For Christmas this year, my brother sent me a sports edition of Trivial Pursuit from 1981 or 1982.
I keep the boxes of questions in the living room, and every so often I’ll take a handful and run through them. It is probably not surprising that Babe Ruth is the most common answer to the baseball questions. (It might surprise you who the second and third-most common answers are).
There are a lot of random questions:
Question: What was Oakland A’s catcher Gene Tenace the first to wear in a World Series game?
I didn’t know. A throat guard? An Oakland A’s uniform? The name ‘Tenace’?
Answer: A hairpiece.
I didn’t know that. I didn’t know that Brooks Robinson hit into four triple plays, or that Jim Bunning, when he retired, had the most strikeouts in organized baseball (majors plus minors). I didn’t know Charlie Grimm was nicknamed ‘Jolly Cholly.’
One question caught my attention. It’s the subject of this article.
What third baseman became the first Chicago White Sox player to lead the American League in home runs in 1971?
The answer is Bill Melton.
That’s a big deal, leading the league in homeruns. Homeruns are exciting, and for one year Bill Melton was the best homerun hitter, the number one guy. And: I had never heard of him.
What I wondered was this: was Melton the least likely player to lead the league in homeruns?
Let’s see…Melton had a ten-year career. He hit 33 homeruns in 1970 and 1971, and he had three more years with 20+ homers. He hit 160 homeruns in his career: that’s not a ton of homeruns, but it’s not too shabby. He had back-to-back years of 33 homeruns for the White Sox…that was in the years following 1968, when 33 homeruns seemed like a helluva lot. For a few years, Melton was probably a well-known player. He wasn’t a great player, but opposing pitchers probably worried about how to pitch to him.
(Here’s an astonishing sidebar: when he retired, Melton was the White Sox team leader in homeruns….with 154. The White Sox are one of the original American League team, so they’ve been in existence existed since 1901. Melton left the team after 1975…so for the first 75 years of the team’s existence, the White Sox most prolific homerun hitter hit 154 homeruns. That’s….that’s a staggeringly low total for a team that has existed for 75 years.
Just adding on…the Diamondbacks have existed for thirteen seasons, and they have Luis Gonzalez (224) and Steve Finley (153). The Rockies have existed for eighteen seasons and they have five guys who have topped Melton: Helton (338), Walker (258), Castilla (239), Bichette (201), and Galarraga (172). Alright…they have Coors. Dan Uggla hit 154 for the Marlins….that’s the team record right now, but Hanley is closing. The Rays leader is Carlos Pena at 144…Evan Longoria has 62 seasons left to pass Melton.)
Is Bill Melton the most surprising Home Run champ? Probably not. Melton was a good hitter in an era dominated by pitching. He won the title because the big thumpers were all having off years…Yaz and Boog and Killebrew. He won it, too, because it was a transition year: a lot of the older sluggers were nearing retirement, and the torch was being passed to the likes of Reggie and Schmidt and Winfield. Melton stepped into the gap: it’s a little surprising that he led the league, but someone had to. He was a hitter.
So here’s today’s question: who are the most surprising players to lead their leagues in homeruns? How about batting average...who is the most surprising batting champ? And, if we have time, let’s tackle the Cy Young and MVP’s, too.
The Least Likely Home Run Champ
Nick Etten was a war-time superstar. Etten came up with the Philadelphia Athletics, and by 1941 he was the team’s full-time first baseman. In 1941 he had a solid year, hitting .311 with 14 homeruns. He walked 82 times that year, good for a .405 on-base percentage (6th in the AL).
Etten wasn’t drafted…I’m not sure why he wasn’t drafted. He struggled against war-time pitching in 1942, hitting just .264 with 8 homeruns. He was released by the Athletics, and he passed waivers on all of the teams. One bad year, and everyone passed on him. Everyone except the defending pennant winning Yankees.
Joe McCarthy picked him up. The Yankees skipper, having lost most of his stars to the draft, was desperate to keep his club in contention, and he thought that Etten would hit war-time pitching.
Etten played in all of the Yankees 154 regular season games in 1943. He hit 14 homeruns and drove in 107 runs, while drawing 76 walks against 31 strikeouts. He finished 7th in the AL MVP voting, behind teammate Spud Chandler, but ahead of Bill Dickey, who hit .351 that year.
