Roger's 1911 APBA Replay: Week 9 Summary (06/04/1911

Week Nine is in the books and the 1911 replay matches along. Most teams have reached or are near the 50-games-played mark and the remainder is not far behind. In both leagues, the haves are adding more distance between themselves and the have-nots, but both leagues are still seeing teams trying to improve their spot in the standings and the pennant race is far from over.

In the AL, the A's have gone 9-1 in their last ten games, but Boston went 7-3 during this same time frame in an effort to stay with the Mackmen. Injuries have beleaguered the White Sox, but luckily (maybe) for them their schedule has given them some unscheduled off days recently so they are hoping to be healthy once again when it comes time to make up those missed games. Cleveland just activated 44-year-old Cy Young in hopes of strengthening their rotation, but staying ahead of New York and Detroit will be a challenge. The Highlanders will likely float around .500 for the rest of the season, but if the Tigers pitching should ever settle down, they could still make a run into the top tier of the AL standings yet. Washington and St. Louis continue to bring up the rear and neither have much hope of a late upswing, although both teams do continue to look at new players.

New York started with the week with a four-game series in Pittsburgh but couldn’t further dent the Pirates' lead as Pittsburgh won 3-of-4 from the visiting Giants, including a couple of games with some late-inning heroics that ultimately doomed New York's chances. The Cubs have won six in a row they humbled the Dodgers this past week and maintained their hold on third-place, ahead of the charging Cardinals. The Phillies are another team struggling with injury issues, with only the recent collapse of the Dodgers allowing Philadelphia to maintain their fifth-place position. Just last week the Dodgers had a chance to potentially move into a tie for third place, but since then the wheels have fallen off. Cincinnati is a much better team than Boston, but their record is the same at the end of Week Nine so if that statement is true the Reds will have to prove it so.

Given that we are at Week Nine of a 27-week season and given that teams are at 50-games-played in a 154 game season we are at the one-third mark of the season, so let's take a look at Joe Jackson's season to date. Jackson is hitting a stellar .523, well ahead of Ty Cobb’s .432, Jackson (55) leads in runs scored over Cobb (48), Jackson (102) leads in hits over Cobb (96), while Cobb (53) and Duffy Lewis (50) currently have the RBI lead over Jackson (48) and Sam Crawford (48). Cobb (9) and Crawford (8) have the lead in triples, while Jackson (32) dominates in doubles over Cobb (15) and Cleveland teammate Ted Easterly (15). In the pitching department Jack Coombs (12-3) is still the only AL pitcher with double-digit wins, but there are several knocking at the door.

The New York Giants lineup is powerful from the top to the bottom, with Red Murray (.379) with the batting lead over Honus Wagner (.378) and Murray’s teammates Fred Snodgrass (.365) and Fred Merkle (.362), plus Chief Meyers (.432) is lacking plate appearances to otherwise make the leaderboard. Murray also leads in hits (77), is tied for first in doubles (15), and leads in triples (10), plus Murray is one of four Giants players with 40-or-more runs scored. Pittsburgh right fielder Owen “Chief” Wilson leads the NL in homeruns (10) and RBI’s (53), everyone which has been needed to keep the Pirates ahead of the Giants. Babe Adams (10-2), Pete Alexander (10-2), and Christy Mathewson (10-3) all picked up their tenth win of the season over this past week.

Patsy Donovan,
Boston (AL) Manager

There is plenty of baseball left to be played in my 1911 replay and plenty of holiday time coming up to squeeze in games. I really don’t have a date that I want to finish by, but needless to say with the weather turning bad here in the Midwest it is a good reason to settle in for a long bout of game playing. Everybody have a great Thanksgiving!

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