1907 is memorable for a few reasons, one of them being that it saw both the resurgence of a former power and the rise of a new one. The former power returning to glory was the Pittsburgh Miners who had won four Federal Association pennants over the span of 1898-1901, then had a string of three straight 2nd place finishes from 1903-05, bottoming out with a 69-76, 6th-place finish in 1906 before coming back in a big way in '07. The new power was Continental Association pennant-winner Baltimore. The Clippers had won one pennant, back in 1890 as part of the Peerless League but had finished as high as 2nd only once since and had a lot of 5th and 6th place finishes on their resume, including - like Pittsburgh - a 6th-place standing in 1906. But boy oh boy did they put on a show in 1907.
Managed by a former minor league catcher in Walter Love, who had been skippering the Clippers's ship since 1893 (and was about halfway through an exceptional managerial career), Baltimore's rise can be traced directly to the arrival over three seasons of three outstanding young players, two of whom would be future Hall of Famers. The first to arrive was LF Jimmy Whipple, who was signed in 1905. He was soon followed by RF Powell Slocum, purchased from the Dixie League's Birmingham club later that season. The final big piece came in 1907 when the club signed 19-year-old pitcher Mike Marner. This trio of extremely talented youngsters (Whipple was 23, Slocum 20 and Marner 19 at the start of the '07 season) had the Clippers seemingly set for the foreseeable future. Baltimore posted a FABL-best 102-46 record as Whipple (.305-0-63) got things going from the leadoff spot, third-place hitter Slocum won a batting title (.387-2-101) and Marner destroyed all opposition to lead the league both in wins and ERA with a 34-12, 1.47 season. The team was young top-to-bottom with five regulars 24 or younger and another newcomer, 26-year-old Jimmy Redpath, as the second starter (he went 25-7, 1.63 in 34 games). Baltimore led the CA in runs scored (560) and fewest runs allowed (382) and won the pennant by 17.5 games over the defending-champion New York Stars.
The Stars got another top-notch performance from SS John Waggoner (.369-1-83, both average & RBIs second to Slocum) and Bill Craigen (.326) and was 2nd in both runs scored and allowed, but as the standings attest, were nowhere near as good as Baltimore. The Cougars finished third with rookie CF Smith Mazzotta hitting .344 with 6 HRs and 72 RBIs and Jack Long continuing to be the best-kept pitching secret in the league at 27-17, 2.07 for the year. Cleveland made a big move just before opening day by making a trade with Toronto for Allan Allen. The now-40-year-old Allen wanted to be closer to his Ohio home (and also be on a contender, which Toronto no longer was) so he was swapped for P James Wigfall and OF Bill Price (ironically both Price and Wigfall would later be released by Toronto with Wigfall going back to Cleveland and Price catching on with the powerhouse Clippers). Allen was still pretty good and finished 22-19 with a 1.82 ERA for the Foresters (who honestly just needed more hitting to be contenders with Jim Cathey and his 22-22, 1.90 ERA attesting to that fact). Montreal was finally starting to improve and finished tied with Cleveland at 74-79. Brooklyn (66-82), Toronto (68-85) and Philadelphia (54-100) rounded out the CA standings table.
On the Federal side, the Miners finished a relatively quick rebuild via a trade (with the Chicago Cougars for 2B Spencer Harding and LF Ike Armstrong) and some shrewd purchases from the minors. The biggest of the latter was the purchase of Canadian-born catcher Sam Goslin from Richmond of the Dixie League. Goslin hit .357 but didn't qualify for a batting title as he only appeared in 97 games. The team also got a bit lucky - they were 3rd in the circuit in runs scored (532) though they led the league in hitting (.266) and were second in runs allowed (435) despite the lack of a true ace (27-year-old rookie Al Parker's 21-12, 2.17 season was the best on the team) and the guy with the best ERA on the team (John McKenna, 1.88) was released by the team the day after the World Series. Still they finished 88-57, 7.5 games ahead of second-place St. Louis.
The Pioneers relied on the Federal Association's best offense (league-best 589 runs scored) to overcome a middling pitching staff (516 runs allowed, 5th in the FA) to post an 84-68 record and finish second. The third-place Detroit Dynamos made a big splash with a midseason trade for Woody Trease. Yep, Boston's "never gonna be traded" young ace was dealt on July 7 by George Theobald who realized that his team's time had passed and it was time to focus on the future (which meant being cheap and dealing the highest-paid pitcher in the league). Trease was 12-10, 2.16 with Boston but really turned it on for Detroit, going 18-9 with a 1.22 ERA. Overall his 30-19, 1.64 ERA was tops in the Federal Association. Detroit also had Bill Temple who went 22-18, with a 3rd-place 1.84 ERA - and unsurprisingly, the Dynamos allowed a league-low 412 runs. Detroit's problems lay with the lineup which had a pair of regulars hit below .200 on the season.
