Red Sox - (Cardinals) : 1946 Pivot Year as Good as it Got for Boston

As the Cardinals and Red Sox meet in the World Series for the fourth time, this Insight looks at the fortunes of the Boston Red Sox surrounding the first time they met in 1946.  While that year was the capstone of the Cardinals' dynasty of the 1940s, as noted in my previous post, it seemed at the time to mark Boston's rise to dominance for the rest of the decade, which proved to be an ephemeral illusion.

Red Sox - (Cardinals) : 1946 Pivot Year as Good as it Got for Boston

Same as for the Cardinals, 1941 was the foundation year for the Red Sox' drive to their 1946 meeting with St. Louis.  By the time the exigencies of World War II eviscerated major league rosters beginning in 1943, Boston had assembled a talented team that included Bobby Doerr at second base, Johnny Pesky at shortstop, Dom DiMaggio in center field, and (of course) Ted Williams in left field.  The Red Sox had not won a pennant (let alone a World Series) since 1918 and were still no match for the Joe DiMaggio-led Yankees, but were shaping up to be their primary rival for the American League pennant. They finished second to the Yankees in 1941, albeit 17 games behind, and narrowed the Yankees' pennant-winning margin to 9 games in 1942.  Both the Yankees' and Red Sox' rosters were hard hit by military call-ups--Boston losing Pesky, DiMaggio, and Williams for three years and Doerr for one--but the team in New York had sufficient depth of talent to win again in 1943, and stay in the hunt until late in the season each of the next two years.  The team in Boston, on the other hand, plummeted in the standings, finishing seventh in both 1943 and 1945 (and fourth in 1944).

When stars from both teams returned from the war in 1946, it was the Red Sox who dominated the AL, winning the pennant by 12 games.  With the Yankee veterans getting older, it looked like the Red Sox might be the team to beat in the American League for the foreseeable future.  Instead, despite strengthening the club with the addition of power-hitting shortstop Vern Stephens in a trade with the Browns (with Pesky moving over to third) and the arrivals of Mel Parnell and Ellis Kinder to bolster the rotation, the Red Sox did not win again that decade--and lost three straight pennants in heartbreaking fashion: losing a one-game playoff to Cleveland in 1948; going into Yankee Stadium with a one-game lead and two games remaining in 1949, only to lose both and the pennant; and having the best record in the American League after mid-June in 1950, only to fall four games short because of a bad start to the season.

The Red Sox may have had more of the game's best players, but the Yankees had superior depth.  The Red Sox may have had a more potent offense, but the Yankees had the advantage--arguably, a significant advantage--in pitching and defense.  The Red Sox had Joe McCarthy managing in their dugout, but the Yankees had Casey Stengel.  The much-heralded McCarthy was only three years older than the much-maligned (at the time he took over in the Yankee dugout) Stengel, but Stengel was just discovering his inner genius as a manager while McCarthy was increasingly out of touch with the game and its players. See my earlier post, "The Red Sox-Yankee Rivalry, 1946-50:," http://brysholm.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-red-sox-yankee-rivalry-1946-50.html, for a more complete discussion "Explaining Why Boston Underachieved."

Red Sox fortunes in the late 1940s may have turned on key in-game decisions by McCarthy in the final games of the 1948 and 1949 seasons.  Finishing the scheduled 1948 season with Cleveland having an identical record, McCarthy had his best pitcher, 15-game winner Mel Parnell, available with three days of rest to pitch in a one-game playoff for the pennant (the American League's preference for deciding such things), but chose instead to start little-used Denny Galehouse, who failed to last four innings, thus denying baseball of its only shot at an all-Boston World Series (the Braves having won the NL flag).  Other than the specific choice of Galehouse, McCarthy's decision had a certain logic since Cleveland's most dangerous hitters and top run-producers--Lou Boudreau, Joe Gordon, and Ken Keltner batting third, fourth, and fifth--were all right-handed batters.  Parnell, a rookie southpaw, would have been facing them at Fenway Park, with that inviting wall for right-side hitters.  Moreover, Parnell started most often on four days of rest that year and had made only one start on three days rest since early August--that just four days before, meaning that he would be pitching back-to-back games on three days of rest if he got the ball for the win-or-go-home playoff.  On the other hand, eight of Parnell's 15 wins came at Fenway, twice against the Indians, whom he had beaten three times all told.  If not Parnell, McCarthy's only other option was right-hander Ellis Kinder, because his two other right-handed mainstays in the starting rotation--Jack Kramer (18-5) and Joe Dobson (16-10)--had pitched the last two days of the season.  Kinder was 10-7, pitching well, and was sufficiently rested (four days), but he had not been in McCarthy's starting rotation at the start of the season and only one of his wins was against either of the two other top teams (Cleveland and New York) in the league.

A similar tale unfolded in the final game of the 1949 season against Stengel's Yankees when McCarthy made two momentous decisions--first to pinch hit for his starting pitcher, Kinder, in the eighth inning of a 1-0 game the Yankees were winning, and then to replace Kinder with Parnell, who had pitched into the fifth inning the day before, been hit hard by the Yankees, and was near exhaustion from his workload in the heated drive for the pennant.  Kinder was pitching brilliantly when he was removed for the pinch hitter, and while it was not unusual at the time for managers to stay with a pitcher who was pitching well in a close game in the late innings, even if he was losing, McCarthy's decision on the pinch hitter was clearly intended to start a needed rally.  That the Red Sox did not rally did not mean the decision was wrong.  Bringing in the weary Parnell, on the other hand, was a gamble, never mind that he was the ace of the staff and had won 25 games.  He had also pitched 295 innings on the season and had made seven starts, appeared twice in relief, and hurled 59-1/3 innings since September 1.  Parnell did not get an out, giving up a home run and a single, and the Yankees plastered his relief, Tex Hughson, for three more runs, which provided the cushion needed to withstand a three-run Red Sox rally that fell short in the ninth.  Hughson had been buried in the bullpen and was probably not McCarthy's first choice out of the bull--hence Parnell--because, how much faith can a manager have in a pitcher with a 5.31 ERA and a 1.6 WHIP with the pennant directly on the line?  The problem for McCarthy in that fateful game was that, unlike when he managed the Yankees, he had not seen fit to include a reliable reliever in his pitching corps, as had now become a must-have for competitive teams.  Indeed, the lack of a reliable reliever probably precluded the Red Sox from winning the pennant outright and avoiding a playoff with Cleveland the previous year.

