World Series: Did You Know?

The 1930 Fall Classic saw the winning Philadelphia Athletics touch home twenty-one times in six games. That's an average of little more than three runs per game. The St. Louis Cardinals, their opposition, fared worse. They scored just twelve runs. So only two per game.

Things had been so different all around Major League Baseball that season of 1930. Hitting was up. Way up! Those guys on base were getting around and getting home, too. On average, an MLB team scored 5.5 runs per game, a twentieth century record. The last time teams had scored more than that had been in 1897.

So, what we got in the 1930 Fall Classic was some long-overdue pitching. Philalelphia had average 6.2 runs scored in the regular season, and seemed destined for six in the first game, right there at home in Shibe Park.

They tallied a run in the second, fourth, sixth, seventh and eighth innings to win the game 5-2. But, they left two runners on in the third and sixth frames. St. Louis, meanwhile, managed just two runs off Lefty Grove despite nine hits. And the Cards had scored 1004 runs in 154 games, for an average of 6.5 per game. They knew how to get home. But they hadn't done that in game one.

The A's reached six runs in game two with a 6-1 win. So that moved their Fall Classic average up to 5.5 after two games. But St. Louis, now was down to just 1.5 runs per game. George Earnshaw was the winning pitcher. He had been 22-13 in the regular season, but Earnshaw's ERA was 4.44. But St. Louis could get only six hits off him.

But then, in game three in St. Louis, it was Wild Bill Hallahan with a clutch shutout, to stop Philly from going up 3-0. Hallahan had lead the NL in K's per nine innings, 6.7, but wasn't the type of pitcher to throw a shutout. He had thrown just two in the regular season, and his ERA was 4.66. Here though, he stopped the A's on seven hits. Oh, he lived up to his nickname with five walks. But a shutout is a shutout, right?

Game four was the first pitcher's duel of this matchup, and St. Louis knotted this thing at two with a 3-1 final in their favour. And it was Philly with just four hits. St. Louis, who still were needed some offence, got one better with five.

Game five was not only another pitcher's duel, but it was also another shutout. Earnshaw and Grove combined on a three-hit shutout to push St. Louis to the brink. However, Philly got just five hits themselves. Taking the tough loss, was Burleigh Grimes. Grimes was the last legal spitballer, but if he was using the spitter, it didn't help. Philly got their two runs on five hits.

The 1930 Fall Classic came to an end with a Philly winning it 7-1 in game six back at home. The A's offence, sputtering along in St. Louis, came back alive back at home. For a while, it looked like they'd get another shutout, but the Cardinals managed to score in the top of the ninth.

Neither team hit for a good average, either. St. Louis batted just .200 for this six-game showdown. Philadelphia actually did worse, hitting just .197.

Too much is sometimes not a good thing. In baseball, 1930 had too much offence. I can only imagine that fans in St. Louis and Philadelphia were anticipating a wild World Series that would send pitchers on both sides to the showers in droves. But that's what makes the Fall Classic so enduring and so exciting. You're in for a few surprises. The 1930 Fall Classic must have almost seemed like a let down with such little offence.

World Series: Did You Know?

The Philadelphia A's twice won two straight World Series. And they almost became the first team to win three straight.

Funny, we don't think of this team as one of the all time greats. That is, of course, is because of how bad Philly was from the mid 30s until the 1970s.

I guess is was a sort of irony that they did win 3 in a row from 1972-1974. It was now the Oakland Athletics, though!

But in the early years of the World Series, it appeared as if they would win many. New York won over 100 games (102) and took the World Series over a Chicago Cubs team that won 104.

The Athletics were back the next year!

The dipped to 101 wins. But in the World Series, they stormed past the New York Giants, 4 games to 1.

So what happened to the Philadelphia Athletics in 1912? Going for the three-peat! No team had ever done that before! They won a very good 90 games. But the Red Sox, with 105 wins, trumped that. So to, did the Washington Senators, with 91 wins.

The A's sort of faded for the rest of that decade. The Red Sox sort of surged. Indeed, Boston was to win a World Series in 1915, 1916 and 1918. Having a guy like Babe Ruth around does wonders!

But then the Red Sox sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees. It was then New York (Yankees and Giants) that sort of became a dynasty in the 1920s. With Ruth around, it was the Yankees with back-to-back World Series wins in 1927 and 1928. Their National League counterparts, the Giants, had made it back-to-back in 1921 and 1922.

But still no team had a three-peat.

It looked liked like Philly would do just that, as back-to-back World Series wins in 1929 and 1930 gave the Athletics another instance of repeating as winners. Could they make it three straight?

Winning 107 games in 1931, they took on a great St. Louis Cardinals team. The Cards, it should be noted, won 101 games of their own.

It was a great World Series, but Philadelphia came up a little short. St. Louis took it in 7 games. It was also a well pitched World Series. The Cardinals posted a team ERA of 2.32 and the Athletics had a 2.66 mark of their own.

