Washington DC Baseball

[ValKehl]

As George mentioned, "Peck" was the 1925 AL MVP.

[GeoPoto]

On September 28, the Senators were guests of President Calvin Coolidge at the White House, becoming the first reigning World Series champions to visit the White House.

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[GeoPoto]

Player #89B: Oswald L. "Ossie" Bluege. Third baseman for the Washington Senators in 1922-1939. 1,751 hits and 43 home runs in 18 MLB seasons. 1935 All-Star. 1924 World Series champion. He played his entire career in Washington. He was best known for his defense, but his best season at the plate was 1928 as he posted a .364 OBP with 78 runs scored and 75 RBIs in 588 plate appearances. He managed the Washington Senators in 1943-1947.

From Bluege's SABR biography, we get Ossie's take on the end of the 1924 season, including his lack of confidence in Muddy Ruel's wheels. Also, that 1924 ball players had no interest in elite indulgences such as champagne.

In Bluege’s mind, the Nats were lucky to win. With one out in the twelfth inning of Game Seven, Ruel lifted a pop foul behind home plate. Giants catcher Hank Gowdy got tangled up with his mask and dropped the baseball. Given renewed life, Ruel laced a double to left field. Johnson stepped up and reached on an error by shortstop Travis Jackson. Ruel held at second, but scored when Earl McNeely sent a bouncer to third base. The tale that has been handed down through the years is that the ball struck a pebble and caromed into left field. “(Irish) Meusel fielded the ball and Muddy’s running like hell,” remembered Bluege. “And that’s when Meusel put the ball in his pocket. He could have thrown Muddy out. We were on top of the bench, pulling like hell. I remember Nemo Leibold standing up alongside of me, pumping, ’C’mon, Muddy. C’mon, Muddy,’ trying to pull him across home plate. When he did, we jumped like hell and we greeted everybody and kissed everybody. But there was no champagne at that point in time. We didn’t believe in champagne.”

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[GeoPoto]

Player #111A: Stanley A. "Stan" Coveleski. Pitcher with the Washington Senators in 1925-1927. 215 wins and 21 saves in 14 MLB seasons. 1920 World Series champion. 1923 and 1925 AL ERA leader. 1920 AL strikeout leader. Cleveland Indians Hall of Fame. 1969 inducted to MLB Hall of Fame. He debuted with the Philadelphia Athletics in 1912. He was one of 17 "grand-fathered" spit-ball pitchers. One of his best seasons was 1918 with Cleveland as he posted a 22-13 record with a 1.82 ERA in 311 innings pitched.

Deveaux explains Stan's emergence as a key Senator's pitcher. Clark Griffith had won the World Series with one of the oldest ballclubs ever to win a championship, and the Nats would do so again in 1925 with a roster that was even older. A couple of weeks before Christmas, 1924, Griffith made two deals, obtaining seasoned pitchers Stan Coveleski and Dutch Ruether. A Pennsylvania coal miner, Coveleski had gotten a late start in baseball and had won 19 as a 28-year-old for the Indians in 1917. He won 22 or more over the next four seasons but was coming off a 15-16, 4.04 season with the Indians, and was nearing his 36th birthday.

The shrewd Old Fox was determined to keep patching up his club, and he'd had to part with very little for the two veteran hurlers. For Coveleski, Griff gave up Speece, of the exaggerated underhand windup, and some cash. . . .
. . . On behalf of the Washington Senators in 1925, Stan Coveleski, future member of the Hall of Fame (inducted 1969), went 20-5, and led the league with a 2.84 ERA, winning 13 in a row at one point. (The Washington Senators by Tom Deveaux.)

Covelski slinging and swinging:

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[GeoPoto]

Player #90C: Leon A. "Goose" Goslin. Left fielder for the Washington Senators in 1921-1930, 1933, and 1938. 2,735 hits and 248 home runs in 18 MLB seasons. 1936 All-Star. 1924 and 1935 World Series champion. 1928 AL batting champion. 1924 AL RBI leader. 1968 inducted to the MLB Hall of Fame. He drove in the game-winning, walk-off run to win the 1935 World Series for the Detroit Tigers. With Gehringer and Greenberg, was one of the Detroit "G-Men". In 1936 he had an inside-the-park HR when both outfielders (Joe DiMaggio and Myril Hoag) collided and were knocked unconscious. He had one of his best seasons for the WS-winning Washington Senators in 1924 as he posted a .421 OBP with 100 runs scored and 129 RBIs in 674 plate appearances.

Late in the 1925 season, the Nationals and the Philadelphia A's were neck-and-neck for the pennant until the A's lost 12 games in a row. The ever-volatile Goslin was central to Washington's success, as Smiles relates: The A's finally ended the losing by winning the last two games of the Washington series over the next two days, but it was too late. The Senators had won nine of 14 during the A's losing streak, and even after the two A's wins, the Senators lead was seven on September 9. The Senators were 85-48. The A's were 76-53. The Senators and A's had one more game to play against each other, a make-up contest played on September 13 in Washington that ended in a 6-6 tie called by darkness after 11 innings. During that game, Goose Goslin and Bucky got into a heated argument in the dugout. Goslin misplayed two balls into triples in the fourth and sixth innings. Bucky said something to Goslin after the second misplay and the argument ensued. It's not known what Goslin said, but it must have been ugly, as Bucky fined him $100 and suspended him. Bucky backed off the suspension (Goslin was in the lineup the next day), but the fine stood. . . .

