The Simplest Beginnings: From Amateurism in 1857, to Pro Ball (1870), Int'l Ball, & More

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FORGOTTEN HISTORY:
THE CURIOUS CASE OF HENRY HATCH, THE MAN WITH -23 CAREER WAR

For much of the late 1880s and the entirety of the 1890s, the Binghamton Blue Jays were a highly competitive team in both the latter days of the single-competition National Base Ball Organization and the early days of the Northeastern League. From 1888 to 1890 they won three straight Upstate New York titles, and they were over .500 seven out of ten seasons in the ‘90s (1890: 75-38).

The club's longstanding run of competency to end the century made many forget just how bad things were for the club as it was trying to find its way in the 1870s - back then as Binghamton B.B.C. - after organized baseball split into the APBL and the NBBO. One would think that dominant clubs exiting the NBBO would have made things easier for Binghamton, but by the middle of the 1870s they were the worst team in the history of the sport.

Their win-loss marks in 1873 and ’74 were pro & semi-pro records for futility that are likely to stand forever.

Coinciding with that seemingly impossible stretch of terrible baseball was the seven-year career of one of the sport’s most infamous players: Henry “Brick Hands” Hatch. On a team that was easily the worst in the competitive version of the game Hatch was singled out as Binghamton’s most ineffective player, one who baffled spectators due to the fact that he continued to start every single game at shortstop year after year.

Even using modern, advanced metrics the man’s place in baseball infamy holds up as one that was well-earned:

In the encyclopedia of 1800s baseball, nobody – hurler or batsman – came remotely close to Hatch’s amount of negative WAR, especially his rate of -7.7 WAR per 162 games. How was Hatch that bad? In the case of someone who played that poorly for that long, a closer examination is most definitely needed…

Could Henry Hatch hit? Not really. He had an OPS above .700 in one of his seven seasons: a .714 (OPS+: 112) during an 1872 season in which he still earned a WAR of -2.7. For his career, Hatch had an OPS of .628 and an OPS+ of 84. When he started every game for the record-setting – not in good ways – 8-62 Binghamton squad in 1874 Hatch put up an average of .214 and an OPS of .481 (OPS+: 42).

Could Henry Hatch run? No. Over the course of his career Hatch stole 22 bases and was caught 16 times. He never stole more than eight bases in a season, and in the days when teams could score 8-9 runs per game Hatch scored 60+ runs in a 70-game season once (Career UBR Base Running Value: -5.6).

Could Henry Hatch field? ABSOLUTELY NOT, and this was where he earned his nickname: Brick Hands. Hatch was said to have average range (Infield Range: 106/250) and an okay arm (Infield Arm: 120/250). However, his propensity for errors relative to his peers (Infield Error: 79/250) at a time when players basically wore leather factory work gloves to field the ball meant he was catastrophic at shortstop:

Hatch's career fielding percentage of .625 meant that if he was given eight chances to do something with the ball at shortstop he would complete the job successfully five times and screw it up the other three.

Even in an era when teams could average 5+ errors per game and not-infrequently soar into double-digit levels of fielding mistakes over the course of an afternoon, Hatch’s ineptitude in the middle of the infield stood alone. Nobody else who played second base or shortstop in the early days of baseball ventured anywhere near his failure rate. Hatch's 177 errors in 1871, over just 70 games (2.53 errors per game), should surely stand the test of time as the most gaffe-strewn campaign ever seen. On top of that, Hatch’s consistently awful fielding became a bit of a perverse spectacle, as he wasn’t just the worst-fielding shortstop in the 48-team NBBO but he was the worst for seven straight seasons.

Hatch’s obvious inability to field his position, while also not doing anything else all that well, led some to posit conspiracy theories about him. Did Hatch help bankroll Binghamton operations, and thus pay for his place in the team? Did he have compromising information on the club’s chairman and/or multiple teammates? Was he that wonderful to have around that the team just couldn’t do without his presence in the starting lineup? Was Hatch secretly a comedian or a performance artist, aiming to amuse people with his play?

Remarked one columnist who ventured from New York City to watch the man in person:

"Imagine a bald eagle soaring through the most azure of summer skies. That awe-inspiring symbol of the United States of America, with its wings spread from tip to tip, its eyes surveying the landscape below, and its talons outstretched in preparation to catch that afternoon's bounty. The sight would surely cause a man to marvel. That majestic flying specimen has no earthly clue how to field a batted ball, and apparently neither does Henry Hatch of the Binghamton Base Ball Club."

No matter the actual reason, Henry Hatch started all 490 of Binghamton’s games from 1869 to 1875 while putting up a cumulative WAR of -23.3, and for better or worse the baseball universe was made more interesting because of it.

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THE FIRST SEASON IN CUBA

The maiden season of competitive baseball in Cuba wound down on March 4th, 1900. The Matanzas Scorpions were able to call themselves the first Cuban champions after they held on to the one-game lead they had over the Camaguey Bulls going into the final day.

It was a tight pennant race, with six of the league’s eight teams within seven games of each other by the end of the season. Much to everyone’s surprise, the Havana Sugar Kings finished in last place thanks to the worst offense in the league (.263/.321/.337, 4.2 runs per game), something that having the CNS’ most talented starting pitcher couldn’t come close to overcoming.

Even though the top six teams were close in the final standings, the top two – Matanzas & Camaguey – dominated the major awards, combining for two of the three major individual award winners and five out of nine Team of the Year members:

BATSMAN OF THE YEAR – Tony Moreno (RF, Santiago)

106 G, .346/.388/.513, .901 OPS, 72 R, 147 H, 33 2B, 13 3B, 4 HR, 93 RBI, 27 BB, 33 K, 24 SB, 218 TB, 4.22 WPA, 3.8 WAR

HURLER OF THE YEAR – Victor Salamanca (Camguey)

21-7, 2.56 ERA (146 ERA+), 249.1 IP, 22 CG, 2 SHO, 65 BB, 161 K, 2.5 BB/9, 5.8 K/9, 2.5 K/BB, 1.26 WHIP, 6.5 WAR

MOST VALUABLE PLAYER – Jorge Martinez (RF, Matanzas)

108 G, .332/.392/.443, 885 OPS, 74 R, 137 H, 27 2B, 8 3B, 1 HR, 63 RBI, 33 BB, 50 K, 71 SB, 183 TB, 2.11 WPA, 5.1 WAR, Champion

TEAM OF THE YEAR

P: Jose Castanon (PdR) – 15-13, 2.63 ERA (143 ERA+) 249.2 IP, 22 CG, 4 SHO, 53 BB, 158 K, 1.21 WHIP, 3.0 K/BB, 7.4 WAR
C: Melvin Chavez (CAM) - .309/.380/.395, 51 R, 100 H, 16 2B, 2 HR, 51 RBI, 31 BB, 2.44 WPA, 1.6 WAR
1B: Jose Urbina (HOL) - .340/.437/.426, 61 R, 119 H, 21 2B, 3 HR, 55 RBI, 61 BB, 3.19 WPA, 3.4 WAR, Golden Glove
2B: Venon Best (MAT) - .308/.366/.462, 82 R, 127 H, 24 2B, 17 3B, 2 HR, 70 RBI, 37 BB, 60 SB, 2.07 WPA, 4.7 WAR, GG, Champ
3B: Franklin Aguilar (SAN) - .325/.382/.429, 40 R, 110 H, 22 RB, 1 HR, 65 RBI, 26 BB, 3.00 WPA, 3.0 WAR
SS: Edwin Giraldo (MAT) - .341/.382/.412, 32 R, 126 H, 20 2B, 0 HR, 59 RBI, 21 BB, 2.39 WPA, 4.1 WAR, Champ
OF: Daniel Salmon (CAM) - .349/.419/.478, 59 R, 151 H, 20 2B, 8 HR, 75 RBI, 43 BB, 4.35 WPA, 3.5 WAR
CF: Omar Gabriel (CAM) - .346/.410/.451, 60 R, 132 H, 42 2B, 2 HR, 73 RBI, 40 BB, 2.18 WPA, 3.3 WAR
OF: Tony Moreno (SAN) - .346/.388/.513, 72 R, 147 H, 33 2B, 13 3B, 4 HR, 93 RBI, 27 BB, 24 SB, 218 TB, 4.22 WPA, 3.8 WAR, BotY

Going into the season there was worry that, even though teams were limited to two each, foreign players would dominate the award nominations. That was not to be the case. Cubans took home all the individual awards, while Vernon Best and Daniel Salmon were the only two non-Cubans to make the Team of the Year. League MVP Jorge Martinez did spend twelve years playing in the SEAL and the APBL, but that didn’t erase the fact that he grew up in Alacranes.

