Baseball team of the USS Washington, later named Seattle

Whew, baseball season is here!

Finally, baseball season has started. The Mariner's are 2-1 as of today. I will get around to posting again soon. I am thinking of dividing the blog into essentially 3 separate components: early Northwest baseball history, the 1924 season, and an analysis throughout the season of my Total Bases Acquired model to interpret player production and transferability value.

Two months

Well, feel like I've been in spring training. The joyous Mariners have been hitting the ball out of the park. In a way, it seems like the way they played on the road, from midsummer on last season. Its all temperature. If Kyle Seager played ball in the South, he would be a 30 home run guy with a 100 rbi's. Playing in Seattle will probably cost him 35 million dollars. He can't do anything about it though. He would literally have to be playing in the South.
I think the Mariners should have moved the fences out, not in. They should have made the park so deep the outfielders had to play far enough back everything fell in front of them.
But no, the game needs to be fixed. No baseballl in baseball. No real strike zones. Everyone's a winner.

Game 28, The Seattle Daily Times, May 8, 1924.

The Seattle Daily Times, May 8, 1924.
 

Sometimes I think we live in the age of constant memory. I recall as a child a photograph being an incredibly precious thing. Now I will hand off my digital camera to my kids and let them go crazy.  Each photograph was a memory. In a way, we lived without much of our history, both personally and as a culture. I don't know if having a world where nothing seems to fade is such a good thing. History is obviously important to someone such as myself, and its important in many other respects. It may be harmful, or at least stagnating, which would be harmful, to have all the details. I love picking through the past and finding these details. But, is that good for the average person. Is their actual memory better or worse for the wear?

I also am amazed at how much we forget over time. Having transcribed many newspaper accounts of that appeared in newspapers from 1866 to just prior to World War II, I find it interesting to see how much of our modern language appears in the old news accounts. As one goes further into the daily past, the language changes. I think most of us think of the 1920s or the 1880s as a long time ago, and in a way it is. But it is also merely the age of our grandparents or theirs. In a way, this mystery is due to a lack of detail. That lack of detail also allows us to define that past, which is both bad and good. It is bad in that we will necessarily produce a definition that is different from a self-definition. Especially of a society that wasn't concerned with its history. Or was afraid of it. Its good in that we must always work on redefining what the past means to us, especially as we come to know it better.

The Seattle Indians played their 28^th game of 1924 on May 7^th, 1924 and the game was reported on May 8^th. Forty years later, to the day, my older brother would be born on May 8^th, and forty-eight and a half years from then we would have today. Thus, in the slightly off kilter numerical tendencies all far too avid baseball fans tend to auger into, a boy of eight years old who played on his school team, and also avidly followed the local pro team, in 1924, would be 48 in 1964. It is highly likely that if you found the right person, he could recall being at Dugdale Field the day he saw the beloved Indians get 17 hits. He could have been sitting with his 48 year old father, who could tell him about the day in 1884 he saw the local semi-pro team, since in 1884 Seattle didn't have fully professional baseball yet. So, what I mean is, it is a short chain of events really. A small amount of separation between us and the larger historical past that these events occur within. As a whole Earth, an amazing amount of things have gone on since 1924, but there's a slight chance there is someone somewhere who could still describe to youwhat it was like to be at a baseball game early May, 90 years ago.

I thought with this posting I would look at the larger picture of society illuminated by abstracted elements within the sports page of a given day. Here we have two teams made up of players drawn from across the country, half of whom have associations with other players and teams that can drawn you back into the earliest history of the game and the nation if you go down such a path. We have Mickey Cochrane as a young man for Portland coming in to play center field. Jim Bagby of Seattle was only a few years removed from winning a World Series. Most of the players would never see such a thing. Yet, on the same day, this baseball game was more than the one game in town.

In the same sports, naturally further down, we see the results of the grade school leagues. Many of these schools have long since dissappeared. But what this shows us is the value this particular social activity had in its community. The papers of the time were filled with each and every league. When you look across the breadth of activity, you get an idea of why baseball lived up to its reputation as the National Pasttime. From the grade schools to the high schools, organized baseball provided an outlet and activity. Kids would learn the game as it was taught then. Once they were out of school, only a few would go to college. The University of Washington had at least an unofficial 'University Nine' as early as 1880. Nonetheless, college was not the typical destination for most kids. Being good at baseball would, however, get you a better job, and better shifts on that job. If your future was as a coal miner, and you could play centerfield like nobody's business, then you got the early shifts, and the safer ones. If you were a kid in the city, and had starred in high school, you could make your way through any one of a number of semi-pro teams, and get a decent, well-paying job and a future. If Supply Laundry wanted to keep winning, they would actively recruit, and find those recruits jobs. Same with other businesses.