. . . In the Senators' outfield only Goose Goslin had numbers to compare (with the offensive production of the Pittsburgh Pirates' outfield of Barnhart, Carey, and Cuyler). (In 1925,) He (Goslin) batted .334, scored 116, batted in 113, hit 18 home runs, and led the league with 20 triples. (Bucky Harris by Jack Smiles.)

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[EddieP]

Article on the 1904 Washington team:

https://wapo.st/41UjqKj

[GeoPoto]

Thanks for the link to the interesting article about Washington baseball foibles in the dead ball era. A little additional history:

On November 27, 1859 in Washington DC, the National Baseball Club was formally organized by a group of Government clerks. That amateur team known as the Nationals played rival Washington-area teams regularly throughout the 1860's (despite the civil war) led by their star pitcher, Pue Gorman.

Gorman eventually came to be replaced in 1866 as Nationals pitcher by Henry Chadwick.

In 1867, the Washington Nationals went on a Western tour, accompanied by the world's first baseball correspondent -- Henry Chadwick, representing the New York Sunday Mercury. George Wright played second base. The Nationals won games against teams in Columbus (90-10), Cincinnati (53-10 and 88-12), Louisville (83-21), Indianapolis (106-21) and St Louis (113-26 and 53-26) before being stopped 29-23 by Forest City and their young pitcher, Al Spalding.

Spalding's baseball Guide credits the 1867 Washington Nationals with sowing the seeds of interest in and love for professionally played baseball in the hearts and minds of the American people: "In 1867, the first extended tour of a professional baseball organization was made, the Nationals of Washington appearing in different cities of the Union with such uniform success as to open the eyes of the people who had supposed the beauties of the game had received the fullest illustration at the hands of the local amateur clubs.

"The superior skill shown by the visitors sowed the seeds of healthy emulation, and the second year thereafter saw in Cincinnati the famous Red Stocking team which went through the season with a success never before achieved by a baseball club. Their career served to intensify the passion for the game and to stimulate the formation of clubs that should achieve similar renown."

Pue Gorman went on to become a U.S. Senator from Maryland. When Washington got a franchise in the National League, nostalgia for the earlier team, captained by future senator Gorman, gave rise to Senators as well as Nationals as popular team nicknames. In 1903, when the new American League franchise conducted a name-the-team contest, the same nostalgia made Nationals the winner, even though the team was in the American League.

[ValKehl]

Originally Posted by GeoPoto

. . . . . . . In the Senators' outfield only Goose Goslin had numbers to compare (with the offensive production of the Pittsburgh Pirates' outfield of Barnhart, Carey, and Cuyler). (In 1925,) He (Goslin) batted .334, scored 116, batted in 113, hit 18 home runs, and led the league with 20 triples. (Bucky Harris by Jack Smiles.)

George, it appears to me that Jack Smiles was not a fan of Sam Rice. Yes, HOFers Cuyler (second in the NL MVP voting) and Carey had had great years, and Clyde Barnhart had his best MLB season with 175 hits and a .325 batting average. However, Senators' HOFer outfielder Rice had 227 hits and a .350 batting average (the best of his career) in 1925. Amazingly, Rice struck out only 10 times in 710 plate appearances!

Lucas, that is a great photo of Senators' players with their kids! Thanks for showing it.

[GeoPoto]

Great photo Lucas. Val: you make a fair point, particularly with respect to Barnhart. OPS+ (for 1925) rates Goslin (139), Cuyler (152) and Carey (126) ahead of Rice (112), but with Barnhart (109) trailing slightly.

Player #112A: Joseph "Joe" Harris. "Moon". First baseman for the Washington Senators in 1925-1926. 963 hits and 47 home runs in 10 MLB seasons. He had a career OBP of .404. His best season was 1923 with the Boston Red Sox as he posted a .406 OBP with 82 runs scored and 76 RBIs in 562 plate appearances. He debuted with the New York Yankees in 1914. In 1925, he joined Washington mid-season and posted a .430 OBP with 60 runs scored and 59 RBIs in 390 plate appearances as the Senators won the AL pennant. His final season was with the Brooklyn Robins in 1928. He was involved in a trucking accident while serving in WW 1. He suffered 2 broken legs, 3 broken ribs, and a fractured skull, thus creating the 'lump' under his eye. He was the first player in MLB history to homer in his first appearance in the World Series (1925). He played in the 1925 World Series for Washington and the 1927 World Series with Pittsburgh.

Harris' SABR biography sums up his 1925 campaign: Harris began the 1925 season with the Red Sox, but with Phil Todt set for first base, he wasn’t expected to get quite as much work. On April 29 the Sox traded him to the Washington Senators for Roy Carlyle and Paul Zahniser. He’d assembled only 26 plate appearances for Boston and was batting .158. Sox fans were nonetheless disappointed to lose him, and the Boston Globe wrote, “He always has been a player who has given his club all he has, and, in these days, that is something unique.”

He reverted to form with Washington, despite a scare of an elbow injury in June, and was able to step in when longtime first baseman Joe Judge had to bow out due to nagging injury. Harris played in an even 100 games and batted .323 – third on the team in batting average, but first in OBP and SLG. And the Senators won the pennant. The World Series ran to seven games, Washington winning three of the first four, but then the Pittsburgh Pirates winning the final three to become world champions.

Harris played in all seven games and led all batters, hitting .440 with three home runs and six RBIs. It was his single in Game Three that provided the winning hit in that game.

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