Notes from the Shadows of Cooperstown
Observations From Outside the Lines |
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NOTES FROM THE SHADOWS OF COOPERSTOWN
Observations from Outside the Lines
By Two Finger Carney (carneya6@borg.com)
#351 MAY 9, 2005
PLAY IT AGAIN, SAM
When confirmation came on September 28, 1920, that the World Series of the previous October had been "fixed," baseball fans had a right to feel that they had been had. Never mind that only a few games had been tampered with ... even if it was only one ... even if it was just Cicotte plunking that first batter he faced ....
Today, that "fix" is news to many fans. (To others it is as fresh as the headlines about steroid abuse, and they cannot forgive anyone associated with the mischief of October 1919.)
Over the past 33 months, I've spent a lot of time pondering the many aspects of baseball's cold case. The more I learned, the less certain I became about some things I had taken for granted. And as determined as I am to keep plugging away at bringing the mystery more and more out of the darkness, I am also resigned that much that is shrouded in mystery will remain that way.
Focused as I have been on the historical, I have noticed that one nagging question will always remain nagging, and it is especially nagging for Cincinnati Reds' fans. And that is: "Would the Reds have won the Series ANYWAY?" Books have been written, trying to answer this unanswerable question. Unanswerable -- because we can never go back and recreate the circumstances of the past. The Red Sox and Cardinals could square off today for a best-of-seven, but today is not October 2004, and the results today would mean nothing for yesterday. That's the way it is.
Early on in my research, I ran across fans (SABR members, I think) who had replayed the 1919 World Series using computer simulations. As I recall, the teams played pretty evenly. I didn't pay much attention to the question. Didn't interest me.
HOWEVER. I recently received, as a (59th) birthday present, from my kids, the set of APBA cards for all sixteen ML teams, based on the 1919 season. Suddenly, I could play it again -- that Series which was apparently never played right the first time -- and see what happens. And that is exactly what I did.
To newcomers to NOTES, I am a recovering APBA-holic, having become first addicted around 1959. APBA is a board-and-dice baseball simulation game, where humans are the managers. They select the lineups and make all the decisions any manager makes in a game. The cards are designed so that they produce amazingly realistic results; if you play out a season, the players will probably hit around what they actually hit for average, with as many home runs, walks, strikeouts, and so on. New sets are available after each season.
(Since NOTES was born in 1993, I've played several simulated seasons, using the all-time best players from each of the original franchises. I have occasionally written about those seasons in NOTES under the heading, "Notes from a League of My Own." It takes a couple years to play a season solitairre.)
Without further introduction, here is what happened when I put on simultaneously the old caps of Pat Moran and Kid Gleason, and replayed the 1919 Series, trying to be as fair as I could -- in fact, trying to be extra fair, lest I be accused of anything.
GAME ONE
The visiting Sox drew first blood off Dutch Reuther, scoring a run in the top of the third inning. Eddie Collins singled, went to second as Buck Weaver grounded to short, and scored on Joe Jackson's single. Jackson opened the sixth inning with a triple, and came in on Felsch's hit. After Gandil grounded out, Nemo Leibold hit safely, scoring Happy and giving the Sox a 3-0 lead.
Eddie Cicotte held the Reds hitless until the bottom of the sixth, when Reuther led off with a single. "Who needs the DH," he was heard to mutter to the first base coach. With two outs, Edd Roush doubled him home, and Heinie Groh followed with a bottle-bat triple, but Pat Duncan stranded Groh. 3-2 Sox.
In the top of the seventh, the Sox iced the game as things fell apart for the Reds. Ray Schalk doubled, and Cicotte's bunt was fielded but thrown to third too late to catch Schalk. On a suicide squeeze attempt, Schalk stole home, Cicotte to second. Eddie Collins, bunting again, executed perfectly and again the Reds threw to the wrong base, too late to get Cicotte. Weaver bounced back to Reuther, who then intentionally walked Jackson to set up the force at home and a possible DP to get out of the inning. Ring came on in relief. But Felsch's fly went deep enough to score a run. After Chick Gandil legged out an infield hit, Shano Collins (who had been inserted for defense) rapped a bases-loaded single to make it 7-2, and that's the way it ended.
Cicotte gave up four hits in tossing the CG. Six of the Sox' eleven hits were made by "clean Sox" -- which reminded me of how often I have read that if only the Collins boys, Schalk, and Leibold had performed better in 1919.... Oh well.
GAME TWO
The Sox jumped out to a 3-0 lead with a run in the first (thanks to a Greasy Neale error) and two more in the second, both coming in on Eddie Collins' double. Lefty Williams was even tougher than Cicotte had been. In the fifth, he walked Ivy Wingo, and Hod Eller tripled Wingo home. But that's as close as the Reds got, and the final was 5-1. Buck Weaver had a pair of doubles, Jackson was 2-for-3 with a double, and Felsch hit an RBI triple. Lefty Williams gave up just three hits. Sox up 2-0 in games.
GAME THREE
Home in Chicago, the Sox again broke on top early. This time it was Shano Collins tripling home Gandil in the second, and Pat Duncan dropping an easy fly in the third to let in another run. Dickie Kerr allowed just one single until the eighth inning, when Kopf hit safely and Ivy Wingo doubled him home. 2-1 Sox. That run was offset in the home 8th when the Sox loaded the bases on two walks and Weaver's hit, and Felsch drove a sac fly to left. In the top of the 9th, the Reds pushed across a run when Rath singled, stole second, and came in on two long flies. But Kerr got the last out and the 3-2 win, holding the Reds to four hits. The Sox got just five, but capitalized on the error. And that gave them a third straight win.