There was a bit of an asterisk to put on the Batsman of the Year and Team of the Year nods, especially when it came to foreigners. Former Atlanta Flames regular Albert Meadows led the league in numerous categories:

• Average: .388
• Slugging: .549
• OPS: .988 (1st by 53 points)
• OPS+: 159
• Doubles: 39
• WAR/162 G: 8.7
• WPA/162 G: 6.51

However, he was hit with a major series of back spasms that forced him to miss nearly thirty games over the season’s final six weeks, and because of that he was passed over for major awards.

And with that, the first Cuban National Series was in the books.

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KANSAS CITY’S BEST-LAID PLANS DO NOTHING

From 1897 through 1899 the Kansas City Bulls in the MWBA had the player with perhaps more raw talent than any other position player in the sport: center fielder Thomas “Bubba” Ervin.

Ervin exited the ’99 season a three-time MVP, two-time Batsman of the Year, and seven-time Team of the Year member who famously became the first – and only – player with 10+ WPA and 10+ WAR in the same season when he pulled off the trick with Nashville as a 23-year-old in 1894. However, Kansas City had a problem: while Ervin led a K.C. offense that was comfortably in the top half of the MWBA, their pitching staff was one of the worst – and youngest – in the league. The result was a 55-77 record that saw the team near the bottom of the Western League standings, which was a sharp fall from their third-place finish just a couple of seasons before.

The Bulls front office decided on a plan to address the problem by shedding some salary so they could improve the pitching staff, and on December 15th they sent Ervin and his $5,000 salary to the Brooklyn Kings in the APBL in exchange for competent OF/1B Columbus Seaman and quality young pitcher Simon Singer. They replaced the loss of star power by signing three-time 20-game winner and four-star left fielder Charles Nolan away from the New York Athletics.

Other additions:

• Archie Kruse (Lake Michigan), who won 20+ games both of the previous two seasons
• Armando Rivera (Chicago), a center fielder who hit .350 as a part-time starter in 1899
• Oscar O’Brien (Excelsior), a corner OF who put up two seasons of 3+ WAR when previously with K.C. in the mid-90s

On paper the changes looked like ones that would balance and improve Kansas City, as Nolan could perform the roles of two players, Kruse was a quality pitcher, the other additions were decent, and young pitchers such as Singer, Ferdinand Wicks, and Emmanuel Blackman were expected to improve.

The result: the Bulls improved by exactly one game, finishing 56-76 and falling from sixth to last (eighth) in the Western League. What happened?

• Nolan was brilliant as a hitter (.361/.424/.498, 4.2 WAR) but his ERA rose from 3.22 to 4.68 as BABIP against him rose from .292 to .358
• Kruse, who led the league in opposing BABIP in ’98 & ’99, suffered a BABIP of .344 and a steady rise in ERA as a result
• Rivera’s average fell from .350 to .276, and his OPS from .869 to .691
• The bottom of the lineup – Felix Vilowsky & Bert Bronson – saw their averages fall by 60+ points
• Leadoff hitter Edward Zuberek’s OPS fell from .787 to .708 and he led the league in strikeouts (97)

Kansas City’s offense had fallen to eleventh out of sixteen in the league and their pitching staff actually did worse than it had the year before, finishing fourteenth out of sixteen in runs allowed.

The 1900 makeover of the Kansas City Bulls ended up working about as well as…well…putting lipstick on a bull.

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EMERSON GARDNER WINS PITCHING TRIPLE CROWNS 13 YEARS APART

Emerson Gardner, the legendary lower league pitcher who’d spent his entire career with the Syracuse Emeralds, won the Northeastern League’s Pitching Triple Crown in 1900 with the following stats on the season:

27-4, 1.87 ERA (180 ERA+), 279.2 IP, 29 CG, 69 BB, 205 K, 2.2 BB/9, 6.6 K/9, 3.0 K/BB, 1.02 WHIP, 9.4 WAR

Gardner also added 2.5 WAR as a hitter (.351/.412/.421, 129 OPS+), as he split time at first and third base when he wasn’t pitching.

It was far from the only fantastic season out of Gardner, who ended 1900 with 354 career wins – all for Syracuse – and a career ERA of 2.50. In fact, it was the second pitching Triple Crown of Gardner’s career, and what made his 1900 effort all the more amazing was that Triple Crown number two came thirteen years after his first.

In 1887, when the National Base Ball Organization was still a single competition, Gardner lead the New York League with 19 wins, a 1.59 ERA, and 251 strikeouts. It was his first season as a star pitcher, and over a decade and a half as Syracuse’s ace Gardner could lay claim to the following:

• 5x Adams Trophy (NEL) winner (1892-94, 99, 1900)
• 3x Adams Trophy (NEL) MVP (1894, 99, 1900)
• 6x Hurler of the Year (1x NBBO, 5x NEL)
• 7x Team of the Year (1x NBBO, 6x NEL)
• 3x N.B.B.O. All-Star (1887-89)

• 2x league leader in Wins (1x NBBO, 1x NEL)
• 4x league leader in ERA (1x NBBO, 3x NEL)
• 5x league leader in K’s (1x NBBO, 4x NEL)
• 8x league leader in Pitching WAR (1x NBBO, 7x NEL)
• 6x NEL leader in Complete Games (1890-92, 94, 97, 1900)
• 4x NEL leader in K/BB Ratio (1890, 94, 98, 1900)

• 354 Career Wins
• 2.50 Career ERA
• 3,128 Career K’s
• 151.0 Career Pitching WAR (additional 15.6 as 1B & 3B)
• 50 Career Shutouts
• 2 Career No-hitters (6/25/1886 vs. Elmira, 7/4/1899 vs. Reading)
• 9 seasons w/ double-digit Pitching WAR (1887, 1890-95, 97, 1900)
• 1 30-win season (1891)
• 3 Sub-2.00 ERA seasons (1887, 97, 1900)

Simply put, Emerson Gardner has been one of the finest players ever to ply his trade outside of the highest levels of the professional ranks.

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JAMES OLSON BECOMES 1ST PLAYER TO WIN BotY & HotY DURING CAREER

Longtime Memphis Showboats star James Olson made baseball history at the end of the 1900 Southeastern & Atlantic League season. The Memphis starting pitcher & first baseman put up a season unlike any in baseball history, as not only did he lead the league in ERA (2.28) and Pitching WAR (8.3) but he also lead the SEAL in batting WAR among players at his secondary position: first base (3.8).

