Throwing it around in the old days
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Retelling the 1920 Indians’ story
The phrases “little league homer” and “he airmailed the throw” did not exist in 1920 but those concepts were clearly demonstrated in the Indians’ 3–2 victory over the White Sox on April 27 at League Park.
(I must acknowledge that I am excluding mail by balloons, used at least one by George Washington, and carrier pigeons, the aerial polluters. Airplanes started going postal in 1911 but probably didn’t enter baseball hyperbole until much later.)
That makes Swede Risberg a potential etymological pioneer for his errant throw in the seventh inning this day. The Indians’ Larry Gardner had just hit a triple and was heading home. It tied the score at 2–2.
The Plain Dealer’s game story didn’t even describe Gardner’s dash in detail, preferring to write about how a sacrifice fly in the ninth settled the score. An inning-by-inning summary said Risberg’s throw hit the grandstand and if the scorer thought Gardner had time to reach the plate, he would have called it a homer, not an error. So, I’m leaping to the conclusion that Risberg airmailed his throw and Gardner got a little league homer (I’m not capitalizing here in respect to the kids in Williamsport). If you were there and can contradict me, my email is below.
The win improved the Indians to 7–2 and White Sox fell to 6–1.
This led me to think more about why the banjo hitting stars of that era scored nearly as many runs as the modern, muscular guys do.
To a significant measure, the difference comes from errors and the unearned runs they produce.
Yellow marks the areas with significant differences. Yes, the modern guys hit a lot more homers but didn’t score many more runs. The 1920 guys were better at stealing, bunting and avoiding the strike out. But the biggest difference, by far, came from their inability to catch the ball. The 1920 American League teams averaged almost one unearned run a game. More than twice the rate of 2019.
The Indians made 185 errors in 1920, only two more than league leader Boston and 30 fewer than the league average.
The Yankees were a modern offense with decent fielding (193 errors), great pitching (a league-best 3.32 ERA) and far more power (115 homers).
The Indians won the pennant with just 35 homers, 80 fewer than the Yankees. They outscored the Yankees 856–837 by virtue of hitting more doubles, 301–268, walking more, 574–532, and a higher batting average, .303-.280.
All of this became clear when I played the first Strat-O-Matic game from the 1920 season.
The shortstop for the St. Louis Browns, Wally Gerber, was overall a 2 fielder — better than average — but e52, a colossal rating by modern standards. That means he would make about 52 errors in a season if he played every game. His teammates were nearly as bad: John Shovlin, e48 and Dud Lee, e88.
Fielding was so bad in that era that Strat-O-Matic had to make new rules to accommodate them.
I’m certain some of my readers skip the Strat game at the end but I think many of you would enjoy reading the account if you gave it a try. Playing the game and looking at the relative strengths of the players give you a real feel for the character of the game back then.
Bad fielding might explain why teams tried to steal so much and it’s easy to assume taking the extra base would have better results back then, as demonstrated by Gardner. It’s the old “keep running until the stop you” strategy that works so well on the nation’s elementary schoolyards.
Of course, anybody can catch better with the fancy gloves of today. I’ll deal with that issue in a forthcoming edition. It’s going to be a long season. Check below for more fielding adventures, as demonstrated by Strat-O-Matic.
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
Thanks to all of you!
Previous blog posts:
The Spitter Starts Sliding Out of Baseball
It Happens Every Spring — in Cleveland Anyway
Cleveland Fans Party — Tribe Style
Throwing the ball around — Strat Style
In our Strat-O-Matic recreation, Jason Miller had the same problems while running the White Sox, only this time it was Nemo Leibold who airmailed the throw. It came on a double by Elmer Smith who was trying to stretch a double and wound up circling the bases. Smith was the fourth Indian to score without a batter being retired.
Here’s how out conversation went after Leobold’s wild throw: (Jason is 1969Mets)
1969Mets: Wow
Dave: I was playing for the error there
1969Mets: It worked!
Dave: Trailing runner had a 30 percent chance!
1969Mets: And Leibold is only an e8!
The Indians tried to stretch a double later in the game and Jason declined to make the throw.
Dave: would you say you were intimidated by the chance for an error?
1969Mets: It was more with 2 outs and the bottom of your lineup due, I wasn’t going to risk putting the trail runner in scoring position
Dave: ok
1969Mets: your percentages were 1–13 and 1–14, so that’s a conservative play for me
So it’s an example of how a trend influenced me to keep taking chances and challenging a good team when it was behind. It worked this time.
The Indians held on and won 6–4 with Stan Coveleskie getting his fourth win.
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