GAME FOUR
Reuther and Cicotte faced off again. Eddie Collins led off with a triple and Buck squeezed him in for a 1-0 lead. After Jackson walked, Felsch doubled him home, and Happy scored a moment later on a two-base error by Rath.
Cicotte took the 3-0 lead into the eighth. Wingo led off with a triple, and came in on Reuther's sac fly. With two outs, Jake Daubert stroked the first HR of the series, making it 3-2.
In the top of the 9th, Groh walked. Duncan and Neale grounded out. But Kopf walked. Then Ivy Wingo smacked a two-out triple, giving the Reds a 4-3 lead.
Ray Fisher came on to hold the lead. He promptly walked Ray Schalk. I put in a faster runner for Schalk and sent up Eddie Murphy to pinch hit for Cicotte. (Eddie Murphy -- nicknamed "Honest Eddie" later -- had a splendid season in 1919, batting an astronomical .486, 17 for 35. Why he got only two at bats in October 1919 remains a puzzlement to me.) Murphy promply doubled home the tying run. Two outs later, Shoeless Joe rapped a hit into right and Murphy scored the winning run in the 5-4 Sox victory. Cicotte had another CG, giving up six hits, and being taken off the hook by the last-ditch rally.
GAME FIVE
Did fans bring brooms to games in 1919 when their teams were on the verge of sweeping a series? I imagined some did.
The Reds jumped on top this time, on Daubert's triple and Edd Roush's sac fly in the first. Buck Weaver doubled home Ray Schalk in the Sox third, and the game remained tied 1-1 into the sixth, Hod Eller dueling with Lefty Williams.
With one out in the Sox 6th, Weaver walked and Jackson singled him to third. After Jackson stole second, Happy Felsch broke the tie with a two-run single up the middle. Gandil followed with a single and Leibold got another run in with a sac fly to right. 4-1 Sox. Nemo Leibold doubled in two more runs in the Sox 8th, but they didn't need that insurance in their 6-1 win. Lefty went the route, tossing a two-hitter. It was over.
REFLECTIONS
Of course, what happened in my simulation (unlike what happened in 1919) is easy to explain. The Sox had the hot dice. I could replay the Series tomorrow, and the Reds could just as easily sweep five.
On paper, the Reds have stronger pitching. They have three "Grade A" starters (Reuther, Eller & Sallee), to the Sox' two (Cicotte is an AC, Lefty an A; Dickie Kerr is a B.) And the Reds have a vastly superior bullpen, with Ring and Fisher (B's) and Luque (C). The Sox have virtually no one after Kerr -- Grover Lowdermilk is a wild "C" but everyone else -- even Red Faber -- is Grade D, which is the lowest grade APBA has. But the Reds never got past the three Sox starters, in this series.
And again, the Sox had the better dice. Yet I couldn't help concluding that the Sox also had a stronger lineup. Hugh Fullerton had predicted a Sox victory in 1919, based on his own system of rating players -- he really could have invented APBA or Strat-O-Matic. (Born into another age, he might have invented the computer!) His system had worked in 1906 when the Hitless Wonder Sox beat the Cub dynasty, and had worked really well for him afterwards. Not perfectly, but well enough that if you were a betting person -- and most Americans were -- you paid attention to Hugh Fullerton's predictions.
Fullerton later said that when the Reds won the 1919 Series, he was suspicious because his system had forecast otherwise. Of course, Fullerton also said later that he heard all about the Fix before the Series started. So I doubt that his system provided him with any real clues. But it probably reinforced the doubts he had about the thing being played on the level.
I batted Eddie Collins leadoff (that's where I bat him in my All-Timers league, he just seems like a natural #1 spot hitter). I noticed that Kid Gleason batted him second, using Shano Collins or Nemo Leibold up top. Maybe if Gleason had used my lineup....
One final word. For those familiar with APBA, you know how tough Grade A pitchers can be. But the game has a flaw. Extra-base hits are not affected by the pitcher's grades -- and they really should be. In my All-Timers simulation seasons, I adjust the rules so the best pitchers yield fewer gopher balls. There is precious little HR power on either the 1919 Reds or Sox. But the Sox' cards seemed to have an edge on the "unstoppable" hits. So the Reds' edge in pitching was not as great in my simulation as it might have been in reality, in 1919.
FINALLY
I think any World Series sweep is a disappointment. Something in every fan wants to see the thing go down to the last game, ideally the last inning of the last game. (The only time I've NOT rooted this way was when the Pirates were in the Series; in 1960, 1971 and 1979, I was rooting for a Pirate sweep. But each of those Series went seven, and had not just happy endings, but endings I still recall vividly. Endings which made heroes out of Bill Mazeroski, Roberto Clemente and Willie Stargell. Endings which were so much better than sweeps!)
Only two of the simulated games were close, only one was very exciting. They were all interesting in their own ways -- dead ball era baseball is a little like chess, strategy plays a big role. Managers take satisfaction in manufacturing runs out of nothing. Or in capitalizing on enemy errors. Putting on the hit and run, stealing a base. moving up runners.
Baseball became the national pastime without the aid of the mammoth home run -- we forget that sometimes. Fans cheered triples, steals of home, the perfect sacrifice bunt, clutch strikeouts, and -- as today -- web gem fielding. I think this is the appeal of the Dead Ball Era, and why a SABR committee devoted to that era is alive and well today.