Total Baseball (1994 Edition)/Total_Baseball_1994_Edition_Creative_Multimedia_1994.iso/dp/0000/00009.txt

Text File | 1994-02-24 | 75KB | 1,071 lines

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$Pretitle{}
$Title{Team Histories:  Part 1}
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$Author{
Ivor-Campbell, Frederick}
$Subject{Team Histories History teams Atlanta Braves Baltimore Orioles Boston
Red Sox California Angels Chicago Cubs Chicago White Sox}
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Chicago White Stockings Players League*0002801.scf
1906 Chicago White Sox*0000901.scf
1906-08 Cubs (A Yard of the National Game)*0001001.scf
1918 Boston Red Sox*0001401.scf
1931 Philadelphia A's*0001601.scf
1942 Detroit Tigers*0001801.scf
1950 New York Yankees*0001901.scf
1954 Cleveland Indians*0002001.scf
1977 Baltimore Orioles*0002201.scf
1980 Pittsburgh Pirates*0002301.scf
1983 Los Angeles Dogers*0002401.scf
St. Louis Browns*0003301.scf
Wrigley Field (1940s)*0003401.scf}

Total Baseball:  The History


Team Histories:  Part 1

Frederick Ivor-Campbell


     When the National League awarded expansion franchises to Denver and Miami
in June 1991, the number of major league clubs reached 14 in each league--the
most since 1884. When the Colorado Rockies and Florida Marlins began play in
1993, they bring to 110 the number of clubs (plus those of the Negro major
leagues) that have played major league ball at one time or another since
baseball's first professional league--the National Association--was organized
in 1871. Some of the early teams dropped out after only a few games, but
several have played for more than a century, and one--the present
Atlanta Braves--has played every season from 1871 to the present. The only
existing franchise older than Atlanta's (which originated as the Boston Red
Stockings, then became the Boston and Milwaukee Braves before moving to
Atlanta) is the Chicago Cubs, which organized in 1870, a year before league
play began. The White Stockings (as they were first known) missed two seasons
(1872-1873) in the aftermath of the great Chicago fire, but have since then
continuously represented the same city longer than any other club in baseball
history.
     Here are brief histories of the 28 current big-league clubs, arranged
alphabetically by city or state. These are followed by summary histories of
the 82 other clubs--now defunct--that at one time also represented their
cities in the major leagues.


