billsportsmaps.com

June 30, 2023

Billsportsmaps’ 15th anniversary throwback: Major League Baseball, 1903 to 1952 [Hand-drawn map].

Filed under: 15th anniversary maps,Baseball,Hand Drawn Maps,Retro maps — admin @ 9:20 pm

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Major League Baseball, 1903 to 1952 [Hand-drawn map]





By Bill Turianski on the 30th of June 2023; twitter.com/billsportsmaps.

Billsportsmaps.com had its 15th year anniversary, on the 17th of August 2022. So I am posting a series of maps from the early days of this blog. This hand-drawn map was originally posted in November 2007.

Major League Baseball, 1903 to 1952 [Hand-drawn map]
Between 1903 and 1952, there was no franchise movement among the 8 National League and 8 American League baseball clubs. This map shows all the 16 MLB clubs from that time period, with emblems, cap crests and uniform details. Included is an inset map of the Greater New York City area. In the inset map, the locations of Yankee Stadium (NY Yankees), the Polo Grounds (NY Giants), and Ebbets Field (Brooklyn Dodgers) are marked. The evolution of these three NYC clubs’ crests and the evolution of the three ball clubs’ colors are also shown here.

This map would not have been possible without the incredible book “Baseball Uniforms of the 20th Century” {at Amazon, here}. That book was researched, written, and illustrated by Marc Okkonen. His artwork for this book can now be found as the main uniform database (from 1900 to 1994) for the Baseball Hall of Fame site “Dressed to the Nines – A History of the Baseball Uniform”…{exhibits.baseballhalloffame.org/dressed_to_the_nines/database}

I made this map in early 1993, after my brothers had given me, for Christmas, the now-out-of-print “Baseball Uniforms of the 20th Century” by Marc Okkonen. I used Caran d’Ache watercolor pencils and graphite pencil, on Bienfang semi-transparent paper. In 2023, I added the banner at the top of the map.

May 1, 2023

Billsportsmaps’ 15th anniversary throwback: The American League, established in 1901 as a major league. [Hand-drawn map from 2005.]

Filed under: 15th anniversary maps,Baseball,Hand Drawn Maps,Retro maps — admin @ 4:39 pm

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The American League, established 1901 as a major league [Hand-drawn map from 2005]



By Bill Turianski on the 1st of May 2023; twitter.com/billsportsmaps.

Billsportsmaps.com had its 15th year anniversary, in August 2022. So I am posting a series of maps from the early days of this blog. This map was originally posted in October 2007.

The National League was established in 1876. It had competition from other pro baseball leagues, most notably the American Association (1882-91). Then for several years at the close of the Nineteenth Century, the National League was the sole major league. That changed in 1901: The Western League had renamed itself the American League for 1900, while it was still a minor league. But the next year – 1901 – the American League broke from the National Agreement, and declared itself a major league. So starting in 1901, there were once again two major leagues in pro baseball, and that has not changed since then. And since 1903, the winner of each league has gone on to play in the best-of-7-game World Series.

I hand-drew this map in 2005. The media I used were Caran d’Ache watercolor-pencils, graphite pencil, and Sharpie markers. Featured on this map are caps, logos, and cap crests from the past, with the ball clubs’ years of existence listed. I usually selected the oldest distinctive logos of each team. The text-box overlays, for each team’s formation-dates and for the logos’ time periods, were done on the computer in 2007. Franchise shifts are also noted. The map was updated and tightened up in 2023. And I added a banner at the top showing the 8 charter members of the 1901 American League, which includes any name-changes or franchise-shifts of those 8 ball clubs {info gleaned from this page at Wikipedia…American League: Charter franchises}.

The map lists every ball club that has played in the American League, since its inception as a major league in 1901. The main map is focused on the Northeast and the Midwest of the United States, which, of course, is the area where all of the original teams of both the National League and the American League were located. There are also 5 inset-maps. One inset-map is of Greater New York City (the New York Yankees), and the other four inset-maps are for areas where the American League expanded to, or moved into: California (the Los Angeles Angels and the Oakand Athletics), the state of Washington (the defunct Seattle Pilots, and then the Seattle Mariners), Texas (the Texas Rangers, and the Houston Astros [who switched over from the N.L. in 2013]), and Florida (the Tampa Bay Rays).

The logos and cap designs were primarily sourced from Sportslogos.net and from Marc Okkonen’s drawings found at the HoF site Dressed to the Nines.




In the 18-year interim between when I made this map [2005], and now [2023], there have been 5 changes. These following five things I have added to the information on the map…There have been two changes in the names of teams in the American League, there has been one league-status change, and there will be another change – a franchise-shift – after the 2024 season, plus there is one change in the way that the history of the A.L. is officially reported.

A). The two team name changes: 1) in 2008, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays changed their name to the Tampa Bay Rays; 2) in 2022, the Cleveland Indians changed their name to the Cleveland Guardians. B). The league-status change: in 2013, the Houston Astros switched from the National League to the American League. C). The change soon to happen: the Oakland A’s will leave Oakland, CA after 2024, and will move to Las Vegas, Nevada. D). The recent ‘change’ in the history of the American League: according to Baseball-reference.com and official Baseball Hall of Fame baseball historian John Thorn, the New York Highlanders [the present-day New York Yankees] were actually an expansion team, and the franchise has no links to the defunct Baltimore Orioles of 1901-02.

The Baltimore Orioles (II, A.L., 1901-02) went bankrupt in the mid-summer of 1902, following ex-Orioles’ manager John McGraw defection to the New York Giants of the National League. And so the American League took over the operations of the 1902 Orioles for the remainder of the season. Following the 1902 season, the American League, under the directive of commissioner Ban Johnson, placed a franchise, under new ownership, in New York City. The team would turn out to be called the New York Highlanders, and they would play at Hilltop Park, about a mile south of the old Polo Grounds in northern Manhattan Island. (That team would change its name to the New York Yankees in 1913, move into Yankee Stadium in The Bronx in 1923, and then go on to become the most successful ball club in the history of Major League Baseball.) Five players from the 1902 Baltimore Orioles joined the roster of the new 1903 New York Highlanders. There are several reports in the news media, during the August-1902-to-March-1903 time frame, that the defunct 1902 Orioles’ franchise was transferred to new ownership in New York City {see 2 paragraphs below}.

And it is even more complicated than that, as described in this July 2014 article from the NY Yankees fan-site called The Captains’ Blog, Yankees Lose Their Oriole Way: BR.com Removes Baltimore Years From Franchise History. Here are some excerpts from that article…“American League President Ban Johnson endeavored to place a team in New York, which, not surprisingly, the incumbent Giants of the National League did everything possible to thwart. Although Johnson wasn’t able to establish a franchise in New York when the A.L. ramped up in 1901, his ultimate plan was to eventually move an existing team into the Big Apple. By many accounts, the Baltimore Orioles were that team.”…“John McGraw was selected to manage the Orioles in 1901, and, he believed, eventually shepherd the team to New York. However, when he learned that Johnson’s plan to reach Gotham didn’t include him, McGraw decided to write his own ticket. Not only did the fiery manager jump ship to the New York Giants in the middle of the 1902 season, but he helped his new bosses gain a majority ownership stake in the Orioles, which he then used to sabotage the franchise. This subterfuge eventually put the Orioles on the brink of collapse, and only by Johnson seizing the reigns was the team able to complete the 1902 season. Then, after negotiating a peace settlement with the National League during the offseason and securing a site for a new ballpark, Johnson folded the tents in the Baltimore and brought his show to the big top in New York.”…“…it could be argued that Johnson was the de facto owner of both the 1902 Orioles and 1903 Highlanders because the A.L. president was largely responsible for constructing their rosters and determining where they played. Who knows, if not for the inhospitable political climate in New York, which forced Johnson to award the franchise to owners backed by the powerful Tammany Hall, the A.L. might have retained control of the team in its early goings. In Yankees Century, baseball historians Glenn Stout and Richard A. Johnson go so far as to say Johnson was basically extorted out of the franchise by Tammany big wig Joseph Gordon, who forced the sale to a syndicate led by cronies Frank Farrell and Bill Devery in exchange for being able to build a ballpark within the city. “To make it happen,” Stout and Johnson wrote, “all Johnson had to do was say yes – and hand the franchise over to Tammany.” [New paragraph]…“Stout and Gordon’s research also showed that the American League footed some of the bill for the construction of the new ballpark, giving further credence to the notion that the league was a “part owner” of the new franchise in New York. Finally, the commissioner’s lawyers directly advanced a legal argument asserting Johnson’s status as owner. In response to a lawsuit filed by the remnants of the Baltimore American League Baseball Club, which asked for a judge to place the team’s assets in receivership, the New York Times wrote, “Mr. Johnson’s attorney…claims that Mr. Johnson, as President of the American League, is continually acting not only as owner of the Baltimore club, but all other clubs of the American League.”…“…[Ban Johnson]‘s mission was to land a franchise in New York, with or without nominal ownership, meaning only one asset had real value: the right to operate as a franchise. This asset was retained by Johnson and eventually conferred to new owners. Had McGraw not instigated a coup, it’s likely that the transition would have preceded more smoothly and with legal blessing. That it did not shouldn’t erase the clear ties that bind the Baltimore Orioles of 1901 to 1902 to the Yankees of the present day.” [Excerpts written by William Juliano / twitter.com/williamnyy23.]

Via the Wayback Machine, here is a fascinating thread from Baseball-Reference.com…1901-02 Orioles Removed from Yankees History [76 Responses to “1901-02 Orioles Removed from Yankees History”.] In this thread, you can see that John Thorn never addresses the issue, raised by irate commenters, that there is media evidence of a franchise transfer. Here are two, plus a screen-shot of the newspaper article quoted in the second comment. Comment #54…[via the Cleveland Leader from Aug. 27 1902]: “The players, it is said, were given to understand that the franchise of the Baltimore club would be transferred to New York and all hands signed by the Baltimore management switched over there.” Comment #63…[via the Philadelphia Inquirer from March 10, 1903]: “Baltimore franchise will be formally transferred to Gotham and all details announced”. Comment #74: {screenshot of Philadelphia Inquirer from March 10 1903}.

Here’s one more link, from the Reddit.com/Orioles page, posted by u[deleted] on the 22nd of July 2014, On the nonsense that is BBRef trying to strip the 1901/1902 Orioles from the Yankees history.


April 4, 2023

1970 MLB Location-map with Jersey-logos & Attendances, featuring the 1970 World Series champions the Baltimore Orioles & AL and NL Stats Leaders.

Filed under: Baseball,Baseball-1970 MLB season,Retro maps — admin @ 5:29 pm

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1970 MLB Location-map with Jersey-logos & Attendances, featuring the ’70 World Series champions the Baltimore Orioles & AL and NL Stats Leaders




By Bill Turianski on the 4th of April 2023; twitter.com/billsportsmaps.
Links…
-1970 MLB season (en.wikipedia.org).
-1970 MLB (baseball-reference.com).
-Year in Review: 1970 American League (baseball-almanac.com).
-Year in Review: 1970 National League (baseball-almanac.com).
-1970 MLB logos (sportslogos.net).

1970 MLB Location-map with jersey-logos with 1970 attendances, featuring the 1970 World Series champions: the Baltimore Orioles.
This is my fourth in a series.
Here are links to the first three posts in this series:
1967 MLB Location-map with Jersey-logos & Attendances, featuring the ’67 World Series champions: the St. Louis Cardinals;
1968 MLB Location-map with Jersey-logos & Attendances, featuring the ’68 World Series champions: the Detroit Tigers.
1969 MLB Location-map with Jersey-logos and Attendances, featuring the ’69 World Series champions: the New York Mets.

The map shows the locations of the 24 Major League Baseball teams of 1970.
On the map, next to each MLB team’s location-dot there are 3 things: their cap-logo, one of their 1970 jersey-logos (either home or away jersey), and a rectangular box (listing: ballpark, win total in 1970, and home average attendance in ’70). All but one of the jersey-logos are from photos of the old jerseys (see 23 photo credits at the foot of this post); one jersey-logo – the Detroit Tigers’ 1970 away jersey-logo – I drew myself.