Having squandered their potential to forge a late-1940s dynasty, the Red Sox did not have the talent in the 1950s and the first half of the 1960s to compete for a pennant.  But what was worse, the team was generally dispirited and factionalized, and neither the front office nor whoever was the manager came to grips with this.  Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey and, among managers, Pinky Higgins in particular, were part of the problem, fostering a much-remarked upon country club atmosphere and hard-hearted resistance to integration at the big league level.  Things did not begin to change until Dick O'Connell became general manager in 1965, and in 1967 new manager Dick Williams demanded a level of accountability from his players that had been sorely lacking in Red Sox culture.  Oh, and perhaps most significantly, the 1967 pennant-winning Red Sox featured catcher Elston Howard, first baseman George Scott, third baseman Joe Foy, center fielder Reggie Smith, outfielder Jose Tartabull, and relief ace John Wyatt--black players all--in key roles.

Cardinals - (Red Sox) : 1946 Pivot Year -- Capstone of a St. Louis Dynasty

This is the fourth time the St. Louis Cardinals representing the National League and the Boston Red Sox the American League have met in the Fall Classic.  The first time was in 1946, which proved to be a pivot year in the longer-term fortunes of both teams.  Although both remained competitive for the remainder of the decade, neither returned to the World Series until the mid-1960s--the Cardinals, for the first time in 18 years in 1964, and the Red Sox, for the first time in 21 years in 1967, when they once again faced off against St. Louis.  This first of two Insights looks at the St. Louis Cardinals, whose 1946 World Series triumph capped a six-year span in which they won 606 games.

Cardinals - (Red Sox):  1946 Pivot Year--Capstone of a St. Louis Dynasty

The St. Louis Cardinals and Brooklyn Dodgers squared off in a fierce competitive rivalry in the 1940s that played out in four close pennant races.  After the two teams jockeyed between second and third place the previous two years, they were the class of the National League in 1941, leaving the Cincinnati Reds--who were defending back-to-back pennants--in the dust.  With Johnny Mize and Country Slaughter solidifying their line-up, the Cardinals won 97 games that year, but fell short by 2-1/2 games to the 100-win Dodgers. Brooklyn looked certain to repeat in 1942 when they held a 10-game lead over St. Louis as late as August 5.  The Cardinals were handicapped by having traded away Mize for virtually nothing before the start of the season--a miscalculation by the Cardinals' normally astute General Manager, Branch Rickey, who generally liked the leverage of trading away good players on the cusp of their declining years (Mize would remain one of baseball's best players for the rest of the decade)--but had a secret weapon in a kid who would become known as The Man, one Mr. Stan Musial.  Although the Dodgers went on to win 104, they were trumped by the Cardinals winning 44 of their last 53 games--a phenomenal .830 winning percentage--to end up with 106 victories and the pennant, and then, for good measure, St. Louis upended the New York Yankees in the only World Series they would lose when Joe McCarthy was their manager.  The Cardinals blew out the rest of the league with back-to-back 105-win seasons the next two years, fell three games short of the Cubs in 1945, and in 1946 dueled through the month of September to a tie that required a three-game playoff format favored by the National League to decide such things, St. Louis needing only two games to advance to a Fall Classic date with the Red Sox, made famous by Harry Brecheen's three wins, Ted Williams' slump, and Country Slaughter's romp while Johnny Pesky held the ball.  This was the high point of the Cardinals' dynasty, but in 1949 they fought another close race with the Dodgers, their 96 wins being one fewer than needed to force another playoff series with Brooklyn.

In a recent post on "Cardinal Pennant Clusters," http://brysholm.blogspot.com/2013/09/cardinal-pennant-clusters.html, I noted that despite winning four pennants and three World Series in five years between 1942 and 1946, the Cardinals may not get the respect they deserve as one of the best teams in history because their 1943 and 1944 blowout pennants were when many of the best players in baseball were serving in the US armed forces during World War II.  In particular, it appeared at the time, and historically in retrospect, that the Cardinals' principal rival before the war years--the Brooklyn Dodgers--were hurt more by player losses than St. Louis. The Dodgers indisputably lost a greater number of important players to the war effort--third baseman Cookie Lavagetto for four years; shortstop Pee Wee Reese, center fielder Pete Reiser, and ace reliever Hugh Casey for three; and second baseman Billy Herman and starting pitcher Kirby Higbe for two.  The Cardinals'  fared better in keeping their core regulars, with their most significant wartime player losses being outfielders Country Slaughter and Terry Moore for three years and Musial for a single season in 1945 (when, not coincidentally, the Cardinals failed to win a fourth straight pennant).

The wartime impact on the Cardinals-Dodgers rivalry, however, was more apparent than real because the teams--by far the best in the National League--were likely on different trajectories even had the Second World War not intervened.  Specifically, the 1942 Dodgers were an older team and possibly on a plateau, while the 1942 Cardinals were a young team getting better, and it seems unlikely their aging veterans would have kept pace with the younger Cardinals even if there hadn't been a world at war to deplete big league rosters.  Five of Brooklyn's position players and two of their pitchers with 20 or more starts that year were 30 years or older, compared to only one core regular that age on the St. Louis roster--30 year-old Terry Moore.  While spared the loss of key players like ace starter Mort Cooper and his brother, catcher Walker Cooper, shortstop Marty Marion, third baseman Whitey Kurowski, and Musial (until 1945), St. Louis did have wartime holes to fill.  The Cardinals' pitching staff was particularly hard hit by war:  Johnny Beazley, who won 21 games in 1942, wore Uncle Sam's uniform the next three years; Ernie White, who won 17 games in 1941, missed much of the next two seasons with arm problems and was in the military the two after that; and Al Brazle and Howie Pollet both served two years just as they were on the verge of becoming established as major league pitchers.