Atlanta Braves

     The Atlanta Braves, who first played in 1871 as Boston's Red Stockings,
are the only club to field a team every season of professional league
baseball. When the game's first openly professional club, the Cincinnati Red
Stockings, decided to revert to amateur status, manager/outfielder Harry
Wright and three of his teammates took their talents (and club nickname) to
Boston, where, with infielders Ross Barnes and Harry Schafer and pitcher Al
Spalding, they formed the nucleus of a team that would dominate the five-year
history of the first professional league, the National Association. After a
close third-place finish in their first year, the Red Stockings won four
pennants in convincing fashion, including a 71-8 record in 1875 with an .899
winning percentage that has never since been approached in major league ball.
     When the National League replaced the NA in 1876, four of Boston's best
players (including Spalding and Barnes) deserted the club for Chicago. But
after a fourth-place finish in 1876, the Red Stockings lured pitcher Tommy
Bond from Hartford and finished at the top in 1877 and '78. Bond dominated NL
pitching, winning 80 games (40 each year), 22 more than his nearest rival.
Although he won another 43 in 1879, Boston slipped to second.
     In 1880 the Red Stockings suffered their first losing season as they fell
to sixth. After another sixth-place finish the next year, Wright left to
manage Providence, but Boston rebounded to third in 1882 and surprised
everyone in 1883 by outplaying favored Chicago and Providence to capture their
seventh pennant.
     Providence knocked them out of the race late in 1884, and Boston remained
out of contention the next four seasons. In 1889, though, with several
players signed from the defunct Detroit Wolverines (including batting champ
Dan Brouthers), and 49 wins from pitcher John Clarkson, the Beaneaters (as
they were now more commonly known) waged a two-team race for the championship
with the New York Giants. Boston won as many games as the Giants, but lost
two more and finished a game back.
     Frank Selee, who had managed two straight minor league pennant winners,
was hired from Omaha along with his star pitcher, Charles "Kid" Nichols.
Their arrival in 1890 ushered in Boston's second golden era. Before they left
the club twelve years later, the Beaneaters had won five more NL pennants.
Nichols won 27 games in his rookie season, but Boston--decimated by defections
to the outlaw Players League--finished only fifth. With the return of some of
the defectors in 1891, Clarkson won 33 games, Nichols recorded the first of
seven consecutive 30-win seasons, and the Beaneaters returned to the top.
     When the NL expanded in 1892 from eight teams to twelve, the schedule too
was expanded, and the season divided into two halves. Boston won the first
half, and the Cleveland Spiders the second. In a World Series to determine
the league champion, the Beaneaters (who at 102-48 had the best over-all
season record) defeated the Spiders.
     The split season was abandoned and the schedule reduced in 1893--and
Boston captured its third straight pennant. Center fielder Hugh Duffy hit
.363. The next year, when hitters exploded for a league BA of .309, Duffy led
the way with a .438 that is still the major-league record. His Beaneaters
didn't win the pennant, but they became the first club in a decade (and the
last until 1920) to hit over 100 home runs. Five Beaneaters drove in 100 runs
or more, and the team set a big league record for runs scored (1,222) that
still stands.
     Boston dropped out of contention for a couple of years, but bounced back
in 1897 to edge Baltimore for the pennant by two games. In the Temple Cup
series, though (played between the first- and second-place teams for the world
title), the Orioles overwhelmed Boston four games to one. The next year the
schedule was expanded again, and again (as in 1892) Boston won 102 games to
lead the league, winning their twelfth pennant. But as the league had
abandoned the four-year-old Temple Cup play, there was no World Series.
     After coming in second in 1899, Boston dropped out of pennant contention
for fourteen years, finishing as far back as 66 1/2 games (in 1906) and losing
as many as 108 (in 1909). Five times the club finished last, including the
four years from 1909 to 1912. The Braves (as they were now known) rose to
fifth in 1913 under new manager George Stallings, but seemed through the first
half of 1914 to be securing for themselves another bed in the cellar.
     In mid-July they stood a last-place eighth in a tight field. Six days
and six wins later they were third. By mid-August they had climbed to second;
on August 26 they replaced the New York Giants in first. For two weeks they
alternated between first and second, then took off to win the pennant by 10
1/2 games.
     Boston's heroes were pitchers Dick Rudolph and Bill James, both in only
their second full big league seasons. Rudolph won 27 games in 1914 and James
won 26; then they added two more each in the Braves' World Series sweep of the
heavily favored Philadelphia Athletics. But Rudolph crafted only one more
20-win season, and James won only 5 games in two final major-league campaigns.
     Classy fielding kept the Braves competitive the next two years. In 1915
they spurted once again out of the cellar--but only to second place this time.
They began their climb earlier the next year, but a seven-game losing streak
in early September dropped them out of a tie for first. They rallied, but
finished third. It was the Braves' last close race for thirty-two years.
     In the twenty-nine years from 1917 through 1945 the Braves finished only
three seasons as high as fourth, and only once as close as nine games from the
top. With four years in the cellar and eleven in seventh place, the team
finished near the bottom of the league more than half the time. In 1935
slugger Wally Berger led the league in home runs and RBIs, but the Braves lost
a club-record 115 games in their worst season ever.
     In 1946, with dynamic new ownership headed by contractor Lou Perini, a
new manager--Billy Southworth, who had led the Cardinals to three pennants and
two world championships--and the return of war veterans like pitchers Warren
Spahn and John Sain, the Braves neared the end of their long depression with
their first winning season in eight years. At the end of the season Boston
acquired third baseman Bob Elliott from Pittsburgh. He enjoyed a career year
in 1947, powering the Braves to third place. Spahn and Sain won 21 games
each.
     Spahn dropped to 15 wins in 1948, but Sain won 24. Four veterans--plus
rookie shortstop Alvin Dark--hit over .300. With the league's best pitching
and hitting, the Braves moved out in front in June, and shook off their last
challengers with a September spurt that left them at the end champions by 6
1/2 games.
     But from there on, the Braves' path in Boston was downhill. Cleveland
beat them in the World Series, and the club dropped to fourth for the next
three years. Southworth resigned part way into the 1951 season. In 1952 the
team fell to seventh; home attendance was less than one-fifth what it had been
four years earlier. The next spring Perini moved the franchise to Milwaukee
in the league's first realignment since 1900.
     The move was a spectacular success. Not only did the Braves rebound to
second place, but attendance jumped 649 percent over their previous year in
Boston to set an NL record of more than 1.8 million. The league's best
pitching staff was led by the trio that would anchor Milwaukee's years of
greatness: veteran Warren Spahn, sophomore Lew Burdette, and rookie Bob Buhl.
Sophomore third baseman Eddie Mathews led the league in home runs; with
outfielder Henry Aaron, who came up the next year, Mathews would give the
Braves a consistent source of power through their Milwaukee years.
     A July-August surge in 1954 pulled the Braves within a few games of the
top before they slipped back, but they set another attendance record and
became the first NL club to draw more than two million at home in a season.
In 1955 the Braves finished a distant second to the Dodgers, but 1956 produced
a great three-way race that found the Braves slightly ahead through much of
the season until five straight losses in early September brought them even
with the surging Dodgers. It was a dogfight the rest of the way, not settled
until the final day, when a Dodger victory over Pittsburgh left Milwaukee a
game back in second.
     The acquisition of veteran second baseman Red Schoendienst from St. Louis
in June 1957 steadied the infield and gave the team a frequent baserunner for
Mathews and Aaron to drive in. In August the Braves drew away from the pack,
and recovered from a September slump to win the pennant by a convincing 8
games over St. Louis. The Yankees took them to seven games in the World
Series, but Burdette's shutout in the finale brought the Braves their first
world championship in forty-three years.
     Milwaukee repeated as league champions just as convincingly in 1958, but
in the autumn classic, after taking the first two games from the Yankees, they
lost the Series in seven. The race was much tighter in 1959 until the Giants
moved away from the Dodgers and Braves in August. But in September the Giants
faltered as the others surged past them, and the season ended with the Braves
and Dodgers tied. In a best-of-three playoff, the Dodgers took the pennant in
two games--but both by only one run and the second only after twelve innings.
     A portent for the Braves' future could be seen in the crowd of under
20,000 that attended the first playoff game in Milwaukee. After setting a
third NL record in 1957, Milwaukee attendance had gradually declined, dropping
below two million in 1958, the club's second pennant year, and even farther in
this year of the tight pennant race. As the Braves declined on the field to a
more distant second in 1960, then successively to fourth, fifth, and sixth, so
too did the decline continue in the stands to well under a million. Perini
sold his majority interest in the club. A tighter race in 1964 stirred a
little more fan interest, but when attendance dropped in 1965 to a new
Milwaukee low of just over half a million, the club pulled up stakes again and
moved to Atlanta.
     The Braves' won-lost records in 1965 and '66 were nearly identical. But
in Atlanta attendance improved by almost a million. Of the Braves who had
brought glory to Milwaukee, most were gone from the club or in decline. But
Aaron was still at the height of his powers, and younger players were
beginning to make their mark. Reliever Phil Niekro, for example, was
converted to a starter in 1967 and responded with the league's best ERA.
     After finishing no higher than fifth in their first three seasons in
Atlanta, the Braves celebrated 1969, the first year of divisional play, with a
late-season drive that carried them out of a tight five-team race to the
championship of the West. Veteran Orlando Cepeda, newly acquired from St.
Louis, joined Aaron in supplying power, and Niekro won 23 games as the Braves
won ten in a row to clinch the title in their next-to-last game. In the
league's first Championship Series, though, the "Miracle" Mets of New York
swept Atlanta in three games.
     Aaron remained a presence in Atlanta for five more years, and Niekro,
after a relatively dismal season in 1970, established himself over the years
as one of the game's most durable and effective pitchers. But the team went
nowhere. When they enjoyed an occasional good season (as in 1974, when they
won 88 games), at least two other clubs did much better. Aaron returned to
Milwaukee (to the AL Brewers) in 1975, and attendance sank to an Atlanta low.
Yachtsman Ted Turner bought the club in 1976 and attendance rose, but the team
sank to the bottom of the division for four years.
     In 1982, though, with power from outfielder Dale Murphy and third baseman
Bob Horner, and exceptional pitching from Niekro (17-4) and reliever Gene
Garber (30 saves, a club record), Atlanta grabbed the division lead with a
season-opening 13-game winning streak, and recovered from a midsummer collapse
to edge Los Angeles by one game for their second divisional crown. But they
were swept in the LCS, this time by St. Louis.
     For the next two seasons Murphy's league-leading slugging carried the
Braves to second place--a close 3 games behind Los Angeles in 1983 (in a race
which pushed Atlanta attendance over two million for the first time), and a
tie with Houston 12 games behind San Diego the next year. By 1986, though,
they had sunk into the division cellar. Murphy boosted them up a notch in
1987 with the most productive season of his career, but as his power at the
plate dropped the next year, the Braves sunk to their worst finish in
fifty-three years. Fans fell away, and Atlanta became the first big-league
club in three seasons to attract fewer than a million spectators to its home
games.
     Veteran outfielder Lonnie Smith broke out of a five-year slump in 1989,
his second Atlanta season, to become one of baseball's most potent hitters,
and in 1990 strong seasons by young sluggers Ron Gant and rookie Dave Justice
gave Atlanta hope for the future. But Dale Murphy, in the third year of his
decline, was traded to Philadelphia in August, and the Braves, mired in the
cellar for their third straight season, remained the weakest draw in major
league baseball.

     In the World Series the Braves overcame a two-game deficit to take a
Series lead before falling short by one extra-inning run in each of the final
two games. Nineteen ninety-two was a near-repeat of 1991. Once again the
Braves captured the NL East--although this time they built a more comfortable
eight-game lead at the finish, after moving into first place in July with an
eleven-game win streak. Once again they edged Pittsburgh for the pennant,
although this time it took a come-from-behind win in the final at bat of Game
Seven to do it. And once again they faltered in the World Series, this time
succumbing to Toronto in six games.
     For the third season in a row the Braves topped the NL West in 1993, this
time charging from ten games back in July to a four-game lead in
mid-September, then holding off resurgent San Francisco to clinch the crown on
the season's final day. After building a 2-1 lead in the LCS, though, they
fell to the Phillies in six games.