The jersey-logo for each team is sized to reflect that team’s 1970 average attendance: the larger the jersey-logo, the higher their attendance was that year. Any other team logos on the team’s uniforms in 1970 are also shown (specifically, shoulder-patch-logos, of which there were 6 of such in 1970: for the Astros, the Braves, the Cubs, the Royals, the Mets, and the Twins).

1970 Average Attendances are shown at the right-hand side of the map-page. Best-drawing MLB team in 1970 were the reigning champions, the New York Mets, who drew 32.8-K per game at the then-7-year-old Shea Stadium in Queens, NYC. For this time period, that was a rather impressive figure, as it was slightly more than ten thousand per game better than any other big league club that year. Second- best draw were the NL pennant-winners, the Cincinnati Reds, who drew 22.2-K per game in the 1970 season, half of which they played at their old Crosley Field, and half at their then-new venue Riverfront Stadium. Three other teams drew above 20,000 per game in 1970: the LA Dodgers, the Chicago Cubs, and the St. Louis Cardinals.

At the top of the map-page is a section for the 1970 MLB champions, the Baltimore Orioles. I featured photos of the 13 players on the ’70 Orioles with the highest WAR [Wins Above Replacement], plus the their manager, Earl Weaver. Photo credits are at the foot of this post. The players are: Jim Palmer (RHP & HoF), Paul Blair (CF), Boog Powell (1B & 1970 AL MVP), Frank Robinson (RF/1B & HoF), Merv Rettenmund (OF/PH), Don Buford (LF/Infield), Dave MacNally (LHP), Brooks Robinson (3B & HoF), Davey Johnson (2B), Pete Richert (LHP/Reliever), Mike Cuellar (LHP), Mark Belanger (SS), Elrod Hendricks (C/PH).

At the foot of the map-page are 1970 MLB Statistical Leaders (in both the American League and the National League), in the following categories: ERA, Wins, WAR for Pitchers; Batting Average, Home Runs, RBIs, WAR for Position Players. A photo of each player is shown, with stats; photo credits are at the foot of this post.

In 1970, there was an MLB franchise-move… after only one season, the just-formed Seattle Pilots of 1969 (AL) moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, as the Milwaukee Brewers. This strange affair resulted in two things. First it gave the city of Milwaukee a big-league ball club once again, after the city had lost their Milwaukee Braves to Atlanta, Georgia (following the 1965 season). Second, the abrupt departure of the Seattle Pilots resulted in the city of Seattle suing Major League Baseball for breach of contract. {See this, Seattle Pilots: Lawsuit (en.wikipedia.org).} The lawsuit was finally settled out of court 6 years later, when MLB awarded Seattle another expansion franchise: the Seattle Mariners of 1977. On the map-page here, I have shown the 1970-franchise-move of Seattle-Pilots-to-Milwaukee-Brewers, using a long pale-gray line-segment with arrows, and with the Pilots’ old gear shown in gray-tone.



    1970 World Series – Baltimore Orioles beat Cincinnati Reds in 5 games

The Baltimore Orioles were the dominant team in the American League in 1970, winning the AL East by 15 games. The 1970 Orioles featured no less than three 20-game-winners in their pitching rotation (Jim Palmer, Mike Cuellar, Dave McNally). Baltimore’s offense was powered by a couple of sluggers in Frank Robinson (OF) and the 1970 AL MVP Boog Powell (1B), plus Gold Glove winner Brooks Robinson (3B). In the playoffs, the O’s swept the Minnesota Twins 3-0 (again), and so Baltimore was headed back to the World Series, hoping to make amends for losing to the underdog NY Mets in the previous year’s Fall Classic.

The Cincinnati Reds were likewise the dominant team in the National League in 1970, winning the NL West by 14.5 games, and then sweeping the Pittsburgh Pirates in the playoffs. Compared to the Orioles, the Reds boasted more offensive firepower (with Johnny Bench, Lee May, Tony Pérez, and Pete Rose), but the Reds had a less commanding, and somewhat disabled, pitching staff.

Game 1. The Reds took a 3-0 lead with 1 run in the 1st inning, and 2 in the 3rd. But Orioles pitcher Jim Palmer settled down, and did not allow any more runs in his 8.2 innings. The Orioles evened up the 3-0 deficit, starting with a 2-run HR by Boog Powell in the 4th inning, and a solo shot by catcher Elrod Hendricks in the 4th. Then there was a huge fielding play by Brooks Robinson in the 6th inning: a back-handed grab of a hard grounder down the line by the Reds’ Lee May, with Robinson spinning to throw him out. It was one of several spectacular plays Brooks Robinson would make in the series. Also in the 6th inning there was a missed call by the home-plate umpire {see photo and caption below}, which prevented the Reds from reclaiming the lead. (Replays showed that in the collision at the plate, Orioles’ catcher Hendricks tagged Reds’ baserunner Bernie Carbo with an empty mitt.) The Orioles claimed the lead for good in the 7th, on a Frank Robinson HR. Orioles won 4-3; Win: Jim Palmer; Save: Pete Richert.

Game 2. Again the Reds took a lead, and again the Orioles rallied back. The Reds chased O’s starter Mike Cuellar after 2.1 innings. Trailing 4-0, the Orioles got one back in the 4th, on a Boog Powell HR. Then in the 5th inning, Baltimore scored 5 runs…the O’s hit 5 consecutive singles, followed by a 2-run double by Elrod Hendricks. The Reds got one back in the 6th, but Baltimore’s bullpen kept the lead. Orioles won 6-5; Win: Tom Phoebus [in relief]; Save: Dick Hall.

Game 3. Dave McNally and Brooks Robinson were the heroes of the day for the Orioles. Brooks Robinson made three spectacular fielding plays. In the 1st inning, he made a leaping grab of a Tony Pérez hopper, stepped on third and fired to first for the double play. In the 2nd, Robinson snagged a slow grounder by Tommy Helms, and threw him out. And in the 6th, he made a diving catch off a liner by Johnny Bench. With Baltimore leading 4-1, Brooks Robinson then led off the bottom of the 6th, and received a standing ovation from the home crowd; he then doubled. Three batters later, with the bases full, pitcher Dave McNally stepped up, and hit the ball out of the park. McNally became the first (and only) pitcher to hit a World Series grand slam. McNally pitched a complete game, and the O’s coasted to a 3-0 lead in the Series. Orioles won 9-3; Win: Dave McNally.

Game 4. The Reds avoided a Series sweep. Cincinnati came back from a 4-2 deficit, thanks to fine relief pitching by both rookie Don Gullett (2.2 innings), and veteran Clay Carroll (3.2 innings). The Reds won it on a game-winning 3-run HR, by Lee May, in the 8th inning. Reds won 6-5; Win: Clay Carroll.

Game 5. Mike Cuellar gave up 3 runs in the 1st inning, but settled down and shut the door, going the whole 9 innings. The Orioles scored 2 runs in each of the first three innings. Frank Robinson and Merv Rettenmund each hit homers, and both had 2 RBI, as did Davey Johnson. The Orioles won 9-3, and claimed their second World Series title in 4 years. Orioles won 9-3; Win: Mike Cuellar. Orioles won the World Series in 5 games.

Brooks Robinson won the World Series Most Valuable Player Award, thanks his clutch fielding, but also thanks to his offensive contributions: he hit .429, and he broke the record for total bases in a five-game series, with 17.

So in 1970, the Baltimore Orioles (established 1954) won their second World Series title in 4 years (they had swept the LA Dodgers in 1966). The Orioles would go on to their third straight World Series appearance in the following year of 1971 (losing to the Pittsburgh Pirates in 7 games). The Baltimore Orioles [as of 2022] have won 3 World Series titles (their third WS title was won in 1983, when they beat the Philadelphia Phillies in 5 games).

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1970 WS photo and image credits -
-Memorial Stadium (Baltimore), aerial photo unattributed at eutawstreetreport.com. -Orioles’ 1st Baseman Boog Powell holds the Reds’ Pete Rose at 1st, photo unattributed at twitter.com/[@sigg20]. -Orioles’ Catcher Elrod Hendricks tags out Reds’ Bernie Carbo at home (Game 1), photo unattributed (Sports Illustrated/Getty Images) at pinterest.com. -Brooks Robinson fielding a grounder, photo by Focus on Sport/Getty Images via gettyimages.com. -Dave McNally, pitching in game 3 of 1970 WS, photo by Focus on Sport/Getty Images via gettyimages.co.jp. -Frank Robinson, photo by SPX/Diamond Images/Getty Images via gettyimages.com. -Mike Cuellar hugs Brooks Robinson as Davey Johnson rushes to the mound in celebration, photo from Baltimore Orioles via pressboxonline.com.



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Jersey-logo photo credits -
-Atlanta Braves 1970 home jersey, photo from Heritage Auctions at sports.ha.com.
-Baltimore Orioles 1970 jersey, photo from mitchellandness.com.
-Boston Red Sox 1970 road jersey, photo from Heritage Auctions at sports.ha.com.
-California Angels 1970 road jersey, photo from Heritage Auctions at sports.ha.com.
-Chicago Cubs 1970 road jersey, from Heritage Auctions at sports.ha.com.
-Chicago White Sox 1970 road jersey, photo from Heritage Auctions at sports.ha.com.
-Cincinnati Reds 1970 home jersey photo from Heritage Auctions at sports.ha.com.
-Cleveland Indians 1970 home jersey, photo from customthrowbackjerseys.com.
-Houston Astros 1970 home jersey, photo from lelands.com.
-Kansas City Royals 1970 jersey, photo from worthpoint.com.
-Los Angeles Dodgers 1970 jersey, photo from Heritage Auctions at sports.ha.com.
-Milwaukee Brewers 1970 road jersey, photo from Heritage Auctions at sports.ha.com.
-Minnesota Twins home jersey circa 1968-71, photo from lelands.com.
-Montreal Expos 1970 road jersey, photo from goldinauctions.com.
-New York Mets 1970 jersey, photo from Heritage Auctions at sports.ha.com.
-New York Yankees road jersey circa 1967-71, photo from customthrowbackjerseys.com.
-Oakland A’s 1970 home (gold) jersey, photo from worthpoint.com.
-Philadelphia Phillies 1970 road jersey, photo from Heritage Auctions at sports.ha.com.
-Pittsburgh Pirates 1970 home alternate jersey, photo from Heritage Auctions at sports.ha.com
-San Diego Padres 1970 road jersey, from lelands.com.
-San Francisco Giants 1970 home jersey, photo from Heritage Auctions at sports.ha.com.
-St. Louis Cardinals road jersey circa 1967-71, from scpauctions.com.
-Washington Senators 1970 home jersey, photo from Heritage Auctions at sports.ha.com.

Baltimore Orioles players: photo and image credits – 1970 Baltimore Orioles road jersey, from goldinauctions.com.1970 Baltimore Orioles home jersey, from mitchellandness.com. -Jim Palmer, photo by Focus on Sport/Getty Images via camdenchat.com. -Paul Blair, photo by Focus on Sport/Getty Images via gettyimages.com. -Boog Powell, photo by Getty Images via camdenchat.com. -Frank Robinson, photo unattributed at pinterest.com. -Merv Rettenmund, photo unattributed at pinterest.ie. -Don Buford, photo by Focus on Sport/Getty Images via camdenchat.com. -Dave McNally, photo unattributed at twitter.com/[@Orioles]. -Brooks Robinson, photo by Focus On Sport/Getty Images via gettyimages.ca. -Davey Johnson, photo unattributed at ebay.com. -Pete Richert, photo by Focus on Sport/Getty Images via gettyimages.co.uk. -Mike Cuellar, photo by Focus On Sport/Getty Images via gettyimages.in. -Mark Belanger, photo unattributed at pinterest.com. -Elrod Hendricks, Topps 1970 card, from psacard.com. -Earl Weaver (manager), photo unattributed at mlb.com.
-1970 Baltimore Orioles uniforms, illustration by Marc Okkonen at exhibits.baseballhalloffame.org/dressed_to_the_nines.