As we see when looking at the grade schools, their season was just closing, but the Commercial League season was in its nascent stages for the year. At this time and earlier, many of the greatest players would get their starts in these amatuer and semi-pro leagues, especially if they needed development beyond high school or were not lucky enough to play college baseball. A young Earl Averill, who has been to spring training to start this season, was found lacking by manager Wade Killefer. Averill was already 22 years old, and made his way back to Everett. It was another two years of semi-pro ball before he made his way to the San Francisco Seals, and another five before he hit Cleveland on his way to the Hall of Fame. Part of me always wonders what could have happened if he'd had a chance on the 1924 Indians. I think that also says something for the general quality of baseball across the semi-pro and minor leagues of the west. There were many PCL players who moved right into the majors and excelled. Anyway, the semi-pro's. Seattle's Commercial League teams actually played integrated baseball at the time. Maybe not on their teams, but with absolute certainty they had played other teams, such as the Asahi Japanese teams. Seattle had at least one Black baseball team by 1911, and probably further back than that.

By the end of the 1920s, Seattle had a Commercial League team that featured top company teams, neighborhood teams, as well as a top notch Japanese team made up of Nisei and Issei players, and a top Black baseball team. Seattle's public schools had always been integrated, so if you look at the rosters on Franklin High School, for instance, in 1919, you'll find Black, Asian, and the variety of White players from assorted backgrounds. Of course, one of the larger points of this blog is that you will not find Indian players, unless you know where to look. Sometimes they would visit, and they would be discernable by their nickname Chief, such as Chief Moses Yellowhorse of Sacramento.

In the Commecial League, we see teams from Ernst Hardware, Northern Life Insurance, Sunset Motors. Other teams are from the YMCA, the Eagles, the Mercer Athletic Club, and Bellevue. Many times such teams would feature a former pro ballplayer, a ringer of sorts. Hard to tell if thats the case with any of these. Most of the semi-pro teams would have two or three really good players, those who weren't quite good enough to make it as a pro, were certainly good enough to get a decent job thanks to their skills on the diamond.

I think one of the ways we can learn about baseball and any other cultural or social phenomenon is to also look at the peripheral information available. Much of history is implied by association rather than directly expressed in an easy to digest fashion. In other words, rarely do you find "the new sport of baseball has come to town and were building a field and here's who is doing it and here's exactly what that means to everyone who cares". Usually its something like the advertisement for a game time, or the comic I've included here. Something like a comic does not need to directly express all of the information it is using to communicate its points. It depends on an existing level of cultural information in order to be humorous. In essence, it is a lot of shorthand. Going back to the 1860s and 1870s, when we first see baseball in the Pacific Northwest, this type of cultural shorthand is what we see when baseball is mentioned, or the Indian Wars are mentioned, or opium dens. The reader was expected to possess enough knowledge that the writer of the article could make a short point while communicating a larger field of information. In other words, the space occupied by the letters was larger depending on the place it was received. This makes sense if you think about the way you interact with a billboard. There is a very short message, an image as well. Its relevance depends on your ability associate that message with another separate given set of information. Its the same with a box score, or a comic about baseball, or a short blurb on an injured player.
 

Thus, when we see a sports page filled with game highlights and box scores from grade schools to colleges and commercial and semi-pro leagues, its pretty easy to do the math and figure the number of people involved. From there we can see that, in a time before radio and television, when most entertainment and sport was something you did with other people outside of the home, that baseball and its myths and permutations formed in such a context. Baseball was not just a game for the major leagues, but rather something that was an indelible part of the fabric of the community. And especially in the West, these communities developed with baseball being already part of the American identity.

 

 

Game 27

Game 27 of the 1924 Season moved the Indians to a record of 11 and 16, a winning percentage of .497. This put them up 1 to 0 for the series with Portland. George Stueland's time in Seattle was the meat in a Cub sandwich. He started with the team managed by Red Killefer's brother Bill in 1921. He went back there for a handful of games in 1925. George was born on March 2, 1899 in Iowa. He died in Onawa, Iowa in 1964. After baseball, he managed a state park and later was a broom maker. Onawa is on the Nebraska border halfway between Sioux City and Omaha. Like many parts of the Pacific Northwest it has a park dedicated to Lewis and Clark. Stueland had pitched in Sioux City in 1920, making his way to Chicago the next September.

EX-CUBHURLER HOLDS BEAVERS AND HITS HARD

Portland Beaten, 3 to 2, in Extra Inning When New Twirler Smacks Two-Bagger to Left

George Stueland, Seattle's blonde twirler obtained from the Chicago Cubs in the Jacobs deal, found the key to his own troubles yesterday, went to the mound against Portland with only three days of rest, not only pitched the Beavers into submission but also paved the way for his own victory with a slashing double to left center in the tenth inning. Billy Lane scored him with the run that gave the Indians a 3 to 2 victory.