The Yankees won the pennant, and the World Series. Etten played in all five games of the World Series, collecting just two singles in 19 at-bats. The Yankees beat the Cardinals in five games.
A year later, Etten led the league in homeruns, with 22. He finished four ahead of Boston shortstop Vern Stephens. Etten also led the league in walks (97), and once again played all 154 games for the Yankees.
In 1945 Etten came in second in the homerun race to Stephens, but he led the league in runs batted in, was 4th in slugging percentage and 5th in on-base percentage. He was a Triple Crown contender: Etten hit just .285 on the year, but that was one of the 15 best batting averages in the league. He played 152 games for the Yankees in 1945….during his three war-time years with the Yankees (and counting the World Series) Etten played in 467 of the Yankees 469 games.
The war ended and the stars came back, and Nick Etten struggled. He played 108 games in 1946, hitting .232 with just 9 homeruns. His walk rate dropped off, and by seasons’ end he was released by the Yankees. He returned to Philadelphia, signing with the Phillies for 1947, but he played only 14 games, hitting his 89th (and last) homerun.
His last game was on May 9th. Hitting clean-up, the one-time home run champion singled once and walked twice, and the Phillies beat the Dodgers 6-5 in 11 innings. Etten had one RBI during the game…we don’t have the play-by-play account, so I don’t know if Etten’s RBI was the game-winner.
Etten is the least likely homerun champ because he wasn’t a homerun hitter. He wasn’t a hitter, really: I don’t mean that critically, because just being a major league player takes incredible skill. But…he wasn’t going to be a star. Had the war not happened, it is likely that he wouldn’t have gotten a second chance after Philadelphia dropped him. Certainly, he would not have played the better part of three seasons as a regular for the Yankees. Had the vast majority of stars played in 1944, he would not have been the homerun champion.
And: I’m glad he did it. He got a second chance and he played in a depleted league against other washouts and second-stringers, and he hit more homeruns than anyone else in 1944. He wasn’t Babe Ruth, but for one year he got to pretend he was. It was real baseball. It counts the same in the books.
The Least Likely (Two-Time) Home Run Champ
Bill Nicholson led the National League in homeruns in 1943 and 1944.
Nicholson wasn’t a fluke player: he was a legitimate slugger, in the mold of Adam Dunn or Jack Cust. Playing for the Chicago Cubs, Nicholson hit 29 homeruns and drove in 128 runs in 1943, leading the majors in both statistics. He finished sixth in the league in batting average (.309), and came in 3rd in the NL MVP vote.
In 1944 he hit 33 homeruns and drove in 122 runs, again leading the league in those categories. He also led in runs scored (116) and total bases (317).
Nicholson came in second in the MVP vote to Marty Marion…not counting the tie in 1979, this was the closest MVP race in history: Marion beat Nicholson out by one point.
Nicholson is one of six major leagues to be intentionally walked with the bases loaded: the known list is Abner Dalrymple (1881), Nap Lajoie (1901), Del Bissonette (1928), Barry Bonds (1998), and Josh Hamilton (2008). He is the historical bridge between Del Bissonette and Barry Bonds.
Ordinarily, I don’t condone the intentional walk, but in Nicholson’s case there was cause: he had homered in his previous four at-bats that day, and in six of his previous thirteen at-bats. He was seeing it.
Nicholson was a good player before the war, but eye problems, perhaps a side effect of undiagnosed diabetes, caused a decline in his production in the post-war years. He retired in 1953, after several years of part-time play. Bill (James) ranks Bill (Nicholson) as the 65th best right fielder in baseball history.
The Least Likely Batting Champion
There are numerous contenders for this title. Freddy Sanchez, for instance: in twenty years how many people are going to remember that he won the batting title in 2006?
Fenway Park creates weird batting champs. Bill Mueller (who was a fine hitter) won the 2003 title. Carney Lansford won the 1981 title. Pete Runnels won it in 1960 and 1962. Billy Goodman won it in 1950. That’s not counting the six that Ted Williams won. Or the five for Wade Boggs. Or the three for Yaz. Or Nomar’s two (and counting).