Photos of 1970 MLB leaders on map page…
-Diego Seguí, photo unattributed at pinterest.com.
-Tom Seaver, photo by Focus on Sport/Getty Images via nytimes.com.
-Mike Cuellar, photo unattributed at alchetron.com.
-Dave McNally, photo unattributed at whentoppshadballs.blogspot.com.
-Jim Perry, photo unattributed at classicminnesotatwins.blogspot.com.
-Bob Gibson, photo by Diamond Images/Getty Images via nytimes.com.
-Gaylord Perry, photo unattributed at lastwordonsports.com.
-Sam McDowell, photo by the Stanley Weston Archive/Getty Images via gettyimages.com.
-Bob Gibson, photo by Walter Iooss, Jr at si.com.
-Alex Johnson, photo unattributed at ebay.com.
-Rico Carty, photo by Focus on Sport/Getty Images via gettyimages.co.uk.
-Frank Howard, photo unattributed at pinterest.com.
-Johnny Bench, photo by Diamond Images/Getty Images via gettyimages.com.
-Frank Howard, Topps 1971 card, from pinterest.com.
-Johnny Bench, Sports Illustrated cover [July 13, 1970] at sicovers.com.
-Carl Yastrzemski, photo unattributed at ebay.com.
-Johnny Bench, photo by SPX/Diamond Images via Getty Images via gettyimages.com.
___
Thanks to all at the following links…
-Base map, by US federal government employee at commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:StatesU.svg.
-Baseball-Reference.com.
-1970 Major League Baseball season (en.wikipedia.org).

February 25, 2023

Billsportsmaps’ 15th anniversary throwback: Negro League Baseball, 1920-1950 (hand-drawn map) [first posted 26 November 2007].

By Bill Turianski on the 25th of February 2023; twitter.com/billsportsmaps.

Billsportsmaps.com had its 15th year anniversary, on the 17th of August 2022. So I am posting a series of maps from the early days of this blog. This hand-drawn map was originally posted in November 2007. I have re-posted now, for Black History Month [February].

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Negro Leagues map



Denied entrance into Major League Baseball by the color barrier, black ballplayers organized leagues of their own. These were the Negro Leagues, which existed between 1920 and 1957. The primary leagues were the Negro National League (1920-31; and 1933-48); the Negro Southern League, a minor-league (1920-40);  the Eastern Colored League (1923-28); and the Negro American League (1937-57). [For purposes of this map, records will only go to 1950, after which the Negro American League, the last negro league, essentially played exhibition games.] 

There were many standouts in the Negro Leagues, and 37 Negro League players (as of 2022) have been elected to the Baseball Hall Of Fame. The first five elected were Satchel Paige (the legendary right-handed pitcher);  Josh Gibson (catcher, and home run king); James ”Cool Papa” Bell (center fielder, and base-stealer extroardinaire);  Buck Leonard (first baseman, slugger); William “Judy” Johnson (third baseman, with a .349 lifetime batting average); and Oscar Charleston (outfielder, and slugger, with a blend of power and speed; and a .376 lifetime batting average). More information about the Negro Leagues can be found at www.blackbaseball.com, and at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum at nlbm.com, among other good sites.

Negro League baseball was characterized by fleet-footed action, and hi-jinks, ranging from tomfoolery to deadly serious one-upsmanship. There was more base-stealing than in Major League Baseball, and there was a sense of “playing to the crowd.” The teams knew the fans (particularly the significant portion of white customers) were there to see a show, and the players didn’t disappoint. An example of this was the barnstorming (traveling) club called the Indianapolis Clowns, an outfit similar to the Harlem Globetrotters. But that did not mean that Negro League baseball was an inferior product. During this era, negro baseball squads often defeated white MLB squads in exhibition games. Seasons were generally around 60 to 70 games long. There were no real standardized schedules, and teams operated on a shoe-string budget. 

The Golden Age of the Negro Leagues can be seen as the period from 1933 to 1947. The Washington-Homestead Grays regularly outdrew the Major League Baseball team the Washington Senators in Griffith Park in Washington DC, as they racked up 9 straight Negro National League titles. The Chicago American Giants played in old Comiskey Park, home of the MLB team the Chicago White Sox. The Pittsburgh Crawfords played in the first entirely black-owned ball park, Greenlee Field, and traveled the country in style, in their custom-made bus. The Newark Eagles won the 1946 NNL title, under Effa Manley (the first woman owner-operator to win a championship; she became the first woman inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, in 2006). And the Kansas City Monarchs toured the continent with their state-of-the-art portable lighting system. The Kansas City Monarchs would set up shop most anywhere, playing to thousands on a nightly basis. The Monarchs began using lighting for night games in 1930, five years before MLB teams first did. The KC Monarchs ranged throughout the midwest, the upper midwest and Canada. The Monarchs ended up sending more players to Major League Baseball than any other Negro League team. Their star pitcher, Satchel Paige, made more money than most major leaguers. It was an amazing phenomenon, that only ended when blacks were finally able to play in the Major Leagues. In 1947, Jackie Robinson, of the Brooklyn Dodgers, broke the color barrier, and the Negro Leagues days were numbered. Owners saw their star talent go to the white ball clubs, with no financial compensation. By the mid 1950s, the few surviving Negro League clubs were basically playing exhibition games, and the whole era faded away under the public radar. But the legacy of the Negro Leagues cannot be overstated.

I drew the main map in 2001, using Swiss-made Caran d’Ache watercolor pencils and Rapidograph pens. In 2007, after scanning it, I added the flanking segments. I have included the 17 most prominent Negro Leagues ball clubs.




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April 21, 2022

1969 MLB Location-map with Jersey-logos & Attendances, featuring the ’69 World Series champions: the New York Mets; & AL and NL Stats Leaders.

Filed under: Baseball,Baseball-1969 MLB season,Retro maps — admin @ 12:56 pm

mlb_1969_map-of-mlb-1969_24-teams_ws-champions-new-york-mets_1969-mlb-attendances_1969-mlb-stats-leaders_post_f_.gif"
1969 MLB Location-map with Jersey-logos & Attendances, featuring the ’69 World Series champions the New York Mets & AL and NL Stats Leaders




By Bill Turianski on the 21st of April 2022; twitter.com/billsportsmaps.
Links…
-1969 MLB season (en.wikipedia.org).
-1969 MLB (baseball-reference.com).
-Year in Review: 1969 American League (baseball-almanac.com).
-Year in Review: 1969 National League (baseball-almanac.com).
-1969 MLB logos (sportslogos.net).

1969 MLB Location-map with jersey-logos with 1969 attendances, featuring the ’69 World Series champion New York Mets.
This is my third in a series.
Here are links to the first two posts in this series:
1967 MLB Location-map with Jersey-logos & Attendances, featuring the ’67 World Series champions: the St. Louis Cardinals;
1968 MLB Location-map with Jersey-logos & Attendances, featuring the ’68 World Series champions: the Detroit Tigers.

The map shows the locations of the 24 Major League Baseball teams of 1969.
At the foot of the map-page are 1969 MLB Statistical Leaders (in both the American League and the National League), in the following categories: ERA, Wins, WAR for Pitchers; Batting Average, Home Runs, RBIs, WAR for Position Players. A photo of each player is shown, with stats; photo credits are at the foot of this post.

At the top of the map-page is a section for the 1969 MLB champions, the New York Mets. I featured photos of the 12 players on the ’69 Mets with the highest WAR [Wins Above Replacement], plus the their manager, Gil Hodges. Photo credits are at the foot of this post. The players are: Tom Seaver (RHP & 1969 Cy Young Award winner), Cleon Jones (LF), Tommie Agee (CF), Jerry Koosman (LHP), Jerry Grote (C), Tug McGraw (LHP/reliever), Gary Gentry (RHP), Bud Harrelson (SS), Art Shamsky (OF/1B/PH), Ron Taylor (RHP/reliever), Don Cardwell (RHP), Ken Boswell (2B).

On the map, next to each MLB team’s location-dot there are 3 things: their cap-logo, one of their jersey-logos (either home or away jersey), and a rectangular box (listing: ballpark, win total in 1969, and home average attendance in ’69). The jersey-logos are either from a photo of the old jerseys (see 22 photo credits at the foot of this post) or illustrations of such: one (California Angels) from sportslogos.net; one (Detroit Tigers) that I drew myself. The jersey-logo for each team is sized to reflect that team’s 1969 average attendance: the larger the jersey-logo, the higher the attendance that year. Any other team logos on the team’s uniforms in 1969 are also shown (specifically, shoulder-patch-logos, of which there were 6 of such in 1969: for the Astros, the Braves, the Cubs, the Mets, the Padres, and the Twins).

Speaking of shoulder-patch logos, there was another thing going on in Major League Baseball in 1969: the 100th anniversary of the first professional touring baseball club: the Cincinnati Red Stockings of 1869. A special red-white-&-blue modernist logo was created – reputedly using the formidable silhouette of Minnesota Twins’ slugger Harmon Killebrew. {See this: MLB logo looks like Harmon Killebrew at bat (from 2011, by Pioneer Press/news@pioneerpress.com via twincities.com). Also see this: Who is that silhouetted man? (from 2008, by Paul Lucas at espn.com).} So anyway, this logo, in the form of the Centennial patch, was worn by almost all the MLB teams in 1969 (on at least one of their jerseys that year), except for the Pittsburgh Pirates (I have no idea why, and neither does this baseball card blogger, at wrigleywax.blogspot.com). {To get a quick glance at all those uniforms, here are links to the Baseball Hall of Fame website’s ‘Dressed to the Nines’ database’s 1969 pages: 1969 AL; 1969 NL (illustrations by Marc Okkonen).} If you are wondering about the Cubs, in the illustration in the preceding link, the logo is not visible, as it is located on the raised shoulder that is holding the bat. But I included an image of the logo on the Cubs’ road jersey on the map here. I included several of the MLB-100th-anniversary-logos on the map, on the jerseys of the A’s, Astros, Cubs, Dodgers, Giants, Indians, and Mets. This MLB-100th-anniversary logo, in a very slightly altered form, has become the official MLB logo to this day. And each MLB team wears a version of this logo on the back of their ball caps, done in team colors.



    1969 MLB expansion & Divisional re-organization…

mlb_1969-expansion_re-org_d_.gif
Major League Baseball’s 1969 season was the first season of the Divisional Era.
1969 also saw a 4-team expansion – MLB’s third expansion of the decade. The Kansas City Royals and the Seattle Pilots joined the American League; the Montreal Expos and the San Diego Padres joined the National League. [Note: the Seattle Pilots relocated to Milwaukee, WI as the Milwaukee Brewers just one year later (in 1970); the Montreal Expos relocated to Washington, DC as the Washington Nationals 36 years later (in 2005).] So in 1969, the now-12-team AL, and the now-12-team NL were divided into two 6-team divisions each, with those divisional winners playing in a best-of-5-series, the winners, of course, advancing to the World Series.

