One of the people helping do my research (in Philly) reminded me the other day of a great source for scanned old newspapers: http://www.fultonhistory.com. The site has a plethora of NY based newspapers including the Brooklyn Eagle and New York Evening Telegram (NYET). I mention the NYET, because this was probably the one newspaper which really opened up my ability to document batter strikeouts. The NYET had play-by-play of all New York based teams for the years I have been researching. This is also a source that Retrosheet has used to document some early play-by-play (pbp)as well. Anyway, with the NYET, I was able to track down well over 95% of the games (home and away) for most of the NY and Brookyln seasons in my research. Some of the games in the "West", St. Louis, Chicago sometimes had partial pbp.
Anyway, the reason I bring this up was that I was asking Ed Morton,. my Philly research person to see if he could pull some 1906 & 1908 play-by-play from similar papers in Philly (Phil Evening Times, Phil Evening Telegram) and he pointed me to fultonhistory. It is a bit of a pain to navigate, but a great resource.
He sent me over a couple of scans I needed of 1906 games between Brooklyn and Philly I was missing from the NYET and realized that I should go back and double check to see if the NYET had any other Brooklyn game pbp that I didn't have (or Retrosheet for that matter). I was able to find nearly 20 missing Brooklyn games and bumped up my "% game documented" number for Brooklyn from 88% to 96%. This leads me to Billy Maloney. In going through the NYET in fultonhistory I found a few more strikeouts for Maloney to add to his significant total in 1906.
Billy Maloney Billy Maloney - BR Stats was a fairly non-descript player who started out as a catcher with the 1901 Milwaukee Brewers and later showed up with the Chicago Cubs/Brooklyn Superbas/Dodgers as a starting outfielder from 1905-08. He had very good speed and seems to have been a fairly decent outfielder, but from my research, it turns out that he had a bit of "Rob Deer" in him.
From 1905 through 1908, Maloney either led the league in strikeouts or was 2nd - and he was only 2nd in 1908 because he played in only 113 games, finishing with 73, two behind leader Harry Lumley, who had 75.
His season by season totals, 1905 to 1908 (w/ games played)
1905 Cubs - 83 k's in 145 games
1906 Brook - 118 k's in 151 games
1907 Brook - 100 k's in 144 games
1908 Brook - 73 k's in 113 games
While this may not seem like much in our modern era, these numbers were significant in the era. Not to say there were not others battling him for the k title in a couple of those years. We already mentioned 1908 and Lumley. In 1905, Maloney "beat out" Mickey Doolan of the Phillies by 2. In 1906 (37 k's) and 1907 (19 k's), his margin of victory was much more.
1906 was definitely his special season. With 96% of his games accounted for, he struck out at least once in over half of his 151 games (78). He struck out 2 or more times in a staggering 27 times (20 - 2k games, 6 3k games, and 1 4k game).
This is by far the leader in this era (2nd is 21 by Danny Hoffman in 1905 AL) - granted not all players have 96% of their games documented.
There were other players of this era (1897-1909), who were among the leaders in strikeouts year after year.
A couple are Jimmy Barrett, the aforementioned Danny Hoffman, Harry Lumley, and Monte Cross.
Barrett's record shows the following among the leaders:
1900 NL - 63 (1st)
1901 AL - 62 (1st)
1902 AL - 59 (3rd)
1903 AL - 67 (4th)
1904 AL - 90 (2nd)
An injuries after this limited his playing time, though he did manage to place 9th (with 64 k's) in only 107 games.
There is loose Ty Cobb tie (pardon the pun). After Barrett became hurt in 1905, veteran Duff Cooley took his place in centerfield for most of the rest of the season, but late in the season, a brash awkward teenager took over in center, Ty Cobb. Not a direct tie, but...
Danny Hoffman Danny Hoffman B-R Batting was the Maloney of the American League - he was a starter, part-time player for the Philly A's, NY Highlanders/Yankees (went by both names), and then the St. Louis Browns in roughly the same years as Maloney, 1905 - 1910.
