Slightly O/T: Did Cy Young "Only" Win 510 Games?

[trdcrdkid]

For what it's worth, the following happened at the National League meeting on November 13, 1890, as reported on page 4 of the November 15, 1890 Sporting Life. By that time, the NL officially considered Pittsburgh to have lost 114 game in the 1890 championship season, which must have included the September 18 game. I haven't yet found the meeting at which the NL discussed the September 18 game and declared it a championship game rather than an exhibition, but it wasn't at this meeting.

[z28jd]

Originally Posted by trdcrdkid

For what it's worth, the following happened at the National League meeting on November 13, 1890, as reported on page 4 of the November 15, 1890 Sporting Life. By that time, the NL officially considered Pittsburgh to have lost 114 game in the 1890 championship season, which must have included the September 18 game. I haven't yet found the meeting at which the NL discussed the September 18 game and declared it a championship game rather than an exhibition, but it wasn't at this meeting.

Thanks for looking. No idea where they got 114 from, but that could have easily been a mistake from the editor, since I've never read anything about them possibly having more losses than what is now accepted.

I knew about the 112 losses for quite some time now, but figured that was just a mistake. I didn't look into it because I had no idea where to start and whether it would just be a waste of time over an editing error.

Sure would love to find that banner!

[trdcrdkid]

I don't think it was a typo or a mistake by the editor. The flag was mentioned again in the November 29, 1890 Sporting Life (page 3), and it was again said to have 114 stars:

[Fred]

Could you imagine if someone went through all of the records and found that Roberto Clemente was credited with a hit that was actually changed to an error by the scorer at a later date.....?

[Butch7999]

Entertaining, yes, but ultimately pointless to argue it only here.
If you believe there's a case to be made for changing the official record, present your findings to Retrosheet / BBR.

[Fred]

Look what happened to Old Hoss for his 1884 season. Someone read a bit too much and there went that magical number....

[z28jd]

Originally Posted by Butch7999

Entertaining, yes, but ultimately pointless to argue it only here.
If you believe there's a case to be made for changing the official record, present your findings to Retrosheet / BBR.

I presented it here because I know it's of interest to people here and I was hoping to get more info. I have been talking to John Thorn, who is the official MLB historian and presenting him everything I have, exchanging ideas and we actually took it a different route because that game was accepted back then at some point as an official game after it was played, even though it was clearly a scheduled exhibition game.

The other route is based off the 114 star banner mentioned above. 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.

[RUKen]

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.

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.

[z28jd]

Originally Posted by RUKen

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.

We will likely never know why they decided to specifically get rid of one game and add another, when neither appeared to be real games. As you said in a previous post, the two teams had a game that needed to be made up with Pittsburgh as the home team. Why would they pick a specific game out of two under the same circumstances and declare that was the made up game? That's acknowledging the fact that today it's listed as a makeup of the 9/5 rainout, yet noting that supposedly they played the 5/5 rain out over four months later when they could have played it back in May, or multiple times later.

That's the part to me personally that makes me think that neither should count. Also, the league had zero problem with teams not making up games, judging by the games played totals, which range from 129 to 138, so it's not like any team needed to have a certain amount for the league to be satisfied. Every team played exhibition games back then in season, so it seems odd that the Alleghenys and Cleveland, the two worst teams, are the ones they made judgment calls on for no apparent reason.

The league clearly got together at some point and decided 114 losses happened and spent money to "celebrate" it and the Alleghenys apparently how no problem accepting that fact because they hung it in a public place for all to see. The guide does have 113 losses listed, but you have 114 right there with a 6-13 record to show where that extra loss came from, plus a 10-7 record for Young as you pointed out.

What may have happened is when they went back over games to double check, they got rid of the one game but not the other. Was that on purpose, or an error? It's obvious that errors were being made in real time back then, so it's not hard to fathom that they were made at a later date and only one game was erased (or neither should have been).

Unless someone has something specific that says why such odd decisions were made, then you can make cases for Young winning 8, 9 or 10 games that year, with 9 wins only coming from the "well, that's what they decided" reason. Those people known as "they" got a lot of things wrong back then and a lot of it has been corrected over time.