Given their core of young players, especially Musial, it seems highly plausible, if not likely, that the Cardinals achievements in 1941 and 1942 would have given them momentum into the years ahead even if the war had not depleted major league rosters and Brooklyn been able to keep its core intact.  Once the war was over and major league players-turned-soldiers returned to being players, the Brooklyn team that challenged St. Louis for the 1946 pennant had Reese, Reiser, Higbe, and Casey back in uniform, but of the seven players 30 years or older who were core regulars on the 1942 Dodgers, only right fielder Dixie Walker--who was not called into service during the war--was a regular on the 1946 Dodgers.  Beginning in 1947, the Dodgers began the transition to one of the most memorable--and best--teams in National League history that would win six of the next 10 NL pennants featuring Jackie Robinson, Duke Snider, Roy Campanella, Gil Hodges, Don Newcombe, Preacher Roe, Carl Furillo and Pee Wee Reese, who was the only significant player remaining from the 1941-46 Dodgers. The Cardinals stayed competitive--finishing second each of the next three years after 1946--but could not match that level of talent.  The only outstanding new player the Cardinals were able to add to their mix was (future) Hall of Fame second baseman Red Schoendienst.  The Cardinals' last great run for a pennant before they fell into a fifteen-year malaise was in 1949, when losing four in a row to the sixth-place Pirates and last-place Cubs cost them the game-and-a-half lead they held over Brooklyn with only five games remaining.  They finished one behind.

Next Up:  The Red Sox had their own 1946 pivot.

Pitching Rich, Division Series Poor: The 2000-03 Oakland Athletics

In the crucible of postseason baseball, teams with superior pitching are usually said to have the advantage.  With the Oakland Athletics losing once again in the Division Series and remaining snake bit in the 21st century when it comes to advancing deep in the postseason, this Baseball Historical Insight looks at the A's from 2000 to 2003, a team with exceptional starting pitching that was continually frustrated in the Division Series because their offensive weaknesses were exposed in high-stakes short series.

Pitching Rich, Division Series Poor: The 2000-03 Oakland Athletics

With right-hander Tim Hudson and southpaws Mark Mulder and Barry Zito, the Oakland Athletics from 2000 to 2004 had probably the best front three in an American League starting rotation over consecutive years since the heyday of the Baltimore Orioles with Jim Palmer, Dave McNally, and Mike Cuellar (also one righty and two lefties) from 1969 to 1974.  Although Zito did not make his big league debut until July 22 of 2000, the three won a total of 234 games during those five years while losing 149 for a combined winning percentage of .611 and accrued a collective player value of 70 pitching wins above what could be expected from a replacement-level hurler from Triple-A.  Each was a 20-game winner, leading the league in victories, once during that time--Hudson at 20-6 in the year perhaps best known as Y2K, Mulder at 21-8 in 2001, and Zito at 23-5 in 2002.  Hudson and Mulder finished second in AL Cy Young Award voting in their 20-win seasons, while Zito out-polled Pedro Martinez to win the '02 award. With their three aces starting 57 percent of the 2000-04 A's games and accounting for 48 percent of the A's 483 total victories, Oakland was first (in 2002 and 2003) or second in league ERA each year.

The Athletics capitalized on their pitching to make the postseason every year except for 2004--three times by winning the AL Western Division title and once as the wildcard (in 2001, when their 102 victories was amazingly 14 fewer than the Seattle Mariners' 116)--but never made it out of the Division Series round. Not even once. They did, however, go the five-game distance each time, losing the decisive elimination game twice to the Yankees (in 2000 and 2001) and once to the Twins (2002) and Red Sox (2003), often in excruciating fashion (witness the defining play of Derek Jeter's career in the 2001 series).  Four of the 12 games they lost were by one run, including the "Jeter backhand flip" game and the deciding games of both the 2002 and 2003 Division Series. Pitching was not the issue as much as an inability to capitalize on scoring opportunities. These Oakland teams were done in by the lack of a diversified offense--particularly speed and the ability to manufacture runs--to face off against postseason opponents that had good enough pitching (even if not the caliber of Hudson, Mulder, and Zito as three in a row) to stymie the A's core of power hitters. 

The A's during these years had some imposing batters in the line-up--specifically Jason Giambi in 2000 and 2001 knocking out 81 home runs and batting .338; shortstop Miguel Tejada for all four years with 122 round-trippers (an average of 30.5 per year) to call his own; and third baseman Eric Chavez for all four years with 121 homers.  Aside from these players, the A's starting line-up typically included the likes of Mark Ellis, Terrence Long, Jermaine Dye and Ramon Hernandez who were capable journeyman-type players but hardly significant offensive threats.  Consistent with the must-have-runners on base philosophy of General Manager Billy Beane, the Athletics were second, first, third, and fourth in the league in drawing walks from Y2K to 2003, but the team gave virtually no emphasis to small-ball tactics as a way to manufacture runs.  Of 14 American League teams, Oakland was never better than next-to-last when it came to sacrifice bunts and was last or next-to-last every year in stolen bases, as well as stolen base attempts.  The one year when the Athletics did have a modicum of a running game was in 2001, the only year they had Johnny Damon (obtained in a trade and gone as a free agent at the end of the season) batting lead-off and accounting for 27 of Oakland's 68 stolen bases.

The lack of a practiced multifaceted offense to deal with the better quality of pitching expected in October baseball, compared to the overall quality of pitching they faced over the course of a long season, almost certainly cost the Athletics the opportunity to advance, even once, to the ALCS despite the strength of their core starting rotation.  In each of their Division Series losses, the Athletics had at least three starting position players hit less than .200; in the four series they had a total of 14 position players who started at least four games in a series hit less than .200, compared to a total of eight starting position players on their opponents whose series batting average was below the Mendoza line.  Of greater significance because runs are more difficult to score in the pressure and sustained superior competition of a postseason series than during the regular season, the Athletics hit only .224 with runners in scoring position in the four Division Series, and only .196 in 92 at bats with runners on second or third in the 12 Division Series games they lost.