Given the high number of batting champs Fenway has created, it seems a little silly to label any of the Fenway Flukes ‘The Least Likely Batting Champs.’ If you are a contact hitter with the Red Sox, there is a good chance you will contend for a batting title.
The truth is most batting champs aren’t surprises. Bill Mueller was a legitimately good hitter. Freddy Sanchez has a career batting average of .298; if you hit .298 over a career, there’s a good chance you’ll have a .318 or a .328 season somewhere along the way. Ralph Garr is an example: Garr won the 1974 title with a .353 mark…but he was a career .306 hitter who hit .343 in his first full season in the bigs. He wasn’t a great player, but he could hit for a high average.
Carney Lansford hit .336 when he won his batting title in Fenway…he had the same batting average ten years later, in Oakland. Alex Johnson won a batting title in 1971 (.329)….he batted over .300 in each of the three seasons prior to winning the title. He’s not a well-known player, but it was obvious that he could’ve won it. Phil Caverretta won the 1945 batting crown…he hit .321 during the previous season. If you hit .321 one year, it’s not that surprising that you win a batting title. Cy Seymour hit .377 in 1905….he hit .342 two years earlier.
George Stone….Stone won the AL batting title in 1906, beating out the great Nap Lajoie. It was Stone’s second year in the majors: as a twenty-seven year old rookie in 1905, he led the AL in at-bats and hits. That’s kind of unlikely, but Stone was a superstar in the minor leagues…he hit .406 with 254 hits while playing with the Brewers in 1904, and everyone who saw him said he was one of the best baseball players in the world. He just happened to play on a minor league club.
So with apologies to Stone, Caverretta, and the many, many Fenway champs, I’d say that the least likely batting champion is Ferris Fain.
Ferris Fain was a walker. His career went from 1947 to 1955, and drawing a lot of walks wasn’t recognized as a valuable skill. Fain played for four teams during his nine year career; maybe people didn’t notice the walks, and maybe he was an unpleasant guy to be around. His nicknames were ‘Cocky’ and ‘Burrhead.’ I don’t know what a burrhead is, but it doesn’t sound flattering.
He played nine seasons: he had an on-base percentage over .400 every single year he played. Okay…that’s a lie. He was at .399 in 1954. His career on-base percentage is .424, the 14th best total in major league history. He ranks just behind Albert Pujols (.426), and just ahead of Mickey Mantle (.421).
Here are Fain’s batting averages and walk totals during his first four seasons in the major leagues:
|
Year
|
BA
|
Walks
|
OPS+
|
|
1947
|
.291
|
95
|
131
|
|
1948
|
.281
|
113
|
114
|
|
1949
|
.262
|
136
|
103
|
|
1950
|
.282
|
133
|
116
|
He was a first baseman (and, by reputation, a very good one) for the Athletics. He was a good player, but he played in a league with Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio. You wouldn’t consider him a lock for the 1951 batting title. Or a contender, really.
But he won it:
|
Year
|
BA
|
Walks
|
OPS+
|
|
1951
|
.344
|
80
|
148
|
|
1952
|
.327
|
105
|
136
|
And he did in next year, too. He is the least likely batting champ, and he’s the least likely two-time batting champion. Minnie Minoso came in second in 1951, with a .326 mark. Dale Mitchell came in second in 1952, with a .323 batting average. Ted Williams was off flying planes in Korea in 1952.
Fein drew a ton of walks during his six seasons with the Athletics…but he led the team in walks just once in those six years. This was because the Senators had two great walkers, Fain and Eddie Joost (who is not to be confused with Ed ‘The Walking Man’ Yost).
|
Year
|
Fain
|
Joost
|
|
1947
|
95
|
114
|
|
1948
|
113
|
119
|
|
1949
|
136
|
149
|
|
1950
|
133
|
103
|
|
1951
|
80
|
106
|
|
1952
|
105
|
122
|
In 1952 the Athletics won 79 games…they went 79-75 and finished fourth in the division. After the year ended, management cut ties Fain. Without the batting champ (and with Joost injured), the Athletics lost 20 more games in 1953, finishing an abysmal 59-95.