Brief re-cap of the 1969 regular season
The American League saw no real divisional title-races in 1969. The Baltimore Orioles, with an MLB-best record of 109-53, won the AL East easily, by 19 games, and then, in the new playoffs, swept the AL West champion Minnesota Twins in 3 games. In the National League East, the once-hapless New York Mets, who had never had a winning record in their 7 seasons, came back from 9 games behind the Chicago Cubs, going 37-11 down the stretch. In their relatively new, 5-year-old venue, Shea Stadium (which they shared with the NFL’s New York Jets), the Mets drew the biggest crowds in all of baseball that year, drawing 26.5 K per game. The Mets went 100-62, and beat out the faltering Cubs by 8 games to win the NL East title. The NL West saw an unusual 5-team divisional race, with the Astros dropping out first, then the Dodgers and the Reds fell off, while the Giants and the Braves battled it out until the second-to-last day. The Atlanta Braves won the NL West, but then were swept by the Mets in the playoffs. But going into the Fall Classic, the Baltimore Orioles were the oddsmakers’ choice, and were heavy favorites to win the World Series over the New York Mets…



    1969 World Series: New York Mets beat Baltimore Orioles in 5 games…

The “Amazin’ Mets” beat the heavily-favored Orioles, in a huge upset. The 8th-year Mets became the first expansion-team to win the World Series. There were spectacular catches by two Mets outfielders (Tommie Agee & Ron Swoboda – see below). The Mets’ Donn Clendenon hit 3 HRs, and was the MVP. Tom Seaver, Gary Gentry, and Jerry Koosman all pitched effectively for the Mets, with Koosman winning twice, including the Game 5 clincher (see below).
-Here is a 9-minute video of the 1969 WS, 1969 World Series – Baltimore Orioles versus New York Mets (video uploaded by Scott Gordon at youtube.com).
-Here is a 40-minute video on the ’69 Mets (with much sharper video images), 1969 World Series Film New York Mets (video uploaded by Sports Revisited at youtube.com).
new-york-mets-1969_ws-champions_h_.gif
Photos and Images above – 1969 NY Mets/Shea Stadium WS pin-logo from sportslogos.net. Aerial shot of Shea Stadium (circa late 1960s, and probably taken during the 1969 WS), photo unattributed at flickr.com. Tommie Agee’s two catches (game 3)…1st catch: photo unattributed at centerfieldmaz.com; 2nd catch: unattributed at thisdayinbaseball.com. Ron Swoboda catch (game 4), unattributed at slicethelife.com. Donn Clendenon in ’69 WS, photo by Herb Scharfman/Getty Images at gettyimages.com. Jerry Koosman pitching in ’69 WS, photo unattributed at mets.tumblr.com. Nolan Ryan & Jerry Grote celebrate on the mound, photo unattributed at centerfieldmaz.com. View from 3rd-base-side box seats as Mets (and their fans) begin their celebration, photo by AP via nydailynews.com.




Photos of Mets players on map page…
-Tom Seaver, photo unattributed at theathletic.com.
-Cleon Jones, photo by AP via newsday.com.
-Tommie Agee, photo unattributed at sabr.org.
-Jerry Koosman, Topps 1969 card via amazon.com.
-Tug McGraw, photo by Focus on Sport/Getty Images via risingapple.com.
-Jerry Grote, photo unattributed at metsinsider.mlblogs.com.
-Bud Harrelson, photo by Focus on Sport/Getty Images at gettyimages.in.
-Gary Gentry, photo unattributed at posterazzi.com.
-Art Shamsky, photo unattributed at twitter.com/[@artshamsky].
-Ron Taylor, photo unattributed at pinterest.com.
-Don Cardwell, photo by Eric Sckweikardt/Sports Illustrated via gettyimages.in.
-Ken Boswell, Topps 1969 card via picclick.com.
-Gil Hodges (manager), photo unattributed at metsmerizedonline.com.
-1969 NY Mets uniforms, illustration by Marc Okkonen at exhibits.baseballhalloffame.org/dressed_to_the_nines.


Photos of 1969 MLB leaders on map page…
-Dick Bosman, 1970 Topps card via tcdb.com.
-Juan Marichal, photo unattributed at twitter.com/[@sfgiants].
-Denny McLain, photo unattributed at pinterest.com.
-Tom Seaver, photo by Neil Leifer at si.com.
-Denny McLain, photo unattributed at pinterest.com.
-Bob Gibson, photo unattributed at lehmansbaseball.wordpress.com.
-Rod Carew, photo by Neil Leifer at si.com.
-Pete Rose, photo unattributed at cardboardmemories.com.
-Harmon Killebrew, photo unattributed at twinstrivia.com.
-Willie McCovey, photo unattributed at first-draft.com.
-Harmon Killebrew, photo by Neil Leifer at si.com.
-Willie McCovey, photo unattributed at cooperstownexpert.com.
-Rico Petrocelli, Topps 1969 card at ebay.com.
-Henry Aaron, Sports Illustrated cover [Aug. 13 1969] at sicovers.com.
-Willie McCovey, photo by Diamond Images/Getty Images via gettyimages.de.

Photos of jersey-logos used on the map-page…
-Tom Seaver 1969 NY Mets road jersey, from worthpoint.com. -Tom Seaver 1969 NY Mets home jersey, from greyflannelauctions.com.
-Atlanta Braves 1969 home jersey, from customthrowbackjerseys.com.
-Baltimore Orioles 1969 road jersey, from Heritage Auctions at sports.ha.com
-Boston Red Sox home jersey-logo, photo from sports.ha.com.
-Chicago Cubs 1969 road jersey, from mitchellandness.com.
-Chicago White Sox 1969 road jersey, from Heritage Auctions at sports.ha.com.
-Cincinnati Reds 1969 road jersey, from mitchellandness.com.
-Cleveland Indians 1969 road jersey, from lelands.com via nallhal.top.
-Houston Astros 1969 road jersey, from mitchellandness.com.
-Kansas City Royals 1969 road jersey, from worthpoint.com.
-Los Angeles Dodgers 1969 road jersey, from Heritage Auctions at sports.ha.com.
-Minnesota Twins home jersey circa 1968-71, from lelands.com.
-Montreal Expos 1969 road jersey, from customthrowbackjerseys.com.
-New York Mets 1969 home jersey, from mitchellandness.com.
-New York Yankees road jersey circa 1967-71, from customthrowbackjerseys.com.
-Oakland A’s 1969 road alternate jersey, from customthrowbackjerseys.com. -Philadelphia Phillies 1969 home jersey, from worthpoint.com.
-Pittsburgh Pirates ca. 1967-69 road jersey, photo from lelands.com.
-1968 St. Louis Cardinals jersey-logo, photo from scpauctions.com.
-San Diego Padres 1969 home jersey, from Heritage Auctions at sports.ha.com.
-1969 San Francisco Giants road jersey, photo from Heritage Auctions at sports.ha.com.
-Seattle Pilots 1969 road jersey, from scpauctions.com.
-Washington Senators 1969 road jersey, from mlbcollectors.com.
___
Thanks to all at the following links…
-Base map, by US federal government employee at commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:StatesU.svg.
-Baseball-Reference.com.
-1969 Major League Baseball season (en.wikipedia.org).

October 5, 2021

1968 MLB Location-map with Jersey-logos & Attendances, featuring the ’68 World Series champions the Detroit Tigers & AL and NL Stats Leaders.

Filed under: Baseball,Baseball-1968 MLB season,Retro maps — admin @ 7:22 pm

mlb_1968_map-of-mlb-1968_20-teams_ws-champions-detroit-tigers_1968-mlb-attendances_1968-mlb-stats-leaders_post_d_.gif
1968 MLB Location-map with Jersey-logos & Attendances, featuring the ’68 World Series champions the Detroit Tigers & AL and NL Stats Leaders




By Bill Turianski on the 5th of October 2021; twitter.com/billsportsmaps.
Links…
-1968 MLB season (en.wikipedia.org).
-1968 MLB (baseball-reference.com).
-Year in Review: 1968 American League (baseball-almanac.com).
-Year in Review: 1968 National League (baseball-almanac.com).
-1968 MLB logos (sportslogos.net).

-Baseball: 1967 map w/ jersey-logos & attendances (billsportsmaps.com).

1968 MLB Location-map with jersey-logos with 1968 attendances, featuring the ’68 World Series champions the Detroit Tigers & AL and NL stats leaders.
The map shows the locations of the 20 Major League Baseball teams of 1968. On the map, next to each MLB team’s location-dot there are 3 things: their cap-logo, one of their jersey-logos (either home or away jersey), and a rectangular box (listing: ballpark, win total in 1968, and home average attendance in ’68). Any other logos on the team’s uniforms in 1968 are also shown (specifically, shoulder-patch-logos, of which there were 5 of such in 1968: for the Astros, the Braves, the Cubs, the Mets, and the Twins).

The jersey-logos are either from a photo of the old jerseys (see 16 photo credits at the foot of this post) or illustrations of such (mainly from sportslogos.net). The jersey-logo for each team is sized to reflect that team’s 1968 average attendance: the larger the jersey-logo, the higher the attendance that year.

There was one new Major League team in 1968: the relocated Kansas City Athletics, who moved from Missouri to Oakland, California, as the Oakland Athletics (four years later in 1972, the Oakland A’s would be champions). I included both the Kansas City A’s and the Oakland A’s locations on the map. Here is the logo history of the Oakland Athletics.

The best drawing MLB team in 1968 were the eventual champions, the Detroit Tigers, at 25,085 per game. Second-best drawing ball club in 1968 were the NL pennant-winning St. Louis Cardinals, who drew 24,8291 per game. The Cardinals had been the top-drawing ball club the year before in 1967, when they had won the title. Worst-drawing ball club in 1968 were the eventually-relocated Washington Senators, who drew an abysmal 6,749 per game, and in three years’ time would be leaving Washington, DC. (The Washington Senators (II) franchise, est. 1961, moved to Arlington, Greater Dallas/Ft. Worth, TX in 1972, as the Texas Rangers.)

The whole list of 1968 attendance-figures – by-team – is found at the far right-hand side of the map-page. Also listed there are each team’s Win total for that year, as well as their Numerical Change-in-average-attendance from the previous season (of 1967).

At the top-left of the map-page are the 1968 AL and NL final standings. Then there is a section which shows the 1968 World Series result (Tigers defeated Cardinals in 7 games), and features shots of Tiger Stadium, and some photos from the ’68 Series, including shots of ’68 World Series MVP Mickey Lolich. Below that are listed the 1968 major award-winners (the MVP award winners, the Cy Young award winners, and the Rookie of the Year award winners).

At the foot of the map-page are 1968 MLB Statistical Leaders (in both the American League and the National League), in the following categories: Wins, ERA, WAR for Pitchers; Batting Average, Home Runs, RBIs, WAR for Position Players. A photo of each player is shown, with stats; photo credits are at the foot of this post. There are 14 photos there, featuring 10 players: Luis Tiant (CLE), Bob Gibson (STL), Denny McLain (DET), Juan Marichal (SF), Carl Yastrzemski (BOS), Pete Rose (CIN), Frank Howard (WAS), Ken Harrelson (BOS) Willie McCovey (SF), Roberto Clemente (PIT).

And at the top of the map-page is a section for the 1968 MLB champions, the Detroit Tigers. I featured photos of the 12 players on the ’68 Tigers with the highest WAR [Wins Above Replacement], plus World Series MVP Mickey Lolich and the Tigers’ manager, Mayo Smith. Photo credits are at the foot of this post. The players are: Denny McLain (RHP/ ’68 AL MVP & ’68 AL Cy Young winner), Bill Freehan (C), Jim Northrup (RF), Dick McAuliffe (2B), Willie Horton (LF), Mickey Stanley (CF/SS), Norm Cash (1B), Earl Wilson (RHP), Al Kaline (CF/1B), Gates Brown (OF/PH), Pat Dobson (RHP), John Hiller (LHP), Mickey Lolich (LHP/ ’68 WS MVP).




    The 1968 Detroit Tigers

detroit-tigers_1968_ws-champions_d-mclain_b-freehan_j-northrup_m-lolich_w-horton_mayo-smith_n-cash_d-mcauliffe_m-stanley_al-kaline_earl-wilson_g-brown_p-dobson_j-hiller_n_.gif
Photo and Image credits above – -Denny McClain 1968 Tigers home jersey, photo from sports.ha.com. -Al Kaline 1968 Tigers road jersey, photo from amazon.com. -Denny McLain [1968 Sports Illustrated cover], from sicovers.com. -Mickey Lolich [photo from 1968 WS], unattributed at vintagedetroit.com. -Mayo Smith (manager) [photo fom 1968 WS], photo by Walter Iooss, Jr./Getty Images (unattributed) at pinterest.com. -Bill Freehan [photo circa 1966], unattributed at notinhalloffame.com. -Jim Northrup [photo circa 1967], unattributed at ebay.com. -Dick McAuliffe [1967 Dexter Press card], from tcdb.com. -Willie Horton [photo circa 1968], unattributed at vintagesportsimages.com. -Mickey Stanley [1968 Topps card], from amazon.com. -Norm Cash [photo circa 1968], unattributed at bestsportsphotos.com. -Al Kaline [1967 Sports Illustrated cover], from sicovers.com. -Earl Wilson [photo from 1968 WS], photo by Focus on Sports/Getty Images via gettyimages.com. -Gates Brown [photo circa 1969], unattributed at detroitcitysports.com. -Pat Dobson [photo circa 1968], unattributed at sportscollectibles.com. -John Hiller [1969 Topps card], from kronozio.com.

