1894 Baltimore or 1927 Yankees?

[Archive]

Posted By: t206King

want your own opinion on who assembled a finer squad . i no they label the 1927 yankees as one of the best. just wondered if ppl ever noticed the 1894 team.

Baltimore 1894 club
http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/BLN/1894.shtml

or the 1927 Yankees
http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/NYY/1927.shtml

[Archive]

Posted By: Hal Lewis

1927 Yankees have 6 in the Hall of Fame... with ALL 6 being inducted as PLAYERS.

1894 Orioles also have 6 in the HOF... but only 3 were inducted as "players."

McGraw, Hanlon and Robinson are in the HOF as "Managers."

I think that's why the nod has always gone to the 1927 Yanks.

[Archive]

Posted By: t206King

but did u look at there career averages? they may have been inducted as players, but look at there fielding and stats for baltimore. they were a great team

[Archive]

Posted By: pete

but who had easier opponents? did the yanks have tougher competition or did baltimore? its pretty easy to win 100+ games a year if the other teams suck, did either of the teams runaway with the league, or was it close most of the way? for example: 2005 western division national league, did anybody finish over 500 for the season? the whole division sucked...IMO

[Archive]

Posted By: Tom Lawrie

The 1894 squad actually had 7 HOFers:

John McGraw
Joe Kelley
Hugh Jennings
Willie Keeler
Wilbert Robinson
Dan Brouthers
Ned Hanlon

You could make arguments that some of them could have been inducted either for their managing or for their playing careers, especially McGraw and Jennings. Note, however, that there was not a pitcher in the bunch. That was the main weakness of the squad.

Nonetheless, they were a dynasty for their era. The won 3 straight NL Pennants (1894-96), lost in 1897 by only a game, and were the only team to play in all 4 Temple Cups (losing in 1894-95, and winning in 1896-97). Their 1896 team was thus the only team to win both the NL Pennant and the Temple Cup (though it had only 6 HOFers, as Brouthers departed after the 1894 season).

They are my favorite team of all time, but I would never bet against a team with Ruth and Gehrig in their prime.

Tom Lawrie

[Archive]

Posted By: Marc S.

The 1906 Cubs were pretty incredible - in fact, their three year run from 1906-1908 is phenomenal.

I think the only reason that they are generally excluded from the equation is that they lost the WS in 1906. Nonetheless - a .763 winning percentage. Scored 705 runs, Allowed 381 runs.

Sure - they don't have the Hall of Famers - but their pitching staff was phenomenal. Led by Mordecai Brown - six starting pitchers each had ERA's under 1.90. [top three spots on the leader charts] Their team ERA was nearly half a run better than any other team in the NL. Whether or not their offense was stellar - when your pitching is that good, you can't go wrong.

[Archive]

Posted By: Jay Miller

Hal--Rather than just counting HOFers, the Yankees had two of the top ten greatest players ever. The Orioles had none. Yankees--not even close.

[Archive]

Posted By: dennis

i'd vote for the '27 yanks over the 94 balt.team....but the 36-39 yankee team had (great) competion and still won 4 championships in a row. best team ever.

[Archive]

Posted By: Anonymous

Dennis,

Agreed. The 1939 Yankees are the greatest team in my opinion.

[Archive]

Posted By: zach

I will go with the 1933 crawfords. They had Gibson, Paige, Judy Johnson, and Cool Papa Bell. Thats like one team having Babe Ruth, Walter Johnson, and Ty Cobb all playing at once.

[Archive]

Posted By: Peter_Spaeth

http://members.aol.com/tomho13/bestupdate.html

1 1927 New York Yankees
2 1939 New York Yankees
3 1998 New York Yankees
4 1906 Chicago Cubs
5 1944 St. Louis Cardinals
6 1902 Pittsburgh Pirates
7 1929 Philadelphia Athletics
8 1995 Cleveland Indians
9 1954 Cleveland Indians
10 1936 New York Yankees

[Archive]

Posted By: barrysloate

The 95 Indinas lost the Series to the Braves and they are ahead of the 1961 Yanks. That's a little bizarre.

[Archive]

Posted By: Ryan Christoff

Best.

[Archive]

Posted By: Frank Evanov

The 1894 O's were not a truly great team, but they were very skilled at playing innovative winning baseball.

They won by refining new strategies for the game like the hit and run. Look at their stolen base total: 324!! McGraw had 78 by himself. Also, in those days, foul balls were not strikes. Check out the O's strikeout totals....Keeler 6 in 590 AB's, Brodie 8 in 573 Ab's etc. Muggsy McGraw would often foul off 20 or 30 pitches, tiring a pitcher out, then he'd bunt for a base hit.