His totals for those years (through 1909 at this point):
1905 Phil(A) - 106 (1st) in 118 games
1906 NY(A) - 71 (5th) in 103 games
1907 NY(A) - 99 (1st) in 137 games
After that his totals, settled down a little (1908 - 57 in 99 games, 1909 - 63 in 110 games).
Lumley led the NL in strikeouts twice 1904 and 1908.
His totals and rank from 1904 - 1908:
1904 - 105 (1st)
1905 - 63 (3rd)
1906 - 75 (6th)
1907 - 62 (6th)
1908 - 75 (1st)
Monte Cross was a "classic" no hit great field shortstop from the turn of the 19th/20th century who had played on the old Philadelphia Phillies teams and jumped to the crosstown A's in 1902.
His totals and rank from 1897-1903:
1897 Phi(N) - 40 (5th)
1898 Phi(N) - 46 (7th)
1899 Phi(N) - 50 (3rd)
1900 Phi(N) - 51 (4th)
1901 Phi(N) - 91 (1st) (1st year of foul strike in NL)
-----
Those were his "peak" years, although he had a comeback year in 1906, leading the AL with 86.
That's all for now on the main high strikeout hitters. I will profile some of leaders in hardest to strike out in an upcoming entry. The two prominent names - one who is well known for his ability to put bat on ball and a lesser known great field 3rd baseman - dominate this category.
Thanks for reading.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Monday, November 22, 2010
Players w/ 4 or more strikeouts in a game
This morning I was going through the 1910 Chicago Tribune and ran across a rarity, so to say, a 5 strikeout game. This one belonged to Donie Bush, who struck out 5 times in a 15 inning game on May 1, 1910 in Chicago. Ed Walsh struck out 13 batters that day (Cobb twice) as he went the distance to win 4-3.
This reminded me that in my research, I have only run across a 5 strikeout game five other times.
They are:
1. Bill Damman, Cin (P), September 21, 1898; at Washington, 9 inn; Win Mercer (2), Jack Sutthoff (3); Washington Post
2. Pete Dowling, Lou (P), August 15, 1899 - vs. NY, 9 inn; Ed Doheny (5); New York Times
(Louisville Courier Journal lists only 2 k's for Doheny, while NYT lists 8 - both papers have C Warner w/ 9 PO's).
3. Bill Bernhard, Cle (P), August 11, 1904 - vs. Phil, 13 inn; Rube Waddell (5); Cleveland Leader
4. George Winter, Bos(A) (P), September 5, 1905 - vs.Phil, 13 inn; Rube Waddell (5); Boston Globe
5. Slim Sallee, St.L (N) (P), July 21, 1908 (game 1), vs. NY, 12 inn; Christy Mathewson (5); New York Evening World
As you will quickly notice, Bush's 5 k outing was the 1st I have encountered by a position player. Granted it was in a 15 inning game, but still a dubious distinction.
There have been over 100 occurrences of a batter striking out 4 times that I have turned up. 12 players have done it twice (no one has done it more than that).
The most interesting of these has to be Ed Cermak, who struck out 4 times on September 9, 1901. These would be Mr. Cermak's ONLY 4 At-Bats in the majors.
Not sure what the record is for the most at-bats with all strikeouts is. If anyone knows, please let me know.
Also, you may notice a name that appears twice as the author of the 5 strikeouts games, Rube Waddell.
I will have more on him in an upcoming post - a breakdown of his 1903 and 1904 seasons, by batter.
This reminded me that in my research, I have only run across a 5 strikeout game five other times.
They are:
1. Bill Damman, Cin (P), September 21, 1898; at Washington, 9 inn; Win Mercer (2), Jack Sutthoff (3); Washington Post
2. Pete Dowling, Lou (P), August 15, 1899 - vs. NY, 9 inn; Ed Doheny (5); New York Times
(Louisville Courier Journal lists only 2 k's for Doheny, while NYT lists 8 - both papers have C Warner w/ 9 PO's).