Baltimore Orioles

     The history of major league baseball in Baltimore dates back to 1872, to
the Lord Baltimores of the National Association, and includes the great
National League Orioles of the 1890s. The city was also represented in the
American League's first big league seasons, 1901-1902. But when those Orioles
moved to New York in 1903 and became the Highlanders (later the Yankees),
Baltimore was left without a big league club for more than half a century,
until the transfer of the Browns from St. Louis in 1954.
     The current Orioles didn't get their start in St. Louis, though. Their
first home was Milwaukee, where they finished in the AL cellar in 1901. When
they moved to St. Louis the next year, they lured several valuable players
from the city's NL Cardinals--including 1901 batting champ Jesse Burkett, star
shortstop Bobby Wallace, and the Cards' three best pitchers. They also took
on the Cardinals' discarded nickname: becoming the new St. Louis Browns.
     The Browns finished a strong second to the Philadelphia Athletics in
their first St. Louis season, but fell to sixth the next year and, except for
a fourth-place finish in 1908 (thanks to the pitching of newly acquired
veteran Rube Waddell), remained mired in the second division until 1920. Late
in the 1913 season a young Branch Rickey was hired to manage the Browns. In
his two full seasons he was unable to lift the club out of the second
division, but he did sign college star George Sisler (whom he had coached at
the University of Michigan), who became, as the Browns' first baseman, one of
the game's all-time greats.
     In 1916, his first full season, Sisler led the Browns in hitting as they
caught fire in August to record their first winning season in eight years.
Pitcher Urban Shocker was obtained from the Yankees two years later and by
1920 had developed into a 20-game winner. Also in 1920, Sisler connected for
what is still a major league record 257 hits and batted .407 to help move the
Browns up to fourth, their first finish that high since 1908 (though their
won-lost record of 76-77 remained on the losing side). The next year
Shocker's 27 victories brought them a winning season and third place. And in
1922 the team recorded its finest record ever in St. Louis: 93 wins and a
.604 winning percentage.
     The 1922 Browns, led by Sisler's sizzling .420 BA, hit .313 as a team to
lead the league. Left fielder Ken Williams ran away with the RBI title and
beat out Babe Ruth and Tilly Walker for the home run crown. (Ruth, to be
honest, did miss nearly a third of the season that year.)  Sisler and Williams
even finished one-two in AL stolen bases. And though Shocker slipped a bit to
24 wins, he led a pitching staff that recorded the league's lowest ERA. The
team led the league in the standings throughout July and into August before
the Yankees nudged ahead of them. The Browns hung close, but didn't regain
the lead, remaining second, a heartbreaking single game back, at season's end.
     Falling back to fifth the next year, as Sisler missed the whole season
with a sinus infection, the Browns remained out of contention for the next
twenty-one years, dropping to their lowest point in 1939, 64 1/2 games out of
first, with 111 losses. They recovered for three winning seasons in the war
years 1942-1945, finishing a distant third in 1942, and capturing their only
St. Louis pennant in 1944, edging the Detroit Tigers on the final day after
trailing them through most of September. The World Series--an all-St. Louis
affair--proved anticlimactic for the Browns as they lost to the Cardinals in
six games.
     The Browns finished third in 1945 before sinking back into the second
division. Even the club's purchase by the dynamic Bill Veeck in July 1951
couldn't rouse them out of the depths. (A month after buying the Browns,
Veeck made his best-remembered move; bringing in midget Eddie Gaedel for one
plate appearance--he walked.)
     Unable to earn either victories or money in St. Louis, Veeck in September
1953 sold the club to a Baltimore group, who moved the Browns and renamed them
the Orioles. The new owners hired the brilliant Paul Richards to rebuild the
team as manager, both in the front office and on the field. It took him (and
Lee MacPhail, who became general manager and president in 1958) several years
to move the Orioles above .500, but in 1960, young third baseman Brooks
Robinson found he could hit as well as field, and rookie Jim Gentile drove in
98 runs; the team made its first run for the pennant since 1944. In first
place in early September, they finished second when the Yanks won fifteen
straight to pass them by.
     The next year the O's did even better, winning six more games than they
had in 1960 as Gentile hit 46 home runs and drove in 141. But it was an even
better year for New York and Detroit, and Baltimore finished a distant third.
     When Hank Bauer was brought in to manage the Orioles in 1964, the team
entered its golden decades--twenty years which saw them win seven division
titles, six pennants, and three world championships, with only two finishes
below third. With Robinson driving in runs and left fielder Boog Powell
slugging at a league-leading pace, the O's finished 1964 with wins in seven of
their final eight games. But the White Sox won their last nine and the
Yankees put together an eleven-game streak near the end to take the flag and
leave Baltimore third, two games back.
     After another third-place finish in 1965, the Orioles acquired slugging
Frank Robinson from Cincinnati and moved second-year pitcher Jim Palmer into
the starting rotation. Palmer won 15 to lead a balanced staff, and Frank
Robinson captured the Triple Crown. With both Robinsons and Powell driving in
100 runs or more, the O's romped to their first Baltimore pennant. They
continued the romp in the World Series, holding Los Angeles to a total of just
two runs as they swept to their first world title.
     A drop in offensive production and the loss of Palmer to injuries for
most of the season plunged Baltimore into a tie for sixth in 1967. Palmer was
out the next year, too, but pitchers Dave McNally and Jim Hardin burst to the
forefront with fine seasons to lift the club back to second.
     Baltimore coach Earl Weaver, a pennant-winning manager in the O's farm
system, replaced Hank Bauer at the Orioles' helm in mid-1968 to begin what
became one of the longest and most successful managerial tenures of recent
times. In fourteen full seasons Weaver led his club to six Eastern Division
titles and six second-place finishes, with one season each in third and
fourth. His teams featured fine hitters and fielders, but it is the pitching
that stands out above the rest. In seven of the fourteen years the Oriole
staff compiled the league's lowest ERA, including five consecutive seasons
(1969-1973). Oriole pitchers put together in those fourteen years twenty-one
20-win seasons (eight of them by Jim Palmer), and garnered six Cy Young
Awards.
     In the first three years of divisional play (1969-71) Baltimore ran away
with the East championship and swept to the pennant each time in the League
Championship Series. The 1969 team (despite an embarrassingly easy loss to
the New York Mets in the World Series) is often ranked among the greatest of
all time. With overwhelming pitching and fielding, the Orioles took the
division crown by 19 games, winning a club-record 109. In fielding, seven
percentage points separated the AL's second-best team from the worst; the
Orioles fielded three points better than the second-best team. And Oriole
pitchers gave up nearly a run less per game than the league average.
     Baltimore's performance in 1970 was nearly as impressive. Mike Cuellar
and Dave McNally won 24 games each, and Jim Palmer contributed 20 more wins to
the O's total of 108. This year they won the World Series as well as the
pennant, rolling over Cincinnati in five games.
     In the 1971 World Series, though, Pittsburgh came back from losses in the
first two games to defeat the Orioles by a run in game seven. The O's
captured divisional titles in 1973 and '74, but it was 1979 before they again
triumphed in the LCS. Once again, however, they faced the Pirates in the
World Series, and once again took the Series lead, only to fall again in the
seventh game.
     The 1979 pennant was Weaver's last, as late-season Oriole surges in 1980
and '82 fell just short. But in 1983 the O's--paced by the pitching of
veteran Scott McGregor and rookie Mike Boddicker, and the hitting and fielding
of Cal Ripken, Jr., and Eddie Murray at short and first--made new manager Joe
Altobelli look good. After a comfortable divisional win, they trounced
Chicago's White Sox in the LCS and the Philadelphia Phillies in the World
Series.
     Declining after 1983 despite the return of Earl Weaver in 1985-1986, the
Orioles finished last in the East in 1986. Though they rose to sixth in 1987,
their .414 winning percentage was their lowest in thirty-two years. Then in
1988 they hit rock bottom, not only finishing last but also beginning the
season with an AL record-setting twenty-one consecutive defeats.
     Baltimore's rebound was even more startling than its plummet. Under
manager Frank Robinson (who had been handed the hapless O's early in the 1988
season) the 1989 Orioles took over first place in late April, held the lead
through August, and stayed within the reach of the division title until
Toronto defeated them in the season's penultimate game to clinch the crown.
The newly potent bat of catcher Mickey Tettleton and splendid relief from
rookie Gregg Olson highlighted the Baltimore resurgence. Olson remained
effective in 1990, but the offense faltered, and an August-September slide
dropped the Orioles out of the race.
     The O's began slowly in 1991, and manager Robinson was replaced by coach
Johnny Oates in May, with the club in last place. But although Cal Ripken put
together an MVP season, the O's never caught fire, and finished sixth, 24
games out. In 1992, though, playing in the festive new Orioles Park at Camden
Yards, Baltimore snapped back to challenge Toronto through much of the season
before slipping to third, 7 games out.
     At a bankruptcy auction in August 1993, a group led by Peter Angelos
agreed to purchase the club for a record $173 million. On the field, 1993 was
much like 1992. Only half a game out of first as late as September 9, the
Orioles finished ten games back, tied for third with Detroit.