Frank

[Archive]

Posted By: Bob Pomilla

Read, just recently, that Wilbert Robinson was once asked how he thought the '27 Yankees would have fared against his Orioles and his reply was something along the lines of "They woulda killed us!" a contention to which McGraw took explosive exception.

[Archive]

Posted By: Alan Zimmerman

i would have a high average if foul balls counted as hits as well.

[Archive]

Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

Maybe I'm missing something but the 95 Indians had no 20 game winners and only two players with 30 or more homeruns and 100 or more RBIs. Huh?

[Archive]

Posted By: Howard W. Rosenberg

While I don't know much about the 1927 Yankees, my book from earlier this year contains a parade of praises and roasts about the 1890s Orioles. But first, here's a poem that appeared after Baltimore clinched the pennant in 1894:

In Dixie’s land
The champions stand,
Look away, look away;
In Dixie’s land
The champions stand,
The pennant floats o’er Dixie.
Cinnamon seed and great ball playin’
Sawin’ wood and nothin’ sayin’
Look away, look away;
The pennant floats o’er Dixie

Now for some praise and criticism. First, the praise. In July of that year, Boston manager Frank Selee said the following, in referring to the Baltimore team: ``When a man becomes a base runner, the batsman offers at any ball that comes up to him. If the ball isn’t pitched over the rubber [plate] he swings his bat slowly and deliberately and returns it to the shoulder. This bit of byplay interrupts and balks [blocks] the catcher and gives the base runner a few seconds advantage in stealing a base. Of course, a trick like this would be useless to a team of slow base runners.’’ He added that Baltimore’s teamwork ``reminds me of my own team.’’

Now the criticism. After the 1894 season, Johnny Foster of the Cleveland Leader said Baltimore ``is composed of players of tolerably small caliber. McGraw, Brodie, [Joe] Kelley, Jennings, and [Kid] Gleason are fair ball players in their way but live with a terribly exaggerated idea of their own importance. The world existed before they did and is likely to struggle through a summer or two after they pass away. They are young, healthy, vigorous and abusive athletes. When one has said that, everything has been said. They are not brainy ball players. They are energetic machines. As a team the Baltimore club has not played with its brains. The brains have been furnished by Ned Hanlon and Captain Robinson. Without those men the Baltimores would not have been in the race.’’ Baltimore won the pennant ``because the Baltimore management caught the entire League napping, more [sic] especially the East.’’ Also, when the regular season began, ``they were more fit to play ball than any team in the League.’’

[Archive]

Posted By: Joe P.

Two totally different great teams.
Depends on which ball we are using.
It's part of the evolution of baseball.

The only still connecting factor from that era is Ned Hanlon the manager.
"Inside Baseball" was Hanlon's Bible, and he passed that on to some of the players that went on to be managers themselves.
Strictly from just the top of my head, Hanlon begot W. Robinson, Mugsey and Jennings.

Being that I'm an old Yank fan from the Keller - DiMaggio - Henrich days, let me just do the Stengel genealogy branch.

Hanlon - W. Robinson:
W. Robinson begat Stengel in 1912.
Stengel begot Billy Martin.
Billy Martin adopted Lou Piniella.

Hanlon - W. Robinson - Stengel - Billy Martin - Lou Piniella.
All disciples of Inside Baseball.

I know that Mugsey and Jennings passed it on, ... please don't hesitate to add if you can come up with others.

[Archive]

Posted By: jay behrens

The term "Baltimore Chop" comes from the 1894 Baltimore team's practice of hitting the ball in fair territory and then having go into foul territory.

I haven't looked at the numbers in a long time, but I think the 1901-10 Pirates have the best record a 10 year span. The Cubs of that era may have been a little better for a few years, but the Pirates, during that same era, were better for a longer period.

Which team is better, 27 Yanks 94 Orioles, would depend on what rules and what equipment you were playing with. If you played with 1894 rules and the sack of mush they called a ball, the Orioles are the easy choice. If you use a modern ball, the advantage probably goes to the Yanks

Jay

I've just reached Upper Lower Class. I am now officially a babe magnet for poor chicks.

[Archive]

Posted By: Scott Gross

1884 St. Louis Unions: 94 W - 19 L - 0.832 pct.

[Archive]

Posted By: identify7

Well, Im certainly not a Yankee fan, but didn't they win five straight world series '49-53 (and switched HOF center fielders in the middle of that run)?

[Archive]

Posted By: Scot

I'll go with the 27 Yankees team. IMHO