Welcome to the World Baseball League

[matttb324]

Assuming the Potomacs sign their #1 pick, Shoeless Joe Jackson, they may well have Eddie Collins, Tris Speaker and Joe Jackson in the heart of the order as soon as next year. The Potomacs had a good draft, picking up Larry Gardner in Round 2 and catcher Tommy Clarke in Round 3. Eddie Collins is leading the majors with a .361 average at age 20.



"An Ivy League graduate, Collins was one of the smartest players of his day, and he knew it. Saddled with the nickname “Cocky” from early in his career, Collins drew the resentment of teammates for his self-confidence and good breeding that at times seemed as though it belonged more in a ballroom than a baseball clubhouse."

[matttb324]

The Washington Potomacs have been a pretty dismal franchise and they proved that again by not signing their #1 pick Joe Jackson. Shoeless Joe has chosen to go to college instead (I guess he's learned to read) and Washington will get a comp pick and have the top 2 picks if the current standings hold. They are currently tied with New York but have dropped 9 of 10. The future may still be bright but they are going to have to step up the management of the franchise.

Meanwhile, St. Louis in the West and Brooklyn in the East have both pulled away, which is going to set up a very interesting Fall Classic.

[matttb324]

The St. Louis Clydesdales set a new league record, winning 107 games. They will play Brooklyn in the Series as they try to win their third straight championship. What is amazing is that team still does not have a real superstar. The team had no MLB Hall of Famers in 1905 or 1906 when they won it all and their only Hall of Famer this year is Three Finger Brown who they acquired from NY and who did not start a game for the Clydesdales.



Brown has not had a great WBL career, only winning 20 games once, not making an All-Star team yet and going 78-81 overall.

From SABR: "Mordecai’s most familiar nickname was Three Finger, although he actually had four and a half fingers on his pitching hand. Because of childhood curiosity, Mordecai lost most of his right index finger in a piece of farming equipment. Not long after, he fell while chasing a rabbit and broke his other fingers. The result was a bent middle finger, a paralyzed little finger, and a stump where the index finger used to be."

[matttb324]

The Clydesdales have done it again. A 4-1 series win over Brooklyn. Hall of Fame count was Brooklyn 6, St. Louis 1 but the Clydesdales are just better as a unit. The MVP was Ed Summers who was also the 1906 World Series MVP.


Summer has had a much better WBL World Series than he did in MLB:
SABR: "Summers shares the ignominious record of most losses by a winless World Series pitcher, with an 0-4 record. Yet, before losing two games to the Cubs in the 1908 Series, Summers’s rookie contributions were critical to Detroit holding off the pack in a sensational pennant race. Again in 1909, his two losses to the Pirates followed a fine season at the core of the Tigers’ rotation. Detroit’s dominance ended with the decade, and Summers’s career went into a rapid injury-fueled decline."

[matttb324]

It's 1908 so who is leading the WBL in hitting. Fred Merkle, naturally. Not only that, perhaps the second of the three most famous goats of all-time (Bill Buckner isn't quite in the league yet) is #2 in batting average, Fred Snodgrass. They both play for the Detroit Pinstripes, who are 9-19 even with the solid play of the rookies.



More on Snodgrass from SABR: "Despite his solid contributions to three pennant-winning clubs, the tenacious center fielder will forever be remembered for his infamous “muff” in the final game of the 1912 World Series. “Hardly a day in my life, hardly an hour, that in some manner or other the dropping of that fly doesn’t come up, even after 30 years,” Snodgrass said in a 1940 interview. “On the street, in my store, at my home . . . it’s all the same. They might choke up before they ask me and they hesitate — but they always ask.” Even death didn’t spare Snodgrass; his 1974 obituary in the New York Times was headlined “Fred Snodgrass, 86, Dead; Ball Player Muffed 1912 Fly.”

[matttb324]

Rube Waddell has had one of the best careers of any WBL player. But he is on a very bad Boston Battalions team in the process or rebuilding and he currently leads the league in losses despite a good ERA. The Boston pitcher has 2 Ace Awards and has made 5 All-Star teams.

Chief Bender continues to have an amazing career as well. At 24, he has made 5 All-Star teams, has 3 Ace Awards, a Rookie of the Year and a Championship for Brooklyn. The Red Devils are lacking offense this year though so he is only 13-9 despite a 1.74 ERA.

Finally, Cy Young is still looking for win #400. Not sure if he will get there though. The 41 year-old has bounced around and is now with Philadelphia. He is 4-11, 2.69 and in the bullpen. His contract is up at the end of the year and he is stuck on 383.