Boston Red Sox

     Since the end of World War Two, the Red Sox have won the American League
pennant four times, only to lose the World Series each time in the seventh
game. It was not always thus. In their first two decades they were the
league's most successful club, winners of six pennants and five world
championships. (No World Series was played the year of their second pennant.)
     Organized in 1901 as one of four new eastern clubs in Ban Johnson's newly
major league AL, Boston's Americans (or Pilgrims, Puritans, Plymouth Rocks, or
Somersets, as they were variously called) quickly established themselves as
one of the game's strongest teams. Star third baseman Jimmy Collins was lured
from Boston's NL club to manage the new Americans, and he assembled a team
that included such former NL standouts as slugger Buck Freeman and pitcher Cy
Young. Finishing a strong second in the AL's inaugural major league season,
the Pilgrims quickly supplanted their mediocre NL counterparts in the hearts
and wallets of Boston fans.
     After a third-place finish in 1902, the Pilgrims ran away from the rest
of the league in 1903 to take their first pennant by 14 1/2 games over
Philadelphia. Young led the league in victories for the third straight
season, Freeman took titles in home runs, total bases, and RBIs, and
second-year outfielder Patsy Dougherty finished first in hits and runs scored.
In the first modern World Series, Boston overcame Pittsburgh's favored
Pirates, thereby confirming in the public mind the AL's claim to major league
status.
     Boston repeated as pennant winners in 1904, but by a much narrower
margin, after a struggle with New York's Highlanders that wasn't settled until
the next-to-last day of the season. The NL Giants refused to play Boston in a
World Series that year.
     Over the next few years, as the Pilgrims dropped into the league cellar,
new owner John I. Taylor (whose father, Boston Globe publisher Charles Taylor,
was said to have bought the club for his son to give him something useful to
do) rid the team of many of the players who had brought it glory. Eventually
Taylor was himself maneuvered out of the club presidency, but it turned out he
had not been a wanton destroyer. In driving out the old guard he had been
making room for new young players: pitcher Joe Wood, for example, and a
sprightly outfield of Tris Speaker, Harry Hooper, and Duffy Lewis. The
club--now known as the Red Sox--rose out of its depths in the final years of
Taylor's presidency, even challenging the league leaders through much of 1909
before dropping away in late August. In 1911, in one of the last acts of his
presidency, Taylor had, with his father, purchased land in Boston's Fenway
section and built a new ballpark.
     Sparked by the spectacular pitching of Joe Wood and Speaker's play at the
bat and in center field, the Red Sox of 1912 took the league lead in early
June and were never headed, finishing with a club-record 105 victories. In
the World Series they edged John McGraw's Giants and Christy Mathewson in one
of the most exciting Series ever, four games to three, with one tie. Three
years later, with a staff that boasted the AL's four top pitchers in winning
percentage (including rookie Babe Ruth), the Sox captured their fourth
pennant, staving off a late-season surge by Detroit to finish 2 1/2 games in
front. After a first-game loss to the Phillies in the World Series, Boston
recovered to sweep the next four by one run apiece.
     Joe Wood's ailing arm finally gave out, and Tris Speaker was traded to
Cleveland at the start of the 1916 season following a salary dispute. But
with Ruth winning 23 games to lead the team, the Sox slid past the White Sox
and Tigers in mid-September to take their fifth flag, and waltzed over
Brooklyn in the Series.
     Incipient disaster struck the Red Sox that December when New York
theatrical entrepreneurs Hugh Ward and Harry Frazee bought the club. They put
little cash into the deal, counting on future profits to pay the bulk of the
purchase price. Ward sailed for Australia, leaving Frazee to run the club.
For a while the future looked bright. After a second-place finish in 1917,
Frazee hired minor league executive Ed Barrow as manager, and when many of the
team's regulars left for military service in World War One, Frazee bought and
traded for worthy replacements. In a season shortened a month because of the
war, the Sox edged Cleveland for their sixth pennant and defeated the Chicago
Cubs for their fifth world championship.
     Frazee's theater losses put him in a financial bind and gradually forced
him to sell off the best of his players--mostly to the Yankees, who had plenty
of money, and an office just a short hop from Frazee's New York theater.
Though the Sox fell to sixth place in 1919, Babe Ruth kept attention fixed on
the team as he went to the outfield and startled the baseball world with a
record 29 home runs. But that winter Frazee sold Ruth to the Yankees for
$100,000 and a $300,000 mortgage on Fenway Park.
     The Red Sox were embarked on a fifteen-year sojourn in the second
division that even a 1923 change in ownership was powerless to end. In the
eleven years from 1922 through 1932 the Sox emerged from last place only
twice. In 1932 they reached their nadir, losing 111 games and finishing 64
games out of first.
     But in 1933, young, wealthy Tom Yawkey bought the club and promptly began
what would be a lifetime effort to restore Boston to its former glory. His
first efforts to buy success ready-made with such established stars as Lefty
Grove, Jimmie Foxx, and Joe Cronin pulled the club out of the cellar but
failed to lift it into pennant contention. But as general manager Eddie
Collins began turning up young players to join the veterans, the Sox' fortunes
rose. The emergence between 1938 and 1942 of players like Bobby Doerr, Ted
Williams, and pitcher Tex Hughson brought Boston a level of success not seen
since 1918. In four of the five years they finished second to the Yankees,
achieving in 1942 their highest winning percentage since 1915.
     The loss of most of these newcomers to military service in World War Two
delayed further progress. But with the arrival of rookie pitching sensation
Dave Ferriss in 1945, and the acquisition of slugging first baseman Rudy York
that winter, the club was prepared for its returning war veterans to join in
bringing Boston its greatest season since 1912. With 104 victories, the 1946
Sox won their long-delayed seventh pennant by 12 games over second-place
Detroit. Only in the World Series was there disappointment as the heavily
favored Sox bowed in Game Seven by one run.
     The Yankees ran away from the pack in 1947, but the three years that
followed saw the Red Sox three times in the throes of pennant fever. In 1948,
after falling back a bit in late September, the Sox won four at the very end
to tie Cleveland for first--but lost the one-game playoff. The next year they
were 12 games behind the Yankees on July 4, but pulled up gradually to take a
one-game lead into the final two-game series in New York. One Sox win would
give them the flag, but the Yankees took both games. In 1950 Boston played
the league's best ball through July and August, to pull within a game of the
Yankees on September 18, but then lost four in a row and all hope of the
pennant.
     In 1951 the Sox collapsed at season's end to finish third, 11 games back.
They came no closer for the next fifteen years, finishing with eight
consecutive losing seasons from 1959 through 1966, when they suffered their
second successive ninth-place finish in a league now expanded to ten teams.
     In 1967 the Sox awakened from their long slumber. A ten-game win streak
in mid-July shot them out of mediocrity into the midst of a four-team race for
the pennant that was not settled until Boston beat Minnesota and Detroit split
a doubleheader on the final day, leaving the Sox on top. Carl Yastrzemski,
who had replaced Ted Williams in left field seven years earlier, replaced him
now in the fans' awe as he clinched the Triple Crown with a game-winning home
run and six other hits in the final two must-win games. But Boston lost the
World Series to St. Louis in seven games.
     It was eight years before the Red Sox won another pennant, but they came
close in 1972, losing the AL East crown by half a game to Detroit in the
season's final series. They led the division two years later from mid-July
through early September, then fell apart and finished third. But the next
year, 1975, they maintained to the end the lead they first took in May, and
swept Oakland in the League Championship Series for their ninth pennant.
Television viewers will long remember Carlton Fisk's home run that won Game
Six of the World Series from Cincinnati. But Red Sox fans also remember that
the Sox lost Game Seven the next day, 4-3. Owner Tom Yawkey died the
following July without the world championship he had sought for more than
forty years.
     Boston contended seriously in 1977 in a tight three-way race, pulling
ahead for a time in June and again in August, but ultimately falling 2 1/2
games short. The next year, though, the Sox pulled off another amazing
finish. After blowing a 7 1/2-game late-August lead to fall 3 1/3 games
behind New York in mid-September, they won their final eight scheduled games
to tie the Yankees. But in the playoff, Yankee Bucky Dent's three-run pop-fly
homer over Fenway's cozy left field wall proved Boston's ruin. The Sox
rallied in the eighth to draw within a run, but with two out and a man on
third in the ninth, Yastrzemski popped up and the season was history.
     Yaz retired in 1983, full of years and honor, but outfielders Jim Rice
and Dwight Evans remained from the 1975 champions. Joined by a new generation
that included, in Wade Boggs, baseball's most consistent hitter since Ted
Williams, and, in Roger Clemens, Boston's most exciting pitcher since Joe
Wood, the Sox in 1986 won their tenth pennant, with an amazing comeback over
California from a 3-1 deficit in the League Championship Series. In Game Six
of the World Series they were within one pitch of capturing their first world
title in 68 years. But they lost the game, and in Game Seven--once again--the
Series.
     When a pitching decline dropped the Sox to fifth place in 1987, and the
All-Star break the next year found them barely above .500, manager John
McNamara was replaced by coach Joe Morgan. The Sox responded with nineteen
wins in their next twenty games and, despite a slump at season's end, took the
title in the AL East by one game. In the LCS, though, Oakland swept to the
pennant in four games.
     In 1989 Boston moved to within half a game of the division lead in August
before slipping back to third, but in 1990, with pitcher Clemens back in peak
form after a season and a half below par, the Sox arrived at midseason in
first place. After trading the lead back and forth with Toronto, they
captured the crown of the East on the season's final day. But in the LCS
Oakland again swept past them to the pennant.
     Roger Clemens won his third Cy Young award in 1991, and the Sox came from
11 1/2 games back in August to within half a game of first-place Toronto in
September. But they dropped eleven of their remaining fourteen games to
finish in a second-place tie with Detroit. Manager Joe Morgan was replaced by
Butch Hobson for 1992, but the downhill slide continued. Dreadful hitting and
fielding added insult to a season haunted by injury, and plunged the Sox into
the AL East cellar for the first time since the advent of divisional play.
     The team's best start in years, coupled with a midseason surge after a
long slump, saw the Sox in first place for three days in late July. However,
a late-season decline dropped them below .500, into fifth place.