Fain played two seasons for the White Sox, and then split 1955 between Detroit and Cleveland.
|
Year
|
BA
|
Walks
|
OPS+
|
|
1953
|
.256
|
108
|
102
|
|
1954
|
.302
|
40
|
122
|
|
1955
|
.260
|
94
|
113
|
He was thirty-four years old at the end of 1955, and still a capable major league ballplayer. But…he was a tough guy, a fighter. He was sort of a throwback: he would’ve fit right in with the old Baltimore Orioles, or with McGraw’s Giants. By the mid-1950’s baseball was distancing itself from the rougher style of the pre-war era. Fein was a good ballplayer, but he didn’t fit. He didn’t fit personality wise, and he didn’t have skills that anyone gave real notice to. He walked a ton…no one really cared about that. He was a good defensive first baseman…so what? What was that in 1955? Is that supposed to compete with Mickey Mantle?
What’s that Beach Boys lyric? I just wasn’t made for these times. That was Fein.
He had legal troubles later in his life. He was a drinker, and he was busted for growing marijuana. Here’s what he said about that, as referenced in his obituary in the New York Times:
''I never abused or shot anyone. I was just trying to make a buck. What I did was far less harmful than a bartender getting you boozed up and then letting you out on a highway where you might kill someone. I know how bad that stuff can be.''
He’s right, of course. And…he’s obviously missing the point.
Later he said that he was as good at growing marijuana as he was at playing baseball. That’s exactly right: he was an able farmer. And: he was busted growing the stuff. He was a gifted ballplayer. And: he had a short career in the pros. In the end no team wanted him.
But he was a two-time batting champion. Batting averages are the first statistic listed in the papers, and Fein spent the better parts of two seasons at the top of the list.
The Least Likely Cy Young Winner
The least likely player to win a Cy Young Award was Steve Stone, the 1980 American League winner.
Which begs the question: what do I mean by least likely?
This is what I mean: imagine that you and a friend are watching Opening Day. Imagine that your friend has brought along one of those handy guidebooks for the season, the ones that list all of the players and their numbers from the previous season. They used to print an excellent paperback version of that guide…I don’t know if anyone still does.
During the commercials you and your friend decide to predict who will win the Cy Young or the MVP in the coming season. The least likely player is the guy who you’d be least likely to pick, after scouring that guide for the duration of the ballgame.
Take Steve Bedrosian, the 1987 NL Cy Young winner. He seems like an unlikely candidate to win the Cy Young.
But…wouldn’t you eventually pick him? Not #1, obviously. But he was the closer on the Phillies in 1986. He saved 29 games. And the writers had given a ton of awards to closers in recent years: Fingers and Sutter and Lyle and Hernandez. A decent closer can save 40 games easily...and the Phillies didn’t have a lot of great starters. Sooner or later you would’ve picked Bedrosian.
Same thing for Mark Davis. He saved 28 games the year before the won the Cy Young, and he had a 2.01 ERA. You’d pick him. Eventually.
Mike Flanagan? Flanagan won the 1979 AL Cy Young award. He won 19 games the year before, and he was twenty-seven years old. You would’ve picked him.
Randy Jones won 20 games the year before he won the award. LaMarr Hoyt won 19 games and led the league in wins the year before he won the award. Pete Vuckovich did the same thing…led the league in wins the year before he won the award. Bob Turley was a surprise…but he had one or two solid seasons before he won the award. Plus, he was a Yankee: if you play for the Yankees, wins aren’t going to be a problem. John Denny is a surprise, but he won an ERA title in 1976, and he was still a young man when he won the award in 1983.
Jim Lonborg (1967 AL)…he is probably the second most surprising Cy Young winner. He finished 10-10 the year before, for a lousy Red Sox team. He came out of nowhere to lead the league in wins and strikeouts. I grew up on the South Shore of Massachusetts, and a lot of my school friends had Lonborg as their dentist, so I don’t want to be biased. He was a young man when he won the award, and he did win ten games for that 1966 club. You’d have to look hard, but there was something there.
(Just an aside: do you think there is a strong correlation between pitching and dentistry? Lonborg became a dentist. Tom Seaver was a dental student. Greg Maddux looks like a dentist...I have this irrational, baseless belief that a lot of failed pitchers go on to dental school; that the two tasks reward similar ways of thinking. I have no evidence that this is true, but it could be.)
So…not Lonborg, 1967. Steve Stone, 1980.