The Philadelphia Athletics would never play in another World Series. And it was the Yankees back the next year. In 1936, the Yankees started a stretch of not three, but four straight World Series triumphs.

References

Enders, Eric. 100 years of the World Series. New York: Sterling Publishing Co., Inc. 2005. Print.

Neft, David S., Richard M. Cohen, and Michael L. Neft. The Sports Encyclopedia: Baseball, 1992. 12th ed. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992. Print.

Nemec, David et all. 20th Century Baseball Chronicle: A Year-by-year History of Major League Baseball. Collector's Edition. Lincolnwood, Ill: Publications International, 1993. Print.

Retrosheet. Web. 10 Jan. 2014.  <www.retrosheet.org>

Sports Reference LLC. Baseball-Reference.com - Major League Statistics and Information. http://www.baseball-reference.com/. Web. 10 Jan. 2014.

World Series: Did You Know?

The 1931 World Series was the last the Philadelphia Athletics would reach.

Sort of an early dynasty in baseball, the A's were. They won the Fall Classic in 1910, 1911 and 1913. But then the Red Sox of Babe Ruth took over. When Ruth went to the Yankees in 1920, the A's languished behind them for many years.

But in 1929, they won the pennant and then the World Series over Chicago. They would repeat that the next year. They also had a great team. Take a look at the '29 Athletics.

Mickey Cochrane, Jimmy Foxx, Al Simmons, Max Bishop, Mule Haas and Jimmy Dykes led the offence.

They had some pretty good pitching with Lefty Grove, Jack Quinn, Rube Walberg and George Earnshaw. Howard Ehmke even pitched that World Series and had one last hurrah!

The team also had one last hurrah in the 1931 World Series. Looking for 3-peat they were. But it wasn't quite in the Cards. The World Series between Philly and St. Louis that year was a classic, to put it mildly.

In game 2, Bill Hallahan (Wild Bill) pitched a fine 3-hitter to even up the Series for St, Louis. Burleigh Grimes then somehow went out in game 3 and trumpted that.

Grimes, the last legal spitballer, tossed a 2-hit shutout for the Cardinals. The final score was 5-2. St. Louis was also up 2 games to 1.

Grimes was actually better than that, as he took a 5-0 lead into the bottom of the 9th. A walk and a Simmons' homerun broke up his shutout bid.

Was this it for the A's? Not so fast!

Earnshaw went out there in game 4 at Shibe Park and fired a fine 2-hitter of his own. The Cardinals failed to score. Series tied, 2-2.

But Hallahan clearly got the better of former Yankee Waite Hoyt in game 5. St. Louis won it rather easily, 5-2.

But Grove went out and gave up just 5 hits to the Birds. The A's scored 8 times. Amazingly, none of them came via the longball. It was time for a winner-take-all game 7.

Grimes and Earnshaw hooked up in a pitcher's duel. But the Cards used the most out of just 7 hits off George to score 4 runs.

Things were looking grim for the A's as they came up in the top of the 9th down 4-0. But Philadelphia, showing the heart of a champion, did not go away quietly.

Al Simmons led off with a walk. The next two batters were retired. It looked all over. But Jimmy Dykes kept a faint hope alive by drawing Grimes' 2nd walk of the inning and 5th of the game. When Dib Williams singled, it was bases loaded and 2 outs.

In game 7.

Isn't this the spot we all dream about being in?

Doc Cramer pinch-hit for Rube Walker, who had pitched the 8th for the A's. And Cramer came through with a clutch single. Two runs scored! Grimes was through for the day, as Wild Bill came on in.

Max Bishop lofted a flyball to center that Pepper Martin caught. It was all over.

It had been a great World Series, but it was also the end of the line for the A's. At least the chapter that covers the Philadelphia portion!

Connie Mack, looking at the depression, was forced to sell much of the team. By 1934, the team was in 5th place. Then they would usually occupy the 7th or 8th spot in the coming years.

By the 1950s it was getting harder and harder for a city to support 2 major league teams. After 1954, with a record of 51-103, the Athletics left Philadelphia and moved to Kansas City. The Phillies were all alone.

And the A's would never return to the World Series until 1972. By then, they had moved again. Oakland was (and still is) there home.

References

Enders, Eric. 100 years of the World Series. New York: Sterling Publishing Co., Inc. 2005. Print.

Neft, David S., Richard M. Cohen, and Michael L. Neft. The Sports Encyclopedia: Baseball, 1992. 12th ed. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992. Print.

Nemec, David et all. 20th Century Baseball Chronicle: A Year-by-year History of Major League Baseball. Collector's Edition. Lincolnwood, Ill: Publications International, 1993. Print.

Sports Reference LLC. Baseball-Reference.com - Major League Statistics and Information. http://www.baseball-reference.com/. Web. Jan 3, 2014.