BASEBALL MONTHLY
August 1886
Americans Surge; Grays and Browns in A Fight
The longest season in baseball history is drawing to a close as September begins. Once again two very diffrent stories have emerged in the pennant races, one team blows away it competition and two others head to the stretch without a single game to separate them.
The Boston Americans finally raced out of the shadows of their more traditional counterparts in the city. The Americans have all of New England delighted as they won 51 of 63 games in the second half of the season to easily win their first pennant. The Cleveland Blues never knew what hit them as the Americans just refused to lose and made the margin as large as ten games before clinching things out. The Americans were especially impressive on the road with a 48-13 record, the best such mark we have seen from any baseball club. Twenty three year old short stop Geramny Smith led the charge with 90 RBI and an imrpressive .323 average.
As has always been the custom, in the National League things couldnt be tighter. All season long the Browns and Greys have been flirting with the division lead and little have changed with five game remaining. The Grays of course are the defending world champions and are more of a veteran team that is a diffrent team at home (39-21) then they are on the road (31-30). The Browns have 5 pennants in their history but havent won in 5 years. Fans wondered about their fate after they traded Dave Orr out of town for power man Fred Pfeffer. Pfeffer was injured with a bad ankle sprain and will likely not be back this season, but the team has still hung in the race. Alot of close game wins have been the key for the Browns, they are 22-13 in one run games for the season.
So each team has 5 games left and are tied in the standings. Both teams will finish off the year at home with the Browns hosting Boston and the rays welcoming Chicago.
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White Stockings Suffer Worst Month
Injuries finally took their toll and a lack of depth could be contained no longer as the Chicago White Stockings suffered a 6-20 month and dropped to last place in the division.
With a makeshift infield the Whites just didnt have the defense to get through. Players playing out of position and 9 position players on the disabled list couldnt be overcome. On some games early in the month the Whites were worried they would be forced to forfeit matches because they had a lack of players.
Chicago lost 13 games in a row, their longest losing streak in history. A proud franchise looked its meekest as even the most basic of plays was often difficult. The team did win 3 of four to close the month as George Derby came back off the disabled list.
Despite everything, Chicago once again find themselves helping to determine the pennant winners. Chicago travles to Brooklyn to close the season with the Grays who are tied in first place with St. Louis.
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