Detroit Tigers – 1968 World Series champions.
1968 was known as “the Year of the Pitcher”. Pitching was absolutely dominant, to the point where only one batter in the entire American League hit over .300, and the overall batting average in the AL was an all-time low .230. Meanwhile in the National League, Bob Gibson had the lowest ERA (1.12) since 1915 (which was during the dead-ball era). The pitching dominance stemmed from the enforcing of a larger strike zone (top of armpit to bottom of knee), that had begun in 1963. In both leagues, the Cy Young winner was also the MVP (Denny McLain & Bob Gibson). Major League Baseball responded to this offensive drought by introducing two measures to be implemented the following season of 1969: the pitching mound was lowered from 15 to 10 inches, and the strike zone was shrunk (to the area over home plate between the armpits and the top of the knees).

So in 1968, the year of the pitcher, it was appropriate that the Tigers won the title on the strength of two exemplary pitching performances. In the regular season, righthander Denny McLain became MLB’s last 30-game winner (and the first since Dizzy Dean in 1934), and the Tigers won the AL pennant by 12 games over the Orioles. And in October, lefthander Mickey Lolich won all three of his starts, gave up just 5 runs in 27 innings (1.67 ERA), and became the last pitcher to have 3 complete game victories in a World Series.

The 1968 Detroit Tigers season was the team’s 75th season in Detroit, Michigan, and its 68th season in the American League. In the season before (1967), the Tigers had narrowly missed out on the pennant, finishing one game behind the Red Sox. Then in 1968, the Tigers started out at 9-1, and on the 10th of May, they moved into first place and never lost the lead.

In this year of the pitcher, the Tigers had the offensive clout to stand out. The Tigers had the most home runs in 1968 (185 HR), and led that category by a considerable margin of over 50 HR. Home run leaders for the Tigers were OF Willie Horton (35 HR), 1B Norm Cash (25 HR), and C Bill Freehan (25 HR). And the Tigers had the knack for comeback wins, winning 40 games from the 7th inning on. The ’68 Tigers won 30 games with their final at bat, with many of those game-winning RBIs by their clutch pinch hitter Gates Brown (who went 34 for 92, with a .685 SlPct).

The 1968 Tigers were a tight crew: the starting lineup had been mostly intact since 1965, and several of those starters had grown up in Michigan, as Tigers fans. Willie Horton was from inner city Detroit; Bill Freehan grew up in the Detroit suburb of Royal Oak; Jim Northrup was from the small town of Holly, 54 miles (87 km) NW of Detroit, and Mickey Stanley was from the city of Grand Rapids (140 mi/225 km west of Detroit).

Below: 1968 World Series: Detroit Tigers beat St. Louis Cardinals in 7 games.
Down 3 games to 1, the Tigers win the last 3 games. Mickey Lolich pitches 3 complete games, wins game 7 on two-days-rest, and is the MVP.
1968_world-series_detroit-tigers_mickey-lolich_c.gif
Photos and image credits above –1968 WS program (Tigers), from baseball-almanac.com/[1968 WS]. -Exterior view of Tiger Stadium prior to 1968 WS game 3, screenshot from video uploaded by Sports History Channel at youtube.com. -Freehan tags out Brock, unattributed at hourdetroit.com. -Mickey Lolich, photo from USA Today Sports via baseballprospectus.com. -Lolich and Freehan celebrating right after final out, photo by Focus On Sport/Getty Images via gettyimages.com/[1968 Detroit Tigers]. -Tigers players and coaches run out of dugout to congratulate players on field, photo unattributed at hourdetroit.com.



Photos of jersey logos used on the map-page…
-Denny McLain 1968 Tigers home jersey, photo from sports.ha.com.
-Al Kaline 1968 Tigers road jersey, photo from amazon.com.
-1968 Atlanta Braves home jersey-logo, photo from customthrowbackjerseys.com.
-1968 Baltimore Orioles road jersey-logo, photo from robertedwardauctions.com.
-1967 Boston Red Sox home jersey-logo, photo from sports.ha.com.
-1967-68 Chicago White Sox road jersey-logo, photo from sports.ha.com.
-1968 Chicago Cubs road jersey-logo, photo from robertedwardauctions.com.
-1968-69 Cleveland Indians road jersey-logo, from lelands.com.
-1968 Houston Astros road jersey-logo, photo from greyflannelauctions.com.
-1968 Minnesota Twins home jersey-logo, from lelands.com.
-ca. 1967 NY Yankees road jersey-logo, photo from customthrowbackjerseys.com.
-1968 NY Mets road jersey-logo, photo from sports.ha.com.
-1968 Oakland A’s road jersey-logo, photo from robertedwardauctions.com.
-1968 Philadelphia Phillies home jersey-logo, photo from sports.ha.com.
-1967-68 Pittsburgh Pirates road jersey-logo, photo from lelands.com.
-1968 St. Louis Cardinals jersey-logo, photo from scpauctions.com.
-1967-68 SF Giants road jersey-logo, photo from sports.ha.com.
-1968 Washington Senators home jersey-logo, photo from mearsonlineauctions.com.

Photos of Tigers players on map page…
-Al Kaline ’68 road jersey, photo from amazon.com.
-Denny McLain [photo circa 1969], unattributed from amazon.com.
-Bill Freehan [photo circa 1966], unattributed at notinhalloffame.com.
-Jim Northrup [photo circa 1967], unattributed at ebay.com.
-Dick McAuliffe [1967 Dexter Press card], from tcdb.com.
-Willie Horton [photo circa 1968], unattributed at vintagesportsimages.com.
-Mickey Stanley [1968 Topps card], from amazon.com.
-Norm Cash [photo circa 1968], unattributed at bestsportsphotos.com.
-Earl Wilson [photo from 1968 WS], photo by Focus on Sports/Getty Images via gettyimages.com.
-Al Kaline [1967 Sports Illustrated cover], from sicovers.com.
-Gates Brown [photo circa 1969], unattributed at detroitcitysports.com.
-Pat Dobson [photo circa 1968], unattributed at sportscollectibles.com.
-John Hiller [1969 Topps card], from kronozio.com.
-Mickey Lolich [photo from 1968 WS], unattributed at vintagedetroit.com.
-Mayo Smith (manager) [photo fom 1968 WS], photo by Walter Iooss, Jr./Getty Images (unattributed) at pinterest.com.
-1968 Detroit Tigers uniforms: illustrations by Marc Okkonen at exhibits.baseballhalloffame.org/dressed_to_the_nines/[1968 Detroit].


Photos of 1968 MLB leaders on map page…
-Luis Tiant [photo circa 1968], unattributed at lavidabaseball.com.
-Bob Gibson [photo circa 1968], unattributed at msblnational.com.
-Denny McLain [1968 Sports Illustrated cover], from sicovers.com.
-Juan Marichal [photo circa 1968], unattributed at pinterest.com.
-Bob Gibson [photo circa 1968], from Major League Baseball via upi.com/Sports_News.
-Carl Yastrzemski [photo circa 1967], unattributed at theathletic.com.
-Pete Rose [photo circa 1968], unattributed at redlegnation.com.
-Frank Howard [photo circa 1968], photo by Focus on Sports/Getty Images via gettyimages.com.
-Willie McCovey [photo circa 1969], unattributed at baseballhistorycomesalive.com.
-Ken Harrelson [photo circa 1968], unattributed at royals.mlblogs.com.
-Willie McCovey [photo circa 1966], AP file photo via denverpost.com.
-Carl Yastrzemski [photo (Sports Illustrated poster) from 1968], from worthpoint.com.
-Roberto Clemente [photo circa 1967], unattributed at apkfunkyb.com.
___
Thanks to all at the following links…
-Base map, by US federal government employee at commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:StatesU.svg.
-Baseball-Reference.com.
-1968 Major League Baseball season (en.wikipedia.org).

April 3, 2021

1967 MLB Location-map with Jersey-logos & Attendances, featuring the ’67 World Series champions the St. Louis Cardinals & AL and NL Stats Leaders.

Filed under: Baseball,Baseball-1967 MLB season,Retro maps — admin @ 2:35 pm

http://billsportsmaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/mlb_map-of-mlb-1967_20-teams_ws-champions-st-louis-cardinals_1967-attendances_stats-leaders_post_e_.gif
MLB: 1967 season – Location-map with cap-logos and uniform-logos, plus 1967 team-attendances, stats leaders, and final standings; World Series champions – the St. Louis Cardinals



By Bill Turianski on the 3rd of April 2021; twitter.com/billsportsmaps.
Links…
-1967 MLB season (en.wikipedia.org).
-1967 MLB (baseball-reference.com).
-Year in Review: 1967 American League (baseball-almanac.com).
-Year in Review: 1967 National League (baseball-almanac.com).
-1967 MLB logos (sportslogos.net).

1967 MLB Location-map with Jersey-logos & Attendances, featuring the ’67 World Series champions the St. Louis Cardinals & AL and NL Stats Leaders.
The map shows the locations of the 20 Major League Baseball teams of 1967. On the map, next to each MLB team’s location-dot there are 3 things: their cap-logo, one of their jersey-logos (either home or away jersey), and a rectangular box that lists the team’s ballpark back then, plus their win total for the 1967 season, as well as their home average attendance that year. Any other logos on the team’s uniforms that year are also shown (specifically, shoulder-patch-logos, of which there were 5 of such in 1967: for the Astros, the Braves, the Cubs, the Mets, and the Twins).

The jersey-logos are either from a photo of the old jerseys (see photo credits at the foot of this post) or illustrations of such (mainly from sportslogos.net). The jersey-logo for each team is sized to reflect that team’s 1967 average attendance: the larger the jersey-logo, the higher the attendance that year. The best drawing MLB team in 1967 were the eventual champions, the St. Louis Cardinals, at 25,804 per game. Second-best drawing ball club in 1967 was the AL pennant-winning Boston Red Sox, who drew 21,331 per game. Worst-drawing ball clubs in 1967 were the Cleveland Indians, and the soon-to-be relocated Kansas City Athletics (both drew below 9,000 per game).

The whole list of 1967 attendance-figures-by-team is found at the far right-hand side of the map-page. Also listed there are each team’s Win total for that year, as well as their Numerical Change-in-average-attendance from the previous season (of 1966).

At the far left-hand side of the map-page are the 1967 AL and NL final standings. Then there is a section which shows the 1967 World Series result (Cardinals defeated Red Sox in 7 games), and features a photo of the 1967 World Series MVP (Bob Gibson, seen striking out a Red Sox player at Fenway Park). Below that are listed the 1967 major award-winners (the MVP award winners, the Cy Young award winners, and the Rookie of the Year award winners).

At the foot of the map-page are 1967 MLB Statistical Leaders (in both the American League and the National League), in the following categories: Wins, ERA, WAR for Pitchers; Batting Average, Home Runs, RBIs, WAR for Position Players. A photo of each player is shown, with stats; photo credits are at the foot of this post.

And finally, at the top of the map-page is a section for the 1967 MLB champions, the St. Louis Cardinals. I featured photos of the 11 players on the ’67 Cardinals with the highest WAR [Wins Above Replacement], plus the their manager, Red Schoendienst. Photo credits are at the foot of this post. The players are: Orlando Cepeda (1B), Tim McCarver (C), Lou Brock (LF), Curt Flood (CF), Dick Hughes (RHP), Nelson Briles (RHP), Roger Maris (RF), Steve Carlton (LHP), Bob Gibson (RHP), Julian Javier (2B), Dal Maxville (SS).




