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End of Regular Season - 1910
BOTH PENNANT RACES COME DOWN TO THE WIRE
1910 shall live in the BaTTY annals as one of the most exciting finishes ever. Both the National and American league races came down to the very end, and the winners were NOT the teams which had led since the very beginning. The front-runners in the AL, the Boston Red Sox, won 96 games - an outstanding total - but the Cleveland Indians roared back into the race and finished with 97 wins to cop the flag. Over in the National League the Chicago Cubs, who had run second to the Brooklyn Superbas since the start of the season, finally caught the Brooklyns down the stretch and both teams finished the regular schedule with 92 wins, forcing a one-game playoff, a wild 8-7 contest won by the Cubs at West Side Park.
The World Series shapes up as a good one, with both teams proving they are powerhouses. This race was so close that the league could have held TWO World Series this year as both the Red Sox and Superbas had outstanding seasons which fell just a tiny bit short.
Fred Heimach, like his team, fell just short (of 30 wins) by winning 29 and posting the best BaTTY ERA with a 1.86 mark. Cleveland had two pitchers put up great seasons as Joaquin Andujar (28-12, 2.20) and Vic Aldridge (24-10, 2.59) led the Indians to the pennant. Cleveland also posted the batting champion with Dave Orr (.344). The National League champion Cubs boasted the league's top hitter Don Hurst (.354). Pittsburgh's Jim Scott copped the ERA crown with a flat 2.00 average and Philly's Shane Reynolds won 23 to lead the league in that category, one ahead of the Cubs' Warren Spahn and Brooklyn's 22-year-old ace Bobby Mitchell.
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