Stueland, who isn't backward about figuring things out for himself by any means, found that in the last four or five innings of every game his control was what it should be. Always it was in the early innings that he was prone to walk men who faced him.

So, before he started yesterday's ball game he commenced to warming up when the Seattle infield took its practice. For twenty minutes before the game started he pitched to Catcher Earl Baldwin. And when thegame started he was ready.

Only two men walked on the new twirler. Cox walked the first man up in the second, paving the way for the first Beaver tally.

McCann walked to start the ninth and eventually scored. BUT MCCANN WAS STRUCK OUT FIRST. Umpire Biff Schaller missed as perfect a third strike as was ever thrown.

Along with that all but perfect control Stueland was effective all the way. Six hits were all he allowed. He struck out six men. Distel three times in a row.

The battling Beavers looked puny, indeed, before such great pitching.

* * * *

Bowman Comes Through

Along with Stueland's fine work Elmer Bowman, the big first sacker, must be mentioned.

Bowman hammered a home run in to the left-field bleachers for the first Indian run. It was the first ball hit into the bleachers this season. It was a line drive that fairly whistled its way into the seats.

In addition, Bowman crashed out two hot singles to left field off the curve ball pitching of Buzz Eckert, the star of the Portland staff.

He pulled two weird throws out of the air, one from Stueland and Daly's swinging bunt in the fifth, the other from Tobin on Poole's sacrifice in the seventh.

The big fellow is beginning to look himself now after a poor start.

Red Switches Things

Manager Wade Killefer switched things all around in his endeavor to break up the Indian losing streak.

Jimmy Welsh went to left field in place of Ray Rohwer. Jimmy got two hits and scored the tying run in the ninth inning.

Ted Baldwin, who is hitting around .400, went into fifth place in the batting order, while Sam Crane was dropped from third to seventh, Bowman from fifth to sixth. Welsh went into Crane's niche.

* * * *

Indians Start Weakly

But even with those changes the Indians started as though yesterday's game was going to be a repetition of those other games of last week when nothing went right for them.

Lane opened with a single and advanced on two infield outs. Eldred walked and stole, but Ted Baldwin failed in his first reponsibility in the second clean-up position.

The Beavers got a run in their half of the second through a walk to Cox. Poole's force-out of the Beaver's centerfielder. Wolfer's infield out and Daly's pop fly which fell just out of reach of Brady and Eldred.

Bowman opened the Indian second with a single but on the hit and run play Eckert's pitch was a fast one at Crane's head and Bowman was thrown out stealing.

For three innings Eckert retired the Tribe in order while Stueland was also buzzing along in nice shape, Poole's double with two out in the fourth being the only scare until Cox doubled in the seventh as lead-off man. Stueland put on more steam here, Tobin took care of Poole's sacrifice and Wolfer and Daly were retired on weak rollers to Brady.

Eldred failed in the pinch after a boot and Welsh's single had put two men on for him in the sixth for the Indians. Baldwin was out in the seventh when Bowman connected for the circuit clout which tied the score.

Poor Umpiring Costly

The Tribe would have won the game in the ninth but for that slip of Biff Schaller when he missed a perfect strike on McCann for the third strike. Stueland walked him on the next pitch.

Stueland again bore down, took care of Miller on a fly to Welsh and fanned Cox. He had fooled Poole with two slow curves and on the third pitch elected to try a slow ball. McCann caught him, however, and stole second standing up. Poole singled to right on the next pitch, a line drive on whiche Eldred might have thrown McCann out had he fielded the ball cleanly.

Welsh dropped a double into left field, advanced on Eldred's infield out and scored when Ted Baldwin came through with a single to center. Bowman followed with another long single to left.

The Beavers pulled a smart play to extricate themselves from that difficulty. Eckert bluffed a play at second on Baldwin, whireled and threw to Poole who had nonchalantly slipped behind Bowman. The big first sacker was caught napping.

* * * *

Stueland and Lane Hit.

Stueland and Lane won the game in short order in the tenth. The pitcher came through with a line double to left center and romped home on Lane's single to the same spot.

Perhaps that finish means the jinx is chased and that the Indians will get going in their real stride again.

The Beavers are here without Tex Gressett and Charlie High, two of their left-handed hitting outfielders. Both men have tonsilitis.

Cox and Miller, who are performing in their places, however, are sturdy hitters and good fielders and it can hardly be said that the Beavers are very much weakened.

In Rabbit Benton and Distel they showed Seattle fans two good looking infielders.......

Recent Presentation on 19th Century Base Ball

Here's the Link to the presentation I gave recently. Whew. I will be getting back to the 1924 Seattle Indians this weekend!
Here's a few things that are discussed

BBA Awards for 2012

Yay! Its awards time. As a member of the Baseball Bloggers Association, I am presenting my ballot for the American League winners of these awards. A couple of them are really easy.

