had been one of the better pitchers in the league, but in 1933 there was no doubt that he was the best.  Along with finishing first in wins and ERA, he finished second in strikeouts, and first with 10(!) shutouts, 308.2 innings pitched, 0.982 WHIP, and an ERA+ of 195.  Overall, he had a season that would've been good in the Dead Ball Era, never mind in one of the greatest periods of offensive dominance in baseball history.  For his efforts, Hubbell received his first of two MVP Awards, and was selected to the first ever All-Star Game, (and first of nine) in which he pitched two shutout innings for the NL. 

1932 Cy Young Awards

1932 American League - Lefty Grove, Philadelphia Athletics

25-10, 2.84 ERA, 188 K

In 1932, Lefty Grove was a win and two strikeouts away from his third consecutive Triple Crown.  In any case, he was still the best pitcher in the league, for the fifth year in a row and sixth time in seven years.  He easily led the league in ERA, and was the only pitcher to finish the year under 3.00.  In addition, he finished second in wins, one behind the leader, and second in strikeouts, two behind the leader.  He also finished first in WHIP (1.193), shutouts (4), and WAR (8.5, nearly 2 wins above anyone else).  He also, for the second year in a row, started 30 games and pitched 27 complete games.  Both seasons, the 27 complete games led the league, and were a big reason why his win totals were so high despite not usually starting more than 30 games a year.

1932 National League - Lon Warneke, Chicago Cubs

22-6, 2.37 ERA, 106 K

This choice was as clear as it was unexpected; Warneke, who prior to 1932 had all of 65.2 innings of MLB experience, led in two thirds of the Triple Crown (wins and ERA), led all NL pitchers in WAR (7.2), ERA+ (160), and winning percentage (.786).  It was the first full season for 23 year old Warneke, who would go on to have a respectable pitching career with the Cubs and Cardinals.  He finished second in MVP voting, far above any other NL pitcher, and the following year, he was selected to his first of five All-Star games, and in the process hit the NL's first triple and scored their first run in All-Star history.

1931 Cy Young Awards

1931 American League - Lefty Grove, Philadelphia Athletics

31-4, 2.06 ERA, 175 K

It was the greatest season in the career of one of the greatest pitchers ever, and among the best pitching seasons of all time.  Along with winning the Triple Crown by a substantial margin in every category (9 more wins, 0.60 runs lower, and 23 more strikeouts than anyone else), he set career highs in both wins and ERA+.  He won more games (31) than he started (30), and his ERA of 2.06 was less than half the league average of 4.38.  Only two other pitchers since then have won 30 or more games: Dizzy Dean in 1934 and Denny McLain in 1968, and even then, McLain's accomplishment came in a season when hitting was at a post-1920 low point.  The league's .637 average OPS would've been low even by Dead Ball Era standards.  Grove, by way of contrast, pitched in a league with an average OPS of .740, which is roughly comparable to modern averages.  He didn't even have the advantage of starting more games than most modern pitchers; he started four fewer games than 2011 Cy Young Award winner Justin Verlander, who led the league with 24 wins.  So, even if Grove was somehow transported from 1931 to 2011, he would still probably put up similar numbers.  In any case, Grove also led the league with an .886 winning percentage, which is tied for 8th highest of all time, and he led in shutouts (4), WHIP (1.077), and WAR (9.4).  Overall, it was Grove's greatest season, and the fourth year in a row (and fifth in six years) that he was the best pitcher in the American League.


1931 National League - Bill Walker, New York Giants

16-9, 2.26 ERA, 121 K

What makes Lefty Grove's 31-win season even more impressive was the fact that in the National League, nobody even won 20 games.  The best NL pitcher was not nearly as clear cut as in the AL, but overall Walker had the best season, leading the league in ERA by a substantial margin, an ERA+ of 163, and WAR, at 5.3.  He also finished second in WHIP (1.153) and hits per 9 innings (7.972).  He did finish sixth in strikeouts and a distant ninth in wins, but overall I think ERA is a better judge of a pitcher's abilities than either of the other two Triple Crown categories, so I gave Walker the edge here.  This was the high point of Walker's career, which was above average but not spectacular.  He led the NL in ERA twice (1929 being the other year) but only once started more than 28 games in a season, and his career high in wins was just 17.  He made one All-Star appearance in his ten year career, in 1935, and retired after the following season.