Olson’s numbers on the year:

23-12, 2.28 ERA (161 ERA+), 319.2 IP, 34 CG, 1 SHO, 79 BB, 181 K, 2.2 BB/9, 5.1 K/9, 1.25 WHIP, 3.5 WPA, 8.3 WAR

457 PA, .336/.408/.424, .833 OPS (118 OPS+), 133 H, 17 2B, 3 3B, 4 HR, 65 RBI, 47 BB, 19 K, 2.95 WPA, 3.8 oWAR, 2.8 WAR

His reward: the SEAL Hurler of the Year, a spot on the SEAL Team of the Year, second place in the SEAL M.V.P. vote to Horace Farley of champions Charleston (SEAL M.V.P. typically goes to a member of the title winners), and there were discussions about giving him the first base spot in addition to the pitcher spot on the Team of the Year in recognition of his performance.

In winning HotY, Olson completed a “double” no two-way player had ever done before: winning Batsman of the Year and Hurler of the Year over the course of his career.

Earlier in his career Olson was a better hitter than pitcher, and in the 1893 SEAL season, during which he only started five games for Memphis as a pitcher, Olson led the league with a .380 Average and .946 OPS (179 OPS+). That level of performance saw him named Batsman of the Year after the end of the season, and at the time many thought he would end up transitioning to first base full time. However, Olson would become a regular starting pitcher again the next season and go 23-8 (3.70 ERA) in addition to hitting .334 over 112 games, and his status as an elite two-way player was reestablished.

Since then, James Olson has won 122 games over the past six seasons as a starting pitcher for Memphis, putting up a pitching WAR of 37.5 over that time. In addition, he's added another batting title (.388 in 1898) and become the first SEAL player to reach double-digit home runs in a season (10 in 1896).

There have been numerous two-way players who have excelled at both hitting and pitching, examples of which can be seen at times ranging from the amateur-only days (Delbert Hodges) to the current (Jurgen Schultz, Aaron Molloy). However, James Olson’s achievement means his name goes to the top of a new category in the history books, and it will stay there forever.

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THE 20TH CENTURY STARTS WITH TWO CLASSIC PENNANT RACES IN THE ABA

The beginning of the Twentieth Century gifted baseball fans with two fantastic pennant races in the member leagues of the American Baseball Association.

With one week of games left, a maximum of three games separated first place from second in any of the four collective divisions of the APBL and the MWBA. In the American Professional Baseball League, familiar faces were a in battle to the finish as Buffalo was holding off Providence in the Colonial Conference and Brooklyn was barely ahead of Pennsylvania in the Metropolitan:

Over in the Midwestern Baseball Association things were even tighter, as there were no less than seven teams still competing for the two spots in the Lincoln Memorial Cup and there were ties atop both the Eastern League and Western League:

In the Eastern League it was no surprise to see the old guard of Detroit, Indianapolis, and Milwaukee so close to the top of the standings, but it was very much a surprise to see Cincinnati, sixth-place finishers each of the previous three seasons, right there with them.

In the Western League the 1A & 1B combination of Lake Michigan & Minneapolis was a logical one since both teams had been easily over .500 in recent seasons and Lake Michigan won the Lincoln Memorial Cup via a memorable sweep of Milwaukee in 1898. However, Missouri had finished seventh, last, and seventh the previous three seasons so their presence in the pennant race with just a week to go was a major shock.



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The final week of the APBL season didn’t see either conference lead change hands. In the Colonial Conference, both Buffalo and Providence went 4-2 and that meant Buffalo took the Colonial pennant by three games. In the Metropolitan Conference, Brooklyn only went 3-3 over the final week and that gave Pennsylvania a major chance to force a one-game playoff. However, the Kings were able to hold on to their one-game lead on the final day and make a return appearance to the President’s Cup:

In the MWBA, the final week of the Eastern League was crazy as the league pennant was decided on the final day of the season and the top four teams – Detroit, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, & Indianapolis – ended up separated by four games. The standard of play wasn’t great – Detroit was only 3-3 but Cincinnati had a 2-4 final week to lose the Eastern League by a single game. In the Western League, Minneapolis took the pennant by three games after Lake Michigan wilted under the pressure and had a terrible 1-5 week to end the season.

The two leagues’ championship series weren’t the nailbiters that their regular seasons were, but they did give a couple of teams ends to years of frustration. In the President’s Cup, the Buffalo Blues beat Brooklyn 4-2 behind the MVP play of Mogens Markert (11/25, 4 SB) and finally took home the P.C. on their third try spanning eleven years. The Lincoln Memorial Cup was much the same, as the Detroit Robins took it home on their third try over the span of eleven years by dispatching Minneapolis in five games. For Buffalo, it was their first APBL title since the single-division days of 1875, and for Detroit it was their first MWBA title since the end of their three-peat at the close of the single-division years (1887-89).

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AN INCREDIBLE SEASON FOR ROOKIES IN THE ABA

1900 saw perhaps the best crop of new players in the history of the two member leagues of the American Baseball Association. There were multiple 20-game winners, a league leader in ERA, a pair of batsmen that hit nearly .350, and one that led his league in home runs.

The notable rookies in the APBL:

HOMER WYATT (SP, Knickerbockers)
• 20-11, 2.63 ERA (128 ERA+), 325.1 IP, 28 CG, 1 SHO, 71 BB, 103 K, 1.28 WHIP, 1.5 K/BB, 2.6 WPA, 6.6 WAR

JAKE BROOKS (SP, Knickerbockers)
• 19-16, 2.81 ERA (120 ERA+), 304.2 IP, 27 CG, 2 SHO, 56 BB, 119 K, 1.18 WHIP, 2.1 K/BB, 3.1 WPA, 7.0 WAR

JAMES HIGGINS (SP, N.Y. Athletics)
• 21-13, 3.18 ERA (105 ERA+), 308.2 IP, 29 CG, 3 SHO, 85 BB, 110 K, 1.31 WHIP, 1.3 K/BB, 0.3 WPA, 5.5 WAR

PETER DEVINE (LF, N.Y. Athletics)
• .324/.422/.478, 584 PA, .900 OPS (154 OPS+), 82 R, 15 2B, 17 3B, 9 HR, 58 RBI, 76 BB, 26 SB, 2.88 WPA, 6.8 oWAR

FRANKLIN HARDING (SP, Baltimore)
• 19-17, 3.42 ERA (102 ERA+), 316 IP, 27 CG, 5 SHO, 84 BB, 122 K, 1.35 WHIP, 1.5 K/BB, -1.3 WPA, 6.7 WAR

THOMAS CALL (SP, Baltimore)
• 15-16, 2.78 ERA (126 ERA+), 291.2 IP, 23 CG, 2 SHO, 78 BB, 116 K, 1.29 WHIP, 1.5 K/BB, 1.3 WPA, 6.1 WAR

GEORGE OLIVER (1B, Rochester)
• .343/.413/.414, 587 PA, .827 OPS (124 OPS+), 76 R, 26 2B, 2 HR, 83 RBI, 56 BB, 3 SB, 3.01 WPA, 5.3 oWAR

And the notable rookies in the MWBA:

GEORGE ALDRICH (SP, Cincinnati)
• 21-15, 2.22 ERA (164 ERA+), 324 IP, 30 CG, 3 SHO, 87 BB, 109 K, 1.26 WHIP, 1.3 K/BB, 4.6 WPA, 5.8 WAR

MATTHEW HAMILTON (RF, Missouri)
• .348/.404/.510, 433 PA, .914 OPS (132 OPS+), 71 R, 19 2B, 13 3B, 4 HR, 62 RBI, 33 BB, 19 SB, 1.42 WPA, 3.6 oWAR

GILBERT PABST (LF, Louisville)
• .335/.358/.444, 509 PA, .802 OPS (107 OPS+), 64 R, 18 2B, 17 3B, 0 HR, 70 RBI, 19 BB, 22 SB, 2.23 WPA, 3.0 oWAR

JARED GLADNEY (CF, Toledo)
• .318/.372/.401, 544 PA, .781 OPS (101 OPS+), 70 R, 26 2B, 8 3B, 1 HR, 36 RBI, 33 BB, 28 SB, 2.33 WPA, 3.2 oWAR

Between the two ABA leagues there were no less than a dozen rookie pitchers who threw 250+ innings, and there were also eight first-year position players who saw 400+ plate appearances - a large amount for the time.