St. Louis Cardinals – 1967 World Series champions.
The 1967 St. Louis Cardinals season was the team’s 86th season in St. Louis, Missouri, and its 76th season in the National League. 1967 was the Cardinals’ first full season at Busch Memorial Stadium. (Busch Stadium was a 49,000-capacity multi-purpose facility that the Cardinals first played in on May 12, 1966. The Cardinals played there from 1966 to 2005, sharing it with the St. Louis football Cardinals for 22 years (1966-87), until the football Cardinals moved to Arizona. Busch Memorial Stadium’s distinctive 96-arch “Crown of Arches” echoed the Gateway Arch nearby that had just been completed in early 1966 {you can see the crown of arches in the Orlando Cepeda photo at the foot of the map-page}. Busch Stadium’s playing surface was originally grass, but it was changed to artificial turf in 1970 to better survive the punishment that pro football gave the turf; in 1995, following an extensive renovation, the grass returned. Here is a nice illustrated article on Busch Memorial Stadium from the site called This Great Game.com… Busch Memorial Stadium – St. Loui, Missouri.)

Prior to the 1967 season, Cardinals owner August “Gussie” Busch, Jr. hired former outfielder (and future Hall of Famer) Stan Musial as general manager. The ’67 Cardinals team featured four future Hall of Famers: speedster Lou Brock, righty Bob Gibson, lefty Steve Carlton and first baseman Orlando Cepeda. The Ponce, Puerto Rico-born Orlando Cepeda, who nicknamed the team “El Birdos”, led the NL in RBIs and was voted the league’s MVP. The Cardinals survived a mid-season knee injury to their pitching ace, Bob Gibson. Gibson missed about one-third of his starts that year, but was ably filled in by Dick Hughes. And St. Louis led the National League comfortably for most of the season. The Cardinals went 101–60, and won the NL pennant by 10½ games over the San Francisco Giants. Then they faced the Boston Red Sox in the 1967 World Series, in early October.

The Red Sox, meanwhile, reached the post-season after one of the wildest and most tightly-contested pennant-races in Major League history. In September of the 1967 AL season, no fewer than 4 teams could have won the American League pennant. On September 7th, the Minnesota Twins, the Detroit Tigers, the Chicago White Sox, and the Boston Red Sox were all tied for first place. The White Sox fell off the pace near the end of September, but on the final day of the season (Oct. 1), the Red Sox and Twins were tied for the lead, with the Tigers one-half-game behind. The Red Sox beat the Twins 5-3 that day, and the Tigers won only the first game of a doubleheader against the Angels. And so the Red Sox, led by Triple Crown winner Carl Yastrzemski and AL Cy Young winner Jim Lonborg, won the ’67 AL pennant by one game over both the Tigers and the Twins. Here is a great article from SABR.org, The 1967 AL Pennant Race: The 30,315,229 to 1 Possibility, by Andy Andres at sabr.org.

The 1967 World Series went to 7 games. Although the Cardinals had lost games 5 and 6, they won the seventh thanks to a third rock-solid outing by Bob Gibson. In the 1967 Fall Classic, Bob Gibson gave up only 3 earned runs and 14 hits in 27 innings, pitching three complete games, striking out 26, and walking only 6. Needless to say, Bob Gibson was voted the MVP of the Series.

After the 1967 season, the Kansas City Athletics moved to Oakland, California as the Oakland A’s. The following season of 1968 was the last to feature only one division per league. Then in 1969, Major League Baseball would undergo a four-team expansion (to 24 teams), with both the American and National Leagues split into two 6-team divisions.




___
Photos of jersey logos used on the map-page…
-1967 St. Louis Cardinals road jersey (Orlando Cepeda #30), photo from scpauctions.com.
-1967 Chicago White Sox road jersey logo , photo from sports.ha.com.
-1967 Cincinnati Reds home jersey logo, photo from amazon.com.
-1965-69 Cleveland Indians road jersey (vest) logo, photo from sports.ha.com.
-1967-68 Pittsburgh Pirates road jersey (vest) logo, photo from lelands.com.
-1967-68 SF Giants road jersey logo, photo from sports.ha.com.
-1959-69 LA Dodgers road jersey logo, photo from customthrowbackjerseys.com.
-1965-70 California Angels road jersey logo, photo from sports.ha.com.
-ca. 1967 NY Yankees road jersey logo, photo from customthrowbackjerseys.com.
-ca. 1967 NY Mets road jersey logo, photo from robertedwardauctions.com.

Photos of Cardinals players on map page…
-Orlando Cepeda [photo circa 1967] , photo of the cover of Street & Smith’s 1968 Baseball magazine, from art.com.
-Tim McCarver [photo from 1967], photo of the cover of Sports Illustrated (Sept. 4 1967) by John G. Zimmerman/Sports Illustrated via Getty Images via sicovers.com.
-Lou Brock [photo from 1967], photo of the cover of Sports Illustrated (Sept. 4 1967) by Walter Iooss Jr./Sports Illustrated via Getty Images via sicovers.com.
-Curt Flood [photo circa 1968], photo by Focus on Sport/Getty Images via calltothepen.com.
-Dick Hughes [1969 Topps card], from amazon.com.
-Nelson Briles [photo from 1967], by Herb Scharfman/unattributed at pinterest.com.
-Roger Maris [photo circa 1968], unattributed at pinterest.com.
-Steve Carlton [photo circa 1967], unattributed at pinterest.com.
-Bob Gibson [photo circa 1966], photo from si.com.
-Julian Javier [1967 Topps card], from amazon.com.
-Dal Maxvill [photo circa 1968], photo from Bettman Archive via gettyimages.com.
-Red Schoendienst, Cardinals manager [photo circa 1964], unattributed at pinterest.com.
-1967 St. Louis Cardinals uniforms: illustrations by Marc Okkonen at exhibits.baseballhalloffame.org/dressed_to_the_nines/[1967 St. Louis].
-Bob Gibson [photo from 1967 WS], photo by Walter Iooss Jr, at si.com[/Bob Gibson photo gallery].

Photos of 1967 MLB leaders on map page…
-Phil Niekro [photo circa 1967], unattributed at asupervip.top.
-Joel Horlen [photo circa 1967], unattributed at twitter.com/[@super70ssports].
-Mike McCormick [photo circa 1965], unattributed at bleacherreport.com.
-Jim Lonborg [photo circa 1967], unattributed at galleryofchampions.com.
-Earl Wilson [photo circa 1968], unattributed at vintagedetroit.com/blog.
-Jim Bunning [photo circa 1967], unattributed at si.com.
-Jim Merritt [photo from 1967], photo by Diamond Images /Getty Images via gettyimages.com.
-Roberto Clemente [photo circa 1968], unattributed at espn.com.
-Carl Yastrzemski [photo from 1967 WS], photo by Getty Images/Focus on Sports via newsday.com/sports.
-Hank Aaron [photo circa 1966], unattributed at pinterest.com.
-Carl Yastrzemski [screenshot image circa 1969], from video uploaded by Butch From the Cape at youtube.com.
-Harmon Killebrew [photo circa 1969], unattributed at pinterest.com.
-Orlando Cepeda [photo circa 1968], unattributed at archcity.media.
-Carl Yastrzemski [Sports Illustrated cover Aug 21 1967], unattributed at pinterest.com.
-Ron Santo [photo circa 1968], photo by Luis Requena MLB/via Getty Images via gettyimages.com.
-Carl Yastrzemski [photo circa 1967], unattributed at geni.com.

Thanks to all at the following links…
-Base map, by US federal government employee at commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:StatesU.svg.
-Baseball-Reference.com.
-1967 Major League Baseball season (en.wikipedia.org).

July 4, 2020

1929 Major League Baseball: map with crests & uniforms, final standings and stats leaders; champions: Philadelphia Athletics. With illustrated article: The 1929 and 1930 Philadelphia Athletics: the most overlooked team in baseball history.

Filed under: Baseball,Baseball-1929 MLB season,Retro maps — admin @ 12:00 pm

mlb_al_nl_1929-map_w-uniforms_logos_standings_stats-leaders_1929-ws-champs_philadelphia-athletics_post_f_.gif
1929 Major League Baseball: map with crests & uniforms, final standings and stats leaders; champions: Philadelphia Athletics



By Bill Turianski on the 4th of July 2020; twitter.com/billsportsmaps.

Links…
Sources…
-Baseball-Reference.com, 1929 AL season; 1929 NL season.
-SportsLogos.net.
-Baseball Hall of Fame’s Dressed to the Nines (uniforms illustrated by Marc Okkonen), exhibits.baseballhalloffame.org/dressed_to_the_nines/database.htm.
-Most logos: sportlogos.net.
-US cities’ populations (1920 figures), biggestuscities.com/1920.
-Lost in History [the 1929-31 Philadelphia Athletics] (by William Nack from Aug 1996 at si.com/[vault]).
-Connie Mack’s Second Great Athletics Team: Eclipsed by the Ruth-Gehrig Yankees, But Even Better (by Bryan Soderholm-Difatte, from 2013, at sabr.org).

Links to the other 4 maps in this category (MLB retro maps from the 1920s)…
-1925 MLB map (Pittsburgh Pirates, champions; w/ an article on MLB attendance, by team, circa the 1920s).
-1926 MLB map (St. Louis Cardinals, champions; w/ a chart of 1920s US city populations & cities with MLB teams).
-1927 MLB map (New York Yankees, champions; w/ an illustrated article on the 1927 NY Yankees).
-1928 MLB map (New York Yankees, champions; w/ an illustrated article on the 1928 NY Yankees).

    The 1929 and 1930 Philadelphia Athletics: the most overlooked team in baseball history

The 1927 and 1928 New York Yankees are remembered as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, teams of all time. But in 1929, the Yankees finished a distant 18 games behind the Philadelphia Athletics of owner-and-manager Connie Mack. The Yankees also failed to win the AL pennant in the next two seasons of 1930 and ’31. So, not to take anything away from the “Murderer’s Row” Yankees, but something is going on here that needs to be put into perspective. Let me ask you this…if the 1927 and ’28 Yankees, led of course by Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, were the greatest team of all time, then why didn’t the Yankees of the late-1920s-and-early-1930s win more World Series titles? Because Gehrig was still young and healthy, and Ruth was still in his prime.

It may surprise some to know that the Yankees of Ruth and Gehrig won only 4 World Series titles in the 12 seasons the two played together (in 1923, in 1927, in 1928, and in 1932). And that first Yankee title in 1923 was won when Gehrig wasn’t even a starter. So what stood in the way of the “Murderer’s Row” Yankees from winning more titles? The answer is the Philadelphia Athletics, who won 3 straight American League pennants, from 1929 to 1931. The Yankees finished 18 games behind the A’s in 1929. Then the Yankees finished 16 games behind the A’s in 1930. Then the Yankees finished 13.5 games behind the A’s in 1931. Heck, in 1930, the Yankees didn’t even finish in 2nd place (the Washington Senators did).

There are a couple of reasons why the dominant 1929-30 Philadelphia Athletics are so forgotten. First of all, the 1929-30 Philadelphia A’s have always been overshadowed by the 1927 and ’28 New York Yankees, and the long-ball legacy of the Ruth-&-Gehrig-led Bronx Bombers. And the second reason? It also has to do with New York…the largely New York-based sports media that basically ignored how great the 1929 (and 1930) Philadelphia Athletics actually were. As famed sportswriter Shirley Povich said, “The A’s were victims of the Yankee mystique. Perhaps the 1927 Yankees were the greatest team of all time. But if there was a close second, perhaps an equal, it was those A’s. They are the most overlooked team in baseball.”

The core of the Philadelphia Athletics in 1929 and ’30 was four Hall of Fame players…the slugging threesome of outfielder Al Simmons, catcher Mickey Cochrane, and 1st baseman Jimmie Foxx, plus pitcher Lefty Grove. Grove was one of the hardest-throwing left-handers ever (so said another great flamethrower, Walter Johnson). Lefty Grove had the best ERA in the AL for 4 straight seasons (1929-32). In 2001, Lefty Grove was named the second-best pitcher of all time, by Sabermetrics-founder Bill James. This foursome all came together in a 2-year span (1924-25), under Connie Mack (aka the Tall Tactician), who had a keen eye for talent, and an extensive scouting network.