California Angels

     Of the ten teams added to the major leagues in the 1960s and '70s, the
Angels were quickest to put together a winning season, finishing third in the
American League in only their second year of play.
     Former cowboy actor and singer Gene Autry brought the club into being as
the Los Angeles Angels in December 1960. Playing their first season, 1961, in
Los Angeles' Wrigley Field, a former minor league park with power alleys only
five feet deeper than the foul poles, five Angels hit 20 or more home runs.
Though the team finished seventh in the standings, they were second in homers
only to the mighty Yankees.
     What the Angels lost in home runs in 1962 (when they moved out of Wrigley
Field into the L.A. Dodgers' new stadium), they more than made up in pitching.
Paced by rookie Dean Chance, the Angels nearly doubled their wins on the road,
and as late as mid-August stood in second place, within striking distance of
New York. Though they tailed off in September, they finished a respectable
third, 10 games back.
     The team collapsed to ninth the next year, but in 1964 Chance's pitching
and splendid relief by rookie Bob Lee overcame the Angels' continuing inertia
at the bat to lift them back into the first division. Among Chance's
league-leading 11 shutouts were six 1-0 victories.
     Los Angeles became the California Angels in 1965 in anticipation of their
move south to a new stadium in Anaheim the following year, but neither the
name change nor the new location stirred them out of the second division. In
1967, though, with below-average run production but the league's third-best
pitching, the Angels in midseason shot up from ninth to third before leveling
off to fifth. After dismal seasons in 1968-1969, career years in 1970 by
pitcher Clyde Wright (22 wins, including a no-hitter) and newly acquired left
fielder Alex Johnson (202 hits and a league-high .329 BA) helped the Angels
snap back with an 86-76 record that matched their previous best (1962).
     The seven losing seasons which followed 1970 were somewhat redeemed by
the arrival in 1972 of pitcher Nolan Ryan, who burst into superstardom as an
Angel, setting a modern record of 383 strikeouts in 1973 and hurling four
no-hitters in three years (1973-1975). Ryan's effectiveness dipped in 1978,
but the club as a whole came to life, contending closely for the Western
Division title all season until Kansas City shot ahead in September.
     In 1979 Don Baylor became the first (and, so far, only) DH to be named
league MVP, as a renewed offense powered California to its first division
title. Baltimore stopped the Angels in the LCS, though. The team's run
production dropped off dramatically the next year and the club followed up its
best season with its worst.
     After another losing season in 1981 (during which Jim Fregosi was
replaced as manager by twenty-year veteran Gene Mauch), California lured
free-agent slugger Reggie Jackson from the Yankees. With Jackson leading a
resurgent offense and Geoff Zahn headlining the league's second-best pitching
staff, the Angels rebounded to a new team high of 93 wins in 1982, and their
second division title. They defeated Milwaukee in the first two games of the
LCS, but lost the next three. A disappointed manager Mauch retired.
     Again, in 1983, the Angels followed a championship with a poor
season--not quite as bad as 1980, but still their third worst ever. In 1984
they rebounded to .500, good enough for second in a weak division. As a
foretaste of continuing improvement, pitcher Mike Witt concluded his rise to
staff ace with a perfect game on the season's last day.
     Gene Mauch came out of retirement to manage the Angels again in 1985.
With pitching that featured splendid relief from newly acquired Donnie Moore
(31 saves; 1.92 ERA), the team led the division much of the season, but lost
three games of four to Kansas City in the final week to fall a game behind the
Royals into second.
     With Witt's 18 wins and 2.84 ERA pacing the staff and rookie first
baseman Wally Joyner leading a revitalized offense, California won the 1986
division crown with ease. In the LCS against Boston, the Angels took three of
the first four games, and in Game Five were within one pitch of capturing
their first pennant. But the Boston Red Sox rallied to win.
     In 1987 California for the third time followed up their division
championship with a losing season, this time dropping the season finale to tie
for last place in the AL West. Manager Mauch retired again, this time for
good. After another losing season brought them home a distant fourth in 1988,
the Angels signed Doug Rader to manage the club. They also acquired a veteran
pitcher--Bert Blyleven--who led a resurgence of Angel pitching that lifted the
club to its third best won-lost record ever. But as the West was now the
stronger AL division, the team's 91 wins carried them only into third place,
eight games back. In 1990 they dropped just one place in the standings, but
finished again below .500, 23 games out of first.
     The Angels began strong in 1991, and moved with three straight wins into
the division lead on July 3. But seven straight losses plunged them to fifth,
and although they finished at .500 for the season, just 14 games out of first,
they wound up in the division cellar.  Their standing in the AL West improved
in 1992 and 1993 with back-to-back ties for fifth place. But their won-lost
records of 72-90 and 71-91, respectively, were their worst since 1983.