Connie Mack Award (manager of the year): Bob Melvin

While I think Robin Ventura is a good choice, and certainly as both a Mariners fan and Red Sox hater, I should cast a ballot for former Mariner Bobby Valentine, I have to go with Bob Melvin. It pains me. I didn't think he was given much of a chance here, in Seattle, and its painful to see the A's be so successful year. The way he managed to take that club and juggle it into contention with so many one-run wins, that's managing in my book. That is all about putting people in the right spot at the right time, and keeping a giant sack of egos focused on one goal when they all have other agendas. Hats off to Bob Melvin.

Willie Mays Award (rookie of the year): Let's see, who could possibly be Rookie of the Year? Oh, yeah. I had told all my friends into fantasy sports to draft Mike Trout. I thought the Angels would play him, and I felt he had a chance to have a really good year in that lineup. Of course, he blew up just as Pujols came back to form. I think that was May 7. But Trout, wow. Even if I don't like WAR, the fact that he has one over 9, at 10.7 in the end, as a rookie, or at all, is astounding. He's just a spectacular ball player. He's got a bright future, but if Trout doesn't cut out/down the K's, he's in for a sophomore slump. If he does get more control of that, look for his OPS to climb over 1 next year and for him to move down the lineup in 2 years. As Pujols fades, Trout and Trumbo make a productive 3 and 4 holes for years to come.

Goose Gossage Award (top reliever): Boone Logan

Now, I know the obvious choice is Jim Johnson, and I'm pretty sure he'll win. I was also thinking Balfour deserves consideration, so does Soriano. In fact, there are better setup guys, and one's who had a better year. This may be the only vote Logan ever gets for anything. But, I think we need to start recognize middle relief and setup for the contributions it makes to the game. Consider this vote to be in that direction. Logan appeared in 80 games, winning 7, losing 2, and got 1 save in 4 opportunities, with 3 blown saves. He usually came in during the 7th inning, had 64 runners on base when he got there, and only 23% came in to score. Logan had 23 holds. Nothing glamorous, just solid pitching. But the number that sticks out to me is the large number of games and the number of runners on base. Other good ones I considered like Benoit and Thornton didn't have nearly that number of runners on base when they came in. Logan was putting out fires all year.  There is the obvious argument against making this gesture, that if he were better, he would be closing. I think that misses the point. He's not the closer, Soriano is, well, he's the placeholder really.  Either way, it doesn't matter,  lets evaluate the  pitcher based on effectiveness at function, and the importance of that function within the system that is the pitching staff. Starter and Relievers. If you have a pitcher who is highly effective at coming in the game with runners on and shutting that down, that is as valuable as a closer who starts the ninth and finishes the job. Really, it takes a whole staff anymore, and the setup guys are as important as the closer and starter anymore. Logan was highly effective at keeping the Yankees in games they were on their way to losing. This is very much a paradoxical, quizzical pick. The kind one makes to start an argument. Was Johnson better as a closer than Logan was as a setup man?  I wouldn't argue Logan is a better pitcher, or ever will be. What I will say is Logan had a difficult job, and did it very well. The key here is the large number of games he had a presence in. 80. 45 of the them the Yankees won. In 55 games he pitched on 1 or fewer days rest. He only gave up runs in 16 appearances. I did not take ERA into consideration here. I simply looked at the reliever as a binary form of success, yay or nay. What I see is a pitcher who came into 42 games with runners already on base, and he kept his team in a position to win, and then handed the ball over to the next guy.

Walter Johnson Award (Cy Young): David Price

 22 starts with 7 innings or more pitched and 3 runs or less earned.

Stan Musial Award (MVP): Miguel Cabrera

So the big choice here: do we go with Cabrera's Triple Crown, or take Trout because of his amazing performance in more advanced stats. For me, its easy. Cabrera moved so Fielder could be signed, and whatever he gave up by being at 3rd, he more than made up for at the plate, and yes, he won the Triple Crown. Clubhouse guy giving up his position, and frankly, he did better than expected at 3rd. Now, the Triple Crown. Its more real than the Neuheisel Northwest Championship. Like it or not, baseball is by nature a nostalgia machine. The Triple Crown does mean something. You go to the ballpark, people know what it means, and that counts for something. Fans connect to that. And the history. Look at the names. More than anything this year, this year will always be remembered for Cabrera. That Cabrera did this in the American League is even more amazing. He's a great hitter, and furthermore, where is Detroit without him? Who knows, you can't know. But what you can know is that Cabrera got on base and drove in runs. Really, the two guys are neck and neck, back and forth across various stats. But what I think gives Cabrera the real edge is the number of games in which he contributed to a win. Not a WAR number, but just look at the actual number of games each player was involved in that led to a win. Then look at the total number of games in the year that they actually made an offensive contribution towards.