Granted, if you want to talk pure hitting numbers, circa 1926 to 1932, the Philadelphia Athletics, for all their considerable offensive clout, were no match for New York Yankees. But no team was (and no team has been, ever). The Yankees absolutely dominated offensively between 1926 and 1932, leading not just the AL, but all of MLB, in scoring, in 6 of those 7 years. {You can see more on 1927 Yankees offensive stats in my 1927 map-&-article, here.} But home runs might get the headlines, but pitching and defense are ultimately the keys to a successful ball club. And the Philadelphia Athletics were a much more complete team, because their fielding – and especially their pitching – was superior. The 1929-to-’31 Athletics committed 137 less errors than the Yankees did in that same time period {see this, from en.wikipedia.org/[History of the Philadelphia Athletics]}. And the Athletics’ pitching from 1926 to 1932 was simply in a class by itself. In those 7 years, the Athletics had a total Pitching WAR (Wins After Replacement) that was 142.5, or a yearly average of 20.3 Pitching WAR. The Yankees in the same time period of 1926-32 had a total Pitching WAR of 65.2, or a yearly average of just 9.3 Pitching WAR. That is 11.0 less Pitching WAR, per year, from the Yankees, compared to the Athletics. It must be conceded that, in 1929 and ’30, the Yankees’ pitching staff was transitioning from the aged Herb Pennock and Waite Hoyt, to the young Red Ruffing and Lefty Gomez, and the Yankees’ Pitching WAR in 1929 and ’30 was dead-last in the AL. But in all those 7 years (of 1926 to 1932), the Athletics pitchers had a better Pitching WAR than the Yankees in all but one season, in 1927, and that was by only 0.4 WAR {this data was found in this article at SABR.org, which is also linked to below}. It wasn’t just the A’s ace southpaw Lefty Grove, with a 7.1 Pitching WAR in 1929, that was so effective for the Philadelphia Athletics, there were two other standouts: Rube Walberg (6.1 Pitching WAR in 1929), and George Earnshaw (5.2 Pitching WAR in 1929). Grove and Walberg, using WAR, were among the 5 best pitchers in the AL from 1926 to ’32. From 1928 to ’32 (5 seasons) Lefty Grove had an astounding .795 winning percentage, with 128 wins and just 33 losses.

And there is this…“no New York Yankees team over any five-year period— not with Ruth, not with Gehrig, not with DiMaggio, not with Mantle, not with Jeter—ever had as high a winning percentage as the 1928–32 Philadelphia Athletics.” {Quotation from article by Bryan Soderholm-Difatte at SABR.org, which is linked to in the next paragraph below}. In the 5-year-span of 1928-32, the Philadelphia Athletics went 505-258 (.657). The Philadelphia A’s of that time-period also were the first ever team to win 100 games in a season for 3 consecutive seasons (1929-31).

Some flat out proclaim that Connie Mack’s Philadelphia Athletics of the late-’20s/early-’30s were simply better than the Yankees of Ruth & Gehrig…
-Connie Mack’s Second Great Athletics Team: Eclipsed by the Ruth-Gehrig Yankees, But Even Better (by Bryan Soderholm-Difatte, from 2013, at sabr.org).

-Lost In History – From 1929 to 1931, the Philadelphia A’s were the best team in baseball, with four future Hall of Famers and a lineup that dominated Babe Ruth’s legendary Yankees. So why hasn’t anyone heard of them (by William Nack from Aug 1996 at si.com/[vault]).

(Note: the above article by William Nack at Sports Illustrated is an absolute gem, but there is one discrepancy that I need to point out. Nack says, in reference to the New York-vs-Philadelphia rivalry that “In the early days of the 20th century Philadelphia was the nation’s second city, and its teams’ most memorable clashes on baseball diamonds–first against the Giants and later against the Yankees–expressed the city’s aspiration to reclaim its place as the nation’s center.” However, Philadelphia was definitely not the nation’s second city back then…Chicago was. Philadelphia was supplanted by Chicago as the second-most populous city in the USA as early as the 1890s {see this, from en.wikipedia}. I have 1920 US city populations listed on the map-page (at the upper-left-corner of the map), and they are US Census Bureau figures. Here are the 1920 city population figures from the US Census Bureau…Top 3 US cities’ populations in 1920, New York City: 5.6 million; Chicago: 2.7 million; Philadelphia: 1.8 million {source: census.gov/[Population of the 100 Largest Urban Places: 1920]. I know it is a small point, and it does not diminish the author’s underlying theme, namely, that Philadelphians had (and certainly still have) a deep-rooted chip on their shoulders about the preeminence of New York City, and Philadelphia’s lost status as the former largest city in the country.)

I think there is another reason why the 1929-30 Philadelphia Athletics have been effectively banished from the collective memory of baseball fans. And that is this: the Philadelphia Athletics all but ceased to exist when the franchise moved to Kansas City, in 1955. Then the franchise moved again, 13 years later, in 1968, to Oakland, California. There was a diminished interest for the old team, back in Philly. After all, Philadelphia still had a major league ball club (the Phillies), so there never was that culture of loss and nostalgia that defines the Brooklyn Dodgers’ hallowed place in baseball history. There are many, many books written about the Brooklyn Dodgers. There are hardly any books written about the Philadelphia Athletics. Only the old-timers who had seen the greatness of the 1929-30 Athletics first-hand, there in Philadelphia, were keeping the flame alive, so to speak. The following generations of baseball fans in Philadelphia (and elsewhere) never were adequately told about the great Athletics teams in Philadelphia.

Even the Oakland A’s themselves have ignored, and still ignore, the greatness of the 1929-30 Philadelphia Athletics…
If you go to an Oakland A’s game at the Oakland Coliseum, the only vestige you will see of the 5-time-World-Series-title-winning-/-9-time-AL-pennant-winning Philadelphia Athletics is in the present-day team’s uniforms: the Athletics’ Gothic-A cap-logo and their shoulder-patch elephant-logo (which dates to 1902). Because sadly, the Oakland A’s do not, in any way, acknowledge their own franchise’s 5 World Series titles that were won in Philadelphia. Here is the Oakland A’s World Series-titles banner outside their ballpark…it only shows the 4 World Series titles that the franchise won in Oakland. In other words, the Oakland Athletics themselves do not even acknowledge the greatness that was the Philadelphia Athletics.

And if you think no other transplanted MLB teams do this, well, here is what the Los Angeles Dodgers have at their Dodger Stadium…a set of banners showing every Dodgers World Series title, including the 1955 WS title won when the team was still in Brooklyn. Also at Dodger Stadium are giant murals of Dodgers MVPs and Cy Young winners [both of which include Brooklyn Dodgers players]. There is also a giant World Series-ring sculpture of the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers there at Chavez Ravine {here /here is where I found the last three images: The Artful Dodgers (at bryanhg.wordpress.com).} Remember, this is an MLB franchise (the Dodgers) that is a class act, but still…all this tribute to their former location (in Brooklyn), and yet the Brooklyn Dodgers only won ONE TITLE. Meanwhile, the Philadelphia Athletics won 5 TITLES…and the Oakand A’s, the MLB franchise that originated as the Philadelphia Athletics 120 years ago, shows absolutely no tribute – at all – to where they came from (Philadelphia), and how great they were, way back then. Pathetic. Well, at least one fan in the Bay Area agrees with me…{Concept for a new banner at the Coliseum – 4/21/2020 (from the A’s Fan Radio site, asfanradio.com).

    The Philadelphia Athletics beat the Chicago Cubs 4 games to 1, to win the 1929 World Series

Before Game 1 (on October 8 1929 at Wrigley Field in Chicago), the big question was how the Cubs’ right-handed sluggers would fare against the Athletics’ ace pitcher, the southpaw Lefty Grove (Grove was one of the the best pitchers in 1929, with a 20-6 record, and an MLB-best 2.81 ERA). But Philadelphia Athletics manager Connie Mack shocked everyone, by keeping Lefty Grove on the bench, and starting the unheralded, and seemingly washed-up 35-year-old side-arm junk-ball hurler Howard Ehmke. (In August, after the A’s had clinched the Pennant, Ehmke had stayed in Philadelphia during an A’s late-season road trip, with the job of scouting out the Cubs hitters when they came to town to play the Philadelphia Phillies. So Connie Mack had planned on this surprise move for some time.)

The Cubs right-handed power hitters were nullified by the soft-throwing right-hander Ehmke. Howard Ehmke struck out 13 (a World Series record that stood for 24 years), and allowed just one unearned run. The Athletics’ slugger Jimmy Foxx broke the scoreless game in the 7th inning with a solo HR, and the Athletics won Game 1 by the score of 3 to 1. {Here is a nice 2:28 video on Howard Ehmke, Philadelphia Athletics Howard Ehmke, Hero of the 1929 World Series, uploaded by Philadelphia Sports History at youtube.com.}

In Game 2 (also at Wrigley Field in Chicago), the Athletics broke ahead with a 6-run lead, with HRs by Jimmy Foxx and Al Simmons. In the bottom of the 5th inning, A’s starter George Earnshaw got into trouble, and Connie Mack put Lefty Grove on, in relief. Grove pitched 4 and 1/3 innings of scoreless ball, and the Athletics won Game 2 by the score of 9 to 3. (And the A’s pitchers struck out 13 Cubs, again.)

In Game 3 (at Shibe Park in Philadelphia), the Cubs beat the Athletics 3 to 1. The Cubs won on the strength of Pitcher Guy Bush, who allowed 1 run in 9 innings. The Cubs scored 3 runs in the 6th inning, with 2 runs driven in by a Kiki Cuyler single, and one run driven in by a Rogers Hornsby single. Athletics Pitcher George Earnshaw gave up just 1 earned run in 9 innings for the loss.

In Game 4 (at Shibe Park in Philadelphia), Connie Mack stuck to his right-handed pitchers policy, starting another journeyman, Jack Quinn. But Quinn gave up 7 runs in 6 innings. The Cubs had an 8-0 lead when the Athletics came to bat in the 7th inning. 13 batters later, the Cubs found themselves trailing 10-8. {Via Old-Time Baseball Photos on twitter, here is a photo of Mule Haas sliding into home for his Inside-the-park HR, which pulled the A’s to within one run at 8-7.} That 10-8 score stood, as Lefty Grove pitched two innings of perfect relief to clinch the victory. The eight-run comeback by the Philadelphia Athletics on October 12, 1929 is still the greatest comeback in MLB post-season history. In the illustration below, you can see a batter-by-batter re-cap of the legendary 7th inning 8-run comeback by the Philadelphia A’s (which featured 15 batters, 10 runs, and two balls lost in the sun by beleaguered Cubs Center Fielder Hack Wilson). {Here is a brief article at baseball-reference.com/blog on the greatest comebacks in MLB regular season & post-season history, Biggest Comeback Wins in Baseball History (by Alex Bonilla at sports-reference.com/blog on Jan 29 2019).}

Game 5 (at Shibe Park in Philadelphia). Connie Mack started Howard Ehmke again, but this time Ehmke was ineffective, and was replaced by Rube Walberg in the 4th inning, with the A’s down 2-0. That score stood until the 9th inning, with the A’s down to their last two outs. Then, for the second straight game, the Athletics produced a comeback rally. Max Bishop singled, then Mule Haas’ HR made it 2-2. Cochrane grounded out, but Al Simmons doubled, and after an intentional walk to Jimmie Foxx, Bing Miller doubled, to score Simmons and clinch the Series.

