[Ragin Cajun]

The American League has continued to dominate the early going of the leagues history, claiming eleven World Series championships to only three for the National League. The focus of the AL world continues to lie in New York with the Brooklyn club (Superbas, Dodgers, Robins) winning 11 pennants out of 14 years, the Giants won two and the Cincinnati Reds finally broke the streak at 13 years by winning the NL pennant in 1923. The Robins did win two championships in 1918-19. The Yankees have won two championships, the Senators also have two rings but the Chicago White Sox have been the dominant franchise in baseball winning four championships in five tries; their sole losing series coming in 1919 against the Brooklyn Robins (1919 again for the Sox?).

American League Review
Ty Cobb has won eight Batter of the Year awards, his last coming in 1920.

Claude Hendrix has become the dominant pitcher of the era in the Al, winning his first Cy Young in 1915, and then winning the award three more times including back to back again in 1922-23.

Several rookies that won RoY honors that you may recognize are George Sisler (1915) and Frankie Frisch (1919).

National League Review
Tris Speaker would go on to win five straight Batter of the Year awards in the NL but Rogers Hornsby has been the most dominant player in baseball winning an amazing eight consecutive honors with that streak still intact.

Claude Hendrix has been around the league but no less dominant in the NL as he was in the AL. In addition to the four Cy Youngs he won in the AL, he won two more in the NL in 1919 and 1921 win Cincinnati giving him a total of six Cys.

Babe Ruth has been relegated to the minors as a pitcher. After going 38-52 in three seasons with Pittsburgh, we was traded to St. Louis (AL) in '21 and relegated to the minor leagues since that time. He has great potential as a hitter but has a ways to go to develop those skills to break into the major leagues as a position player.


Hall of Fame
The Hall opened it's doors after the 1920 season, and to date has welcomed it's first four members to baseball immortaility. All four are pitchers and the first Hall of Famer honor went to Addie Joss who retired with a career mark of 215-166. He won two Gold Glove awards, earned his 200th career win on 9/27/1919 before retiring after the 1920 season. Two players joined Joss after the 1921 season with Orval Overall (221-145) and Frank "Seagan" Lange (250-149) being inducted. The fourth member to grace the Hall was Chief Bender (224-206) who came in after the most recent season, 1923. Bender retired as the sixth winningest pitcher of all time, Lange was tops on the list when he left the game and is now third all time. Orvall is currently 9th all time and Joss has since fallen out of the top ten with the passing of time.


Earl Sheely became only the second player in major league history to record 7 hits in a single game when he went 7 for 7 this past season. The other player was Aaron Ward who also went 7 for 7 back in the 1919 season.

Bill Burns (Pitt) became the first pitcher to record a no hitter back in October 1914 against Cincinnati. Dave Davenport repeated the feat in 1915 for New York, against Burns' team, Pittsburgh. Bill Steen became only the third pitcher to twirl a no hitter and one upped the other two by recording a perfect game, allowing no walks and striking out three for Boston against Cincinnati.

Happy Felsch went on a 43 game hitting streak back in 1916 to set the standard for success at the plate and is, to date, the only player to hit in more than 40 straight games.

Two players eclipsed the .400 batting mark, and both did it in the 1919 season. Ty Cobb hit .426 and Harry Heilmann hit .403 that year. Heilmann also hit .398 in '23. Nobody else has come closer than Tris Speaker's .397 average in 1912 showing that .400 is a difficult plateau to scale.

Jack Tobin set the HR mark as the first man to belt 20 or more homers in the 1914 season. George Sisler did him one better in 1918 with 22 and that record would fall one more time to the current Home Run King, Rogers Hornsby, who smacked 23 in the 1921 season. Hornsby is also the career home run king with 132 home runs over his 8 year career. The closest to him is Heinie Zimmerman with 108. Sherry Magee is the only other batter to hit 100 or more and he finished his career with 101. Several players have a shot to join the 100 home run club next season, led by Frank Baker who has 99 and Jack Tobin with 98.

The single season record for wins is 28. Five pitchers have achieved this mark, most recently was Frank Lange and Claude Hendrix, both in 1916. Sam Frock is the winningest pitcher of all time with 275 wins through the '23 season. Claude Hendrix is right behind him with 261 wins in one less season.

Claude Hendrix is also the most dominant strikeout artist in baseball, with four of the top five single season marks including the #1 spot, with 239 K's in 1918. He also holds the career mark with 2,415, one of only two pitchers to eclipse 2,000 career strikeouts. The other is Sam Frock with 2,107.