For me, an important factor in evaluating a player is how many games they actually contribute to offensively, starting with getting to first, next getting a run in any way across the plate. Its a key number, because I like to see the best players contributing to the most games in a season. Is a .400 hitter good if he plays half the games? Well, only if you have him for the right half. Jeter led the AL this year, getting to first base in 146 games, followed by Fielder with 144. Adam Jones was at 141. Cabrera was in the top 10, at 136, Trout is further down the list at 123. Now, this award is for the Most Valuable Player, so I think every game in which you do not contribute should somehow not count towards a positive valuation. I'm sorry, but if you are in less than 75% of your team's games, I don't care how good you are, you're not showing up 25% of the time. If it doesn't, then Mazeroski is the greatest ball player of all time, and Ruth should be remembered for a failed attempt at stealing. The grind matters. Not being there matters. It doesn't matter if its out of your control, being there matters. Yes, that does mean there's only 22 guys in the AL who I would even consider qualified then, but that's life. Its the MVP award after all, it should be a little selective. Of those folks, Cabrera is 2nd in Times On Base with Error included, 1st in Batting Average, 3rd in OBP, 1st in SLG, and first in OPS. First in RBI's. He got on base more than anyone, and he drove in the people he found there as well. More than anyone else. And he had that high level of productivity across a greater number of games than the other people one could consider. Here's a link to the people I considered for this award: http://bbref.com/pi/shareit/1GGra

1886

Base Ball at Beacon Hill Park, 1862 or 1863

Game 26, Played Sunday, May 4, 1924 (2nd game rained out)

The Seattle Indians played their 26^th game of the 1924 season on Sunday, May 4. This was the final game of the fourth series of the year for the Indians, and their second series against the Salt Lake City Bees. The season had started out in Los Angeles against the Angels, followed by a trip to Salt Lake. The Tribe then wandered via train back to Seattle to open their home season against the Sacramento Solons, followed by another home series against Salt Lake. This most recent weekly stretch concluded with Seattle losing 6 to 3 to the visiting Bees. The second game was called in the third inning for rain, thus giving the series win to SLC, 4 games to 2. This put Seattle's record at 11 wins and 15 losses.

Just as a reminder, in the PCL of the 1920s, each team played a week-long series against their respective opponents. Generally, each series would run Tuesday to Sunday, ending the week with a double header. Then Monday was a travel day, with travel at that time meaning by train. Sometimes, depending on circumstances, you'll see a series go into Monday, but that's only if the following series between all teams involves a close distance, like Oakland/San Francisco or Vernon/Los Angeles. Rain-outs were difficult to make up, so winning percentage was a very important factor in determining which team won the League. Generally, each team ended up playing between 195 and 210 games in a given year. After four weeks of play, here's where the Pacific Coast League standings stood.

      Team               Wins       Losses      PCT

San Francisco         19             9            .697

Vernon                    18           10            .643

Salt Lake                14            12            .533

Portland                  14            13           .519

Los Angeles           12            16            .429

Oakland                 12             16           .429

Seattle                    11             15           .423

Sacramento             9              18           .333

For the fourth week, here's the results of each series:

Salt Lake 4, Seattle 2

Portland 5, Sacramento 1

San Francisco 6, Los Angeles 1

Vernon 5, Oakland 2

Where they will play for the fifth week:

Portland at Seattle

Sacramento at Salt Lake

Vernon at San Francisco

Oakland at Los Angeles

If you'll notice the scheduling, its almost like Pac-8 (10? [12]) basketball. A team like Vernon, which is in the Los Angeles area (and had been in a territorial dispute with the Angels over LA that required the intervention of Kennesaw Landis), would travel via train from LA to the Bay Area, play Oakland for a week, then take the short travel to San Francisco. LA would go to SF and Oakland. So its kind of the same travel that UW and WSU will do, going to play UCLA/USC on the same weekend, except the stay is a week at a time.

Sacramento's early season pitching seems to have been a blessing for whatever team faces them. The other thing I noticed is Los Angeles seems to always get clobbered in one side of a Sunday double header. But yes, Sacramento's pitching had caused a surge in the Indians' batting statistics, followed by a decline against Salt Lake. You can see from the compiled weekly stats that Frank Tobin, Brick Eldred, and Ted Baldwin were the main threat the Tribe had to smoke out the Bees. Although, if you look at Ray Rohwer, he was still putting forth close to a .500 OBP for the week, depending on how you look at the sacrifice hits, even if it was only one base at a time. Ted Baldwin's three walks gave him 12 times on base in 22 plate appearances. The sacrifice hit is something I think needs to be looked at more in regard to Wade Killefer's managerial approach. The Indians would sacrifice alot, it was obviously a part of the manager's game. However, I'm not so sure about how the official scorer awarded that and thus it would be hard to formulate an OBP that would calculate the same as today's interpretation of the OBP stat.