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1900 YEAR IN REVIEW

THE CHAMPIONS

AMERICAN BASEBALL ASSOCIATION

American Professional Baseball League: Buffalo Blues (81-51, President’s Cup 4-2 over Brooklyn)
Midwestern Baseball Association: Detroit Robins (76-56, Lincoln Memorial Cup 4-1 over Minneapolis)

INDEPENDENT PROFESSIONAL LEAGUES

Southeastern & Atlantic League: Charleston Battery (76-50, Nashville 1 GB)
Canadian Baseball League: Quebec City Voyageurs (82-44, Ville Marie & Ville Ray 13 GB)

NATIONAL BASEBALL ORGANIZATION

New York League: Yonkers Hilltoppers (67-45, N.Y.C. Finals 3-2 over Eckford)
New England Baseball Association: Vermont Green Stockings (80-32, Ben Franklin Cup 3-1 over Springfield)
Northeastern League: Syracuse Emeralds (80-34, Adams Trophy 3-1 over Reading)
Great Lakes Baseball Conference: Dayton Gemstones (64-44, Duluth 4 GB)
Prairie League: Kansas Blue Stockings (64-44, Sioux City & Des Moines 2 GB)

INTERNATIONAL LEAGUES

All-Ireland Baseball Championship: Armagh Orchard Men (54-31*, All-Ireland Championship 3-1 over Cavan)
Cuban National Series: Matanzas Scorpions (64-48, Camaguey 1 GB)

* Won title or reached championship series via one-game playoff


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MAJOR AWARD WINNERS

BATSMAN OF THE YEAR

APBL: Lindsay Christianson (LF, Brooklyn)
• 585 PA, .359/.428/.529, .957 OPS (162 OPS+), 114 R, 184 H, 32 2B, 14 3B, 9 HR, 98 RBI, 61 BB, 64 SB, 271 TB, 8.3 oWAR, 8.8 WAR
MWBA: Harold Scott (LF, Milwaukee – 2nd pro BotY)
• 592 PA, .395/.450/.547, .997 OPS (157 OPS+), 211 H, 26 2B, 17 3B, 7 HR, 100 RBI, 53 BB, 18 SB, 292 TB, 6.9 oWAR, 4.3 WAR

HURLER OF THE YEAR

APBL: Jurgen Schultz (Pennsylvania – 2nd APBL HotY)
• 317 IP, 26-11, 3.09 ERA (113 ERA+), 30 CG, 4 SHO, 80 BB, 180 K, 1.24 WHIP, 2.3 BB/9, 5.1 K/9, 2.2 K/BB, 2.8 WPA, 7.4 WAR
MWBA: Hans Ehle (Milwaukee – 11th MWBA HotY)
• 326.2 IP, 25-12, 2.48 ERA (150 ERA+), 33 CG, 45 BB, 227 K, 1.12 WHIP, 1.2 BB/9, 6.3 K/9, 5.0 K/BB, 4.9 WPA, 11.4 WAR

MOST VALUABLE PLAYER

APBL: Jules Harvey (RF, Buffalo)
• 575 PA, .353/.412/.452, .863 OPS, 101 R, 182 H, 24 2B, 9 3B, 3 HR, 58 RBI, 73 SB, +9 ZR at RF, 5.12 WPA, 6.1 WAR
MWBA: Petter Lund (CF/RF, St. Louis – 2nd MWBA MVP)
• 592 PA, .360/.435/.560, .994 OPS, 102 R, 184 H, 31 2B, 28 3B, 5 HR, 81 RBI, 80 SB, 5.08 WPA, 6.9 oWAR, 8.6 WAR

NEWCOMER OF THE YEAR

APBL: Peter Devine (LF, N.Y. Athletics)
• 584 PA, .324/.422/.478, .900 OPS (154 OPS+), 82 R, 160 H, 15 2B, 17 3B, 9 HR, 58 RBI, 76 BB, 26 SB, 2.88 WPA, 5.1 WAR
MWBA: Matthew Hamilton (RF, Missouri)
• 433 PA, .348/.404/.510, .914 OPS (132 OPS+), 71 R, 135 H, 19 2B, 16 3B, 4 HR, 62 RBI, 33 BB, 19 SB, 1.42 WPA, 3.3 WAR


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PROFESSIONAL TEAM OF THE YEAR (APBL, MWBA, SEAL, CBL)

C: E. Martin (Indianapolis) - .369/.452/.495, 147 H, 20 2B, 4 HR, 62 RBI, 2.09 WPA, 5.3 WAR
1B: L. Gauthier (Buffalo) - .398/.503/.476, .979 OPS, 184 H, 21 2B, 5 HR, 75 RBI, 87 BB, 4.37 WPA, 7.5 oWAR, 5.5 WAR, APBL Champ
2B: O. Wilkie (Penn.) – .380/.452/.502, 109 R, 194 H, 24 2B, 10 3B, 6 HR, 76 RBI, 40 SB, 5.01 WPA, 7.6 oWAR, 8.8 WAR
3B: B. Williams (Providence) - .321/.386/.464, 171 H, 32 2B, 16 3B, 4 HR, 63 RBI, 54 SB, 4.39 WPA, 7.5 WAR, Golden Glove
SS: F. Reich (Lake Mich.) - .324/.359/.476, 149 H, 36 2B, 11 3B, 4 HR, 61 RBI, 26 SB, +33.4 ZR at SS, 1.26 WPA, 7.1 WAR, GG
OF: L. Christianson (Brooklyn) - .359/.428/.529, 114 R, 184 H, 32 2B, 14 3B, 9 HR, 98 RBI, 64 SB, 271 TB, 5.54 WPA, 8.3 oWAR, 8.8 WAR, APBL BotY/GG
CF: T. Ervin (Brooklyn) - .324/.416/.439, 107 R, 163 H, 21 2B, 17 3B, 1 HR, 82 RBI, 82 SB, 5.12 WPA, 8.4 WAR, GG
OF: P. Lund (St. Louis) - .360/.415/.560, 102 R, 184 H, 31 2B, 28 3B, 5 HR, 81 RBI, 80 SB, 5.08 WPA, 8.6 WAR, MWBA MVP/GG

P: H. Ehle (Milwaukee) – 25-12, 2.48 ERA, 227 K, 33 CG, 1.12 WHIP, 1.2 BB/9, 5.0 K/BB, 4.9 WPA, 11.4 WAR, MWBA HotY
P: J. Schultz (Penn.) – 26-11, 3.09 ERA, 180 K, 30 CG, 1.24 WHIP, 2.2 K/BB, 7.4 WAR, APBL HotY
P: J. Olson (Memphis) – 23-12, 2.28 ERA, 181 K, 34 CG, 1.25 WHIP, 2.3 K/BB, 3.5 WPA, 8.3 WAR, SEAL HotY
P: C. Richards (Quebec C.) – 29-10, 2.53 ERA, 186 K, 33 CG, 4 SHO, 1.13 WHIP, 5.1 K/9, 2.7 K/BB, 7.1 WPA, 8.7 WAR, CBL Champ/HotY/MVP

MANAGER: James Mallory (Buffalo) – 81-51 record, APBL President’s Cup winner

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APBL & MWBA CHAMPS TO COMPETE FOR PRO SUPREMACY!
SEAL MADE INTO ABA PARTNER LEAGUE

After years of speculation, it has finally happened! During the concurrent year-end meetings of the American Professional Baseball League and the Midwestern Baseball Association in New York and Chicago during the fall of 1900, telegrams were shot back and forth at a rapid pace. The topic of discussion: having the champions of the two leagues play a seven-game series at the end of the season to determine the best pro team in existence.