And in postseason series where hits and runs are at a premium, extra-base hits are particularly important to driving in runs since, by definition, runners will advance at least two bases.  In their Division Series losses to New York in 2000 and Boston in 2003, the Athletics' percentage of hits that went for extra bases dropped dramatically from regular-season levels of 36 and 37 percent to only 26 percent in both series in their first-round elimination, while their opponents' percentages of extra-base hits were comparable to what they had been in the regular season.  Except for the 2002 series against Minnesota, when the A's hit eight home runs (and the Twins five) as the two teams combined to score 53 runs, Oakland's power was shut down in the postseason; the A's hit two home runs against the Yankees in 2000 and only one against the Yankees in 2001 and one against the Red Sox in 2003.

While the Athletics were being eliminated in the first round of the postseason four straight years, the New York Yankees went to three World Series and failed to advance to the ALCS only once--in 2002, a year ironically where both they and the A's won 103 games to lead the major leagues and neither made it out of their respective Division Series.  The Yankees did not have a starting threesome that could match Hudson, Mulder, and Zito in excellence and consistency, but with Roger Clemens (past his prime, possibly with a little PED help), Mike Mussina, David Wells, and the perennial Andy Pettitte, the pinstripes had a core of starting pitchers that could hold their own against any other team's starting line-up of position players and shut down teams that lacked a balanced offense.  And anchored by Jeter, Bernie Williams, and Jorge Posada all four years, Alfonso Soriano for three, and Paul O'Neill and Tino Martinez in 2000 and 2001 and Jason Giambi (signed as a free agent after starring for Oakland) in 2002 and '03, the Yankees had precisely the more diverse and deeper line-up that the Athletics lacked.

*****

Clarification:  In my previous post on "Cardinal Pennant Clusters," I wrote in the lead paragraph that the Cardinals "have won as many pennants (18) as the Dodgers, and they have won more World Series (11) than any team not named the Yankees, but both of those franchises have received much more historical attention and fanfare than the Cardinals."  While accurate and to my point, especially beginning with the "but" clause, this leaves the impression that the Cardinals and Dodgers are tied for the most pennants in National League history since 1901. In fact, the Giants have won 20 NL pennants since the start of the twentieth century, including (as we all know) two in the last four years.

Cardinal Pennant Clusters

Last week, as the Cardinals were closing in on the NL Central Division title, Missouri Senator McCaskill on Morning Joe expressed some irritation that the St. Louis Cardinals have not received the historical acclaim they deserve.  Indeed, they have won as many National League pennants (18) as the Dodgers since 1901, and they have won more World Series (11) than any team not named the Yankees, but both of those franchises have received much more historical attention and fanfare than the Cardinals.  This Baseball Historical Insight looks at the Cardinals' four pennant "clusters" of the 20th century--1926 to 1934; 1942 to 1946; 1964 to 1968; and 1982 to 1987--that fashioned a St. Louis legacy remaining to this day of teams that play fundamentally sound baseball and know how to win by being pesky and gritty when they do not dominate the league.

Cardinal Pennant Clusters

St. Louis was the last of the eight National League franchises that began the twentieth century to win a pennant. Through the first quarter of the century, the Cardinals were one of the worst teams in the league--finishing last or next-to-last ten times in 25 years, losing 90 or more games ten times, and posting a winning record in only eight seasons. By the mid-1920s, however, Branch Rickey was transforming the Cardinals--in fact, transforming all of white professional baseball--with his development of an extensive farm system and somewhat ruthless strategy of holding onto promising talent in his minor league system as an investment in the future and discarding veterans abruptly when he felt their skills were on the precipice of decline. Rickey‘s creative genius proved to be the foundation for the Cardinals being the most successful National League team between 1926 and 1946.

Until the major leagues expanded to divisional alignments in 1969, no National League team did better over any six-year stretch than the Cardinals in winning four pennants between 1926 and 1931. The Giants won four pennants in four years from 1921 to 1924, and the Cubs from 1906 to 1910, Cardinals from 1942 to 1946, and Dodgers from 1952 to 1956 each won four pennants in five years. But extend the run of each of those teams to six years and their achievement was exactly the same as (which is to say, no better than) the 1926-31 Cardinals--four pennants ('26, '28, '30, and '31) in six years. They made it five pennants in nine years by winning again in 1934, playing scrappy, die-hard, we-ain't-gonna-lose baseball that earned them the gritty nickname, "Gashouse Gang," which fit so perfectly the Depression Era.

The Cardinals may have logged five pennants and three World Series championships from 1926 to 1934, but were hardly a dominant team.  In only one year--1931, by 13 games--did they win the NL pennant in a rout; their four other pennants were each won by identical two-game margins. Moreover, St. Louis was not competitive in three of the four years they did not win the pennant, finishing fourth in 1929, sixth in 1932 with a losing record, and fifth in 1933. Notwithstanding Hall of Famers Jim Bottomley (1B), Frankie Frisch (2B), Chick Hafey (OF), and Jesse Haines (P) playing on at least three of the first four St. Louis pennant-winning teams, only Hafey was at the peak of his career in performance, the others on their downside. The 1934 Gashouse Gang was largely a different team, led by now-player-manager Frisch, near the end of his playing career, and including third-year outfielder Joe Medwick, whose best years were still to come, and third-year ace Dizzy Dean, whose 30 victories that year has been matched only one time since, in 1968.