Here are Stone’s pitching marks in the seasons before he won the Cy Young award:
|
W-L
|
ERA
|
IP
|
|
5-9
|
4.15
|
111
|
|
6-8
|
2.98
|
124
|
|
6-11
|
4.24
|
176
|
|
8-6
|
4.14
|
170
|
|
12-8
|
3.95
|
214
|
|
3-6
|
4.08
|
75
|
|
15-12
|
4.51
|
207
|
|
12-12
|
4.37
|
212
|
|
11-7
|
3.77
|
186
|
That tallies to a 78-79 career record, with an ERA of 4.06.
Career record aside, there are few positive indicator based on his most recent seasons. He went 11-7 with a 3.77 ERA the year prior to winning the Cy Young, but he had a terrible strikeout-to walk ratio of 1.32 (73 walks to 96 strikeouts). He pitched 186 innings that year, so his strikeout rate was very low (4.6), while his walk rate was fairlyhigh (3.5). He was thirty-two years old…the odds on a thirty-two year old pitcher having a breakout performance are significantly worse than the odds on a twenty-two year old.
But Steve Stone beat the odds.
After nine years of struggle, Stone had a superstar season in 1980. He won 25 games, threw 250 innings, posted a career-best 3.23 ERA, and whiffed 149 batters, the best mark of his career.
Steve Stone was, well, different. He was iconoclastic; he didn’t really do what was expected of him. When he suffered a rotator cuff tear, he refused the surgery that the Cubs suggested, opting to endure a treatment that involved repeatedly freezing and then exercising his arm. It worked.
This is an aside: I believe that the vast majority of us overemphasize notions of ‘ability’, while underemphasizing the significance of effort or focus. Take a famous actor…George Clooney, say. We tell ourselves that the difference between George Clooney and you or me is that George Clooney is a gifted and talented actor, whereas you and I aren’t. I think that’s probably 5% true, and 95% false….I think that difference between Mr. Clooney’s ability and ours stems not from some grand talent, but from the maximum effort he put in towards having a career as an actor.
Clooney was born in 1961…his acting career ‘started’ in 1978 with a background role on some show. He had bit parts on shows like The Facts of Life and Golden Girls. If you saw him on those shows, at those times, you wouldn’t have said, "Now there is an actor." You wouldn’t have predicted greatness.
His career started in 1978….he got the gig with ER in 1994. That is sixteen years where he was doing bit parts on bad sitcoms…sixteen years where his acting resume was no more notable than Newman on Seinfeld. If Clooney had walked away in 1993, no one would have noticed.
How many of us have done anything for sixteen years without getting anywhere? How many people with the same approximate abilities as Clooney quit after seven years, or ten? How many threw in the towel and went to law school after year fifteen?
Clooney didn’t. He stuck with it. He stuck with it and in 1993 he signed with a new show that had no promise to work out, and it did work out, and he became a star. He’s now one of the most respected actors in the world. We imagine that he came out of nowhere; we imagine that his talent blew away the people casting for ER…but it’s not true. He bounced around for sixteen years before he got his chance.
Mr. Clooney is a good actor. I think that isn’t what has separates him from the thousands of good actors who remain anonymous to the world. I think what separates him was his singular focus on becoming a recognized actor; a focus that carried him through sixteen years in the metaphorical wilderness of The Facts of Life.
We tend to overstate ability and understate ‘will.’
Another example: ages ago, on this site, someone asked whether an average person, given a full season in the major leagues, could hit for a .100 batting average. The vast majority of BJOL readers said they couldn’t. It’d be too hard.
Well…if someone gave me 500 at-bats in the major leagues, I know I could hit .100. I’m sure of it. I’m not an athlete at all, but I have two arms…I can swing a bat. Given a good trainer and practice and the promise of at-bats, I’d learn how to swing a bat so that I made contact at a decent rate. Pete Gray had one arm, and he could make contact….I don’t see where I have a significant disadvantage over Pete Gray.
‘Ability’ probably gets you from a .250 batting average to .300. ‘Effort’ or ‘will’ gets you from ‘sitting-on-the-couch-watching-The Facts of Life’ to at least .100.
Getting back to Steve Stone: the fascinating thing about Steve Stone’s Cy Young season is the degree to which he ‘willed’ himself to have it. Steve Stone was a good major league pitcher, but he wasn’t great. He wasn’t ever going to be great…he didn’t have electric stuff like Ryan or Seaver. He was a good major league pitcher.