3. Bill Bernhard, Cle (P), August 11, 1904 - vs. Phil, 13 inn; Rube Waddell (5); Cleveland Leader
4. George Winter, Bos(A) (P), September 5, 1905 - vs.Phil, 13 inn; Rube Waddell (5); Boston Globe
5. Slim Sallee, St.L (N) (P), July 21, 1908 (game 1), vs. NY, 12 inn; Christy Mathewson (5); New York Evening World
As you will quickly notice, Bush's 5 k outing was the 1st I have encountered by a position player. Granted it was in a 15 inning game, but still a dubious distinction.
There have been over 100 occurrences of a batter striking out 4 times that I have turned up. 12 players have done it twice (no one has done it more than that).
The most interesting of these has to be Ed Cermak, who struck out 4 times on September 9, 1901. These would be Mr. Cermak's ONLY 4 At-Bats in the majors.
Not sure what the record is for the most at-bats with all strikeouts is. If anyone knows, please let me know.
Also, you may notice a name that appears twice as the author of the 5 strikeouts games, Rube Waddell.
I will have more on him in an upcoming post - a breakdown of his 1903 and 1904 seasons, by batter.
What is currently going on
Currently, a few things are in the works:
Esta Day, my UKy researcher, is pulling 1898 Louisville Times play-by-play for nearly 60 games. The play-by-play is exact play-by-play as each game has innings where it might say "(team) went down in order", but the Times hopefully should enable to find more batter k refrerences. I will be having Ms. Day pull the 1897 and 1899 Times once that is done. If she is still able to assist beyond that, I hope to have her pull 1897-1903 Cincinnati Enqurier missing game accounts. The Cincinnati Commercial Tribune has been great for its home box scores, but its game accounts are inferior to the Enquirer.
I have started in on 1910 AL, currently documenting all Chicago White Sox games from the Chicago Tribune, which has bk's (batter strikeouts) in home and away games. I am awaiting play-by-play info from Dave Smith of Retrosheet (unverified play-by-play, it should be noted) which should help fill a big chunk - with 1909, it had NY and Boston (home).
I should note here, that I use retrosheet's lineup files to help create my MS Access databases for my data entry. Each season 1897-1909, NL and AL, I have databases with each game's lineup and the documented strikeouts for each hitter that struck out in that games - as I have found the info. For seasons after 1899, I have also added a note at the team level noting which newspaper I was able to get a "full" game strikeout listing from. For those games where I have "partial" bk totals, from reading game accounts, I document the newspaper (and inning if I can determine it) at the player level in the lineups.
I worked on the Washington Post this morning and had bk's in the home box scores up until July 2nd when they went away. I took a break from the WP for now - will go back when I see what DC games I do not have documented from other sources. This mid-season discontinuation of bk's has hit me before - 1904 Detroit Free Press, 1901 Baltimore Sun. I actually had the opposite happen with the 1898 St. Louis Globe Democrat as they started bk coverage late in the season.
As you can see from the previous post, coverage can come and go with a given paper year to year.
The Cincinnati Commercial Tribune had bk's in their home boxes in 1897, then discontinued them for 2 years, only to return in 1900. The Washington Post has them for the NL DC team in 1897-1899, but with the introduction of the AL Senators/Nationals, the bk's in home games disappears until 1907 (and looks like they go away again in 1910).
The most interesting occurrence of coverage as noted at the bottom of the previous post was 1905 (or 1906) Chicago Tribune coverage - the bk coverage in the box scores followed the writer and in this year, the writers, Charles Dryden and I.E. Sanborn traded team coverage at both home and away. Fortunately, Chicago had other good papers for coverage - Daily News (w/ play-by-play) as well as the (Record-)Herald to fill in the missing games for me (special thanks to Walt Wilson for pulling all of that info for me).
Anyway, I have a few other folks helping me on stuff currently - Dwayne Ispring on 1901-2 St. Louis Globe Democrat; Ed Morton - 1910 A's, Peter Garver - 1908 Cleveland Leader, and Keith Carlson on 1909 St. Louis Globe-Democrat.
Next post, I will have some stats.
