Quote:
Originally Posted by z28jd
We found a mention in the 1891 Spalding Guide that said the Alleghenys lost 114 games and had a 6-13 record against Cleveland, which is not accepted as true today. They are credited with 113 losses and a 6-12 record. So maybe then, Cy Young could have had 512 wins...I present you with a "lost game from September 3rd in Altoona with the local paper calling it a "Championship game" which back then just meant regular season. So I present to you, "loss 114" that was apparently accepted in 1890 by the league itself and 1891 by the league record keepers, but no longer counts as a game. For the naysayers for the original game, this is a tough one to argue against.
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That is very interesting, but I would take with a grain of salt a local newspaper's description of a locally-played game a championship game. On page 106 of the Spalding guide, it does indicate that Pittsburg lost 114 games and had a 6-13 record against Cleveland, and it indicates that Cleveland had 45 wins (rather than 44). But in that same table, it lists Cleveland's record against Pittsburg as 12-6. On page 104 of that same Spalding Guide, Cleveland's record is given as 44-88, and Pittsburg's is given as 23-113. Then again, on page 136, Young's record is given as 10-7, rather than the 9-7 record he is credited with now. On the other hand, Sporting Life did not report the game among it accounts of championship games played during the week of September 3rd, and had not included it among "games to be played" that were listed for the National League in the previous issue. This is far from settled. I don't know what the League standards were for determining whether a scheduled game at a neutral site could be considered a championship game. It wouldn't surprise me if the League reviewed the records from some of these games shortly after they were played and then decided to throw some of them out of the records because of some shortfall in meeting standards.