[matttb324]

After failing to sign Joe Jackson in 1907, Shoeless Joe went to college and then reappeared this year, where the Highrisers grabbed him #1. Jackson will join Honus Wagner in the heart of the order. Washington had picks #2 and #3 after losing Jackson. With those choices they picked Ray Collins and the very talented Vean Gregg for some badly needed pitching. Washington is already above .500 this season in their massive rebuild. Cambridge made a nice pick at #10 to get Max Carey.



Vean Gregg from SABR: "An obvious candidate for organized professional baseball, Gregg delayed pursuing it because he felt he could earn more money plastering during the week and pitching for $25 a game on weekends. “I did not go into professional baseball any sooner because I could make more money outside than I could inside,” Gregg later explained. “In my semi-pro days I played baseball all over Washington, Montana and Idaho. On these barn-storming tours a player can often make more money than he could as a member of a regular league.”

[matttb324]

St. Louis and Baltimore have small leads heading into September. The WBL has not had many close pennant races so far in its history. Could see one this year though as both first-place teams have been a bit lucky so far. Run differential suggests that St. Louis will have to work hard to get to a 4th straight World Series. Then again, Walter Johnson has been out for Chicago and Buffalo definitely seems like a vulnerable rotation.

[matttb324]

There must be something about 1908. This was MLB's wackiest season in a generation or more and what a season for the WBL. Both leagues end in ties as unlikely Buffalo catches Baltimore at the wire to force a one-game playoff while the Chicago Midways do the same to 3-time champion St. Louis.



St. Louis and Baltimore prevail in tne tie-breakers and head to the Series with the Clydesdales looking to win 4 in a row.

[matttb324]

After 3 straight world championships, the St. Louis Clydesdales fell to the Baltimore Blue Crabs 4 games to 1 in the 1908 World Series. It was a difficult road for Baltimore who had to beat surging Buffalo in the Eastern League in a one-game playoff to get there.Jack Lelivelt, who had a big season for the Crabs, was the Series MVP.



I was not familiar with Lelivelt before this season but SABR says: "In a career that spanned from 1906 to 1940, Jack Lelivelt was one of the great hitters and managers of minor-league baseball. As a hitter, he had more than 3,000 hits and averaged .328 over 20 seasons, including six seasons in the American League. His major-league career was curtailed by leg injuries. As a manager, Lelivelt compiled a .564 winning percentage in 20 minor-league seasons. He managed the 1934 Los Angeles Angels, considered “the best minor-league team ever”

[matttb324]

The MVPs for '08 were a couple of the all-time greats. In the Eastern League, Eddie Collins won his second in a row on a non-contending Washington team. Ty Cobb now has 3 MVPs and just two All-Star appearances after almost leading Chicago to the World Series.

[matttb324]

A couple of big retirements took place at the end of '08. Cy Young has hung them up. He did not have as productive a 1901-1908 as in the MLB and winds up with 388 wins rather than 511. He had a couple injury-plagued years as well as playing for some poor teams.

Ed Delahanty finishes with 3410 hits and quite an impressive career, answering the question of what might have happened had he not fell into Niagara Falls. Big Ed also had that amazing 40 game hitting streak which could stand for some time. He was the center of an offensive attack that landed Cleveland in three World Series.




More on Cy in his 40s: "As it turned out, Boston, not to mention the rest of the American League, got much more than it could have expected. He demonstrated that he was far from washed up.

During his eight years with the Americans (later called the Red Sox), Young won 192 games, becoming the first major-league hurler to pitch effectively into his 40s.In 1901, his first season with the Americans, one can argue that he had the advantage of facing competition watered down by the sudden addition of eight new major-league teams. Nonetheless, Young enjoyed one of the greatest pitching seasons in baseball history."

[matttb324]

Cleveland has an enormous payroll this year...$97K while the second-place club, Brooklyn, is at just 63K. It is not paying off. Cleveland is off to a 9-18 start and is last in baseball. They have a lot of money tied up in Sam Crawford and Nap Lajoie but what is really fattening the payroll are big contracts to aging players like Dan McGann, Jimmy Barrett and Freddy Parent.



Jimmy Barrett is a 2-time all-star but at 34 he is not the player he once was.
Interesting note from SABR; "Under the new 154-game schedule, Detroit played ten ties, of which eight were replayed for a total of 162 games. Barrett played every single game, establishing a major league record that would remain out of reach until the season expanded to 162 games in 1961."

[matttb324]

After seven straight last or second-to-last finishes, the Pinstripes may be on to something. They are in 2nd place and 3.5 back of Chicago. They probably aren't ready quite yet but with Josh Devore, Fred Snodgrass, Fred Merkle, Red Murray and Jimmy Dygert, they have some good young talent. Plus they have the #1 pick in the draft and Pete Alexander is available.




