The League Leaders - 1897-1909

As a follow-up to the post on Billy Maloney, I wanted to post the league leaders in total strikeouts for each season/league for 1897-1909.

	League Leader - Most
	NL		AL
1897	McCreery	72
1898	Gettman & Joyce	60
1899	Holmes	59
1900	J Barrett	63
1901	M Cross	91	J Barrett	62
1902	Flood	70	Howell & Strang	66
1903	Babb	66	Pickering	75
1904	Lumley	105	J Stahl	98
1905	Maloney	83	Hoffman	106
1906	Maloney	118	M Cross	86
1907	Maloney	100	Hoffman	99
1908	T Jordan	75	N Ball	90
1909	Becker	80	J Stahl	91

I should mention at this point that these totals are based on what I term "projected and adjusted" totals.

First,  I calculate the percentage of documented games to actual games played.   Then take the total documented stirkeouts and divide it by the pct of documented games to get a number of projected strikeouts that that hitter "would" have had.   I then make any minor adjustment (by team or league) if the team/league totals are off from the summed projected totals ("tuning in").

As an example, I will use Bill Joyce in 1897.

Joyce played in 110 total games.   Of those 110 games, I have been able to document strikeouts for 103 of those games (including games where he had 0 k's).  I was able to document 36 strikeouts in those 103 games.

As a result,

his pct of documented games/actual games = 103/110 = 93.8%

To calculate his "projected k's", I divide 36/0.938 to get (rounded) 38 strikeouts.

I then calculate an "adjusted" number.   In this case, the 1897 NY Giants projected team total came to 331, off by - 1.2% from the actual documented total of 327.  I multiply the 38 strikeouts by 1 + (-.012) to get the "adjusted total".  In this case, the total remained 38 strikeouts.

While this may not satisfy everyone in regards to "matching up" exactly or not having complete data, with the amount of data I have for most players and the small variances (projected team/league totals from the actual team/league totals being in most cases within 2% if not smaller), I am very comfortable with my method.

One observation I noticed when I was originally putting my leaders together was that in the NL after the foul strike rule went into effect, 1901, there was the predictable spike (represented by Monte Cross's 91 k's and league total of 4241).  The next 2 years, 1902 & 1903, the k's totals in the NL dropped each year (1902 - 3895 and 1903 - 3767). 

I have yet to do any research into what may have caused this, except to casually speculate that hitters "got wise" to the foul strike rule and used a different approach in their hitting league-wide.  Again, I have not done any in depth research on this.

What is interesting is that in 1904, the league strikeout total spikes back up to stay, going up by 510 to 4277.  Again, I am not sure what the cause was - a rule change, more stringent calling of the rule.  I do know that the foul strike rule was not universally loved when it was implemented, but that discussion is for another post.

As a last note, for those Brooklyn fans, you can wallow in one more thing.  A Brooklyn player led the NL in sitrkeouts Every year from 1902 through 1908 (Flood, Babb, Lumley, Maloney, Jordan), with the exception of Maloney in 1905.   Apparently, the Superbas didn't take kindly to a non-Superba (Maloney was with the Cubs in 1905) leading the league in K's, because he was acquired by Brooklyn in time to lead the league and set an new batter strikeout record of 118 in 1906!

Thank you to all the assistance

I need to take care of this before I post any more. 

This research, by no means, has been a solo project.   I have had the help of many people in many cities - running copies/scans for me, documenting batter strikeouts in boxscores, and the most thankless task of them all, reading game accounts and pulling batter strikeout references for me.  Special kudos go to Dave Smith/Tom Ruane of Retrosheet for sharing "unproofed" play-by-play from many seasons, Ed Morton for his tireless work going through the 6 or 7 Philly papers running scans and documenting those in game accounts as well, and Bob Richardson, who did a similar thing for me in Boston.

A special thank you goes to Paul Wendt, who greatly encouraged me at the beginning of this journey and supplied me with the MS Access template which I have used to enter all of my lineups and batter strikeouts.

And lastly to Pete Palmer, who I have had the great pleasure to work with.  He has encouraged me, made suggestions, corrections, and is helping me "mainstream" my data.