Esta Day, my UKy researcher, is pulling 1898 Louisville Times play-by-play for nearly 60 games. The play-by-play is exact play-by-play as each game has innings where it might say "(team) went down in order", but the Times hopefully should enable to find more batter k refrerences. I will be having Ms. Day pull the 1897 and 1899 Times once that is done. If she is still able to assist beyond that, I hope to have her pull 1897-1903 Cincinnati Enqurier missing game accounts. The Cincinnati Commercial Tribune has been great for its home box scores, but its game accounts are inferior to the Enquirer.
I have started in on 1910 AL, currently documenting all Chicago White Sox games from the Chicago Tribune, which has bk's (batter strikeouts) in home and away games. I am awaiting play-by-play info from Dave Smith of Retrosheet (unverified play-by-play, it should be noted) which should help fill a big chunk - with 1909, it had NY and Boston (home).
I should note here, that I use retrosheet's lineup files to help create my MS Access databases for my data entry. Each season 1897-1909, NL and AL, I have databases with each game's lineup and the documented strikeouts for each hitter that struck out in that games - as I have found the info. For seasons after 1899, I have also added a note at the team level noting which newspaper I was able to get a "full" game strikeout listing from. For those games where I have "partial" bk totals, from reading game accounts, I document the newspaper (and inning if I can determine it) at the player level in the lineups.
I worked on the Washington Post this morning and had bk's in the home box scores up until July 2nd when they went away. I took a break from the WP for now - will go back when I see what DC games I do not have documented from other sources. This mid-season discontinuation of bk's has hit me before - 1904 Detroit Free Press, 1901 Baltimore Sun. I actually had the opposite happen with the 1898 St. Louis Globe Democrat as they started bk coverage late in the season.
As you can see from the previous post, coverage can come and go with a given paper year to year.
The Cincinnati Commercial Tribune had bk's in their home boxes in 1897, then discontinued them for 2 years, only to return in 1900. The Washington Post has them for the NL DC team in 1897-1899, but with the introduction of the AL Senators/Nationals, the bk's in home games disappears until 1907 (and looks like they go away again in 1910).
The most interesting occurrence of coverage as noted at the bottom of the previous post was 1905 (or 1906) Chicago Tribune coverage - the bk coverage in the box scores followed the writer and in this year, the writers, Charles Dryden and I.E. Sanborn traded team coverage at both home and away. Fortunately, Chicago had other good papers for coverage - Daily News (w/ play-by-play) as well as the (Record-)Herald to fill in the missing games for me (special thanks to Walt Wilson for pulling all of that info for me).
Anyway, I have a few other folks helping me on stuff currently - Dwayne Ispring on 1901-2 St. Louis Globe Democrat; Ed Morton - 1910 A's, Peter Garver - 1908 Cleveland Leader, and Keith Carlson on 1909 St. Louis Globe-Democrat.
Next post, I will have some stats.
The newspapers I have used
Here is a list of all of the newspapers, by year, that I have used in my research.
The key is at the bottom, but basically, box-h indicates that I was able to find batter strikeouts in the boxscores of the city's home games; pbp means that the newspaper had play-by-play - the amount varies with the New York Evening papers having very extensive pbp, while the St. Louis Chronicle and Detroit Times having for the most part, partial game pbp. The "notes" reference indicates that I had to go through the game write-ups gleaning any mention of a batter strikeout that might be mentioned. In a number of the "box-h" newspapers, I was able to do a "notes" review of the road games. This occurred if the paper was on Proquest or GeneologyBank.com, primarily.
Here is my list:
The key is at the bottom, but basically, box-h indicates that I was able to find batter strikeouts in the boxscores of the city's home games; pbp means that the newspaper had play-by-play - the amount varies with the New York Evening papers having very extensive pbp, while the St. Louis Chronicle and Detroit Times having for the most part, partial game pbp. The "notes" reference indicates that I had to go through the game write-ups gleaning any mention of a batter strikeout that might be mentioned. In a number of the "box-h" newspapers, I was able to do a "notes" review of the road games. This occurred if the paper was on Proquest or GeneologyBank.com, primarily.
