Historic Photos: 1903 World Series

Taken at Boston's Huntington Avenue Grounds, this photo shows the two teams that competed in the first World Series: the Boston Americans and the Pittsburgh Pirates.  It was a best of 9 series, which Boston won in 8 games.

The players, according to the description provided by the Boston Public Library, are as follows:

The Pirates: (Top, left to right)- second baseman Claude Ritchey, catcher Harry Smith, catcher Eddie Phelps, outfielder Ginger Beaumont, pitcher Deacon Phillippe, pitcher Sam Leever, pitcher Bucky Veil, pitcher Gus Thompson, outfielder Tommy Leach, outfielder Jimmy Sebring, pitcher Brickyard Kennedy, catcher Fred Carisch and shortstop Honus Wagner. Middle: Pirate manager and outfielder Fred Clarke. Boston players: third baseman-manager Jimmie Collins, outfielder Chick Stahl, pitcher Bill Dineen, outfielder Buck Freeman, pitcher Cy Young, first baseman Candy LaChance, outfielder Patsy Dougherty, pitcher George Winter, catcher Duke Farrell, outfielder Jack O'Brien, pitcher Long Tom Hughes. Bottom: shortstop Fred Parent, catcher Lou Criger, second baseman Hobe Ferris.

Photo courtesy of the Boston Public Library

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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1927 Cy Young Awards

1927 American League - Waite Hoyt, New York Yankees

22-7, 2.63 ERA, 86 K

It only seems natural for a Yankees pitcher to win the award in 1927; the 1927 Yankees tend to be the benchmark for measuring any other team's greatness.  They are best known for their impressive lineup, but their pitchers also claimed the top three spots for ERA leaders.  The leader was rookie Wilcy Moore, who somehow managed a 19-7 record despite only starting 12 games.  His ERA was 0.35 runs lower than runner-up Hoyt, but Hoyt started almost three times as many games, and pitched more innings.  Hoyt also led the league in wins and winning percentage (.759), and finished third in WAR (5.6), WHIP (1.155), and tied for second in shutouts (3).  Of course, it could be said that Hoyt had the advantage of not having to pitch against his own team, which every other team in the league had to do, but it can't really be held against him either.


1927 National League - Ray Kremer, Pittsburgh Pirates

19-8, 2.47 ERA, 63 K

Probably the most surprising thing about the top pitchers in the NL in 1927 wasn't that Ray Kremer won for the second time in a row, but that the runner-up when I was looking at the stats was Grover Cleveland Alexander.  That's right, Grover Cleveland Alexander, who hadn't been anywhere near the top pitchers in the league since he won in 1920, was now, at the age of 40, back among the best in the league.  However, Kremer was better, leading in ERA and ERA+ (167), and finishing fourth in WHIP (1.142) and shutouts (3), and second in hits per 9 innings (8.164) and WAR (6.1).  Kremer also continues an unusual trend among winners of my NL Retroactive Cy Young Award; only three of the past ten seasons have been won by a Hall of Famer, with three non-Hall of Famers (Kremer, Dolf Luque, and Hippo Vaughn) each winning twice.  He pitched for ten seasons, all with Pittsburgh, but none of his other eight seasons were particularly noteworthy.  It may have been different for him had he reached the majors sooner though; he didn't play his first MLB season until he was 31, after 10 seasons in the minors.

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.

1922 Cy Young Awards

1922 American League - Red Faber, Chicago White Sox

21-17, 2.81 ERA, 148 K

Who would've imagined a time when the two best pitchers in the league would both be named Urban?  Faber (whose real first name was Urban) and St. Louis's amusingly-named Urban Shocker were the top two, with Faber getting a slight edge over the other Urban (to think he was only the second best pitcher in the league named Urban) because of his lower ERA.  In any case, it was the second year in a row that Faber led the league in ERA, although like I mentioned before, part of that had to do with the fact that he was allowed to throw the spitball.  One might argue that because of that, the other Urban should win the award instead, but he was grandfathered in as well, making it a moot point.  It's possible that it was an Urban thing to be allowed to throw the spitball, but Cleveland had an infielder later in the decade named Urban Hodapp, and by all accounts he was not permitted to throw the spitball, not that he would've tried.  And who knows, maybe if he had tried, they would've given him a pass because of his name.  But anyway, moving on from the topic of unusual first names, Faber finished first in WHIP (1.185), complete games (31), innings (352), and WAR(7.9), and second in strikeouts (one behind league-leading Urban Shocker), and shutouts (4).  He only finished fifth in wins, and had a mediocre 21-17 record, but much of that had to do with the fact that, following the Black Sox scandal, the White Sox quickly collapsed, and in 1922 finished fifth with a 77-77 record, and had the third lowest OPS in the league, as opposed to Urban Shocker's second place Browns, who led the league in OPS.


1922 National League - Wilbur Cooper, Pittsburgh Pirates

23-14, 3.18 ERA, 129 K

It was a pretty mediocre year in the NL for pitching - there was nobody who was particularly dominating, and the pitcher I chose as the best didn't lead the league in any category except WAR (6.0) complete games (27).  However, he was overall ranked higher in more statistics than anyone else; he finished second in wins, fourth in ERA, and second in strikeouts, and he was the only person to finish in the top 4 in all of those categories.  He also had the second most innings pitched (294.2) and the third most shutouts (4), although he finished a distant tenth in WHIP (1.327).  However, although he gave up more walks and hits than other pitchers, he was better at not letting them score than most of the rest; he had the fourth highest ERA+ at 129.  Such an ERA+ certainly doesn't indicate a particularly dominating season, but none of the three pitchers ahead of him came close to pitching as many innings; none of them even topped 200. 

1901 Cy Young Awards

1901 American League - Cy Young, Boston Americans

33-10, 1.62 ERA, 158 K

No doubt about this one.  In the American League's first year of existence, the newly-created Boston Americans (now the Red Sox) lured Cy Young from St. Louis for a $3,500 annual salary.  Prior to this season, Young had "only" been the best pitcher in the league twice, and not at all since 1895, so it almost appeared as though he was in decline.  However, as it turned out, his career was just reaching the halfway mark, and the best was yet to come.  In 1901, he led the league in almost every imaginable category, and in some he was untouchable.  He did not just win the Triple Crown; he dominated it.  His ERA was 0.80 runs better than the next pitcher (who pitched in over 150 fewer innings), he won 7 more games, and struck out 31 more batters than anyone else.  His career-high ERA+ of 217, which means his ERA was less than half that of the league average, is tied for the 20th best of all time.  In addition, he led the league in shutouts (5), WHIP (0.972), hits per 9 innings (7.853), walks per 9 innings (0.897), strikeout to walk ratio (4.270, more than twice that of anyone else in the league), and WAR, which at 11.2 was nearly twice that of the runner up, who had 5.9.  It was by far the best season of his career, but only the first of many great seasons with Boston.

1901 National League -  Deacon Phillippe, Pittsburgh Pirates

22-12, 2.22 ERA, 103 K

Unlike in the American League, there was no one pitcher who really stood out.  In fact, Phillippe didn't lead the league in any significant categories, but overall he finished closer to the top in more of the categories than anyone else.  He was the only pitcher to finish in the top 3 in ERA, wins, win-loss percentage, and WHIP, and although his strikeout totals were fairly low, his strikeout to walk ratio was still good enough for 4th in the league.  Interestingly, with Phillippe earning my retroactive Cy Young Award, he is the first non-Hall of Fame pitcher to do so in any league since George Haddock in 1891.