In this particular game, which turned out to be the Sunday finale of the series, there was a 'first inning onslaught'. Here's the box, I think the marking of Frederick at LF was wrong. He was a centerfielder and Duffy Lewis was, of course, a great left fielder:

Salt Lake-                   AB  R  H  PO   A   E

Vitt, 3B...................      5    2   2   1     2    0

Frederick, LF (CF?)..   5    1    2   6     0    0

Sheehan, RF............    4     0    2   3     0    0

Lewis, LF................    2     1    0   3     0    0

Leslie, 1B................    5     1    1   7     0    0

LaZerre, SS.............    5     0    2    3    0    0

Pittenger, 2B...........    3     1    1    3    0    0

Peters, C.................     4    0    1    1     1    0

McCabe, P..............     3    0    0    0    2     0

Totals ........                36   6   11   27   3    0

Seattle-                       AB  R  H    PO   A   E

Lane, CF.................     5   0    0     3     0   0

Brady, 2B...............     4   0    1     0     5   0

Crane, SS...............     4   1    1     0     1   1

Eldred, RF..............    4    2    2     1     1   1

Bowman, 1B..........    4    0    1   13    0    0

Rohwer, LF.............   2    0    0     2    0    0

T. Baldwin, 3B.......   4    0    1     3     4    0

Tobin, C..................   4    0   1     5      0    0

Sutherland, P..........    0    0   0     0     0     0

Gregg, P..................    3   0   1     0     4     0

*Welsh....................    1   0   0     0     0     0

Totals ........                35  3   9    27    15    2

*Batted for Gregg in the ninth.

Score by innings:

Salt Lake ...... 5 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 ---- 6

        Hits ...... 5 1 0 1 0 2 1 0 1 ----11

Seattle     ...... 2 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 ---- 3

    Hits     ...... 3 1 0 0 0 2 2 0 1 ---- 9

Summary: Innings pitched—By Sutherland, nothing

plus. Charge defeat to Sutherland. At bat—Off Sutherland, 3.

Hits batted—Off Sutherland, 3. Runs scored—Off Sutherland, 2.

Runs responsible for—Sutherland 4, Gregg 2, McCabe 3. Struck out--

By Gregg 5. Bases on Balls—Off Sutherland 1, Gregg 3, McCabe 2.

Stolen bases—LaZerre, Frederick. Three-base hit—Frederick. Two-

base hits—Eldred, Bowman, Sheehan, Leslie. Sacrifice hits—Pittenger 2,

Sheehan. Runs batted in—Frederick, Sheehan 2, Pittenger, Peters 2,

Bowman 2, T. Baldwin. Time of game—1:45. Umpires—Phyle

and Schaller.

The days news also featured a story about golf, which I include here because it features Wade Killefer talking about how golfing got him in trouble with Cincinnati and apparently ended his time there. He was traded to the New York Giants along with Buck Herzog for Christy Mathewson, Bill McKechnie and Edd Roush. I'm not sure, but has another player ever been traded for three hall of famers?

Game 25, played May 3, 1924

The Seattle Indians played their 25th game of the 1924 season on May 3, 1924. The game resulted in a 3 to 2 loss for the Indians.

The loss put Seattle down  2 to 3 in the series against Salt Lake, and left the Seattle ball club at 10 wins and 15 losses for the year.

The game featured Ted Baldwin getting the boot from umpire Biff Schaller. Schaller had played some for the 1919 Seattle Indians, when the team returned to the PCL.

Before that, Schaller played for several years with the Seals, and even had some major league experience. He was a backup outfielder for a few games in 1911 with the Tigers, and saw some time in 1913 with the White Sox.  As a total aside, I just noticed that Red Killefer and Bill Lelivelt both played on the 1909 Tigers. Bill is, of course, Jack's brother.

Some other tidbits in the news that day concerned the expensive hands of some PCL fielders, one of whom would prove to be worth quite a bit for Murderers' Row.

While I'm sure most are familiar with Tony Lazzeri, Johnny Frederick had a nice career as well. He finally hit the majors in 1929, joining Tony in New York City, albeit a little further south at Ebbets Field, wearing number 1 for the Brooklyn Robins. He led the NL in doubles with 52 in his rookie year, finishing ahead of the 42 hit by team mate Babe Herman.

Herman, incidentally, was, in 1924, still a year away from a strong year for the 1925 Seattle Indians. Frederick roamed center field between Herman in right that year and Rube Bressler. How many players got to go to work with Babe and Rube?