Here is my list:
| City | Paper | 1897 | 1898 | 1899 | 1900 | 1901 | 1902 | 1903 | 1904 | 1905 | 1906 | 1907 | 1908 | 1909 | 1910 | 1911 | 1912 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Baltimore | Sun | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h/notes | notes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Boston | Globe | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | notes | notes | notes | notes | notes | notes | notes | notes/pbp | notes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Boston | Herald | notes | notes | notes | notes | notes | box-h | notes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Boston | Post | notes | notes | notes | notes | notes | notes | pbp | pbp | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Boston | Record | notes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Boston | Advertiser | notes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Boston | American | notes | notes | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Boston | Journal | notes | notes | notes | notes | notes | notes | notes | notes | notes | notes | notes | notes | notes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Brooklyn | Eagle | box-h | notes | notes | notes | notes | notes | notes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Chicago | Tribune | box-b | box-b | box-b | box-b | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-b | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Chicago | Daily News | pbp | pbp | pbp | pbp | pbp | pbp | pbp | pbp | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Chicago | (Record-)Herald | notes | notes | notes | notes | notes | notes | notes | box-h | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Chicago | Inter-Ocean | notes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Chicago | Chronicle | notes | notes | notes | notes | notes | notes | notes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Cincinnati | Commercial Tribune | box-h | notes | notes | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Cincinnati | Enquirer | notes | notes | notes | notes | notes | notes | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Cleveland | Plain Dealer | box-h | box-h | box-h | notes | notes | notes | notes | notes | notes | notes | notes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Cleveland | Leader | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Detroit | Free Press | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h/notes | notes | notes | notes | notes | notes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Detroit | Times | pbp | pbp | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Louisville | Times | pbp | pbp | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Louisville | Courier Journal | notes | notes | notes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Milwaukee | Sentinel | notes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Milwaukee | Evening Wisconsin | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| New York | Evening Telegram | pbp | pbp | pbp | pbp | pbp | pbp | pbp | pbp | pbp | pbp | pbp | pbp | pbp | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| New York | Evening World | pbp | pbp | pbp | pbp | pbp | pbp | pbp | pbp | pbp | pbp | pbp | pbp | pbp | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| New York | Times | notes | notes | notes | notes | notes | notes | notes | notes | notes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Philadelphia | Inquirer | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | notes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Philadelphia | Public Ledger | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Philadelphia | Record | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Philadelphia | North American | notes | notes | notes | notes | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Philadelphia | Press | notes | notes | notes | notes | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Philadelphia | Evening Telegraph | pbp | pbp | pbp | pbp | pbp | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Pittsburg | Post | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Pittsburg | Press | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | box-h | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| St. Louis | Globe Democrat | box-b/notes | box-b | notes | notes | notes | notes | notes | box-b | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| St. Louis | Chronicle | pbp | pbp | pbp | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| St. Louis | Republic | notes | notes | notes | notes | notes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Washington | Post | box-h | box-h | box-h | notes | notes | notes | notes | notes | notes | box-h | box-h | box-h | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Washington | Times | notes | notes | notes | notes | notes | notes | notes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Washington | Herald | notes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| pbp | partial or complete pbp - many/some games | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| box-h | home bk's in box | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| box-b | home and away bk's in box | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| notes | no explicit bk's - checked game write-ups/notes | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| (combined) | those entries that have combined entries indicates that paper changed batter k coverage in middle of season | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Notes: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Chicago Tribune in 1905/6 - writer Sanborn included bk's in his coverage, while Charles Dryden did not - they traded off the Cubs and White Sox, home and away at various points in the seasons. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Coverage in 2 team cities was the same type for both teams unless noted here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Philadelphia papers , 1901-9, in a number of cases had diffferent doc'd bk's. Resolved based on most common btw papers and other coverage. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Friday, November 19, 2010
How this all got started
This being my first blog, I am going to be posting my thoughts in bit of a random order (I was a Math major, not English).
Anyway, I should explain why batter strikeouts and how did I get started.
