Hail! Mighty Quinn
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The 1920 Indians’ story retold
In the spirit of collegiality, I will not ask you to read about the merits of the designated hitter here. I’ll also skip performance enhancing drugs, revenue sharing, global warming and my voting record.
I do intend to show the tremendous difference in the hitting performance of pitchers back in 1920 and recent seasons before germs laid us low.
I do this because the 1920 Indians’ featured game this week was all about a Yankee pitcher who did everything he could in defeating the Tribe.
No, it wasn’t Babe Ruth.
On May 15, 1920, Jack Quinn shut out the Indians on four hits and a walk. He struck out five. He also hit an eighth-inning, two-run homer for all of the game’s scoring.
The Babe went 0-for-1 with an intentional walk and was hit by a pitch from Hall of Famer Stan Coveleskie.
The game’s other Hall of Famer, Tris Speaker was 1-for-4 and otherwise not a factor.
This was at the Polo Grounds so, as was the custom of the day, the Plain Dealer did not have a reporter there, relying on wire reports.
“They lost because of a home run. And that home run was not made by Babe Ruth. It was made by pitcher Jack Quinn in the eighth inning and it scored Ping Bodie, who had singled ahead of him. That was all the scoring for the afternoon.
It was a pitchers’ battle between Coveleskie and Quinn. Each allowed but four hits, Stanley being unfortunate enough to have the one home run of the afternoon registered off his delivery.”
You might remember that our last featured game included a homer by Indians pitcher Jim Bagby, an event that went virtually unnoticed by the PD, because the game was out of reach when he hit it.
So how much better were hurlers as batters 100 years ago.
Here are the basics:
You can see the batting average for modern pitchers was 78 points lower and the 1920 guys hit far more doubles and triples in a many fewer times up. The old guys also drew a lot more walks, indicating much more respect from their peers.
FanGraphs also offers some more exotic data which mostly represents varying rates. You can see the modern players struck out more than twice as often and only got on base in one-in-six times up.
The wRC+ is an attempt to measure how much the pitchers contributed to run production. The 37 runs for the 1920 pitchers is a paltry number, given how many at bats it took, but the -18 result in 2019 tells us that modern pitchers actually took away run production from their teams. There is a rule of thumb (with some detractors) that 10 runs in this form are tantamount to one team victory. If that is the case, the modern pitchers are five wins worse that the pitchers of 100 years ago.
You might be surprised to learn from 1920 team totals that the Indians pitchers were much better hitters than the Yankees of their day, a group that included Ruth (57 wRC+ to 25).
The rest of that chart indicates the DIFFERENCE in pitchers’ hitting ability helped determine winning percentages back then. The Senators topped that list at 69, far better than the Phillies at -3. Those Phillies were more like a modern pitching staff, hitting .208 with a .226 on-base average.
Quinn went on to win 18 games in 1920 with a 3.20 ERA in 253 innings. He only had 67 strikeouts but led the league in fewest walks per game, 1.7.
The righthander had a 23-season career, winning 247 games and pitching in two World Series. His best season was 1914 with Baltimore of the Federal League (a major league at the time), when he went 26–14, allowing only three homers in 342 innings.
After pitching for the Yankees, he played for the Red Sox, Athletics, Dodgers and Reds.
Born July 1, 1883 in Stefurov, Slovakia, he died April 17, 1946 in Pottsville, Pa., where he is buried. Here is his SABR profile by Charles F. Faber.
Please look below for a Strat-O-Matic replay of this game.
Previous blog posts:
The Spitter Starts Sliding Out of Baseball
It Happens Every Spring — in Cleveland Anyway
Cleveland Fans Party — Tribe Style
Throwing it around in the old days
Bagby Flashes but Soon will Fade
Dave Scott was a newspaper writer and editor for 40 years. He is a lifelong baseball fan and a member of the Society for American Baseball Research for decades, although SABR records might indicate I skipped my dues on occasion! DavidAScott@gmail.com I owe a great debt to the Cleveland Public Library for its excellent resources.
I make no money from this blog. Please consider sharing it on your social media. New editions come every Wednesday. Let me know if you want an email notice when it is posted.
The following have helped me tremendously with editing, error correction and technical advice:
David Bodemer
Ken Krsolovic
Joe Shaw
Vince Guerrieri
Scott Longert
Thanks to all of you!
Play it again
Catcher Steve O’Neill was definitely regressing up to the mean in this one. He came in hitting less than .170 but clouted his second and third homers of the season as the Indians beat the Yankees 11–5 in this Strat-O-Matic recreation.
Jason Miller of Brooklyn was in charge of the Yankees in this game played over the Internet. His handle is “1969Mets”.
With the score 4–3 in the fifth he faced Larry Gardner with runners on first and third with two out.
1969Mets: I’m gonna walk Gardner in the clutch
1969Mets: with 2nd base open
1969Mets: wanna face Wambsganss whose BA is 150 points lower
Dave: I considered walking Ruth with two out and nobody on in the fifth but decided against it. Ruth homered.
Jason gets credit for smart baseball and properly spelling Bill Wamby’s correct name. The second baseman flew out.
Miller’s Yankees (a difficult concept for a Mets fan) tied the score in the bottom of the fifth but the Indians soared past them with five runs in the sixth.
He didn’t have very good choices when he looked to the bullpen.
1969Mets: The long man I wanted was Rip Collins, but he was not on the active roster in May
1969Mets: can’t use O’Doul in the pen, he only pitched twice in July, and can’t use Ruth, he only started one game
1969Mets: that leaves Shore, who’s terrible
1969Mets: NYA Sub- Ernie Shore, P (LU 9)
Shore finished up: four innings, four hits and two runs.
Quinn didn’t hit or pitch well in this recreation, giving up nine runs and 11 hits.
I hope to have a Netplay game each week, so if you are a Strat-O-Matic player, let me know you would like to play. DavidAScott@gmail.com