Curiously enough, Bressler had started out as a pitcher, much like the pitcher who started that day for Salt Lake, Lefty O'Doul. O'Doul and Frederick would be teammates with Brooklyn's outfield corps in 1931, along with Herman and Bressler. O'Doul would hit .368 in 1932, to win the NL batting title. From 1924 to 1932, O'Doul hit, in the PCL: .392, .375, .338, .378; and in the MLB: .319, .398, .383, .336, and .368.

The year O'Doul hit .398, he closed out the season on a 15 game hitting streak in which he batted .462. One more game that year, and he's probably in the Hall of Fame.

In addition, Mike Sexton was visiting Seattle that week. He was the commissioner of the minor leagues, a position he would hold for 22 years, and had been involved during the off season in settling a dispute in the PCL about the control of the Los Angeles market. More on that later during a road trip to Vernon.

That story also mentions the trip Sexton took to see Daniel Dugdale, and references the Duke and Dugdale battery. I'm guessing this is for the 1889 Minneapolis Millers, for whom Dugdale caught and Martin Duke had a banner year, winning 24 games and striking out 347 batters.

As far as Sexton's story about the origin of organized baseball in Rock Island, I found in Baseball Reference a team from 1883 that was independent, and an 1879 team for Davenport. I am guessing this would be a good lead as far as the origin of that Rock Island team. (okay, I kept looking. I found an obituary on Google News Archive. Sexton was born in 1863, and died in 1937. He was President of the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues from 1908 to 1933. Baseball Reference shows that as 1909 to 1931, which aligns with another story I saw which said he was the head of the minors for 22 years.)
Simply click on the image at left and it should expand to a legible size. I included the scan of the hair gel ad. I presume this was a popular hair style.

Game 24, Friday, May 2, 1924

Reported on Saturday, May 3, 1924.

Speedy Indian Is Death to Bees In Closing Innnings

In their 24^th game of the year, the Seattle Indians evened up the week's series against the Salt Lake City Bees with a thrilling 5 to 4 victory in 12 innings. One of the more exciting games of th earlier part of the 1924 season, it brought the overall record for the Indians to 10 wins and 14 losses. Here's the caption for the Aunt Eppie photographs below:

"Aunt Eppie, The Times' big long range camera, caught some real action in yesterday's game between the Seattle Indians and the Salt Lake Bees. In the upper photograph Vitt is out because Cliff Brady thought faster than he did. Vitt was on second when Frederick grounded to the Indian second sacker. Brady juggled the ball, knew Frederick would probably beat his throw to first, so turned and shot the ball to Ted Baldwin, and Vitt, who had turned thrid, was out in a run down. Ted Baldwin to Earl Baldwin to Ted Baldwin. The latter player is catching the ball from his namesake. Sam Crane is backing Ted up and George Stueland with his back to Aunt Eppie is also set to get in the play if necessary. Duffy Lewis is the Salt Lake coacher – while Umpire Phyle also gets into the picture. The lower photograph is a riot scene and as aproof of the fact that Frank Tobin, the tousle-haired athlete in the background, won the argument in question, please note that he has his head up. Ted Baldwinhas entered as a peacemaker along with numerous others and stands between Tobin and his late antagonist, Les Sheehan, whose head is bowed in defeat, as it were. Nobody seems overly excited, but Lefty O'Doul, who got married Monday, can be seen leaving the scene of action. The trouble started when Tobin blocked Sheehan of fthe plate on an attempted double steal. Sheehan lost his head and started kicking. They rose to their feet and Tobin landed with both fists. Then the fight ended."

Regarding the column, here's a partial transcription:

George Stueland pitched unbeatable baseball after the third inning of yesterday's Salt Lake-Seattle battle and the Indians came through with a rally in the twelfth inning that netted them a run and a 5 to 4 victory over the Bees.

Apparently Stueland doesn't get warmed up properly. In his first start against Sacramento he walked three men in the first four innings. In the second game he walked five in the first four. Yesterday, he walked five in the first three. But after those spells of wildness he was pitching well nigh perfect baseball.

His poor start yesterday almost gave the Bees the game. In fact, except for a dropped fly ball by Fritz Coumbe they would have won 4 to 3 in nine innings. Two walks in the second and one in the third were turned into runs for the Bees when Jenkins and Sheehan delivered doubles.

How many bases does it take to score a run?

Its a simple question, and four is of course the answer. It has been the subject of the research I am doing lately. I presented on the subject today at the Pacific Northwest SABR chapter meeting today. In a basic way, I presented my Total Bases Acquired formula. This is a formula I've devised based on combining offensive elements that have, when simply added together and then divided by games played, at least as high a correlation to team runs scored as OPS.

TBAq/G= [Total Bases + Walks + Hit By Pitcher + Reach on Error + Stolen Bases]/Games Played

Its a relatively simple formula, and quite similar to one Henry Chadwick used called TBA, which was total bases divided by games.