1930 Cy Young Awards

1930 American League - Lefty Grove, Philadelphia Athletics

28-5, 2.54 ERA, 209 K

For the third year a row and fourth in five years, Lefty Grove is the best pitcher in the American League.  There was really little doubt about this one; he easily won the Triple Crown, and his ERA was over three quarters of a run better than anyone else, and he had an ERA+ of 185.  He also had the league's best winning percentage, at .848, and along with starting 32 games, he also pitcher 18 in relief, leading the league in both games pitched (50), and even saves (9), although it wasn't an official statistic in 1930.  Still, how many pitcher have ever won the "Quadruple Crown" (when you include saves)? Probably not many. Overall, it was another impressive year for Grove, but the best was yet to come for him.

1930 National League - Dazzy Vance, Brooklyn Robins

17-15, 2.61 ERA, 173 K

His win-loss record isn't terribly impressive, but Dazzy Vance, the 39 year old Hall of Famer and two-time Retroactive Cy Young Award winner was too good in 1930 to let that stand in his way.  His ERA was substantially better than the league average; it was 1.26 runs lower than anyone else, and 2.36 runs lower than the league average, which was an astronomical 4.97; even in the 1900s and early 2000s ERAs were rarely that high.  Vance also finished second in strikeouts, first in shutouts (4), WHIP (1.144), hits per 9 innings (8.385), ERA+ (189 to the runner-up's 125), and WAR (7.3).  Overall, not a bad season for a 39-year-old pitcher in one of the most hitter-dominated years in baseball history.

1929 Cy Young Awards

1929 American League - Lefty Grove, Philadelphia Athletics

20-6, 2.81 ERA, 170 K

For the third time in his five years in the majors, Lefty Grove has been the best pitcher in the league, and for the fifth time in five years he led the league in strikeouts.  He also led the league in ERA for the second time, and finished third in wins, 4 behind league-leading teammate George Earnshaw.  His ERA was probably the most impressive part of this season; he had an ERA+ of 151, and he was 0.25 runs lower than anyone else, despite also pitching the third-most innings.  He was the only pitcher in either league to finish with an ERA under 3.00, in a year when the league average was 4.24.  Although Grove's career ERA of 3.09 doesn't seem particularly impressive, especially compared to pitchers of the dead ball era like Mathewson and Alexander, it is important to note that Grove's career fell right in the middle of one of the greatest hitter-friendly eras in baseball history; probably second only to the 1990s-early 2000s steroid era, making what Grove did even that much more impressive.

1929 National League - Burleigh Grimes, Pittsburgh Pirates

17-7, 3.13 ERA, 62 K

It's been a while since we've heard from Burleigh Grimes; he won my Retroactive Cy Young Award in 1921, and didn't do much until 1928, when he was in contention for it, and this year, when he won it for the second time.  Even then, his stats don't exactly jump out as being particularly impressive; he just happened to have the best season out of a lot of mediocre ones in 1929.  Grimes finished second in ERA (although first in ERA+ at 154), although he was a distant seventh in wins, and eighth in WHIP (1.354), seventh in hits per 9 innings (9.477), and fifth in WAR (4.8).  Still, he was the best of a weak field, and even the MVP voters of his day agreed; he finished fourth overall, and first among pitchers.  Interestingly, Grimes is one of few Hall of Fame pitchers to win my NL Retroactive Cy Young Award in the past 12 seasons.  Only five awards have been won by Hall of Famers in the NL since 1918, but in the AL a future Hall of Famer has won every year.  Grimes has won two such awards, and even then his Hall of Fame credentials are questionable; he was featured in my Worst Pitchers in the Hall of Fame post as the sixth worst.
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1928 Cy Young Awards