Well, it actually started way back in the early 1980's when I was a student at Wash U in St. Louis. I was already a member of SABR and had developed a strong interest in the 1899 Cleveland Spiders, who, for those of you not in the know, went 20-134 that season (that is another story and very well documented in a book by J. Thomas Hetrick ("Misfits: The Cleveland Spiders in 1899). Well, I decided that I wanted to document the lineups that they used for the entire season, just to see who these players were and how they were able to be so mediocre.
In order to do this, I ended up borrowing microfilm rolls of Sporting Life from the SABR library (rechecking out many times). And since I was documenting the Cleveland lineups, I decided to document the lineups of all of the 1899 teams (since I was already looking at the boxscores anyways). I got to learn about alot of great players and some very interesting seasons. Buck Freeman's 25 homer season; Jimmy Williams 27 triple season; and my favorite, John McGraw's .391 season w/ an OBP nicely north of .500 (in only 117 games as his 1st wife, Minny, died during the season and he took off time to grieve). In a future post, I may explore Mr. McGraw a bit more based on some preliminary observations on his pitcher/player usage as well as his use of the stolen base (his 1899 Baltimore team stole 364 bases led by Jimmy Sheckard's 77, McGraw's 73, and Ducky Holmes' 50. These totals are very often overlooked due to the "modern era" delineation (1901 to present). However, the modern stolen base rule went into effect in 1898, so these numbers are as legitamate as some of McGraw's Giants team totals in the "deadball" era.
Anyway, I digress. As I was documenting the lineups onto my graph paper (Barber-Colman, still have my original sheets, from my late dad), I noticed that in the Philadelphia home game boxscores that there were individual batter strikeouts listed. I had noticed before in my Baseball Encyclopedia that the column for strikeouts for batters was blank in this era. I had never really given it much thought, but now I wondered how many other sources might have batter strikeout info.
Basically, I took a break from my 1899 research, drifting off into other things 20 somethings do. Around 2000 or 2001, I got back into my research, finishing up documenting all of the 1899 teams (I had only done partial when I had quit) and started in in earnest on my strikeout research.
Anyway, I should explain why batter strikeouts and how did I get started.
Well, it actually started way back in the early 1980's when I was a student at Wash U in St. Louis. I was already a member of SABR and had developed a strong interest in the 1899 Cleveland Spiders, who, for those of you not in the know, went 20-134 that season (that is another story and very well documented in a book by J. Thomas Hetrick ("Misfits: The Cleveland Spiders in 1899). Well, I decided that I wanted to document the lineups that they used for the entire season, just to see who these players were and how they were able to be so mediocre.
In order to do this, I ended up borrowing microfilm rolls of Sporting Life from the SABR library (rechecking out many times). And since I was documenting the Cleveland lineups, I decided to document the lineups of all of the 1899 teams (since I was already looking at the boxscores anyways). I got to learn about alot of great players and some very interesting seasons. Buck Freeman's 25 homer season; Jimmy Williams 27 triple season; and my favorite, John McGraw's .391 season w/ an OBP nicely north of .500 (in only 117 games as his 1st wife, Minny, died during the season and he took off time to grieve). In a future post, I may explore Mr. McGraw a bit more based on some preliminary observations on his pitcher/player usage as well as his use of the stolen base (his 1899 Baltimore team stole 364 bases led by Jimmy Sheckard's 77, McGraw's 73, and Ducky Holmes' 50. These totals are very often overlooked due to the "modern era" delineation (1901 to present). However, the modern stolen base rule went into effect in 1898, so these numbers are as legitamate as some of McGraw's Giants team totals in the "deadball" era.
Anyway, I digress. As I was documenting the lineups onto my graph paper (Barber-Colman, still have my original sheets, from my late dad), I noticed that in the Philadelphia home game boxscores that there were individual batter strikeouts listed. I had noticed before in my Baseball Encyclopedia that the column for strikeouts for batters was blank in this era. I had never really given it much thought, but now I wondered how many other sources might have batter strikeout info.