It would not be until 1942 that the Cardinals next won the pennant, but that one kicked off three in a row and four in five years.  Of greater significance, however, the 606 games the Cardinals won between 1941 and 1946--an average of 101 per year--is more than any other team in history over six years except for the Chicago Cubs’ 622 victories from 1906 to 1911. (The most any of the great New York Yankee teams won over six seasons was 599, from 1937 to 1942. The Yankees won 598 in six years from 1936 to 1941.)  This Cardinals team dominated the league in every aspect of play and took the '43 and '44 pennants by decisive margins, but did so with Stan Musial as the only historically great player on their roster for each of their four pennants.  It can be legitimately argued that this St. Louis team's achievements should be discounted because two of the four pennants--those in 1943 and 1944, with 105 wins both years--were won when major league rosters were decimated by players being drafted during World War II. Their arch-rivals, the Dodgers, who beat out the 97-win Cardinals in 1941 and fell short of the 106-win Cardinals in 1942 by two games, lost many of their core players to the war effort, but St. Louis did not escape unscathed; outfielders Enos Slaughter and Terry Moore both lost three years in the service to their country, and the year the Cardinals missed out on a fourth straight pennant, falling three games short of the Cubs in 1945, was the year Stan the Man was himself in the armed forces. With all players from both franchises back in the big leagues in 1946, Brooklyn and St. Louis tied for the pennant with the Cardinals sweeping a best-of-three playoff to decide the winner.

After winning their ninth pennant and sixth World Series in 1946, it would be 18 years before the Fall Classic returned to St. Louis.  The 1964 Cardinals made for a compelling story with their dramatic surge at season's end to overtake the collapsing Phillies, and in 1967 and 1968 the Cardinals were not seriously challenged in winning back-to-back pennants, giving them three in five years. But the 1964-68 Cardinals played below expectations in the two years they did not win the pennant, buried in the second division in both 1965 and 1966.  While Ken Boyer had a superb 1964 and Orlando Cepeda a superb 1967 to each win MVP honors, St. Louis had only three stars—Bob Gibson, Lou Brock, and Curt Flood (four, if you want to include Tim McCarver)—among its core players for the duration of their run, but Gibson was their only player who was the best at his position (as one of four starting pitchers) for all of that time, based on the wins above replacement metric.  (Brock had the disadvantage of outfielders Mays, Aaron, and Clemente still in their prime.)

Similarly, the St. Louis team that won three pennants in six years between 1982 and 1987 (in '82, '85, and '87) endured two losing seasons and a third when they were never in the race for the NL East.  They had only one true star and historically great player—Ozzie Smith, the best defensive shortstop ever—but otherwise won with a cast of solid, fundamentally-sound players who played effectively and efficiently within manager Whitey Herzog's framework.  Like the 1926-34 and 1964-68 Cardinals, the 1982-87 St. Louis team had great success with few of the league's best players, which made them vulnerable to poor seasons in the midst of their winning three division titles, three pennants, and two World Series championships.

With the exception of 1942 through 1946, many of the Cardinals‘ pennant-winning teams through history can be said to be overachievers. Although by definition, they were the National League‘s best in the years they won the pennant, the 1926-34, 1964-68, and 1982-87 Cardinals cannot be considered among the all-time best National League teams over any extended period of at least five years because they all endured poor seasons in the middle of their otherwise impressive achievements.  Those Cardinals clusters of pennants were accomplished with relatively unimposing teams when it came to their core regulars.  Indicative of this legacy, 11 of the 24 times the Cardinals have finished first in the league or their division, they did so by margins of three games or less.  In fact, they won more such close pennant races than they lost (7), and in 2001 tied the Astros for the best record in their division (and the league, for that matter) but had to settle for the wild card because Houston won their season series.  Living so close to the edge makes for exciting pennant races and terrific lore, and even embodies the American ethic of overcoming great odds to achieve success, but it does not make a case for being the best over time.  It does make the St. Louis Cardinals one of the most compelling franchise stories in baseball history, who probably have not gotten quite the historical acclaim they deserve.

Rise and Fall of the 1933 Washington Nationals

With the Nationals just eliminated from the wild card, it remains 80 years and counting since the last time a Washington team went to the World Series. From 1924 to 1933, for the first time in modern Washington baseball history, Our Nation's Capital was not the back end of the joke about being first in war, first in peace, and last in the American League, as the Nationals (also called the Senators) were overall the third most successful franchise in the league (after the Yankees and Athletics). This Baseball Historical Insight looks at the build-up to the Washington Nationals winning the 1933 A.L. pennant.

Rise and Fall of the 1933 Washington Nationals

An earlier post focused on the keys to success for the Washington Nationals winning back-to-back American League pennants in 1924 and 1925: http://brysholm.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-al-nationals1924-25-capital-success.html.  Although the core of the team remained substantially the same, the Nationals were not in the pennant hunt in any of the next three years as the Ruth-Gehrig Yankees dominated the league. Notwithstanding his managing the Nationals to pennants in each of his first two years at the helm, beginning at the age of 27 with all of four full seasons of big league experience playing second base, player-manager Bucky Harris was sent packing by Washington owner Clark Griffith after finishing fourth with a losing record in 1928. Griffith brought back Washington icon Walter Johnson, who had won 417 games pitching for the Nationals and retired in 1927 as arguably the greatest pitcher in the history of the game, to try to restore the team's fortunes--this time, as manager.

On the surface,the Big Train's first year at the helm in 1929 seemed less than a success as the Nationals fell to fifth in the AL.  His team was already 34-1/2 games out and 21 games below .500 with a 38-59 record on August 4 when, indicative of what was to come, the Nationals rallied to own the league's best record the rest of the way, playing .600 baseball with 33 wins and 22 losses.  The next three years under Walter Johnson, the Nationals were legitimate contenders--winning 94 and finishing second in 1930, 92 and third in 1931, and 93 and third again in 1932--except they weren't really contenders because the Philadelphia Athletics and New York Yankees were so dominant there was no contest for any of the three pennants. Despite his team coming off three consecutive 90-win seasons, averaging 93 victories a year, and the Nationals having the AL's best record at 19-7 in the final month of the season in 1932, Johnson was replaced as manager by his shortstop, Joe Cronin, and it would be he--Cronin, as player-manager--who had the distinction of leading the Nationals to the promised land of the World Series in 1933.