1928 American League - Lefty Grove, Philadelphia Athletics

24-8, 2.58 ERA, 183 K

Lefty Grove won for the second time, without a whole lot of competition.  This time, he substantially improved his win-loss record, leading the league in wins, strikeouts, and finishing third in ERA.  He also finished second in WHIP (1.116), hits per 9 innings (7.842), ERA+ (155) and shutouts (4), and first in WAR (6.3).  Benefiting from a much improved lineup (they finished second in runs and batting average instead of second to last in 1926), Grove helped the A's win 98 games, and finished just 2.5 games behind the defending world champion Yankees.  Interestingly though, Grove did not even place in the MVP voting, behind five other AL pitchers, all of whom had ERAs substantially higher than his.

1928 National League - Dazzy Vance, Brooklyn Robins

22-10, 2.09 ERA, 200 K

It's been a long time since ERAs have been below 2.00, but Dazzy Vance came pretty close in 1928.  The 1924 winner was once again the best in the league, leading not just in ERA and ERA+ (192), but also in strikeouts, WHIP (1.063), hits per 9 innings (7.256), shutouts (4), and WAR (9.0).  Interestingly though, he only finished third among pitchers in MVP voting; apparently ERA was not particularly important to voters back then, who seemed to favor pitchers with higher win totals.  Still, Vance's 22 wins were third in the league, with the two leaders tied with 25.  It was also the seventh and last consecutive season that he led the league in strikeouts, the most of any NL pitcher.  Like Ray Kremer, the NL winner in the previous two seasons, Vance didn't play full-time in the majors until he was 31; he played just 11 games in the majors over the course of two seasons prior to that.  In the end, he won 197 games and was elected to the Hall of Fame, but it's interesting to speculate how much better his career could've been if he had played in the majors earlier.

1926 Cy Young Awards

1926 American League - Lefty Grove, Philadelphia Athletics

13-13, 2.51 ERA, 194 K

Like in 1925, the best pitcher in the league didn't exactly have the best win-loss record.  In this case, I gave Lefty Grove the award despite him having just 13 wins.  Like I said in the previous post for Dolf Luque's NL win, pitchers don't have a whole lot of control over wins and losses.  In Grove's case, he pitched for a team that finished second to last in runs scored and batting average.  It was only his second year in the majors, but it was already his second time leading the league in strikeouts (with 35 more than anyone else), and his first of many ERA titles.  It wasn't his best season, but he did lead the league in several other categories, including ERA+ (167) and hits per 9 innings (7.919), and he finished second in WHIP (1.271) and WAR (6.1).  The only other pitcher who really competed with Grove was Cleveland's George Uhle, who had more than twice as many wins.  Still, his ERA was a distant second to Grove's, and even their contemporaries agreed  Grove had a better season; Grove finished 8th in the MVP voting, and Uhle wasn't even in the top 26.  One pitcher did finish ahead of Grove in the voting; New York's Herb Pennock.  Pennock, however, had a mediocre 3.62 ERA and had the advantage of getting run support from players like Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Bob Meusel, and Tony Lazzeri.  In any case, it was the first of many great seasons for Grove.

1926 National League - Ray Kremer, Pittsburgh Pirates

20-6, 2.61 ERA, 74 K

I don't like to just use MVP voting as my basis for making a decision on who was the best pitcher in a given year, but it's sometimes helpful to not just look at the raw numbers but also to see how contemporary sportswriters viewed each pitcher's contributions and abilities.  In this case, both the raw numbers and the MVP voting point to Kremer, who led the league in ERA and tied for the lead in wins, and also finished third in MVP voting, as the highest-ranked pitcher.  Other than ERA+ (150) and winning percentage (.769), Kremer didn't lead in any other categories, but he finished second in WHIP (1.176), WAR (5.5), and fourth in shutouts (3).  If one thing can be held against him, it's that he only finished 10th in innings pitched, but the fact that he was able to lead the league in wins despite pitching fewer innings than 9 other pitchers says something about his abilities.  Along with that is the fact that the ERA runner-up, Charlie Root of the Cubs, finished 0.21 runs behind him, indicating that Kremer was definitely the best pitcher in the NL in 1926.