A story about Josh Devore from SABR: "One day, after Devore struck out twice against Sallee, McGraw said, “That fellow hasn’t got speed enough to bend a pane of glass at home plate. … Go up there next time and get hit and see if he can hurt you. If you don’t get hit you’re fined $10.”

Josh responded to the $10 incentive by getting hit. He trotted to first base smiling. “What’d I say?” asked McGraw from the coaching box. “Could he hurt you?”

“Say,” Josh said, “I’d hire out to let them pitch baseballs at me if none of them could throw harder than that guy.”3 Devore batted with much more confidence after that, so much so that McGraw began playing him against both righties and lefties."

[matttb324]

It seems almost sure that the Baltimore Blue Crabs will be defending their 1908 championship against up and coming Chicago. After last year's incredible double tie-break pennant races, both leaders appear to have iced their titles in July. Chicago is a team of two stars really- Cobb and Walter Johnson, while Balimore has a noteable player at almost every position and pitcher slot - Ed Walsh, Eddie Plank, Hooks Wiltse, Konetchy, Tinker, Zack Wheat, Heinie Zimmerman, Hans Lobert, Tommy Leach, Danny Murphy. They are a very good club.



Detroit did indeed take Grover Cleveland Alexander #1 and are putting together an impressive collection of young stars, assuming they can sign him.

Ed Konetchy proves this was truly the days of nicknames: "Variously called the Candy Kid, the LaCrosse Lulu, the Big Bohemian, and even Edward the Mighty—but known in boxscores simply as “Koney”—Ed Konetchy led his league’s first basemen in fielding eight times and batted .281 in 2,085 games."

[matttb324]

Barry Bonds won 7 MVPs in the MLB. It will be interesting to see how many Cobb wins in the WBL. In 1909, Cobb is 22 years old and he has already won the MVP in 1905, 1907 and 1908. This year his team is leading the Western League by a wide margin and he has a big lead in the batting race and in WAR. He could well be headed into his 23 year-old season with 4 MVPs already.

[matttb324]

The Boston Battalions are suffering through another .500 season with a number of aging players in the lineup. However, the 1909 Draft did produce two new outfielders who could really help team soon. They took Bobby Veach with the #2 pick in the first round and Casey Stengel with the #2 pick in the second round.



From SABR: "Despite his small size, Veach swung the bat like a powerful slugger, down at the end of the handle, and with similar results. “Years ago I choked up on the bat,” Veach later explained to F.C. Lane. “Choking up has the effect of shortening the bat and it seemed reasonable to suppose that the shorter the bat the more quickly you could swing to meet the ball. In theory this was sound, but in practice I found it wouldn’t work. Most of the really good hitters swing from the handle of the bat.” A free swinger with a long, beautiful stroke, Veach put his shoulders, and not just his wrists and arms, into each of his swings."

[matttb324]

The Baltimore Blue Crabs have set a new standard, winning 108 regular season games - a WBL record. As would follow I guess, their starting pitchers have accomplished something that seems unlikely to be broken. Ed Walsh won 30 games, Eddie Plank 27 and Hooks Wiltse 26. Not bad. They take on Chicago who won 100 games and cruised in with a 17 game lead. Walter Johnson (1.49 ERA) and Ty Cobb (.356) should put up a good fight against Baltimore.



Apparently Eddie Plank would have had a little trouble with the new pitch clock. "Eddie Plank fidgeted. On every pitch, Plank went through a seemingly endless ritual: Get the sign from his catcher, fix his cap just so, readjust his shirt and sleeve, hitch up his pants, ask for a new ball, rub it up, stare at a base runner if there was one, look back at his catcher, ask for a new sign and start the process all over again. As if that wasn’t enough, from the seventh inning on, he would begin to talk to himself and the ball out loud: “Nine to go, eight to go . . .” and so on until he had retired the last batter. Frustrated hitters would swing at anything just to have something to do. His fielders would grow antsy. Fans, not wanting to be late for supper, would stay away when he was pitching. Writers, fearful of missing deadlines, roasted him."

[matttb324]

Baltimore won 108 regular season games but in the World Series, Chicago looked like the better team - other than Game 3 when they made 7 errors. Otherwise, the Midways dominated. Ty Cobb hit .333 and Walter Johnson won 2 games but it was 2B Dick Egan who took the MVP, going 10 for 20 in the Series.

[matttb324]

A lot of moves made in the offseason including Chicago signing free agent Christy Matthewson. Big Six will join the Big Train at the top of the World Champion's rotation. That could be a very good team in 1910. Baltimore lost Eddie Plank and Hooks Wiltse from their rotation but were able to trade for Boston's Rube Waddell and Philly's Nap Rucker.