- Doak Posts Lowest Earned Run Average in National League for Second Time
- Season of 1922 Will Be Bill Doak’s Tenth With St. Louis
- Looks Good for Long Time Yet.
March 19, 1922 Age 31
The St Louis Star and Times
Spring Training, Orange, Tex.. March 19
Ten baseball seasons ago – it was in July, 1913 – a tall, none-too-husky lad joined the St. Louis Cardinals, having made a great reputation as a pitcher at Akron. Ohio. He looked almost too slight for heavy service, and yet this same lad, his blond hair thinner than it was at that time, has been the pitching mainstay of the Cards every year since. His name is Bill Doak and his home is in Pittsburgh, though his baseball habitat is, the St. Louis fans are glad to say, in the Mound City.
Doak Rounding to Form.
Right now, down here in training tramp, Doak is starting to round to form for his tenth straight season with the same club – his only major league home. In the days of the Federal League, Doak might have received a big bonus and a wartime salary for jumping Organized Baseball but, like Johnny Evers and many another star, Bill held firm, carried out his contracts and time has noted his wisdom and justified his faith.
Twice, in the ten years of service, Bill has led all the pitchers in the National League in efficiency. Both years, strangely enough, the Cardinals finished in third place. The first year was in 1914 when Miller Huggins, now pilot of the New York Yankees, was boss of the Cardinals. In that year, Doak won nineteen and lost but six games for a great average of .760, and his efficiency record was even better. The great hurler permitted but 1.78 earned runs per game during the entire season. When Bill accomplished this double feat, he had been but a year under the Big Tent.
Seven years afterward, last season, in fact, Doak duplicated his pitching performance, so far as efficiency goes, by again leading all the moundsmen in his league. His won-and-lost record was about the same, being .714. with fifteen games won and six lost. On the face of the figures, he would have seemed to lose in efficiency for, last year, he allowed 2.58 earned runs per game. But everyone knows that 1921 was a year for “lively balls” and “hittin’ fools,” so Bill’s record is just as good as his former performance, if not actually better.
Never Pitched in Big Series.
Doak never has had a chance to pitch in a World Series game, but he is thinking seriously of doing so this fall. In his way and despite his frail build, he is one of the greatest pitchers of the game, and it would be interesting to watch him perform in the big classic. Bill’s control of his spitball Is marvelous. Batters have to hit safely to “get on” when Bill Is pitching. He doesn’t walk many. In 1921, he gave 37 bases on balls in 32 games and fanned 83, almost three times as many. In 1920, the first and only year he has succeeded in winning twenty games, Bill was a bit unsteadier than usual for he walked 80 and fanned 90. In 1919, Doak walked 55 and struck out 69.
A glance at the names of pitchers Doak beat out in the efficiency race last season glorifies his accomplishment. When a veteran of ten years’ big league work can show greater effectiveness than men of the caliber of Babe Adams, Rixey, Grimes, Cooper, Toney, Marquard, Alexander, Douglas, and Meadows, he qualifies for the title “some pitcher.”
It is doubtful if there is a more popular performer In the big leagues than the Pittsburgh boy. Of even temperament, he is the finest of sportsmen. No opposing player ever tries to “get on” Doak. They recognize him for the fine character he is and keep their “riding” for others less popular.
Holds Up Tradition.
There are many contrasts in sport but none greater than Doak’s ability to pitch and his almost entire disability to hit. Of course, pitchers are not supposed to do much hitting and they don’t, but Bill hasn’t had much time for batting practice and his hitting shows it. He had one of his biggest ears in 1921 when he pulled his batting average up to the lofty height of .143.
It would seem fitting that Doak be allowed to crown ten years of splendid effort by getting an opportunity to work in a World Series. Bill hopes so and the Cardinals hope so. Now, if the other seven clubs would fall in line, the proposition would have unanimous consent.
March 19,1922 – Doak’s long-time teammate, Rogers Hornsby, gets three hits against Yankees in spring training game, while The Babe had but one.