1909 Cy Young Awards

1909 American League - Harry Krause, Philadelphia Athletics

18-8, 1.39 ERA, 139 K

This was another year when there was no pitcher who stood out as being spectacular, but Harry Krause was probably the best.  Despite pitching only 213 innings, his ERA was substantially better than anyone else who pitched more innings.  It was his first full season in the majors, and not only did he lead the league in ERA - he pitched 7 shutouts in just 21 starts, meaning he pitched a shutout every third game he started.  He also had a league-leading 172 ERA+, and barely finished second with a 0.939 WHIP.  Despite the successful season though, he would spend only two more full seasons in the majors, before spending the last 18 years of his professional baseball career in the minors, without ever being called up again.

1909 National League - Christy Mathewson, New York Giants

25-6, 1.14 ERA, 149 K

Both 1906 winner Mordecai Brown and three-time winner Christy Mathewson had impressive 1909 seasons, but although it was close, Mathewson was better.  Along with a league-leading 1.14 ERA (5th lowest all time), Mathewson finished second in wins (behind Brown's 27), first in win-loss percentage (.806), ERA+ (222), and WHIP (0.828).  Both his ERA and win-loss percentage were career bests for him.  Perhaps the only unusual statistic is his 6th place 149 strikeouts, after having led the league in that category five of the previous six seasons.  He did, however, lead the league in strikeout to walk ratio (4.14) for the third time in a row; he would go on to lead that category in 8 consecutive seasons.

1905 Cy Young Awards

1905 American League - Rube Waddell, Philadelphia Athletics

27-10, 1.48 ERA, 287 K

Not much doubt about this one; after several years of being one of the best pitchers in the game, the future Hall of Famer easily won the Triple Crown, leading by 3 wins, nearly a third of a run in ERA, and 77 strikeouts.  He also had an ERA+ of 179, and a WAR of 8.8, and it was the fourth year in a row that he led the league in strikeouts.  He would go on to lead the league in strikeouts for the next two years, but would be out of the majors by age 33, largely because of alcohol problems.  He was known to have a bit of an erratic personality; he was known to (no joke) get distracted while pitching by puppies and shiny objects, and he would often run out of the dugout to chase after passing fire trucks.  Also, during a time period when most MLB players would return to work on the family farm in the offseason, Rube Waddell wrestled alligators, something that I'm sure most professional sports contracts forbid nowadays.  In any case though, he was certainly one of the best pitchers of the decade, and definitely the AL's best of 1905.


1905 National League - Christy Mathewson, New York Giants

31-9, 1.28 ERA, 206 K

This season was a relatively uncommon double Triple Crown season, with a pitcher in each league winning it.  In the NL, it was 1903 retroactive Cy Young Award winner Christy Mathewson.  As I mentioned in the 1904 post, ERAs were lower across the board in the early 20th century, but Mathewson's was incredibly low even by those standards.  His ERA+ of 230 remains the 11th-highest of all time, and the closest comparable modern-day season in terms of ERA+ would be Dwight Gooden's 1985 season, when he had an ERA of 1.53 and an ERA+ of 229.  In the end though, Mathewson's 1905 season was only one of his greatest; that's how good of a pitcher he was.  Along with winning 31 games, having an ERA of 1.28, and striking out 206 batters, he also pitched 8 shutouts, had a WHIP of 0.933, and a WAR of 10.1.  Amazingly, although he led the league in all of those categories, none of them were career highs for Mathewson.