The proposal made logical sense – after forming the American Baseball Association in 1900 the two leagues came closer ahead of the 1898 season, when teams from one league were first allowed to trade players to teams from the other one. Even though the teams of the APBL did spend slightly more money, the two leagues were now seen as being on equal footing. On top of that, the fans in both leagues were clamoring for such a series.

The deal was struck on the final day of the year-end meetings, and starting at the end of the 1901 baseball season the APBL and MWBA champs would play for pro baseball supremacy. The President’s Cup – which went to the APBL championship winners – would now go to the winners of the new ABA championship series. The Lincoln Memorial Cup would continue to go to the winners of the MWBA championship series. The APBL championship winners would now receive the Doc Adams Trophy, since founding members the Manhattan Knickerbockers have been run for decades by Daniel Lucius “Doc” Adams, one of the creators of nine-inning baseball.


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That was not the only major change to come to the ABA during the 1900 year-end meetings.

During the week, news reached the two leagues and ABA headquarters that the Southeastern & Atlantic League was adding clubs from Birmingham (AL) and Norfolk (VA), which would bring the SEAL’s membership to ten teams.

This would invite the possibility of them playing a 132-game schedule, the same as the APBL and MWBA. However, the SEAL was comprised of smaller – but growing – markets and only had one venue that held over 10,000 people: Memphis’ Red Elm Park. That meant the SEAL wasn’t worthy of ABA status since one of the requirements was that nearly every team had a stadium that held 10,000+ people, but given the frequent moves of free agents between the ABA leagues and the SEAL there was interest in some kind of agreement.

After some back-and-forth, the Commissioner of the ABA announced that the SEAL would be made into an “American Baseball Association Partner League”. What did this mean? It meant that the SEAL would be considered as being at the same level of the ABA leagues without being a member, and therefore ABA teams could conduct direct business with them, such as player trades.

Given that multiple SEAL venues held 5,000-6,000 it would likely be some time before the league would be ready to make the jump to the highest level, but it was still a big deal for baseball in the Southeast United States. The league had launched the careers of some of the best players in the sport (ex: 3x MVP, 2x BotY Thomas Ervin) and its agreement with the American Baseball Association would give it that much more legitimacy.

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A BRAND-NEW LEAGUE! WITH EIGHT NEW TEAMS! DEEP IN THE HEART OF TEXAS!

(Yes, I know that Deep in the Heart of Texas wasn’t written until the World War II years, but again this is a fictional universe so we get to suspend disbelief…)

In December of 1900, a group of players and management members from high-level amateur clubs in Arkansas, Louisiana, & Texas met in Austin to create an elite competition similar to those found in other regions of the United States. On December 29th, the anniversary of Texas being admitted to the United States, the Southern League of Professional Baseball, commonly shortened to the Southern League (SL), was formed. The competition would contain eight clubs:

• Austin Texans – founded June 29th, 1869
• Dallas Lone Stars – founded July 4th, 1874
• Fort Worth Panthers – founded June 1873
• Gulf Coast Pelicans – founded in New Orleans during November of 1874
• Houston 36ers – founded April 11th, 1861
• Little Rock Hilltoppers – founded May 1st, 1867
• New Orleans Gators – founded May 22nd, 1870
• San Antonio Riflemen – founded April 17th, 1867

New Orleans was a big-league city (287,104 people at the 1900 Census) but the sizes of the emerging markets in the rest of the league meant that it wasn’t yet ready for fully professional baseball. The league looked to the National Baseball Organization for an organizational home at the start of its life and was gladly accepted early in January of 1901.

With the Southern League officially up and going, it was time to reveal itself to the broader public:

Since the Southern League joined up with the National Baseball Organization, roster rules & regulations were the same as those of the other NBBO leagues. The schedule would be 112 games, with teams playing each other 16 times. The league only had eight teams, so there would be a single division with no playoffs – regular season record decided the champion.

One might wonder why the two teams in the much larger market of New Orleans didn't apply to play in the Southeastern & Atlantic League, and sooner, but it was a simple matter of geography. Before Birmingham and Norfolk joined the SEAL the closest team to either New Orleans side was roughly 400 miles away in Memphis, with Richmond being almost a thousand miles away by ground. Travel for games in neighboring Arkansas and Texas would be easier and put the New Orleans teams at less of an away team disadvantage.

With the logistics out of the way, it was now just a matter of waiting for the start of play in the second week of April…

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GO NORTHEAST, YOUNG MAN!
CANADA’S BRIGHTEST YOUNG STAR MOVES TO BOSTON

In July of 1896, Gilles Joubert was signed out of high school by the London Monarchs to plenty of fanfare. He was considered the best teenage position player prospect in Canada’s young baseball history, and by the start of the next year he established himself as London’s everyday first baseman as a 19-year-old. He immediately became one of the best batsmen in Canada, and over the next four years Joubert was clearly the Canadian Baseball League’s best hitter:

His oWAR for the 1900 CBL season: 7.1 in 126 games. During the four seasons shown above, he won two CBL Batsman of the Year awards, one Golden Glove at first base, and was in the CBL Team of the Year all four times. Even though he was playing in Canada, Joubert was clearly an incredible talent:

(Ratings relative to MLB-equivalent league on a 20-80 scale)

Like other pro leagues the CBL allowed for Free Agency after four years, so as the 1899 season drew to a close it led to a very important question for Joubert, the London Monarchs, and the Canadian Baseball League itself: Would Joubert take the route of dominant Quebec City pitcher Cecil Richards and sign an extension to stay in Canada, or would he take a big-money, higher-profile deal in one of the two American Baseball Association leagues?

Joubert became a Free Agent in the first week of October and took his time to decide, as he was torn between staying in Canada and moving to the United States to ply his trade at the highest level. There was precedent for a star CBL position player moving to the APBL as shortstop Patrick Henry, winner of two of the first three CBL BotY’s and MVP’s, signed for the Brooklyn Knights ahead of the 1897 season and has since been a solid fixture in their lineup.

After six weeks of talks with various teams in CBL, APBL, & MWBA, Joubert signed a huge contract with the Boston Shamrocks on November 23rd: $5,000 a year for eight years for a grand total of $40,000. He would be getting double his London pay, and he would be playing first base for one of the APBL’s more historically successful teams.

Joubert was about to enter the APBL as the league’s most talented first baseman, and he would also enter as the league’s best young position player since he’d only just turned 23. By the end of his contract, Joubert’s $5,000 per year could end up being considered a steal for the Boston front office.

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MORE CHANGES TO THE ABA: HOME & AWAY UNIFORMS!

Since the beginning of organized baseball in 1857 teams have typically worn one set of uniforms over the course of a season. What started as teams wearing collared white shirts featuring embroidered insignias paired with full-length white pants has since evolved into teams wearing shirts in team colors to go with shorter white pants – a few exceptions noted – and high socks in team colors.

With the two American Baseball Association leagues evolving ahead of the 1901 season, they also decided to bring further evolution to the uniform by becoming the first leagues to have teams wear separate uniforms for home games and away games. For home games, the 32 teams of the APBL and MWBA would (mostly) continue to wear their primary uniform. For away games, teams would (mostly) wear a white or other light-colored jersey to go with their standard-issue pants.