Chicago Cubs

     The Chicago Cubs have represented the same city in the major leagues
longer than any other club. Organized in 1870 to provide a professional
challenge to Cincinnati's Red Stockings, the White Stockings (as they were
originally known) were one of the founding members of the game's first
professional league--the National Association--the next year.
     Despite the great Chicago fire, which destroyed their ballpark, uniforms,
and club business records late in the 1871 season, the White Stockings
completed their schedule, finishing a close second to the Athletics of
Philadelphia. But they dropped out of the NA for the next two years because
of the fire's devastation. In 1875, in the midst of a second losing season
following their return, the club arranged for four of champion Boston's best
players to jump to Chicago for the 1876 season. That winter, White Stocking
president William A. Hulbert and pitcher/manager Al Spalding (one of the
jumpers) led in forming a new league to replace the NA.
     Sparked by its Boston players and infielder Adrian "Cap" Anson (lured
from the Athletics), the White Stockings in 1876 outscored their opponents by
more than five runs per game and handily won the first championship of the new
National League. The next year, though, when Spalding (whose pitching had
brought Chicago 47 of its 52 victories in 1876) switched over to first base,
the club fell off to fifth.
     Spalding retired from the field in 1878 to attend to his young sporting
goods firm (though he returned as club president from 1882 through 1891). In
1879 Anson was named to manage the team. Leading the league in batting, he
restored the White Stockings to their winning ways, and in 1880 led them back
to the top.
     For twelve years the White Stockings ranked among baseball's best,
garnering five pennants (1880-1882, 1885-1886) and four second-place finishes.
Anson's stern morality and strict discipline did not make him popular with his
often rowdy teammates, but his consistency as a player set an example, and his
innovative management made the most of his players' drive and aggressiveness.
Anson's forcefulness, however, contributed to baseball's most grievous
setback: his adamant refusal in the mid-1880s to take the field against black
players prevented the racial integration of the major leagues that had up to
then seemed imminent.
     After a close finish behind Boston in 1891, the White Stockings' first
era as a National League power ended. In each of the next eleven seasons they
fell at least 15 games short of the top. The team's youthful ineptitude was
reflected in the nicknames that succeeded "White Stockings": the "Colts," the
"Orphans" (in 1898, after Anson--by then known as "Pop"--was fired after
nineteen years at the helm), and finally, the "Cubs."
     When Frank Selee (who had led Boston to greatness in the 1890s) was hired
to manage the Cubs in 1902, he inherited a team that had ended the 1901 season
37 games out, its worst finish up to then. By 1903 he had turned catcher/
outfielder Frank Chance into a first baseman, moved Joe Tinker from third to
short, and brought up Johnny Evers from Troy to play second. The new
double-play combination flourished not only in the field but at the bat. The
Cubs finished third in 1903 with their best record in a dozen years.
     That winter Selee traded for pitcher Mordecai "Three Finger" Brown, and
in 1905 signed rookie hurler Ed Reulbach. After leading the Cubs to second
place in 1904, Selee, ill with tuberculosis, took a leave of absence in the
middle of the 1905 season. Chance took his place and brought the team to
third.
     Selee never returned, but he had gone a long way toward building a
championship team. Trades for outfielder Jimmy Sheckard and third baseman
Harry Steinfeldt, the signing of rookie pitcher Jack Pfiester, and the
acquisition during the 1906 season of pitchers Orval Overall and Jack Taylor
completed one of the greatest teams of all time. The Cubs passed the Giants
to take the lead early in May and kept on rising. New York and Pittsburgh
made a race of it through July, but the Cubs won 55 of their final 65 games to
finish with a record 116 victories, 20 games ahead of second-place New York.
The hitting of Steinfeldt and Chance led the Cubs to the top of the league in
batting and slugging, and the club topped all others in fielding. But it was
the Cub pitching that stood out most. Brown's 1.04 ERA was the league's best,
with those of Pfiester and Reulbach second and third. The team ERA of 1.76
was the first below 2.00 since the pitching distance was increased to 60'6" in
1893. Over all, Chicago scored 80 more runs than its nearest rival, and
yielded 89 fewer.
     But in the World Series, the crosstown "hitless wonder" White Sox matched
the Cubs' hitting and pitched twice as effectively to take the crown in six
games. It was the third time the Cubs had failed to win the world title: in
two of the earliest Series, they had tied the St. Louis Browns by 3-3-1 in
1885, and lost to them the next year, 2-4.
     The Cubs' hitting and run production fell off in 1907, but their pitching
did not (ERA: 1.73). With 107 wins, they captured their second straight
pennant, by 17 games. This time their dominance carried over into the World
Series as they swept Detroit after an opening-game tie.
     The pennant race of 1908, in sharp contrast to those of the previous two
years, was one of the tightest in baseball history. On September 22 the Cubs
won two from the Giants to pull into a virtual tie for first (with Pittsburgh
third, 1 1/2 games back). The next day the Giants appeared to have beaten the
Cubs with an RBI single in the last of the ninth. But young Fred Merkle, on
first when the hit was made, seeing the runner on third cross the plate,
failed to continue on to second himself and was forced out by alert Cub second
baseman Johnny Evers for the third out, which negated the Giant run. Because
of increasing darkness and the mood of excited fans on the field, the game was
called and ruled a tie. After another week and a half in which all three
teams took turns in front, Chicago defeated Pittsburgh to pull ahead by half a
game, leaving the Pirates and Giants tied for second. But New York had one
more game--and defeated the Boston Braves to pull into a tie with the Cubs.
The "Merkle boner" game thus had to be replayed, and this time the Cubs won to
take their third straight pennant. In the World Series they again beat
Detroit in five games. Their second straight world title was also, to date,
their last.
     In 1909 the Cubs won 104 games as their pitching staff for the third time
in four years recorded an ERA under 2.00, but the club trailed Pittsburgh
throughout the season and finished second. In 1910, however, their 104 wins
carried them to another pennant, by a comfortable 13 games. It was their last
championship of the Chance era. After a World Series loss to the Philadelphia
Athletics, and seasons in second and third place, Chance resigned, protesting
the unwillingness of owner Charles Murphy to spend money for top players.
     The Cubs got a new owner in 1916, and with him a new ballpark. Charles
Weeghman, who had owned the Chicago Whales in the short-lived Federal League,
purchased the Cubs when the FL went under, and moved them into the park he had
built for the Whales. Although there was talk in the 1980s of moving the Cubs
out of what is now Wrigley Field, the introduction of night baseball in 1988
assured continuing play in this crown jewel of ballparks.
     The team that next carried Chicago to the pennant, in the war-shortened
season of 1918, featured only one name familiar to Cubs fans from earlier
championship seasons--Fred Merkle. The man whose rookie boner as a Giant had