Steve Stone had something of an epiphanic moment…with his job on the line at the 1979 All-Star break, Orioles manager Earl Weaver told Stone (6-7 on the season at that point) that he was now the spot starter in the rotation…the fifth man. This triggered Stone to rethink everything. He read the biography of Sandy Koufax…six times. He got the idea that repetition was essential to success (a truth echoed by many pitching coaches), so he started eating the same meals at the same times. He started meditating. He went to a psychic. He got into the ‘power of positive thinking,’ and started applying it to baseball. Every start he’d tell himself that he was going to win the game. He’d tell himself that his defense would make their plays and the batters would make their outs. He’d imagine the moment when he’d walk off the mound with the game over. He’d imagine winning…over and over again, he imagined winning.
And…he won.
He didn’t lose again in 1979, and in 1980 he won 25 games and the American League Cy Young Award. Bob Gibson never won 25 games in a season. Neither did Warren Spahn. Or Jim Palmer. Or Nolan Ryan. But Steve Stone did.
About half of the pitches he threw in 1980 were curveballs…this proved to be very effective, and very damaging. He knew it would be: "I knew it would ruin my arm. But one year of 25-7 is worth five of 15-15."
He suffered arm troubles in 1981. He could have continued his career, but he didn’t.
Steve Stone is Jewish. His boyhood hero was Sandy Koufax, and Koufax’s biography played a significant role in Stone’s Cy Young season. Like Koufax, Stone considered the possibility of playing through an endless cycle of cortisone shots and heat rubs and he decided that he had had enough. He retired. When asked about it later he said, "I had seen all facets of the game. I had been a bad pitcher and a good pitcher. I had been a mediocre pitcher and a great pitcher. I didn’t want to go back to being a mediocre pitcher anymore."
I read that and thought, "Koufax, 1966." There’s an echo. Stone had reached the peak: he didn’t see any point in suffering the inevitable descent. Same thing with Koufax: he had done enough. The pain was too much.
The Least Likely MVP
As most of you know, the rules for the early MVP awards were rather odd. In the American League between 1922 and 1928, you couldn’t win an MVP award if you had already won the award. Babe Ruth won the award total bases, and a whole bunch of stats that no one was counting back then. He was the Most Valuable Player in the league, obviously, but he wasn’t eligible to win the award. It was a stupid rule, and the powers that be eventually fixed it. Babe Ruth only got the one MVP, but at least Juan Gonzalez earned his two awards.
The interesting aspect of Roger Peckinpaugh’s 1925 AL MVP award is how little this rule helped him win hisMVP. The only stars who had won MVP awards prior to 1925 (and were thus ineligible to win) were Ruth, Walter Johnson, and George Sisler. Walter Johnson was thirty-seven years old in 1925, posting his last 20-win season. Babe Ruth missed 50 games of the season with a ‘bellyache’ caused by hotdogs, illegal booze, or venereal disease. Sisler had a good year (.345 batting average, 12 homers), but he didn’t lead the league in any categories. Plus, he was a player/manager: player/managers weren’t eligible in 1925.
So…the guys who had won the award prior to 1925 didn’t deserve it in 1925. The weird rules didn’t help Peckinpaugh win the award.
Roger Peckinpaugh’s MVP is the most surprising because he was selected ahead of many more deserving players. Here’s a table:
|
Name
|
R
|
HR
|
RBI
|
BA
|
WAR
|
|
R. Peckinpaugh
|
67
|
4
|
64
|
.294
|
2.4
|
|
Al Simmons
|
122
|
24
|
129
|
.387
|
5.6
|
|
Joe Sewell
|
78
|
1
|
98
|
.336
|
4.5
|
|
Harry Heilmann
|
97
|
13
|
134
|
.393
|
6.7
|
|
Bob Meusel
|
101
|
33
|
138
|
.290
|
2.7
|
|
Al Wingo
|
104
|
5
|
68
|
.370
|
5.7
|
Peckinpaugh hit four homeruns….Bob Meusel hit 33 homeruns and drove in 138 runs. Al Simmons hit 24 homeruns and had a .387 batting average. Harry Heilmann hit .393 and drove in 134.