For clubs that normally wear all white, like the Manhattan Knickerbockers or New York Athletics, this presents a bit of a logistical challenge that can likely be solved by wearing light gray away from home. For some others, modifications to their primary threads are in order.

In any event, each ABA team having two sets of uniforms will bring just a little bit more variety to the fans in the coming years.

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First up for the uniform change fashion show is the APBL. About of a third of its teams (5/16) would continue to wear white at home, so grey away uniforms were on order for them. Buffalo added to the list of grey away teams since they wear gold at home, but for the other ten teams it was colors at home and whites away.

APBL HOME UNIFORMS

A lot of the APBL home uniforms of the early 20th Century are now similar in design. Gone are the shields and crests teams like Brooklyn, Manhattan, & New York wore on top of their shirts, and now teams have their insignias either on the left side of the chest or just below the central lacing. New Jersey is the exception there, and the Philadelphia Tigers have the most unique look in the league due to their continued use of wide stripes.

APBL AWAY UNIFORMS

For the away uniforms, some teams chose to keep the same base design while using the away base color for the uniforms (ex: Boston, New York), some teams used their away jerseys to display where they come from (ex: Baltimore, Rochester), and some used the away jersey to come up with a different design altogether (ex: Excelsior, Pennsylvania).

Philadelphia again stands out because of their wide stripes, but they aren't the only ones. Pennsylvania's uniform look makes them the first team to use script lettering across the front of their jersey (In real life, the earliest known use of script lettering on a jersey was by teams in Oakland & San Francisco in 1902 - go here and scroll down to "Equipped with Script"). Buffalo's vertical jersey lettering makes them unique in the APBL in that regard, and Excelsior's exclamation - it means "ever upward" in Latin - was a standalone touch as well.

Next it was the MWBA's turn to show everyone what their teams could do with two sets of jerseys.

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Next up in the fashion show is the Midwestern Baseball Association. Nearly every team (14/16) was wearing colored jerseys at home, so for most of the league picking an away look was just a matter of finding out what design would look best in white.

MWBA EASTERN LEAGUE HOME JERSEYS





MWBA WESTERN LEAGUE HOME JERSEYS

Many of the MWBA teams continued on with looks similar to what they were wearing before 1900, but as in the APBL gone are the large crests and shields that were tacked on to the front of many teams' jerseys.

St. Paul was one of the two teams wearing white at home, but they switched to team colors and moved their "whites" over to the away side.

MWBA EASTERN LEAGUE AWAY JERSEYS





MWBA WESTERN LEAGUE AWAY JERSEYS

As you can see, a number of the MWBA teams opted to represent their home cities with the front of the jersey, although Milwaukee and Toledo decided to inscribe their distinctive nicknames on their away jerseys instead. For the cities with more than one team - Chicago & St. Louis - three of the four used elements of their main logos on the jersey front, with the Missouri Bluebirds opting to stitch their team nickname across the jersey.

As with the APBL's Philadelphia Tigers, the Milwaukee Bavarians opted to keep their unique pinstriped look both home and away.

Not surprisingly, the lone MWBA team that stuck with white jerseys at home - Toledo - opted to use gray away from home, although Lake Michigan joined them as a second gray away team.

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Finally, we have the Southeastern & Atlantic League making its turn to show off its updated looks. Since the league was named a partner, but not full member, of the ABA, their teams decided to bring their jerseys into the 20th Century as well. However, unlike the two ABA leagues the SEAL stuck with one set of uniforms:

SOUTHEASTERN & ATLANTIC LEAGUE JERSEYS

As always, Atlanta's jersey is the most colorful and distinctive, between the bright red/orange/yellow combo and the vertical city name. Memphis ditched their striped look to sport different colors on the top and bottom halves of their jersey, done to match both the team logo and a main element of the city flag. Most of the other non-expansion teams stuck with looks similar to what they had, although Old Dominion decided to emblazon their team name across the front of their jerseys instead of just their team initials.

As far as the new teams go, Birmingham went with a simple look and Norfolk went with a unique one. The Norfolk Pirates took the skull from their logo...

...and put it on their cap, making them one of the first teams to put more than just generic stripes on their baseball caps, joining the likes of St. Paul and Lake Michigan.

And with that, the 1901 baseball fashion show is over.

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THE PITCHER’S MOUND BECOMES STANDARD

There was one final set of changes to baseball ahead of the 1901 season.

The pitcher’s mound that Providence Saints coach Albert Tierney helped invent during the 1890s (mentioned here) was made standard by both the American Baseball Association and the National Base Ball Organization. Via telegram exchanges, both associations agreed to set the maximum height of the mound at fifteen inches (in real life, this happened in 1903 and not 1901), with the Southeastern & Atlantic League and the Canadian Baseball League quickly following suit. That put the total number of leagues going to a fifteen-inch mound for the 1901 season at ten when factoring in the brand-new Southern League.

While the new rules on the pitcher’s mound meant it could be built to a height lower than fifteen inches, it was widely presumed that no team would make use of such a mound unless a very particular pitcher demanded one for use by him when he pitched at home, due to the benefits higher mounds gave hurlers. So, the fifteen-inch mound was here to stay.

Between the new mound standards and continuing tinkering with bats and balls it was expected that batter output for 1901 would be a bit different, with some decreases in gap power in larger stadiums and higher home run output in smaller ones. The pitchers would still be left a bit better off by new mound standards.

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FIVE YEARS OF BASEBALL IN IRELAND

The All-Ireland Baseball Championship’s 32-team competition has been running for five years now, with the sport now having established itself as part of the developing Irish sporting scene. It is still only for amateurs, but as of 1901 no sport played on the Irish island is for professionals. On the face it, one would assume that a 32-team baseball league would have clear front-runners and bottom-feeders, but the AIBC has actually been extremely competitive in each of its five seasons of existence. As evidence: the five champions and their records:

• 1896: Cavan (54-30; .643 - #1 regular season record)
• 1897: Donegal (54-30; .643 - #2 regular season record)
• 1898: Donegal (54-30; .643 - #2 regular season record)
• 1899: Kerry (50-34; .595 - #4 regular season record)
• 1900: Armagh (54-31; .635 - #2 regular season record)

Only one team over five seasons of AIBC baseball has ever won more than two thirds of their games in a season, and that was Wicklow in 1898 (57-27; .679). At the same time, a team winning less than 30% of their games has only happened three times. Contrast that with the old 48-team NBBO, in which it wasn’t common to have one team in each of the six divisions win two-thirds of their games, and a couple win more than 70%, and similar amounts of losses happening at the bottom end of the standings.

It’s likely that the reason for the annual closeness in each of the four divisions’ standings is the lack of offense in the AIBC. Over its five years of existence the league has been the lightest-hitting competition found anywhere, which isn’t much of a surprise given the typical weather found on the island even in the summer. Only once in five seasons has the AIBC’s collective batting average been over .260 (1898: .273) which usually puts it 10-20 points behind other non-professional leagues. Yearly output

• 1896: 4.2 r/g, .259 AVG, .650 OPS
• 1897: 4.2 r/g, .258 AVG, .651 OPS
• 1898: 4.7 r/g. .273 AVG, .686 OPS
• 1899: 4.2 r/g, .259 AVG, .657 OPS
• 1900: 4.1 r/g, .253 AVG, .649 OPS

Batting average in 1900 was the lowest of any non-professional league by about 15 points, and OPS was the lowest by nearly 30. This is the case even though the AIBC has smaller parks than other leagues because the men who run the competition wanted to take weather into account when setting it all up in 1896.

The best player of the AIBC over its existence has undoubtedly been center fielder Richard Simpson…

His total WAR of 25.0 – five more than any other position player – is good for 9.6 per 162 games, and his record-setting 6.4 total in 1900 would be 12.3 over 162 games. His WPA of 14.97 is 5.77 per 162 games.

