He is believed to have the greatest fastball in the game. He's mentioned as being tall and lean. That might have been the case when he pitched, but baseball-reference.com lists him as 6-1 and 200 pounds which in total's game doesn't make him tall at all.
He played 21 years with the Washington Senators - from 1907 to 1927.
His career .217 ERA is more impressive since he pitched in the era with the highest batting averages. His 1.14 ERA in 1913 earned him his first of two MVP Awards. Winning 36 games that year helped too. He was the first pitcher to be named MVP, then he was the second pitcher to be named MVP.
The card mentions his impressive career totals with Senators teams that finished in the second division - the bottom half of the standings. There is a reason that Washington was mentioned with this line - "first in war, first in peace and last in the American League".
They reached the World Series twice near the end of his career and they managed to win once.
The team was in Washington for 60 years. The won three pennants but they averaged being 26.5 games behind in those years. Here is a breakdown of those years.
Won AL - 3 times
Finished from 1 to 9 games of first place - 5 times
Finished from 10 to 19 games of first place - 9 times
Finished from 20 to 29 games of first place - 19 times
Finished from 30 to 39 games of first place - 14 times
Finished from 40 to 49 games of first place - 8 times
Finished from 50 to 59 games of first place - 2 times
That's 10 years being over 40 games out of first place and 46 years being at least 20 games out.
No comments:
Post a Comment