Clark Griffith was in love with Joe Cronin.  Well, his daughter was anyway; the boss's daughter married the star shortstop, not that that necessarily had anything to do with the managerial change. Griffith, remembering the instant success his team had with consecutive pennants immediately after naming young second baseman Bucky Harris as manager, was enamored by the possibility of another inspiring young on-the-field team leader doing the same.  And the same he did do.  The 1933 Nationals rode a stretch of 23 wins in 26 games between June 8 and July 9 into first place by four games over the Yankees, the only other team that figured in the pennant run that year.  Thirteen straight wins in August broke the race open, and Washington was 8-1/2 games up on New York going into September.  The Nationals ended up winning their third pennant in 10 years by seven games over the Yankees, but lost the World Series to the Giants in five.

It would not seem to have been a necessary move, replacing a Washington icon as manager with the team's star shortstop, especially when it would be dubious to argue that the Nationals could have done any better than they did under Johnson. The Athletics in 1930 and 1931, and the Yankees in 1932, were just too powerful.  They were two of the best teams in history, against which the Nationals were no match, player-for-player (see table at end of post).  Philadelphia's 1929 to 1931 championship teams featured Jimmy Foxx, Al Simmons, Mickey Cochrane, and Lefty Grove--Hall of Famers all, and at the peak of their careers; the Yankees had Lou Gehrig, Tony Lazzeri, Babe Ruth, Earl Combs, Bill Dickey, Red Ruffing, and Lefty Gomez--Hall of Famers all, most at the top of their careers; and Washington's Hall of Fame players included Sam Rice, who was at the end of his career; Heinie Manush, whose best years had been in the 1920s, and Joe Cronin, who was the team's brightest star and the best all-around shortstop in the American League.

The Washington team Cronin inherited was solid and mature, but by no means great.  With the exception of Joe Kuhel at first base, only in his third year, Cronin had a veteran infield with Buddy Myer at second, himself at shortstop, and Ossie Bluege at third.  An off-season trade that brought back back former Nationals' star Goose Goslin, a key contributor to the 1924-25 pennants, helped strengthen the offense, particularly as he joined up with Heinie Manush in the outfield.  Cronin, Goslin, and Manush were three of the most dangerous hitters in the American League.  The trade acquisitions of catcher Luke Sewell, pitchers Earl Whitehead and Lefty Stewart to join Alvin "General" Crowder in the starting rotation, and Jack Russell to become relief ace strengthened the pitching.  And fortuitously for young (26 years old) first-time manager Cronin, the Yankees who had been so dominant in 1932 were vulnerable in 1933, mostly because age was catching up with key core players (notably Ruth, Combs, and Joe Sewell).  The Great Depression, meanwhile, was forcing Connie Mack to break up the core of his great Athletics team.  For the record: there is no reason to suppose, based on his record, that Walter Johnson could not have won the pennant with this team had he remained as manager, especially with the Yankees in decline and the Athletics splitting up.

By 1934, however, the mature pennant-winning Nationals of 1933 were decidedly older, as the Yankees had been, and beset by injuries to key players, notably Cronin and Kuhel.  Unlike the 1933 Yankees, the Nationals did not have the depth of talent to fall back on to prevent a catastrophic plunge from first to seventh.  The team that had been third in scoring and led the league in fewest runs allowed in 1933 fell to sixth in both runs scored and runs allowed in 1934.  The franchise would forever more be the back end of that old joke about Washington baseball, until moving to Minnesota in 1961 ended the pain, after which another AL team in Washington took up that particular mantle (until they moved to Texas).

ATHLETICS / YANKEES / NATIONALS

PLAYER VALUE / STARTING LINE-UPS, 1930-1932

(cumulative wins above replacement)

(starting position players + top 3 pitchers)

	Philadelphia	New York	Washington
1B	Foxx                       22.1	Gehrig                 26.3	Judge/Kuhel                   6.6
2B	Bishop                    13.8	Lazzeri              11.9	Myer                              9.2
SS	Boley/McNair           3.6	Lary/Crosetti         9.3	Cronin                          21.3
3B	Dykes                      6.9	Sewell                   6.2	Bluege                           7.7
OF	Simmons                19.5	Ruth                    28.9	Manush                       10.4
OF	Miller/Cramer           7.8	Combs                 14.1	Rice/Reynolds               10.2
OF	Haas                       6.7	Chapman             13.0	West                            10.1
C	Cochrane               16.5	Dickey                 10.0	Spencer                         0.0
P	Grove                     28.6	Ruffing                  10.2	Crowder                        13.4
P	Walberg                10.5	Gomez                   9.0	L.Brown                          9.5
P	Earnshaw              10.2	Pipgras/Allen          7.3	Marberry                         8.9

Two Sox and the End-Game of the 1967 A.L. Pennant Race

Six teams are still in realistic contention for the two AL wild card slots as the season enters its final two weeks.  In 1967, four teams went into the final weekend with a shot at the American League pennant. Of the four teams, the most interesting story lines concerning the pennant-race end-game involved the Chicago White Sox--whose offensive deficiencies paralleled those of their "hitless wonders" namesake from sixty-one years earlier--and the Boston Red Sox, whose rookie manager, Dick Williams, had his own Gene Mauch moment in the final week of the season. 