During the AIBC’s five seasons, Simpson has been Batsman of the Year once, Most Valuable Player once, and earned a spot on the Team of the Year three times, and led the AIBC in position player WAR three times, even though there’s just one set of awards and leaderboards for the entire 32-team league.

The league’s best technical hitter has been 2B/3B Regan Moran, who’s on top of the five-year leaderboard in both batting average (.351) and on-base percentage (.428) while being second in OPS (.872). He also put up the league’s only .400 season in 1898 (.405).

The AIBC’s best pitcher, and easily its most clutch player, has been Gavin Martin….

In the regular season, his ERA is #1 among all pitchers who’ve spent more than one year in Ireland, he’s one off the lead in Wins (Jimmy O’Sullivan w/ 86), he’s the leader in Complete Games, he’s fifth in strikeouts, and the clear leader in pitching WAR.

In the postseason, Martin has won two All-Ireland finals, been named MVP in playoff series in three different years, is the only pitcher with more than ten postseason wins (2nd place has five), and his postseason WAR of 4.92 is nearly four times that of any other pitcher.

That’s the brief story of the first five years of baseball in Ireland, and hopefully there are decades more seasons to come.

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FISK WINS SEAL PITCHING TRIPLE CROWN FOR OLD DOMINION
LORDS NEARLY COMPLETE HISTORIC “WORST TO FIRST” SEASON

Going into the 1901 Southeastern & Atlantic League season, the recent history of the Old Dominion Lords wasn’t pretty:

If you’re counting, that’s eight consecutive last place finishes. EIGHT. In the Lords’ first season in the SEAL – 1890 – they finished fourth with a 68-58 record. However, their downhill slide was a fast one and within a few years they were easily the worst team in the league. Once Old Dominion was in the cellar they stayed there for the better part of a decade.

Going into the 1901 season southeastern baseball experts were actually a bit bullish on Old Dominion, projecting them to finish fourth after third-year GM George Stephanopoulos’ efforts in building a quality young roster appeared to be bearing quite a bit of talented fruit. Six of the eight regular position players and all four starting pitchers were under 30. The centerpiece of the group of young players was Charles Fisk, a third-year pitcher who improved significantly from his first year to his second and looked to take another big leap in his third pro season.

To say Fisk took a big leap in 1901 is an understatement. Here was his 1900 season:

289 IP, 17-19, 3.19 ERA (115 ERA+), 30 CG, 4 SHO, 106 BB, 167 K, 1.36 WHIP, 3.1 BB/9, 4.8 K/9, 1.6 K/BB, -0.8 WPA, 6.1 WAR, 6.3 R/9 WAR

And here was his 1901 season as Old Dominion’s 23-year-old ace:

330.1 IP, 28-10, 2.56 ERA (150 ERA+), 32 CG, 4 SHO, 82 BB, 215 K, 1.20 WHIP, 2.2 BB/9, 5.9 K/9, 2.6 K/BB, 2.6 WPA, 9.7 WAR, 10.6 R/A WAR

That’s the SEAL Pitching Triple Crown and leads in seven other categories above, as well as #1 in games pitched (50) and games started (36).

At the same time, the Old Dominion team was taking an incredible leap of its own. At the end of May, they were neck-and-neck with defending champions Charleston atop the SEAL standings. OD was then three games ahead at the end of June, and the same at the end of July. However, the young team started to falter a bit and found themselves back even with Charleston a couple of weeks into August.

In the end, the youngest team in the SEAL couldn’t keep the momentum going and the experience of the defending champions won out, with Charleston winning the SEAL by three games over the young OD team.

The Lords couldn’t quite complete pro baseball’s maiden “worst to first” championship run, but they still completed one of the sport’s greatest turnarounds with a 25-win improvement over the previous season.

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ABA 1901: PROVIDENCE WINS THE FIRST PRESIDENT’S CUP
ROOKIE JOUBERT WINS APBL BotY; MINNEAPOLIS TAKES 1st MWBA TITLE

The 1901 baseball season promised something new: a final series between the APBL & MWBA champions to determine the best team in professional baseball. However, all the extra series brought was more of the same thanks to the most dominant team of the 1890s.


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In the APBL, it was once again Providence & Buffalo fighting to determine who would finish first and second in the Colonial Conference for much of the season. Unfortunately for the Blues, superstar Charles Wilkerson suffered a heavily sprained ankle on July 16th that kept him out for five weeks. During his layoff, the Blues fell as far as ten games back of the Saints and were never able to recover. The Saints cruised to the CC pennant with an 86-46 record – eight games clear.

As usual the Metropolitan Conference was incredibly tight at the top, with three teams fighting for a place in the first Doc Adams Trophy series: The Brooklyn Kings, NY Athletics, & Pennsylvania Quakers. The three teams spent nearly the entire season battling within a handful of games of each other and it took until the last day of the regular season, when the Athletics were able to hold onto their one-game lead, to determine the winner.

The first Doc Adams Trophy series started well – tied 2-2 after four games – before Providence applied the throttle and ended it in six. The Saints kept the Athletics at arm’s length to win 3-2 in Game Five and finished things off with a spectacular 11-4 win in Game Six, in which the result was effectively determined by the end of the fifth inning. The series MVP was a surprise, as rookie Joseph Metcalf grabbed it thanks to his 11/23 performance at the plate with half a dozen RBI. Providence had entered the season without star outfielders Daniel Snell (Cincinnati - 47.4 WAR in 12 yrs w/ PRO) and Fredrick Hammond (Washington - 18.1 WAR in 4 yrs w/ PRO) thanks to Free Agency, but it didn't matter. They simply bought the rights to a pair of star corner outfielders from the NBBO ranks, moved Appolonius Wilkins to center field, and won another title with relative ease.

Among the players of the APBL, the talk of the league going into the season was star Canadian Gilles Joubert. The 23-year-old signed with Boston after having won consecutive CBL Batsman of the Year awards, and there was talk that he could possibly repeat the trick as a newcomer to the APBL even though the team’s home – the South End Grounds – is one of the biggest pitcher’s parks in the league (AVG LHB: .935, AVG RHB: 856, AVG TOT: .884). Playing in such a cavernous venue – the left field fence is 404 feet from home – didn’t matter, as Joubert hovered around .400 for the first two months of the season before cooling down and finishing 1901 with a league-leading .366 average. That figure, along with other offensive contributions, earned him both Batsman of the Year and Newcomer of the Year, a first in the ABA era.

Joubert didn’t get the Most Valuable Player award because – stop me if you’ve heard this before – it went to Providence’s Charley Rankin thanks to a Golden Glove at shortstop (5.45 RNG, +35.3 ZR, 1.149 EFF), a league-leading OPS (.953), and a WAR that was nearly two points higher than anyone else (10.4) including pitchers – a rarity for the time. The 1901 MVP was the seventh in eleven years for Rankin, and he’s now led the APBL in position player WAR ten out of the last twelve seasons (1890-93, 95-99, 1901).

Speaking of dominant players, Charles Wilkerson managed to win Hurler of the Year even though he missed those five weeks due to injury. Why? He still won two dozen games (24-7) while leading the APBL in ERA (2.16), ERA+ (174), K/9 (5.0), K/BB (2.6), Pitching WPA (6.0), Pitching WAR (8.7), and R/9 WAR (10.7). He started the season by winning a record-setting eighteen straight decisions with a 1.44 ERA, so Wilkerson’s finished 1901 product was actually a downgrade from how it began.

New York's Homer Dabry won more games (27) while finishing the season with a 2.44 ERA, 8.3 WAR, and 9.9 R/9 WAR, but in a rare decision the APBL Awards Committee decided not to give HotY to the pitcher who clearly had the most wins because Wilkerson was just that good.

