It happens every spring — In Cleveland anyway
Retelling the 1920 Indians story
Spring in Northeast Ohio! The sap runs from Maple trees in Geauga County and elsewhere. Winter fades way too slowly for everyone, and baseball fans really want to believe sweet talk from the Indians.
It was Indians owner Jim Dunn’s turn on March 20, 1920, when he came back from the south with a story to tell, tickets to sell and hope to spread.
“My recent trip to New Orleans was worthwhile simply for me to see the happy family way in which the boys are working,” he said. “I never saw a training squad going at its work in such an enthusiastic way, and with such a start I cannot see anything but success for the Indians.”
Shed for a moment what you know about the 1920 season and think about how it must have felt to be an Indians fan back then. You had only a vague idea what happened in spring training. No TV. There were no radio stations and if you had a radio, you probably were a wealthy hobbyist. Most of what you knew came from the newspapers that had few spring accounts and a scattering of photographs that appeared to be selected because they were in focus more than because they demonstrated a player’s athletic ability. Most pictures were of players close to the baseline and therefore close to the photographer who was standing dangerously near the action.
More of what you knew about the game was more legend than fact back then. You probably never saw Ty Cobb or even Indians manager Tris Speaker. Going to an Indians game in Northeast Ohio was an expedition. Interurban trains were expensive and you might worry about making your connection back home to Akron, Canton or Painesville. Cars could be unreliable and expensive. Streetcars were the best way to get around in the city. You got six rides for a quarter. Transfers were a penny.
What Dunn or anyone else told you about the new team based on what was happening in Louisiana sounded like stone-cold fact because you knew little to contradict him. And what you most wanted to know was how the team was playing together as a unit.
Dunn knew that.
“We think we have the players,” he told the Plain Dealer. “We know that we have harmony. Our hope is to bring the American League Pennant of 1920 to the shores of Lake Erie.”
Teamwork was a much bigger factor back then. The sacrifice bunt was far more important at the time because it took a skilled baserunner and a batter willing to sacrifice his chance for a hit to simply advance a runner to second base. Otherwise it might take two or three hits to get a runner around the diamond. Homers were rare and extra-base hits were tough to get, too. Star shortstop Ray Chapman led the league in sacrifice bunts in 1919 with 50 and he was expected to be a strong contributor in the coming season. As a team, the Tribe successfully sacrificed 224 times in 1919. Elmer Smith led with nine homers and the entire team only hit 24.
The 2019 Indians had 40 sacrifice bunts and manager Terry Francona was frequently criticized for “wasting at bats” on what had become a dubious strategy. The modern Tribe hit 223 homers.
Last season’s power-hitting Indians scored 769 runs or 4.7 per game. Fans looking forward to 1920 knew their favorites scored 634 runs in 139 games the previous season, that’s 4.6 runs per game.
Why was the run production so close? Hits, lots of hits. The Tribe hit .283 as a team in 1920, held down by a pitching staff that “only” hit .230 as a squad. The modern Indians batted .250 — basically one-for-four — and didn’t give it much thought because batting average was no longer the king of stats. Homers are only part of the story now. Today the casual fan often looks to OPS, which is something of a contortion of data that adds on-base percentage and slugging average. In that way, these teams were fairly close: 2019 Tribe .756; the 1919 Tribe .734 (even though they had no hint of what that number was or might mean).
For the fan, the difference was pronounced. You wanted to be as close to the infield, near most of the action. The ball was put in play far more often than it is today. Indians player-manager Tris Speaker struck out 12 times THE ENTIRE SEASON. The 2019 Tribe lineup could strike out that many times in an afternoon and barely hear it mentioned in game recapitulations.
Don’t sit in the outfield at League Park unless you are far sighted! You certainly can’t expect to catch a ball out there. You would want a seat where you could see the pitches and hear the infield chatter. Oh, yes, there was little in the way of ear-wrenching music. It was coming from real instruments!
One more thing before we talk about the players. Old Timers had the good sense to begin baseball when the weather suited the game, not the television schedule. The Tribe started on April 14, 1920. The 2020 Indians were to start on March 26 before a pandemic brought them to their senses.
So here are capsules on key players coming returning play the Indians 1920 season. The numbers are for 1919 and before based on the conceit that we’re are looking forward to 1920.
Tris Speaker, center fielder — still on lists of the best center fielders’ ever. He hit only .296 in 1919 with 38 doubles, a dozen triples and two homers — power hitting for the day. That was his lowest full-season batting average since he started his major-league career in 1908. Still, Dunn hiked his salary from $18,000 in 1919 to $20,000 in 1920 based on high expectations. He began as manager on July 19, 1919. You might guess the stress of managing stunted his play on the field, but he was hitting only .267 the day he took over, undoubtedly an embarrassment for a future Hall of Famer of his day.
Stan Coveleskie, also a future Hall of Famer, won 24 games and had 24 complete games in 1919. His 286 innings would get him labeled a workhorse today. He stopped using the E at the end of his name after he retired.
Jim Bagby won 17 games in the 139-game season on 32 starts. 1919 had fewer games because of World War I and the Spanish Flu.
Steve O’Neill, catcher was a solid contributor in 1919 hitting .289 and getting behind the plate 123 times.
Ray Chapman, the shortstop with all of the sacrifice bunts, hit .300 with 36 extra-base hits and was known as a sterling fielder.
Bill Wambsganss played every game at second base and helped turn 64 double plays.
Doc Johnson hit .305 in limited games in 1919.
Larry Gardner hit .300 with 38 extra-base hits in 1919, his first season with Cleveland.
Robert W. Maxwell of the Philadelphia Public Ledger called the Indians the favorites to win the American League, saying “Speaker has a sweet aggregation to turn loose when the bell rings. His infield with Johnson at first; Wambsganss at second; Chapman, short; and Gardner, third, is all that could be deserved. The men know the game, are seasoned veterans and can hit.”
The Plain Dealer began an April 1 story by saying “Now that all the sporting writer who have toured the south have picked the Indians to win the American League pennant, the bookies have made their prices on the teams in the American and National leagues and like the sport writers have placed the Indians at the top of the list. Sharing top honors with them are the New York Yankees.”
The specter of gambling is clear to all of us who know the history of this era and the frequent references to gambling in that era combined with the downgrading of the White Sox’s chances despite returning most of their stars provide a hint that the writers of the day knew big news was on the horizon.
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.
Sources
Baseball Reference
Society for American Baseball Research
The Cleveland Public Library Sports Research Center
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