made possible their pennant in 1908 was now their leading run producer. As in
earlier pennant-winning seasons, fine pitching predominated, with veteran
James "Hippo" Vaughn the league's best pitcher on the league's top staff.
     Several years of decline followed the Cubs' World Series loss to the
Boston Red Sox. The club hit bottom in 1925 with its first cellar finish in
fifty-three years of league play, but a new era of greatness was at hand. In
1921 wealthy chewing-gum manufacturer William Wrigley had purchased control of
the Cubs, with a determination to spend what was needed to produce a winner.
     The seeds Wrigley planted eventually bore fruit. In 1926 he hired Joe
McCarthy--a successful minor league manager--to lead the club, and drafted
outfielder Lewis "Hack" Wilson from Toledo. Wilson immediately became one of
the league's leading offensive threats, and the Cubs rebounded to the first
division. In 1927 they even led the league through August before dropping
back to fourth. A postseason trade brought them outfielder Hazen "Kiki"
Cuyler, and a close third-place finish in 1928. Then the Cubs traded with the
Braves for second baseman Rogers Hornsby, and in 1929 returned to the top. Led
by Wilson's 159 RBIs and Hornsby's 149, five Cubs drove in more than 90 runs
each. After battling Pittsburgh for the lead through mid-July, the Cubs
hurtled ahead to take the pennant by 10 1/2 games, despite a late-season
slump. The slump continued through the World Series, though, as the Athletics
humbled the Cubs in five games.
     Just four games from the end of the hot pennant race in 1930 (the year
Wilson set the major league RBI record with 190), McCarthy--still smarting
from criticism arising from the World Series loss--quit as manager. With
Hornsby at the helm, the Cubs preserved a second-place finish. They dropped
to third the next year, but returned to the top in 1932. Hornsby, near the
end of his playing days, was dropped as manager in August, with the Cubs in
second, and replaced by first baseman Charlie Grimm. Pitcher Lon Warneke, in
his first full season as a starter, led the league in wins and ERA. The club
enjoyed a hot streak in August to move out in front of slumping Pittsburgh and
hung on to take the flag by four games. The Yankees provided the World Series
humiliation this time, a four-game sweep that provided McCarthy (now the
Yankee manager) with sweet revenge for the Chicago fans' criticism three years
earlier.
     It had become a pattern: three years, another pennant. In 1935 a
balanced offense (led by catcher "Gabby" Hartnett and second baseman Billy
Herman) and the league's best pitching brought the Cubs up from fourth in late
June to first in September. They clinched the pennant with three games to go,
with their twentieth win of a 21-game streak. In the World Series, Detroit
stopped the Cubs in six games.
     After two seasons in second, it was time for another pennant. Bill Lee,
the Cubs' top pitcher in 1935, was now the league's finest, as was the Cubs'
staff. With the club languishing 6 1/2 games back in midseason, Grimm quit as
manager and was replaced by catcher Hartnett. In September the Cubs came to
life, rising to second early in the month. They overtook Pittsburgh on
September 28 with their ninth consecutive win--on Hartnett's homer against the
Pirates in the growing darkness with two away in the bottom of the ninth--and
clinched the pennant four games later, on the next-to-last day of the season.
It was their fourth pennant at three-year intervals--and their sixth straight
World Series loss, another Yankee sweep.
     In 1940, after fourteen straight winning seasons, the Cubs began a
five-year stretch below .500. Jimmie Wilson replaced Hartnett as manager in
1941; then Grimm returned near the start of the 1944 season. The club
finished a distant fourth that year, but in 1945, after a middling start, they
won twenty-six of thirty midseason games to take a lead they never
relinquished. Balanced pitching (sparked by Hank Borowy, who went 11-2 after
coming over from the Yankees in July) and the hitting of veteran first baseman
Phil Cavarretta (.355) and center fielder Andy Pafko (110 RBIs) held off the
pressing St. Louis Cardinals to preserve a sixteenth Cub pennant. But
although they battled Detroit through a full seven games in the World Series,
they ended up losing again--their ninth defeat in twelve tries.
     For the next twenty-three years the Cubs remained out of pennant
contention. But in 1969, the first year of divisional play, under the lively
management of Leo Durocher, they took an early lead in the NL East. With a
potent offense led by veteran sluggers Ron Santo, Ernie Banks, and Billy
Williams, the team continued rising through early August. But the New York
Mets rose even faster and farther; they didn't pause when Chicago leveled off
in late August, and while the Cubs were losing eight straight in September the
Mets were winning ten in a row. The Cubs wound up 8 games back.
     The next year Chicago started well, slumped in late June, then fought
back into the thick of the race in September before fading to another
second-place finish. Three years later, in 1973, the Cubs entered July with a
substantial lead. Although they fell to fifth by season's end, in the tightly
packed division they were only 5 games back. It was to be their closest
finish for eleven years.
     In 1981 the Wrigley family, no longer able to bankroll a winner, sold the
club to the Chicago Tribune Company. Three years later, with a new manager,
Jim Frey, and an almost wholly different roster, the new management capped its
rebuilding program with the acquisition from Cleveland, in mid-June 1984, of
pitcher Rick Sutcliffe. As Sutcliffe fashioned a 16-1 record for his new
club, the Cubs moved in front to stay on August 1, and kept on rising to
capture their first division title by 6 1/2 games.
     Their fall was as rapid as their rise. After winning the first two games
of the League Championship Series against San Diego, the pennant was swept out
from under them as the Padres took the final three. Four losing seasons
followed, in which the Cubs finished no closer than 18 1/2 games behind the
division winner.
     But in 1989 the team, now managed by Don Zimmer, bounced back to
duplicate its 1984 success. With a balanced offense and pitching vastly
improved over the previous season, the Cubs took the NL East lead for good on
August 7, and finished six games ahead of New York. Once again, though, they
were unable to persevere to the pennant, losing the LCS to San Francisco in
five games.
     As they had done in 1989, Andre Dawson, Mark Grace and Ryne Sandberg
continued to provide offensive clout over the next three years, and in 1992 Cy
Young Award winner Greg Maddux and newly acquired Mike Morgan fashioned
sterling seasons on the mound. But the team could not carve out a winning
season, finishing tied for fourth in 1990, and fourth by themselves in 1991
and '92. The Cub owners snarled when baseball commissioner Fay Vincent
proposed transferring the club from the NL East to the West in 1993 (trading
places with Atlanta), a logical move geographically. But the threat passed
when Vincent, under pressure from owners dissatisfied with his strong
leadership, resigned before the end of the 1992 season.
     Free agents Dawson and Maddux left for greener pastures in 1993, but
catcher Rick Wilkins and outfielder Sammy Sosa blossomed into power hitters,
and newly acquired closer Randy Myers garnered a league record 53 saves. While
the Cubs once again finished only fourth, they put together their first
winning season in four years. The improvement wasn't enough to satisfy
management, though, and second-year manager Jim Lefebvre was replaced by coach
Tom Trebelhorn at the end of the season.

