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

z28jd · #1 07-27-2018, 11:31 AM

Quote:

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 · #2 07-27-2018, 12:23 PM

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.

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 · #3 07-27-2018, 12:54 PM

Quote:

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.

z28jd · #4 07-27-2018, 01:12 PM

I would also add that it's wrong to just quickly dismiss the local paper saying "championship game", because they didn't write that for every game. That's rare to see at the top of a game story because there's no reason to write it in most cases. In my mind, they were noting that at the top for a reason and that's because it was played at a different location. This is the same paper that wrote exhibition game for the Sept 18th game and didn't even include a boxscore.

The 113 losses we recognize now could very well be right, but "they" included the wrong game out of these two contests. Something else to consider...

Leon · #5 07-31-2018, 08:48 AM

Nice research, John. I have a feeling there are a fair amount of inconsistencies in really old stats.

Quote:

Originally Posted by z28jd

I would also add that it's wrong to just quickly dismiss the local paper saying "championship game", because they didn't write that for every game. That's rare to see at the top of a game story because there's no reason to write it in most cases. In my mind, they were noting that at the top for a reason and that's because it was played at a different location. This is the same paper that wrote exhibition game for the Sept 18th game and didn't even include a boxscore.

The 113 losses we recognize now could very well be right, but "they" included the wrong game out of these two contests. Something else to consider...

ls7plus · #6 07-31-2018, 05:23 PM

I don't buy into revisionism decades or even more than a century after the fact as adding accuracy. To me, this is nonsense. In cases other than this one, the stats were tabulated from the official score sheets, not the box scores. I don't believe the former are still available, although the latter probably most often are. Taking Ty Cobb's lifetime average down from .367 to .366 and Teddy Ballgame's rookie walk total down two (?) from 107 is sheer nonsense. This is simply the height of arrogance. The number in Cy's case is 511, plain and simple, in Cobb's, .367, and 107 rookie walks for Williams.

Highest regards,

Larry

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