Basically, I took a break from my 1899 research, drifting off into other things 20 somethings do. Around 2000 or 2001, I got back into my research, finishing up documenting all of the 1899 teams (I had only done partial when I had quit) and started in in earnest on my strikeout research.
Where I am currently
To start off with, I wanted to share where I am from a high-level season by season view. These percentages represent the % of games that I have been able to get individual batter strikeouts from. This also includes what I deem "partial games". Where I have been able to get the info directly from the box scores or play-by-play, I have had to weed my way through game accounts to glean as many batter strikeout mentions as I can. This involves, many times, looking through multiple sources, home and away team papers. More on that in a future post.
As you can see, I have had much better success on getting data for the National League teams than the American League teams. The primary culprits - St. Louis, Washington DC, Detroit, Milwaukee, Baltimore.
My 2 seasons where I am nearly complete currently are 1900 NL and 1908 NL. 1908 AL should come close, I am just waiting on about 36 games from someone in Cleveland (from the Cleveland Leader) to get it much closer.
In a furture post, I will go into my adventures with these culprits and which seasons have caused me so much grief.
| Pct Complete | |||
| NL | AL | ||
| 1897 | 91.2% | ||
| 1898 | 88.6% | ||
| 1899 | 91.7% | ||
| 1900 | 98.7% | ||
| 1901 | 92.5% | 78.2% | |
| 1902 | 92.5% | 80.6% | |
| 1903 | 91.6% | 89.0% | |
| 1904 | 92.3% | 87.1% | |
| 1905 | 89.9% | 80.6% | |
| 1906 | 86.3% | 79.1% | |
| 1907 | 89.8% | 82.6% | |
| 1908 | 98.7% | 90.1% | |
| 1909 | 88.6% | 87.6% | |
| 1910 | |||
| 1911 | |||
| 1912 | |||
As you can see, I have had much better success on getting data for the National League teams than the American League teams. The primary culprits - St. Louis, Washington DC, Detroit, Milwaukee, Baltimore.
My 2 seasons where I am nearly complete currently are 1900 NL and 1908 NL. 1908 AL should come close, I am just waiting on about 36 games from someone in Cleveland (from the Cleveland Leader) to get it much closer.
In a furture post, I will go into my adventures with these culprits and which seasons have caused me so much grief.
A beginning
Well, I have been meaning for quite awhile to start a blog to document my journey in my baseball research.
You may ask, what baseball research is that? Well, thanks for asking!
I have been working on documenting the "missing" batter strikeouts from 1897 through 1912 (only thru 1909 in the NL).
In the course of this blog, I will share some of my findings, some of successes, some of my roadblocks, and sometimes just something else.
In a way, I am kind of starting this blog towards the end of my journey. I am currently up through 1909 w/ about 90% of the NL documented and more like 83% of the AL documented.
Pete Palmer, home of the "master" baseball statistics repository has agreed to accept my data.
I am really excited about this.
My work will continue on w/ 1910-12 AL, but also trying to fill in whatever gaps I can in the other years, digging through game accounts of games where I don't have batter strikeout info.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I should state that I had previously had a blog over with Comcast (link:
which I kind of abandoned a year or two ago. You can see some of my progress at that point, but here I will kind of pick up from where I am now.
You may ask, what baseball research is that? Well, thanks for asking!
I have been working on documenting the "missing" batter strikeouts from 1897 through 1912 (only thru 1909 in the NL).
In the course of this blog, I will share some of my findings, some of successes, some of my roadblocks, and sometimes just something else.
In a way, I am kind of starting this blog towards the end of my journey. I am currently up through 1909 w/ about 90% of the NL documented and more like 83% of the AL documented.
Pete Palmer, home of the "master" baseball statistics repository has agreed to accept my data.
I am really excited about this.
My work will continue on w/ 1910-12 AL, but also trying to fill in whatever gaps I can in the other years, digging through game accounts of games where I don't have batter strikeout info.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I should state that I had previously had a blog over with Comcast (link:
which I kind of abandoned a year or two ago. You can see some of my progress at that point, but here I will kind of pick up from where I am now.
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