Chicago White Sox

     When minor league owner Charlie Comiskey transferred his club from St.
Paul to Chicago as part of the move to upgrade the American League to major
league status, he called it the White Stockings, after the Chicago team that
dominated the National League in its early years. The new Chicago team
revived memories of the old White Stockings, winning the AL championship in
1900, and repeating the triumph in 1901, the league's first major league
season. Manager Clark Griffith (who had jumped to the White Stockings from
Chicago's NL Cubs) was the team's star pitcher in 1901, winning 24 of 31
decisions as his team took the lead in May and held off the threatening Boston
Somersets the rest of the way.
     Griffith's effectiveness fell off in 1902, as did the team, (now called
the White Sox) which took a sizable lead in July, only to slide back to fourth
in August. Griffith left the next year and the White Sox sank to seventh. It
would take eighteen years and baseball's greatest scandal for the Sox to
finish that low again.
     In 1904, after center fielder Fielder Jones replaced left fielder Nixey
Callahan as manager, they rose into first place for a moment in August before
settling back to third. The next year they made up a seven-game deficit in
September to catch the Philadelphia Athletics, but the loss of two games to
the A's stalled their drive and left them in second.
     Nothing stalled the White Sox drive in 1906. Although they ranked at the
very bottom of the league in hitting and entered June five games below .500,
their pitching and hustle pulled them through. "Big Ed" Walsh, who had
finally mastered the spitball after two years of trying, won 17 games,
including a league-high 10 shutouts. Doc White contributed 18 wins with a
league-best 1.52 ERA, and Frank Owen and Nick Altrock won 22 and 20,
respectively. The Sox shot to the top in August with a 19-game win streak
(including 8 shutouts). Early in September, New York's Highlanders passed
them, but after the two teams had traded the lead back and forth for a couple
of weeks the Sox spurted to take the pennant by 3 games. If the race was
close, so were the individual games: the Sox achieved nearly one-third of
their victories by the margin of a single run. The "hitless wonders" carried
their momentum through the World Series, shocking the mighty crosstown Cubs
(who had won a record 116 games that year) four games to two.
     In 1907, after leading the league much of the first half, the Sox slipped
to third. The next year Walsh pitched in the final seven games on his way to
a career-high 40 wins. In a tight finish he pulled the Sox to within a half
game of first-place Detroit before they dropped back to third with a loss to
the Tigers on the final day.
     It was 1915 before the Sox (piloted by rookie manager Clarence H. "Pants"
Rowland) next finished that high, and 1916 before they again challenged
seriously for the pennant. Comiskey, though accused of pinching pennies in
his payment of players, was willing to spend what was needed to acquire them.
After the 1914 season he purchased star second baseman Eddie Collins from the
A's, and promising young Oscar "Happy" Felsch from minor league Milwaukee.
The following August he acquired the great Joe Jackson from Cleveland.
Together with the league's best pitching staff, they carried the Sox into the
thick of a three-way race and a close second-place finish in 1916, and in 1917
to the pennant with the best winning percentage the club has ever compiled.
Ten-year veteran pitcher Eddie Cicotte enjoyed his first 20-win season with a
league-high 28 victories, and a league- and career-best 1.53 ERA. After
dueling the Boston Red Sox most of the season, Chicago streaked out of reach
in late August to finish with 100 wins and a 9-game lead. In the World Series
against the New York Giants they captured their second (and, to date, their
last) world title, in six games.
     With several key players out much of 1918 for military or civilian war
service, the White Sox finished out of the running, a dismal sixth. But in
1919, with the team back at full strength, the race once again went to
Chicago. If their pitching didn't have quite the depth of the 1917 squad, its
best hurlers were in peak form. Cicotte, after an off-year in 1918, attained
a career high with 29 wins, as did Lefty Williams with 23 victories. Collins
and Jackson enjoyed their best seasons in several years, and infielder Buck
Weaver had never been better. Old-time pitcher/second baseman Kid Gleason was
a rookie as a big league manager, but his Sox began strong and, after slipping
briefly into second in midseason, pulled ahead in July to stay.
     When the Sox lost the World Series to underdog Cincinnati, there were
rumors of a fix, but nothing came to light for nearly a year. The White Sox
looked better than ever in 1920. Though they fell back in May after a hot
April, by mid-August they had risen to the thick of a tight three-team race.
Felsch, Collins, and Weaver had never played better, Jackson was enjoying one
of his very best seasons, and four pitchers were on their way to more than 20
wins. Chicago might not have caught Cleveland's rampaging Indians, but it
didn't help that talk of a White Sox scandal revived late in the season, or
that the grand jury convened only eight games from the end, or that eight Sox
players were indicted and suspended with just three games to play. The team
finished two games back, in second place.
     The indicted players--among whom were Cicotte, Felsch, Jackson, Weaver,
and Williams--were acquitted in court when three crucial confessions
disappeared, but they were banned for life from organized baseball by
commissioner K.M. Landis. The White Sox did not soon recover from the loss.
In 1921 they began fifteen years of wandering in the second division,
including three seasons in the cellar and one seventh-place finish (in 1932)
that, while not the league's most distant, remains the farthest out Chicago
has ever finished, 56 1/2 games behind champion New York.
     Two of the club's greatest and most durable players arrived during these
years: pitcher Ted Lyons (who won 260 games for the Sox over twenty-one
years) in 1923, and in 1930 shortstop Luke Appling (who averaged .310 in his
twenty years with the club). Owner Comiskey died in 1931, in the midst of his
Sox's most dismal era, but Lyons and Appling were around long enough to enjoy
a few fourth- and third-place seasons. But neither saw the Sox contend
seriously for the pennant. After his playing career was over, Lyons managed
the team for a few years--until 1948, when the Sox lost 101 games and finished
last.
     That year Frank Lane was lured from the presidency of the American
Association to take charge as Chicago's general manager. He began reshaping
the team, and after two more losing seasons the White Sox' fortunes began to
rise. When Lane hired Paul Richards to manage the club in 1951, the Sox began
what became a seventeen-year string of winning seasons.
     In 1951, Richards' first season, the Sox spent a month in first place
before drifting down to fourth, and the next year began a five-year stopover
in third place. In 1954 they won 94 games but were out of the race by
August--that was the year Cleveland won 111 and the second-place Yankees 103.
Richards moved on to Baltimore, but Marty Marion, who replaced him, kept the
Sox in third place. Their 91 wins in 1955 earned them a much tighter race
than '54, one that found them in first place at the start of September, until
four straight losses dropped them to third.
     Frank Lane left at the end of the 1955 season, and young Chuck Comiskey
(one of the grandchildren of Charlie Comiskey who now owned the club) took
over the front office. A year later Comiskey replaced Marion with Al Lopez,
who had piloted the great Cleveland club of 1954 and whose teams, in his six
seasons of managing, had never finished below second. Lopez continued his
success in Chicago: the Sox moved up to second (though well behind the
Yankees) in 1957 and '58. In March 1959, Bill Veeck (who had in previous
years owned the Cleveland Indians and the St. Louis Browns) bought a
controlling interest in the White Sox from the Comiskey family and stepped
into instant success.
     With the Yankees suffering an off-year in 1959, Chicago and Cleveland
battled for the lead throughout the summer, until the White Sox pulled away in
late August. The same 94-60 record that had given them only a distant third
in 1954 now carried them to their first pennant in forty years. The close and
successful pennant race, and the club's dynamic new ownership, pushed Sox home
attendance up more than 78 percent to a new club record.
     As they had in 1906, pitching and hustle won the Sox their 1959 pennant.
The league's best staff was led by veteran Early Wynn (enjoying his last big
season with a league high of 22 wins) and young Bob Shaw (with a career high
of 18), and featured the league's top relievers in Gerry Staley and Turk Lown.
Shortstop Luis Aparicio, in the midst of a nine-year reign as stolen-base
leader, set a personal high in runs scored as the club went 35-15 in one-run
games. But in the World Series, Los Angeles stopped Chicago in six games.
     The next year the Sox remained competitive until September, but finished
third. After dropping to fourth and fifth the next two years (in a league now
expanded to ten teams), they returned to second in 1963. The next year the
Sox finished a season-long three-way race with nine straight wins, enough to
pull them past Baltimore, but a game short of catching the Yankees, whose
eleven-game streak a week earlier had put them out in front. After a third
straight second-place finish in 1965, manager Lopez resigned for health
reasons.
     Under Eddie Stanky--and with the AL's stingiest pitching staff in
forty-nine years--the Sox competed into the final week of a hot 1967 race,
when five straight losses at the end dropped them to fourth. Only twice in
the next thirteen years would they rise above .500; in 1970 they lost a
club-record 106 games to finish at the bottom of the AL West. Two years later
they took the division lead briefly in late August before dropping back to
second, and in 1977 they held the lead through much of the summer before
tailing off to third.
     Bill Veeck had sold the club and repurchased it in 1976. But in January
1981, after three losing seasons and troubled by poor health and skyrocketing
player salaries, he sold the Sox once again, to a group headed by Jerry
Reinsdorf and Eddie Einhorn. With Reinsdorf heading the club's baseball
operations and lawyer Tony LaRussa piloting the team on the field, the Sox
became by 1983 one of the best teams in baseball. With their best record
since 1920, the 1983 Sox carried the AL West by 20 games. Rookie slugger Ron
Kittle led the attack, backed up by fourth-year outfielder Harold Baines and
resurgent old-timers Greg Luzinski and Carlton Fisk. Pitchers LaMarr Hoyt and
Rich Dotson attained personal bests to lead the majors in wins (with 24 and
22), and White Sox home attendance for the first time topped two million. In
the League Championship Series, though, after a close win over Baltimore in
the opener, Chicago lost the next three games and the pennant. The Sox's
pitching and offense (except for Baines) collapsed the next season, and the
team remained out of serious contention for six years.
     Most forecasters predicted another dismal season for the Sox in 1990, but
as fans watched a new Comiskey Park arise next door, they also saw their club
celebrate its final year in the old yard with an astonishing resurgence. With
their best start in decades, the Sox stayed close to mighty Oakland through
the first half of the season, and even took over first place for brief periods
in June and July before Oakland pulled away. Anchoring a strong bullpen,
closer Bobby Thigpen shattered the major league record for saves, passing the
old record of 46 with a month to go and finishing with 57.
     First baseman Frank Thomas, confirming in his first full season the
offensive powers he had demonstrated as a rookie in 1990, helped keep the Sox
competitive through much of 1991, the inaugural season of their new park.
Rookie Wilson Alvarez's August 11 no-hitter capped a seven-game win streak
that pulled the team to just a game from the top, but fifteen losses in their
next seventeen games stifled their pennant hopes, though they finished second,
8 games behind Minnesota. Thomas continued his awesome offense in 1992, and
Jack McDowell showed himself one of the AL's best pitchers, but the team won
one game fewer than the year before, and finished third.
     McDowell, Alvarez, and Alex Fernandez led the league's stingiest pitching
staff in 1993, and Thomas turned in an MVP season as the Sox carried a narrow
lead into the All-Star break, held it into late September, then pulled away to
an eight-game margin of victory at the finish. In the postseason, though, the
Sox came up short, losing the AL pennant to Toronto in six games.