To all, a tremendous thank you.

Baltimore	Bill Wagner
Boston	Bob Richardson	Lee Panas	Bill Nowlin
Brooklyn	Cliff Blau
Chicago	Walt Wilson
Cincinnati	Cincinnati Public Library	Jim Farmer	Tom Chase	Rick Huhn	Esta Day	Chris Eckes
Cleveland	Peter Garver	Rick Huhn
Detroit	Me
Louisville	Esta Day (UKy)
Milwaukee	Dennis Pajot
New York	Cliff Blau
Philadelphia	Ed Morton
Pittsburgh	Carnegie Public Library
St. Louis	St. Louis Public Library	Keith Carlson	Mary Hegel	Dwayne Ispring

Rube Waddell - 1903

As I have started into 1910, I have come upon Walter Johnson's 1st great year - 25-17, 1.36 ERA, and 313 strikeouts.   As I mentioned a few posts ago, it seems as if the Washington Post changed the format of their boxscores around the beginning of July, eliminating batter strikeouts from the boxscores.  But what recently caught my eye was a reference in the Chicago Tribune mentioning that Johnson had past Rube Waddell's AL record of 301 strikeouts in a season.  Well, a easy look at any current encyclopedia or Baseball Reference.com site will show that Waddell's top K total was 349 in 1904.   Apparently, either they forgot about 1904 (citing 1903) or had their 1904 totals wrong.   Pete Palmer or John Schwartz sent me an article from a 1946 Sporting News issue in which Cliff Kachline had corrected the error of how many K's Waddell had.in 1904  page 2 has a mention of the article. 

Rube Waddell was a phenomenon in the early 20th century - a brilliant and fearsome pitcher who was just (if not moreso) erratic.  But when he was on, he was on.  

While this blog entry is going to concentrate on 1903 and a subsequent one on 1904, one could make a case for his 1902 season in which he struck out 210 (6.8 per 9 ip).  Why?   1902 was the year before the implemenation of the foul strike rule in the American League.  Waddell's previous season, 1901, when he struck out 172 in 251 1/3 innings was the first year of the foul strike rule in the National League.

In 1902, Waddell, his 1st year in the AL,  led the AL in strikeouts by 50 (Cy Young was 2nd with 160), but more remarkable was how much he led by in k's per 9 innings - Waddell's 6.8 nearly DOUBLED Jack Powell's 2nd place number of 3.7 k's per 9.   But as for raw numbers, 1902 was just a warmup.  Once the foul strike rule was implemented, strikeouts as a rule went up in the AL (as they did in the NL in 1901), and Rube Waddell enjoyed 2 of the most dominating (in terms as versus the rest of the league) strikeout seasons.

In 1903, in 324 innings, Waddell struck out 302 (I counted 301).
In 1904, in 383 innings, he struck out 349 (I counted 350).

In 1903, he had 11 games with 10 or more strikeouts - George Mullin was second with 3 games

A couple of years ago, the late Mr. Schwartz sent me a list that he had compiled of all of Walter Johnson's strikeouts by batter for his rookie season of 1907 - it was complete except maybe 5.  His research corrected an error in Johnson's 1907 total.

This inspired me about a year ago to do the same with Waddell's 1903 and 1904 seasons.

I was able to find the batter for 288 of the 301whiffs (95%).   11 batter strikeouts from 4 games in Stl Louis and 2 k's from 2 games in DC are still unaccounted for.

Now the stats!

In 1903, here are Waddell's game by game totals:

One thing that you will notice really quickly is that there are No Games After August 21st.   So his 301 (302) strikeouts came with more than a month and half left in the season!
 
To quote from his BIOPROJ page:  "....even though his season ended prematurely on August 25 when he failed to appear for his scheduled start in Cleveland. Mack, weary of Rube's frequent unexcused absences, suspended him for the remainder of the season."

