April 8, 1914 Age 23
Wray’s Column St Louis Post Dispatch
SAD, but apparently true, Bo. There’ll be no races for the National and American League baseball pennant races, this year. There will be two walk-overs. Titles to said buntings have already been made over to the Giants and Athletics, by common consent. These clubs will take in the competition, but will not be of it – being too far out in front.
Pitching Tells the Tale.
If pitching is 80 per cent of baseball, as some careless calculators assert, the New York Giants ought to be paid to get out of the race, in order to give some other club a look-in. For in Marquard, Matthewson, Tesreau and Demaree, McGRAW HAS THE BEST PITCHING STAFF IN THE NATIONAL LEAGUE, by many points. This quartet won 83 games between them, last year, and that’s almost enough to win a pennant, if repeated, the way the National League shapes up.
Not only has McGraw the pitching, but he has a unified team, a machine, with only one cog not working smoothly. That’s at third base, left vacant by the defection of Shafer and the loss of Herzog. The Giants thus outclass the field.
Have a Look, Then Guess.
If you can pick the second place club in this race, you can pull a Pittsburg Phil on any racetrack. The offhand guess of 99 in 100 hardy clairvoyants would be Fred Clarke’s Pirates, for the place job. But little old Chicago, even minus Evers, catches the more discerning eye first.
Here are the effective pitching elements, aside from new material, of the seven second-place contenders:
CHICAGO: Pierce. Humphries, Cheney. C. Smith, Lavender, Stack.
PITTSBURGH: Adams, O’Toole. McQuillan, Harmon.
PHILADELPHIA: Alexander, Rixey, Chalmers, Mayer, Jacobs.
BOSTON: Perdue, Tyler, Rudolph, Hess, James, Dickson.
BROOKLYN Rucker. Allen, Ragan. E. Brown. Reulbach, Curtis.
CINCINNATI Benton, Johnson, Yingling, Ames.
ST. LOUIS Sallee, Robinson, Steele, Griner, Perritt, Doak.
Take Your Pick.
NONE of the seven teams behind the Giants is so strong as to be sure of any forward position at the finish, and there is no certainty that, in view of the general weak condition of the league, the shaking up experienced following the Federal onslaught, some dark horse will not scramble to the front and attract attention.
As For Mr. Huggins.
THE Cardinals, pitching staff considered, have a chance to be lucky.
Sallee is as good as any pitcher in the League:
Bill Steele will be a tough lad to beat, if he “comes back” – a hope warranted by the improved condition of Steele’s health;
Robinson has the making of a corking good pitcher and showed it with Pittsburg, who will miss him;
Griner, with a year’s added experience, ought to be SOME flinger this season;
Doak and Perritt are “hopes.”
Should everything come true that Huggins dreams about the pitching staff, the Cards might duplicate the famous dash of 1911.
But hopeful views of Boston, Brooklyn, Cincinnati and Philadelphia conditions lead to the same optimism regarding them, and the man who hopes to win a fall benny by naming the position in which any club will finish below third place is laying up a lean winter for himself.