Gilles Joubert wasn’t the only notable rookie in the APBL. Clarence Riggs of Mass. Bay hit .330 with a .421 OBP and 5.1 oWAR. Amos Teasdale (3.2 WAR) had an .852 OPS and stole 32 bases for Providence. Teasdale was joined in the Providence outfield by Joseph Metcalf, who stole 41 bases and was named MVP of the Doc Adams Trophy series. 20-year-old Lonnie Walsh was 13-9 with a 3.47 ERA for APBL runners-up New York. Samuel Goodwin won 18 games on a 3.16 ERA and 6.1 WAR for the Philadelphia Tigers.


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The MWBA had a familiar feel in 1901: three traditionally powerful teams duking it out at the top of the Eastern League and a logjam at the top of the West.

In the Eastern League it was Detroit, Indianapolis, & Milwaukee again at the top, although 1900 darlings Cincinnati fell to 52-80. This time around, Detroit spent much of the season keeping the other two at bay, winning the Eastern League pennant by six games over both Indy & Milwaukee after taking it by a single game in 1900.

In the Western League, no less than half the teams finished the season within a handful of games of first place. In the last week of July the two Twin Cities teams – the Minneapolis Lakers & St. Paul North Stars – were tied atop the standings. However, by the end of the month the Lakers were a game in front and, as tight as the WL was, never relinquished the lead, gradually increasing it from one game to three by the end of the regular season.

The Lincoln Memorial Cup was an all-timer. After four games, Detroit was up 3-1 and looked like the league’s defending champions & best team (88-44) were going to waltz into the first APBL-MWBA President’s Cup. However, the Lakers took Game Five at home thanks to a run in the bottom of the 11th, won Game Six in Detroit after a seven-run first inning, and took the series with a 2-1 Game Seven win in which Jordan Brunet (23-12, 2.99 ERA in reg. season) came out on top of a pitcher’s duel against league MVP Martin Kearns.

Among the notable players in the 1901 MWBA season was perhaps the most unlikely award winner ever: Missouri Blues first baseman Mark Cronan. The 31-year-old was only in his third full year as a pro and his first as a regular after six years in the NBBO, the last two of which he spent as a backup for Marathon in the New York League. Regarded as a man with a big bat but who’d swing at anything, he proceeded to hit .396 – tops in the MWBA by 25 points and 40 better than he’d ever hit as a semi-pro regular. On top of that, he nearly doubled his previous career high in home runs and broke his career best in RBI by about thirty.

He only took 17 walks, but when hitting that well the lack of patience didn’t matter. Cronan led the league with a .539 Slugging Percentage and .966 OPS, and in a crowded field of familiar names – Thierry Moreau finished 2nd and Petter Lund 3rd – Cronan was the Batsman of the Year.

Hurler of the Year was another surprise. Columbus’ Gerald Pierotti, a two-way starter and catcher, never had an ERA below 3.00, and also had more career losses than wins going into 1901. He actually entered the season with a slightly higher career WAR as a batter (38.4) than as a pitcher (37.2) over eleven years. However, he won 31 games – best in the MWBA by five – on a 2.71 ERA for a notably improved Columbus team, and that earned him Hurler of the Year over Hans Ehle and ERA leader Martin Kearns, who instead won MWBA MVP thanks to his 2.14 ERA combined with 200 Ks and a 12.9 R/9 WAR as Detroit's ace.

The award was a history-maker for Pierotti. He became the first player in the ABA to win Hurler of the Year while making Team of the Year at another position, as he’s been catcher on the Team of the Year once in the ABA & MWBA each.

There was an extremely good crop of rookie batsmen, with five earning 2.5 WAR or higher during the 132-game season. Toledo’s Rikard Damsgaard spent the first four months of the season near the top of the batting race with Cronan, but he hit .228 in August and finished with a .361/.439/.461 slash line and 83 RBI. Also for Toledo, shortstop Murray Griswold delivered plus defense (4.86 RNG, +10.5 ZR) and good hitting for a middle infielder. 21-year-old Milwaukee outfielder James Brunson earned 2.5 WAR in just 62 starts thanks to outstanding hitting of his own. St. Paul’s Monroe Barton was excellent with the bat (.333 AVG, 4.9 oWAR), but poor defense at second base (-11.6 ZR) hurt his effectiveness.

The last rookie to be named is KC’s Jake Hinton, the Newcomer of the Year. He hit .346 and added a league-record 106 walks on top of that to end 1901 with a league-leading .471 On-base Percentage. Hinton also stole 63 bases and played decent defense in right field. In addition to NotY, he earned a spot in the MWBA Team of the Year.


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The first ABA championship series, billed as President’s Cup I, offered not only something new but also a very interesting matchup. On one side was the mighty Providence Saints, now APBL champions eight times in ten years. On the other side was the Minneapolis Lakers, who’d just won their first MWBA title after losing in the Lincoln Memorial Cup series the year before.

The way the series unfolded was, unfortunately, anything but interesting as Providence used that decade of championship experience to crush the Lakers in a sweep. The Saints won Game One 2-0 thanks to a four-hit shutout by ace Charles Carlyle. They won Game Two at home 10-7 thanks to a pair of runs in the fourth, sixth, and seventh innings. They won Game Three in Minnesota 2-1 due to Charles Woodram’s sacrifice in the ninth that brought in Charley Rankin. The series came to an end with a 7-5 Game Four win in which Appolonius Wilkins drove in three and Carlyle pitched a Complete Game without allowing an Earned Run.

So in the end, the new series and the cup did nothing more than give the Providence Saints the chance to make more history and become the first pro team to take home two trophies in a single season. Not only did the Saints do it, but they did it with ease.

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1901 YEAR IN REVIEW: CHAMPIONS

THE CHAMPIONS

AMERICAN BASEBALL ASSOCIATION

American Pro Baseball Lg: Providence Saints (86-46, won Doc Adams Trophy 4-2 over NY Athletics)
Midwestern Baseball Ass’n: Minneapolis Lakers (75-57, won Lincoln Memorial Cup 4-3 over Detroit)

President’s Cup I: Providence beats Minneapolis 4-0

• Game 1: Providence 2-0 vs. Minneapolis
• Game 2: Providence 10-7 vs. Minneapolis
• Game 3: Providence 2-1 @ Minneapolis
• Game 4: Providence 7-5 @ Minneapolis

INDEPENDENT PROFESSIONAL LEAGUES

Southeastern & Atlantic Lg: Charleston Battery (78-50, repeat, Old Dominion 3 GB)
Canadian Baseball Lg: Quebec City Voyageurs (79-47, four-peat, Hamilton 2 GB)

NATIONAL BASEBALL ORGANIZATION

New York Lg: Baltic BBC (69-43, won NYC Finals 3-1 over Marathon)
New England Baseball Ass’n: Vermont Green Stockings (76-36, five-peat, won Franklin Cup 3-2 over Cantabrigians)
Northeastern Lg: Philadelphia Patriots (72-42, won Adams Trophy 3-2 over Elmira)
Great Lakes Baseball Conf: Peoria Cardinals (64-44, Duluth 3 GB)
Prairie Lg: Des Moines Oaks (71-37, Dubuque 8 GB)
Southern Lg: San Antonio Riflemen (66-46, Fort Worth 2 GB, inaugural season)

INTERNATIONAL LEAGUES

All-Ireland Championship: Wicklow (56-28, won All-Ireland Championship 3-1 over Longford)
Cuban Nat’l Series: Matanzas Scorpions (68-44, repeat, Santa Clara 3 GB)

* Won title or reached championship series via one-game playoff