Peckinpaugh was a shortstop…so was Joe Sewell. Joe Sewell hit .336 to Peckinpaugh’s .294, and Sewell scored and drove in more runs. This is a high-offense era…you have guys hitting .387 and .393 and .378 and .370 (Ty Cobb, still in the league). Peckinpaugh’s OPS was .746….six player were over 1.000.
Given the staggering offense of the day, it is surprising that Peckinpaugh would win the award. It is surprising, but he was a shortstop, and he did play on the pennant winners, the Washington Senators. If he was the best player on the Senators, you could make the case for him.
But Peckinpaugh wasn’t the best player on the Senators. He wasn’t one of the five best players on the team:
|
Name
|
R
|
HR
|
RBI
|
BA
|
WAR
|
|
Sam Rice
|
111
|
1
|
87
|
.350
|
4.5
|
|
Goose Goslin
|
116
|
18
|
113
|
.334
|
6.6
|
|
Joe Harris
|
60
|
12
|
59
|
.323
|
3.8
|
|
Joe Judge
|
65
|
5
|
66
|
.314
|
2.9
|
|
R. Peckinpaugh
|
67
|
4
|
64
|
.294
|
2.4
|
|
Ossie Bluege
|
77
|
4
|
79
|
.287
|
2.2
|
|
Muddy Ruel
|
55
|
0
|
54
|
.310
|
2.1
|
Goose Goslin hit .334 and led the team in homeruns, runs scored, and runs batted in. Sam Rice hit .350. Joe Judge, the team’s first baseman, hit .323. Muddy Ruel, the team’s catcher, led the club in on-base percentage and hit .310. Joe Harris was a super-sub…he was second in the team in homeruns and hit .323 while subbing in the outfield and at first base.
Peckinpaugh, considering his defensive position, might be the third most valuable hitter on the club...he is about equal with Judge, Harris, Bluege, and Ruel. As a hitter, he is decidedly less valuable than Goslin and Rice.
Walter Johnson was ineligible to win the MVP…at 20-7, 3.07 ERA, it is clear that he was more valuable to the Senators than Peckinpaugh. Stan Coveleski was more valuable than Johnson: Coveleski went 20-5 on the year and led the league with a 2.87 ERA. Dutch Ruether went 18-7 with a 3.87 ERA….he wasn’t as good as Johnson or Coveleski, but he was an effective third man in the rotation.
The most valuable player on the Senators was Goslin or Coveleski. Take your pick between ‘em. After that you have Sam Rice and Walter Johnson, two old-timers coming to the end of their careers. Those are the four most valuable Senators in 1925.
Roger Peckinpaugh belongs in the scrum with Harris, Judge, Bluege, another Harris, Ruel, and Ruether…you could argue that any of those seven players was the fifth most valuable player on the team, and I’d believe you.
Peckinpaugh was a great defensive shortstop…it is very obvious that by 1925 his best days on the field were behind him. The Washington Senators made nine fielding errors in the 1925 World Series. Peckinpaugh was charged with eightof those nine.
Peckinpaugh’s errors cost the Senators the championship. He had two errors in Game 7…two late-inning errors that led to three unearned runs in a game that the Senators lost, 9-7.
What is interesting about that Game 7 is how much Peckinpaugh’s play during that game contrasted a 17-year major league career. He was a great defensive player….but he made two absolutely devastative errors. He hit just 48 homeruns in his career, but he hit a very important solo homerun in the top of the 8th inning, to give Washington a 7-6 lead going into the final frames.
Astonishingly, this was the second time in his career that a Peckinpaugh error cost his team the World Series. In 1921 Peckinpaugh booted a grounder hit by High Pockets Kelly. That error led to the only run scored in the clinching Game 8.
1925 was Roger Peckinpaugh’s last full season in the majors. He was thirty-four years old, and his legs were going. In 1926 he played 57 games for the Senators, and then he moved to the White Sox for a single year of part-time play.
With apologies to Guillermo Hernandez, Zoilo Versalles, and Phil Cavarretta, we’re picking Peckinpaugh as the least likely MVP ever.
Dave Fleming is a writer living in Wellington, New Zealand. He welcomes comments, questions, and suggestions here and at dfleming1986@yahoo.com.