Now, this does not necessarily predict individual runs, but what it does do is predict team runs. Also, you can see with it that any team, by hook or by crook, pretty much that you have to simply produce bases to score runs. Interestingly enough, the more bases you produce, the efficiency with which you produce runs increases. Thus as your bases increase, the number of bases needed to score a run decreases, magnifying the impact of added bases.

Here are the teams in the MLB as of today. First is their runs scored per game, in the third column you'll see their TBAq. In between the two is something I call the Base Efficiency, which is how many bases it takes that team to score a single run. And these are only bases acquired without also creating an out, so a hit, walk, hit by pitch, reaching on error, or stolen base. The BEFF is reached by dividing TBAq and Runs Per Game. Next you see what would have been the expected bases based on their actual runs scored. If there is a negative, that means that team is inefficient in converting their acquired bases to runs. Thus, we could say Washington should have only needed 17.19 bases to produce 3.9 runs per game. However, it took them 18.27 bases, thus as a team, they have to produce more bases than say Toronto in order to score an equal number of runs. It doesn't mean their a good ball club, just that they make do better with what they've got. One thing that is interesting in this year of pitching dominance, is that 66% of teams are under-performing right now in terms of their ability to convert bases to runs (the model I use goes back to 1998). Some of those teams will see their run scoring increase. More than likely, it will be the teams with the high percentage differential as well as being near the top in runs produced. Basically, they have the crude oil needed to produce the gas in the first place, so that will show through.

		RUNS	BEFF	TBAqG	exp base	diff	% diff
2012	WSN	3.90	4.686	18.27	17.19	-1.08	-5.91%
2012	TOR	4.73	4.007	18.95	19.16	0.20	1.07%
2012	TEX	5.25	3.965	20.82	20.38	-0.43	-2.07%
2012	TBR	4.38	4.152	18.19	18.33	0.14	0.78%
2012	STL	4.86	4.118	20.02	19.46	-0.55	-2.76%
2012	SFG	4.03	4.379	17.65	17.50	-0.14	-0.82%
2012	SEA	4.02	4.233	17.02	17.48	0.46	2.72%
2012	SDP	3.37	5.063	17.06	15.94	-1.12	-6.56%
2012	PIT	3.24	4.806	15.57	15.64	0.06	0.41%
2012	PHI	4.29	4.274	18.33	18.12	-0.22	-1.18%
2012	OAK	3.80	4.607	17.51	16.96	-0.55	-3.14%
2012	NYY	4.76	4.325	20.59	19.23	-1.36	-6.61%
2012	NYM	4.52	4.040	18.26	18.66	0.40	2.18%
2012	MIN	4.25	4.314	18.33	18.02	-0.31	-1.70%
2012	MIL	4.31	4.408	19.00	18.16	-0.84	-4.40%
2012	MIA	3.67	4.854	17.81	16.65	-1.16	-6.52%
2012	LAD	4.35	4.195	18.25	18.26	0.01	0.07%
2012	LAA	4.03	4.428	17.85	17.50	-0.34	-1.93%
2012	KCR	3.82	4.678	17.87	17.01	-0.87	-4.84%
2012	HOU	4.25	4.165	17.70	18.02	0.32	1.80%
2012	DET	4.42	4.249	18.78	18.42	-0.36	-1.91%
2012	COL	5.21	3.936	20.51	20.29	-0.22	-1.06%
2012	CLE	4.32	4.262	18.41	18.19	-0.23	-1.22%
2012	CIN	4.41	4.283	18.89	18.40	-0.49	-2.59%
2012	CHW	4.78	3.991	19.08	19.27	0.20	1.03%
2012	CHC	3.69	4.637	17.11	16.70	-0.41	-2.40%
2012	BOS	4.98	3.969	19.77	19.75	-0.02	-0.10%
2012	BAL	4.56	4.225	19.27	18.75	-0.51	-2.65%
2012	ATL	4.66	4.030	18.78	18.99	0.21	1.11%
2012	ARI	4.27	4.409	18.83	18.07	-0.76	-4.03%

Another thing I'm interesting in is strikeouts. Did you know that players will have a higher OPS in games in which they strikeout vs games in which don't. Also, K's are way up the last few years. That K phenomenon shows up in the OPS of players even when you add in hits, like even 1 or 2 hits a game. In fact, its still about even for players in games in which they go 2 for 4 and have a K vs a game in which they go 2 for 4 and have a different kind of out. Some, at the top end have a higher OPS (all are high in that circumstance, since they start with a .500 BA and probably have a walk). What I think this has to do with is a strikeout is evidence of a pitcher advantage. There is no way to measure that advantage until you see it stretched out over 1,500 at bats. In the short term, strikouts don't make a difference, an outs an out. But just as a hit is not a hit, an out is not an out.

Old Time Baseball

another day

Baseball Comics

HBP?