Two Sox and the End-Game of the 1967 A.L. Pennant Race

The American League has the distinction of playing The Last Great Pennant Race in major league baseball's original structure of, for each league, just one pennant race.  The year was 1967--the year of the "Cinderella" / "Impossible Dream" Boston Red Sox, who had finished ninth, half-a-game out of last place, the year before with 90 losses.   The Chicago White Sox held first place for more than two months from June 11 to August 12, holding a 5-1/2 game lead at one point, but by September were competing with Boston, the Minnesota Twins, and Detroit Tigers in a fierce four-team race that would go down to the wire.  On September 6, all four teams were tied for first.  The four teams were separated by a game-and-a-half going into the final weekend--beginning Friday, September 29--each with a chance to go to the World Series:

• Minnesota (91-69) was in the best position, one game up on both Boston and Detroit with two to play at Fenway Park on Saturday and Sunday.  If they won both games, the only team that could possibly tie them would be Detroit, and the Tigers would have to win all four of their remaining games against the Angels, which ended up being back-to-back doubleheaders on Saturday and Sunday because of a Friday rainout.
• In an ironic counterpoint to 1949, when the Yankees had to win both weekend games in their home stadium to beat out the Red Sox for the pennant, Boston (90-70) was in the same position now--having to win both games at Fenway to finish ahead of the Twins. To avoid a playoff, however, they also had to count on the Tigers doing no better than splitting their final four games of the season, and for the White Sox to lose one of their last three games.
• Detroit (89-69) could win the pennant outright only if they won all four of their remaining games and Minnesota split its weekend series in Boston.  A Twins sweep at Fenway, on the other hand, would require the Tigers to win all four of their games just to tie for first place and force a playoff; if the Twins won one or if the Red Sox won both games at Fenway, the Tigers would still need at least three wins to force a playoff with one or the other team. 
• As the fourth-place laggard, but only a game-and-a-half behind, Chicago (89-70) faced the biggest challenge going into the final weekend, needing to win all three of their remaining games,and the Red Sox to sweep the Twins, and the Tigers to win no more than three of four--and that would only give Chicago a tie for first with Boston and maybe also Detroit, if the Tigers did win three of four.

As it happened, no playoff was needed.  The White Sox were shut out, 1-0, by the Senators on Friday, making it impossible for them to reach 92 victories, thus eliminating them from contention; the Tigers split both doubleheaders, finishing them off; and the Red Sox swept the Twins to win the pennant outright and end a 21-year drought since the last time they had been to the World Series.

With by far the weakest line-up of the contending teams, it was predictable that the White Sox would not be able to pull out the pennant, even having the league's best pitching and defense.  It says something about the resiliency of that team that Chicago stayed in the race till the final weekend, ultimately finishing three games off pace. The White Sox' prospects actually seemed good at the start of play on September 27, when they were only one behind with their five remaining games against two of the league's worst teams--Kansas City and Washington--while their competitors for the pennant were all playing tougher teams, including Boston and Minnesota with two games against each other on the final weekend.  It was then that the predictable fate of teams that have difficulty scoring runs caught up with the White Sox.  They scored only five runs total in losing all five of their remaining games, and were shut out in three consecutive games.

Only the ninth-place Yankees (at this point in their history, no longer the Bronx Bombers) scored fewer runs than the White Sox in 1967, and only Washington had a lower team batting average than Chicago's .225 in a league that hit all of .236. The White Sox were 7 percent worse than the league average in both runs-to-hits and runs-to-runners on base ratios--two indicators of offensive efficiency.  (In case you were wondering, the 1906 "hitless wonders" White Sox, by contrast, were better than the league average in both categories.)  The 1967 White Sox hit only .214 as a team in going 16-14 in the final month of the season, had an on-base percentage of only .276, and only 21 percent of their hits went for extra bases.  While the White Sox hit 18 percentage points below the league batting average for September, the Twins' batting average for the month was 16 percentage points above the league average, the Tigers were 22 points better, and the Red Sox hit for a batting average 24 points higher than the league average. Only two teams had a worse batting average and on-base percentage in the final month than Chicago, neither of them in the pennant race (obviously), and no team had a lower percentage of extra-base hits. (The league average for extra base hits in the final month of 1967 was 26 percent.)  These kinds of stats are certain to subvert great pitching, as indeed they did:  down the September stretch, White Sox pitchers allowed fewer than one base runner per inning and had a superb 2.17 ERA.  But while the adage of pitching wins pennants may be true, you still need to score runs.  Chicago scored two or fewer runs in 12 of their final 30 games.

Like Phillies' manager Gene Mauch with Jim Bunning and Chris Short during his team's epic collapse in the last 12 games of the 1964 NL season, Red Sox manager Dick Williams relied primarily on Jim Lonborg and Gary Bell as his principal starters down the stretch; together they started half of Boston's final 28 games. Lonborg, his best pitcher, was pitching consistently every fourth day, but with three games left on Boston's schedule on September 27, Williams had him start on two days of rest at home against eighth-place Cleveland. The Red Sox trailed the Twins by one game at the time, but with two off days before the final series with Minnesota, Williams probably felt this was a necessary gamble to have his ace pitch twice in the five days before the season ended.  If Lonborg did not start this game against the Indians, he would have pitched the Saturday game against the Twins, but six days from his previous start because of the two days off.  Pitching against Cleveland on two days of rest would leave Lonborg available to start against Minnesota on Sunday--the season finale--with his typical three days of rest.  And Williams helped set up Lonborg's start on short rest by removing him in the seventh inning of his previous start on September 24 with a 7-0 lead.  As it turned out, Lonborg lost his start on short rest to the Indians, lasting only three innings, but pitched a complete game 5-3 victory over the Twins on the final day of the season to send Boston to the World Series--

--Where they (and he, in Game 7) ran into Bob Gibson.  Enough said.

Revisiting the 1956 Brooks Lawrence Affair

The Reds are virtually guaranteed a post-season berth this year even if they finish third in their division.  In 1956, Cincinnati finished third in the NL with 91 wins, only two games out, but had to go home for the winter since this was long before the wild card option.  This Baseball Historical Insight re-examines the Brooks Lawrence Affair about the reasons why Cincinnati manager Birdie Tebbetts started his best pitcher--Lawrence--only three times down the September stretch with a pennant at stake.  Was it that Tebbetts did not want Lawrence to win 20 games because he was black?  Or simply the good baseball reason that Lawrence had not been pitching well since July?  Or, as this Insight argues, was it Tebbetts' decision to use Lawrence to pitch seven innings in the most critical game of the Reds' season with only one day of rest that ultimately led to Lawrence having so few starts in September?