A nice brief bio can be found at the SABR BIOPROJ website:  Rube Waddell's BIOPROJ page

Date                                  Strikeouts

20-Apr	9
22-Apr	9
25-Apr	11
28-Apr	7
8-May	9
11-May	13
14-May	1
15-May	13
19-May	4
23-May	6
26-May	8
30-May	11
1-Jun	6
4-Jun	1
5-Jun	6
9-Jun	7
12-Jun	14
16-Jun	4
19-Jun	3
24-Jun	6
27-Jun	8
30-Jun	5
4-Jul	9
6-Jul	6
11-Jul	7
14-Jul	14
17-Jul	12
23-Jul	6
25-Jul	8
27-Jul	6
30-Jul	4
1-Aug	13
5-Aug	11
11-Aug	6
14-Aug	6
16-Aug	7
18-Aug	12
21-Aug	13
Grand Total	301

The following is a breakdown of which batters struck out the most against Waddell that year, by game.

Emmett Heidrick leads the pack with 12 Gus Hill acts (late 19th century whiff term) in 6 games vs. Waddell, including 4 times on July 17th.  Frank Isbell was second with 10 whiffs in 4 games.

Heidrick	12
StL	12
15-May	2
16-Jun	1
24-Jun	1
17-Jul	4
16-Aug	1
18-Aug	3
Isbell	10
Chi	10
11-May	2
9-Jun	1
14-Jul	4
14-Aug	3
Donovan	8
Det	8
5-Jun	3
27-Jun	1
4-Jul	2
21-Aug	2
Freeman	7
Bos	7
20-Apr	1
22-Apr	2
25-Apr	1
5-Aug	2
11-Aug	1
Ferris	7
Bos	7
20-Apr	2
22-Apr	2
25-Apr	2
11-Aug	1
Lush	6
Det	6
27-Jun	2
4-Jul	1
21-Aug	3
Bradley	6
Clev	6
23-May	1
26-May	1
12-Jun	2
11-Jul	2
Coughlin	6
Wash	6
8-May	1
25-Jul	3
27-Jul	2
Barrett	6
Det	6
27-Jun	1
4-Jul	1
6-Jul	2
21-Aug	2
Flick	6
Clev	6
26-May	2
12-Jun	2
30-Jun	1
11-Jul	1
LaChance	6
Bos	6
20-Apr	1
22-Apr	1
25-Apr	3
5-Aug	1
Friel	5
StL	5
15-May	3
17-Jul	2
Gochnaur	5
Clev	5
23-May	2
12-Jun	2
30-Jun	1
Lee	5
Wash	5
23-Jul	1
25-Jul	2
27-Jul	1
30-Jul	1
Green	5
Chi	5
11-May	1
9-Jun	1
14-Jul	1
14-Aug	2
Hickman	5
Clev	5
26-May	2
12-Jun	3
Hughes	5
Bos	5
25-Apr	3
11-Aug	2
Bernhard	5
Clev	5
30-Jun	2
11-Jul	3
Wolfe	5
NY	5
28-Apr	2
30-May	3
Martin	4
StL	4
17-Jul	3
18-Aug	1
Selbach	4
Wash	4
1-Jun	2
23-Jul	1
27-Jul	1
Wallace	4
StL	4
15-May	1
24-Jun	2
18-Aug	1
Hallman	4
Chi	4
11-May	3
9-Jun	1
G Smith	4
Det	4
27-Jun	2
4-Jul	1
6-Jul	1
White	4
Chi	4
11-May	3
14-Jul	1
Crawford	4
Det	4
5-Jun	1
27-Jun	1
4-Jul	1
6-Jul	1
McCormick	4
StL	1
15-May	1
Wash	3
23-Jul	1
27-Jul	2
Williams	4
NY	4
30-May	1
1-Aug	3
Dinneen	4
Bos	4
22-Apr	2
5-Aug	2
Ganzel	3
NY	3
28-Apr	1
1-Aug	2
Callahan	3
Chi	3
14-May	1
14-Jul	1
14-Aug	1
Dunkle	3
Wash	3
25-Jul	3
O'Brien	3
Bos	3
25-Apr	1
5-Aug	2
Siever	3
StL	3
15-May	2
16-Jun	1
Bay	3
Clev	3
26-May	1