The Chicago Chiefs finished fifth - the biggest story there was that 40-year-old Fred Roby - who had joined the Chiefs midseason in '06 after he found retirement "boring" - was productive at SS, where he hit .262 and didn't embarrass himself defensively either. Unfortunately, aside from Roby and double-play partner Johnny Cashmere (.290), there was no offense which wasted another standout season from George Wilson (28-17, 2.11). Philadelphia was attempting to rise from the ashes of the basement and finished at .500 with a 74-74 mark. They had the hitting (2nd in runs at 537 for the season) but the pitching was mostly awful aside from Pep McCormick (12-8, 1.82) who wasn't on the field enough to make a difference.
Theobald's Boston club dropped to sixth place, which was where they were before dealing Trease, so that didn't (seem to) harm them. The good news was that the 21-year-old they got for Trease, John Thornton, was their best pitcher (22-22, 2.38) and SS Arch Johnston won a batting title with his .320 average. But there was a lot of bad news too as two of the regulars couldn't reach the .200 mark and the pitching was pretty much a shambles aside from Thornton. Bostonians were left to wonder if Theobald would be able to work his magic with this bunch. New York continued to be bad (64-86) but manager Frank Trease (yep, uncle of Woody) had a good youngster in 2B Ed Ziehl to build around. Unfortunately, the team's best player in '07 was probably SS Calvin Kidd (.297-0-38) who was 37 years old and wouldn't be around when the 20-year-old Ziehl hit his stride. Last place went to the Washington Eagles who bottomed out after a brief spell in the first division. The sad part was that Washington had a great young pitcher in Bill West (22-24, 2.04) and good, young CF in Jim Disinger (.292-0-42) but didn't have much else.
The minor circuits had their own bit of drama before the season - the FABL organization welcomed a couple of new circuits to the fold as the Middle Atlantic League and Union League signed on. The drama came from the shuffling of clubs that resulted from the two new circuits and the growing ambitions of the East Coast Association, which renamed itself the Eastern Association and branched out to the west with two clubs in Ohio and another in Michigan. The MAL picked up some of the abandoned areas of the former-ECA while the Union snapped up teams from the Dixie and Century leagues and moved into markets abandoned by the ECA. The Union League also brought back the Cincinnati Monarchs - somewhere James Tice was probably smiling (or maybe not, he was a grouchy guy).
The World Series looked lopsided on paper - the Clippers had thoroughly dominated their pennant race while the Pittsburgh Miners hadn't led their own league in anything but victories (which did count most, after all). Still, the young and hungry Baltimore club was expected to walk over Pittsburgh. It didn't - quite - happen that way. Pittsburgh showed their mettle in a 15-inning 6-5 win in game one, a nearly-five-hour marathon that was arguably one of the best games the postseason had yet seen. Baltimore's Mike Marner pitched into the 13th inning before leaving the game and ironically, losing pitcher Henry Wells had started the season in Pittsburgh. Game two was also an extra-innings affair; but this time the Clippers came out on the winning end by a 2-1 score with both Jimmy Redpath and Al Parker going the 11-inning distance.
With the scene shifting to Pittsburgh for the middle games, the Clippers seized the advantage in game three, scoring all their runs in the last inning to claim a 4-1 victory and 2-1 advantage in games. Game four saw the Miners shell Marner in a surprisingly easy 9-3 victory to square things at two apiece. But that was all the Miners could do - the Clippers came back to claim game five 7-4 and then wrapped up the title with a 7-3 victory in game six.
Federal Association
Code:
Team W L WPct GB R RA
Pittsburgh Miners 88 57 .607 - 532 435
St. Louis Pioneers 84 68 .553 7½ 589 516
Detroit Dynamos 82 70 .539 9½ 484 412
Chicago Chiefs 78 73 .517 13 444 475
Philadelphia Keystones 74 74 .500 15½ 537 536
Boston Minutemen 65 84 .436 25 458 535
New York Gothams 64 86 .427 26½ 449 494
Washington Eagles 64 87 .424 27 441 531
Continental Association
Code:
Team W L WPct GB R RA
Baltimore Clippers 102 46 .689 - 560 382
New York Stars 84 63 .571 17½ 546 434
Chicago Cougars 82 70 .539 22 526 474
Cleveland Foresters 74 79 .484 30½ 450 444
Montreal Saints 74 79 .484 30½ 459 483
Brooklyn Kings 66 82 .446 36 449 553
Toronto Wolves 68 85 .444 36½ 406 500
Philadelphia Sailors 54 100 .351 51 358 484