Revisiting the 1956 Brooks Lawrence Affair

After eleven straight losing season dating to 1945, the Cincinnati Reds found themselves in the middle of a three-team pennant race with Brooklyn and Milwaukee through the summer of 1956.  (Historical note: the major league team in Cincinnati was then known as the "Redlegs" because it seemed politically unwise at the time to be called "Reds" during the Cold War red scare ginned up by Senator McCarthy in the early 1950s.)  The Reds' revival was mostly attributable to the arrival of two black players--rookie outfielder Frank Robinson and pitcher Brooks Lawrence, obtained in a trade with the Cardinals--who kept them in contention.  Lawrence won his first 13 decisions, 10 as a starter, and had 17 wins after a complete game victory against the Cubs on September 1.  In third place, 3-1/2 games off the pace, but with 29 days and 25 games remaining, Lawrence could have made at least seven more starts on the typical three days rest that was the norm at the time.  Instead he made only two--his last on September 15, when Lawrence won his 19th game, by far the most on the staff, to bring the still-third Reds within two of the top.  With 13 games remaining over two weeks, Lawrence could have made at least three more starts pitching on normal rest, and possibly four if winning the pennant came down to that.  Instead, Lawrence pitched only 4-2/3 innings in five games the rest of the season, all in relief, finishing with the same 19-9 record he had on September 15.

The competing accounts of Lawrence's lack of September starts stem from the allegation made by Lawrence to Hank Aaron (and related in Aaron's autobiography, I Had a Hammer) and also by backup Reds first baseman George Crowe (a black player), that Cincinnati manager Birdie Tebbetts did not want a black man to win 20 games.  The counterargument is that Tebbetts had a very good baseball reason for not relying on Lawrence down the September stretch:  his "best" pitcher had been anything but in August.  In 10 August appearances, Lawrence had gone 1-6 with a high 5.89 ERA, including losing all six of his starts that month.  These were hardly numbers to inspire confidence in his manager as the Reds headed into September in a tightly-contested three-team race.

Revisiting the events of Cincinnati's (ultimately failed) September stretch for the 1956 pennant, however, a strong case can be made that Tebbetts not only did not have negative racial considerations in mind as he strived to bring Cincinnati its first pennant since 1940, but had confidence in Brooks Lawrence, despite his August struggles, when it mattered most, although with unfortunate consequences for the short rest of the season, as it turned out:

1. However badly he had pitched in August, Lawrence was still in turn when he started on September 1 and threw a 4-hit masterpiece for his first victory as a starting pitcher in more than a month, raising his record to 17-8 on the season.  At this point, no other Cincinnati starter had more than 11 wins.
2. On September 3, after losing the first game of a double-header to the first-place Braves to fall temporarily 4-1/2 games back, the Reds' 5-2 lead in the bottom of the third inning of the second game was in grave jeopardy when Cincinnati starter Larry Jansen loaded the bases with nobody out and Hall of Fame sluggers Hank Aaron and Eddie Mathews next up for Milwaukee. Despite Lawrence having pitched a complete game victory just two days before, Tebbetts brought him in to squelch the rally--surely a vote of confidence in Brooks Lawrence if ever there was one.  Lawrence not only escaped the jam by getting Aaron to pop out to shallow left and Mathews to bang into a double-play, he finished the game, pitching a total of seven innings on only one day of rest.
3. If Tebbetts did not trust Lawrence's competitiveness and ability to get outs, this would not have been the time or place to bring him into the game, especially on one day of rest.  This was, after all, a game that meant the difference between the Reds leaving Milwaukee 3-1/2 games out, but still in the pennant chase, if they could hang onto their lead, or 5-1/2 down--almost certainly too big a difference to make up with only 22 games remaining--if they lost.
4. Thanks to Lawrence's gutty performance, the Reds were still in the hunt, trailing by the same 3-1/2 games they brought into the double-header.  Using Lawrence in that second game, however, threw Tebbetts' starting rotation out of alignment.  Having thrown 16 innings in the space of three days, Lawrence needed recovery time.  Tebbetts handled Lawrence exactly as if he were in the starting rotation, his next start coming after four days of rest against the Cardinals.  Lawrence pitched badly, taking the loss after giving up four runs in two innings and failing to get an out in the third.  
5. Although his next start was not until a week later, Lawrence was still in Tebbetts' rotation--the Reds had played only four games between Lawrence's starts, during which he had been used twice in relief. Lawrence's victory against the Pirates in what turned out to be his final start was not a work of art--he surrendered four runs in 6-1/3 innings--but it pulled Cincinnati to within two games of Milwaukee and Brooklyn, who were tied at the top.
6. By the time it would have been Lawrence's turn again, the Reds had lost four in a row to dump them 4-1/2 behind with only nine games left on the schedule.  Basically, the pennant race was over for Cincinnati.  Lawrence did not make another start even as the Reds won eight of their last nine games without him in the rotation, although he did appear five times out of the bullpen.

Tebbetts had a last opportunity to start Lawrence when it might have made a difference--at home against the Braves on September 25, their deficit down to 1-1/2 games with three games remaining.  Tebbetts chose to start Jansen instead, who imploded in the last major league game he would ever pitch, giving up three runs in less than two innings. Why did Tebbetts not start Lawrence, who had not pitched in five days?  The answer might be that Lawrence by this time was dog tired.  His 216 innings of work were far more than in either of his two previous big league seasons, when he was used mostly in relief, and Lawrence had been mostly ineffective in his four relief appearances since his last start.  The Reds lost Jansen's start against the Braves, eliminating them from the race, during which Lawrence pitched two innings of mop-up relief.

Whatever the truth of the matter--and racial prejudice seems the least likely explanation, if for no other reason that it would mean Tebbetts deliberately undermined his own team's pennant chances--Brooks Lawrence returned to the top of the Reds' starting rotation in 1957.