12-Jun	2
F Jones	3
Chi	3
14-Jul	3
DeMontreville	3
Wash	3
8-May	3
Long	3
Det	2
27-Jun	1
21-Aug	1
NY	1
30-May	1
Conroy	3
NY	3
28-Apr	1
30-May	1
1-Aug	1
Dougherty	3
Bos	3
20-Apr	1
22-Apr	2
Joss	3
Clev	3
23-May	2
12-Jun	1
D Holmes	3
Chi	3
19-Jun	1
14-Jul	2
McCarthy	3
Clev	3
23-May	1
26-May	1
11-Jul	1
Wright	3
StL	3
18-Aug	3
L Tannehill	3
Chi	3
11-May	2
14-Jul	1
Carr	3
Det	3
4-Jul	2
6-Jul	1
C Stahl	3
Bos	3
5-Aug	1
11-Aug	2
Drill	3
Wash	3
8-May	1
23-Jul	2
Keeler	3
NY	3
30-May	1
1-Aug	2
Sugden	3
StL	3
15-May	1
17-Jul	1
18-Aug	1
Criger	2
Bos	2
5-Aug	2
Chesbro	2
NY	2
1-Aug	2
A Davis	2
NY	2
30-May	2
Courtney	2
NY	2
28-Apr	2
Lajoie	2
Clev	2
12-Jun	2
O'Connor	2
NY	2
28-Apr	1
1-Aug	1
Sudhoff	2
StL	2
15-May	1
16-Aug	1
McGuire	2
Det	2
4-Jul	1
21-Aug	1
Hemphill	2
StL	2
15-May	1
16-Jun	1
McAllister	2
Det	2
5-Jun	1
21-Aug	1
Evans	2
StL	2
17-Jul	2
Carey	2
Wash	2
8-May	1
1-Jun	1
Buelow	2
Det	2
21-Aug	2
Owen	2
Chi	2
9-Jun	2
Kahoe	2
StL	2
15-May	1
24-Jun	1
Wilson	2
Wash	2
8-May	2
Powell	2
StL	2
19-May	2
Magoon	2
Chi	2
19-Jun	1
14-Jul	1
Dolan	2
Chi	2
11-May	2
Parent	2
Bos	2
20-Apr	1
5-Aug	1
H McFarland	1
NY	1
1-Aug	1
Orth	1
Wash	1
30-Jul	1
Moran	1
Wash	1
30-Jul	1
Burkett	1
StL	1
16-Jun	1
Fultz	1
NY	1
1-Aug	1
T Daly	1
Chi	1
9-Jun	1
Townsend	1
Wash	1
1-Jun	1
Slattery	1
Chi	1
9-Jun	1
Gessler	1
Det	1
5-Jun	1
Collins	1
Bos	1
20-Apr	1
Robinson	1
Wash	1
8-May	1
Farrell	1
Bos	1
25-Apr	1
Kittridge	1
Wash	1
30-Jul	1
H Smith	1
Det	1
4-Jun	1
Skopec	1
Det	1
21-Aug	1
Gleason	1
Bos	1
20-Apr	1
Howell	1
NY	1
30-May	1
Yeager	1
Det	1
6-Jul	1
Delahanty	1
Wash	1
1-Jun	1
McFarland	1
NY	1
30-May	1
Hill	1
StL	1
18-Aug	1
Patterson	1
Chi	1
19-Jun	1
Domer	1
Clev	1
26-May	1
Abbott	1
Clev	1
30-Jun	1
Winter	1
Bos	1
20-Apr	1

I pulled the 288 strikeouts from a variety of sources, both from the box scores/play-by-play and game write-ups:

paper	k 's cited from
phi public ledger	118
ny evening telegram	31
chicago tribune	23
detroit free press	21
cleveland leader	15
st. louis republic	10
phil north amer	10
boston post	9
wash times	9
st. l globe dem	9
wash post	8
phil even telegram	7
boston herald	6
phil  record	5
st. l post dispatch	5
phil press	1
st. l chronicle	1
Grand Total	288

If anyone wants the game-by-game list, please let me know.

That's it for Waddell's 1903 season.