Below: 1929 World Series: Philadelphia Athletics beat Chicago Cubs 4 games to 1; the Series included the greatest comeback in MLB post-season history (A’s come back from 8 runs down to win Game 4, 10-8)...
philadelphia-athletics_1929_worldseries-champions_athletics-4-games_cubs-1_wrigley-field_shibe-park_athletics-have-greatest-comeback-in-mlb-postseason-history_h_.gif
Photo and Image credits above – Logos from
sportlogos.net. Segment of 1929 Philadelphia Athletics WS program cover, from amazon.com. Segment of 1929 Chicago Cubs WS program from goldinauctions.com. Shibe Park [aerial photo from 1929 photo], unattributed at twitter.com/[@MLBcathedrals]. Wrigley Field [aerial photo from 1929], AP Photo via gladishsolutions.com. Mickey Cochrane, Connie Mack and Lefty Grove [photo circa 1929], AP Photo via ftw.usatoday.com. Small illustration of segment of 1929 Philadelphia Athletics road jersey, by Marc Okkonen at exhibits.baseballhalloffame.org/dressed_to_the_nines/database. Howard Ehmke [photo from 1929], photo by George Rinhart/Corbis via Getty Images at gettyimages.com. Jimmie Foxx [photo from 1928], photo unattributed at pinterest.com. Al Simmons [photo from 1928], photo unattributed at bleacherreport.com. Photo segment of 1929 Philadelphia Athletics home uniform, from auction.lelands.com. 1929 WS Shibe Park unauthorized temporary bleachers atop neighboring row houses, colorized photo unattributed at twitter.com/[@BSmile]. Guy Bush [photo from 1929], photo by Sporting News via Rogers Photo Archive via gettyimages.co.uk. Kiki Cuyler [photo from 1929], unattributed at imagekind.com. Rogers Horsnby [photo circa 1929], unattributed at ebay.com. Al Simmons, Jimmie Foxx [photo from 1930], unattributed at baseballhistorycomesalive.com. Jimmy Dykes, Joe Boley, Max Bishop [photo from 1929], photo by Hank Olen/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images at gettyimages.com. Mule Haas [photo from 1928], from National Baseball Hall of Fame at njmonthly.com. Bing Miller [Fleer retro-trading card from 1960; photo circa 1929], from psacard.com. A’s players storm the field to congratulate for his Series-winning RBI, photo by National Baseball Hall of Fame Library/MLB via Getty Images via gettyimages.com.

Post-script to the 1929 World Series title won by the Philadelphia Athletics…
Fifteen days after the Philadelphia Athletics’ thrilling World Series victory, the bottom dropped out of the US economy, with Black Tuesday. That was October 29, 1929, when the Stock Market crashed, ushering in the decade-long Great Depression. For the Philadelphia Athletics, this led to the eventual dismantling of their championship team. While the Athletics would go on to win the World Series again, in the following year of 1930 (beating the St. Louis Cardinals 4 games to 2), and then win the AL pennant for a 3rd straight time in 1931, the Depression put an end to any further glory for the Philadelphia Athletics. To avoid financial ruin of the ball club, owner/manager Connie Mack was forced to sell off his prize players for cash (and mediocre players). In 1932, Al Simmons went to the Chicago White Sox. In 1933, Lefty Grove went to the Boston Red Sox, and Mickey Cochrane went to the Detroit Tigers. And in 1935, Jimmie Foxx also went to the Red Sox. The Philadelphia Athletics never contended for another AL pennant. Connie Mack continued on as owner and manager, slipping into dementia. But none dared challenge him, and the Philadelphia Athletics declined to the point where it became inevitable that the franchise would move. Some people say the wrong baseball team moved out of Philadelphia, and I could not agree more.

1929 MLB stats Leaders.
ERA: Lefty Grove, Philadelphia Athletics. Wins: George Earnshaw, Philadelphia Athletics. Batting Avg: Lefty O’Doul, Philadelphia Athletics. HR: Babe Ruth, New York Yankees. RBI: Hack Wilson, Chicago Cubs. OPS: Rogers Hornsby, Chicago Cubs. Wins Above Replacement (WAR) for Position Players: Rogers Hornsby, Chicago Cubs. WAR for Pitchers: Willis Hudlin, Cleveland Indians.

Photo credits on map page…
Banner (Philadelphia Athletics, 1929 World Series Champions)…Photo segment of 1929 Philadelphia Athletics home uniform, from auction.lelands.com. 1929 Philadelphis Athletics WS winners’ ring, unattributed at pinterest.com. 1929 Philadelphia WS press pin, from robertedwardauctions.com/1929-philadelphia-athletics-world-series-press-pin. 1929 WS ticket [to 1929 WS game 5 at Shibe Park], from sports.mearsonlineauctions.com/1929-philadelphia-athletics-chicago-cubs-game-5-world-series-ticket-and-stub. 1929-34 Philadelphia A’s cap, from mlbshop.com. 1929 Philadelphia Athletics uniforms, by Marc Okkonen at exhibits.baseballhalloffame.org/dressed_to_the_nines/[al_1929_philadelphia]. 1929

Connie Mack [photo circa 1929], unattributed at pinterest.com. Al Simmons [photo circa 1928], 1961 Golden Press Card via baseball-almanac.com. Jimmy Foxx [photo circa 1932], colorized photo unattributed at pophistorydig.com. Lefty Grove [US Postal Service Stamp; original image circa 1930], from mysticstamp.com. Rube Walberg [photo circa 1929], photo by Getty Images via gettyimages.dk. George Earnshaw [photo from 1928], unattributed at sports.mearsonlineauctions.com. Mickey Cochrane [photo circa 1930], unattributed at pinterest.como. Jimmy Dykes [photo circa 1927], unattributed at baseball-fever.com/[thread: Philadelphia Athletics 1928-32].
1929 MLB Stats leaders…
Lefty Grove [photo circa 1929], photo by Getty Images via si.com. George Earnshaw [photo circa 1929], photo unattributed at phillysportshistory.com. Lefty O’Doul [photo from 1930], photo unattributed at digitalcollections.detroitpubliclibrary.org. Babe Ruth [photo circa 1928], photo unattributed at m.mlb.com/player. Hack Wilson [photo circa 1929], photo by AP via espn.com. Rogers Hornsby [photo from 1929], colorized photo unattributed at ebay.com. Willis Hudlin [photo from 1928], photo unattributed at letsgotribe.com/[top-100-indians-34-willis-hudlin].

Thanks to all at the following links…
Sources:
-University of Texas at Austin online archive (Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection), legacy.lib.utexas.edu/maps/united_states.html.
-Baseball-Reference.com, 1928 AL season1928 NL season.
-Baseball Hall of Fame’s Dressed to the Nines (uniforms illustrated by Marc Okkonen), exhibits.baseballhalloffame.org/dressed_to_the_nines/database.htm.
-US cities’ populations (1920 figures), biggestuscities.com/1920.
-Attendances. Source: baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/1928-misc.shtml.
-Lost in History [the 1929-31 Philadelphia Athletics] (by William Nack from Aug 1996 at si.com/[vault]).
-Connie Mack’s Second Great Athletics Team: Eclipsed by the Ruth-Gehrig Yankees, But Even Better (by Bryan Soderholm-Difatte, from 2013, at sabr.org).
Most logos from:
-SportsLogos.net, sportslogos.net/[MLB logos].
1929-34 Philadelphia A’s cap, from mlbshop.com. Photo of 1929 NY Giants jersey from Alamy at alamy.com/stock-photo/new-york-giants-baseball. Photo of Detroit Tigers 1929 road ball cap from vintagedetroit.com. Segment of Philadelphia Athletics 1929 home jersey, from worthpoint.com.

May 27, 2020

Baseball in South Korea: KBO League – 2020 Location-map including COVID-19 Timeline for Korean Baseball; with 10 team-profile boxes, 2019 attendances and KBO titles list./+ Illustration for 2019 Korean Series: Doosan Bears sweep Kiwoom Heroes to win their 3rd KBO title in 5 years.

Filed under: Baseball,Korea: baseball — admin @ 7:26 am

korea_baseball_2020_post_e_.gif
Baseball in South Korea: KBO League – 2020 Location-map with 10 team-profile boxes, 2019 attendances and KBO titles list



By Bill Turianski on 27 May 2020; twitter.com/billsportsmaps.

Links…
-KBO teams…KBO League/ Teams (en.wikipedia.org).
-KBO official site/schedule, scores, standings; About KBO, etc. (in English, with Korean option)…http://eng.koreabaseball.com/.
-KBO 리그의 공식 사이트http://www.koreabaseball.com/Default.aspx.
-The Korea Herald/baseball (koreaherald.com/[sports]/[baseball]).

-No MLB? Korean baseball is in full swing—here’s what you need to know, from KBO cheerleaders to bat-flipping (by Tom Huddlseston at cnbc.com on May 25 2020).

KBO League map-page…
The map-page includes a COVID-19 Timeline for Korean Baseball. The text for the timeline is repeated two paragraphs below. The map-page features a location-map of the 10 KBO League teams, including an inset-map of Greater Seoul aka Seoul Capital Area (there are 5 KBO League teams in Seoul Capital Area, including 3 teams in Seoul city-proper (aka Seoul Special City). For each team, there is a Circular-cap-logo that is sized to reflect 2019 average attendance…the larger the circular-cap-logo, the higher the team’s attendance. 2016 Korea Post stamps are shown for each team. These stamps each feature the team’s mascot. Some of the stamps have been updated to show recently-changed new cap logos and color-changes (LG Twins, Lotte Giants, Kia Tigers, Kiwoom Heroes). There are also 3 charts: One chart shows the 9 largest cities in South Korea (all cities with more than one million in their Metropolitan Areas). Another chart shows 2019 attendance for the 10 KBO League teams. Attendance, overall was down for the second-straight season in the KBO League, and last year league-wide attendance fell an alarming 9.8% {see the section on 2019 KBO attendance, which is about halfway further down this post}. The third chart show the full Titles list for the KBO League (the KBO League’s first season was in 1982).

Finally, there is a section at the far right-hand side of the map-page which has Team Profile Boxes for the 10 KBO League teams. In the profile boxes there are shown or listed several things…Cap-logo. Primary logo. Season team was established. Venue-location(s) & City-location(s). [Note: 3 KBO League teams have a secondary venue, in a neighboring city, where they play a few home games each season (Lotte Giants, Samsung Lions, Hanwha Eagles). Those secondary locations are also shown on the map.] Team Owner with owner’s business, and company logo. Titles won by team, with last title listed, along with the number of times the team has finished as Runners-up. Primary mascot’s logo.

South Korea: 2020 KBO League: COVID-19 Timeline in Korean Baseball

December 2019: 2020 KBO League season schedule was released: 28th of March was scheduled for opening day.

10 March 2020: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in South Korea, the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) cancelled all exhibition games, and delayed the start of the 2020 KBO League season indefinitely.

19 April 2020: New COVID-19 cases, per day, in all of South Korea, dropped to single-digits.

21 April 2020: Preseason games begin for restart.

5 May 2020: 2020 KBO League begins. Full 144-game season is scheduled, but in a more compressed time-frame, meaning more doubleheaders, less off-days, and no All-Star break. The season is projected to end on the 2nd of November. Post-season to end no later than 25 November.

The stadiums will be empty except for players, staff, umpires and some media. Masks and latex gloves must be worn by base coaches and umpires on the field; teams’ training staff must wear masks in the dugouts. Players wear masks in the dugout, but not on the field. There can be small cheerleading squads. Spitting is not allowed.

Will there be fans in the stadiums? Yonhap news agency reported that the KBO has plans to gradually open the stadiums, depending on the progress of the pandemic.

Here are articles which helped me put together the timeline…
-2020 KBO League season (en.wikipedia.org).
-S. Korean baseball season pushed further back to late April (by Yonhap news agency at koreaherald.com/sports/baseball on 24 March 2020).
-Inside look at Korean baseball restart that offers hope for MLB (by Joel Sherman at nypost.com/[MLB] on 20 April 2020).
-S. Korean baseball regular season to begin May 5 (by Yonhap news agency at koreaherald.com/sports/baseball on 21 April 2020).
The link below is recommended…
-The Korean Baseball Organization is back from the coronavirus shutdown… (by Ryan Divish at seattletimes.com/sports on 8 May 2020).

Demographics of South Korea
The population of South Korea is around 51.7 million {source: 2019 estimate, here at South Korea en.wikipedia page}. This puts South Korea as the 27th-most-populous nation on Earth. South Korea is very small, though: it is the 109th-largest country (at 100,210 km-sq or 66,690 mi-sq). That makes South Korea slightly smaller than Iceland, and slightly larger than Hungary. The largest city in South Korea (by far) is, of course, Seoul…which is absolutely gigantic, and has a metro-area population that is fifth-largest on the planet. Seoul has a special-city population of around 10.1 million, and metro-area population of around 25.5 million ! Only Tokyo, Japan (at ~37.2 million), Shanghai, Jakarta, and Delhi have larger metro-area populations than does Seoul. {Source.} Basically, half of the population of South Korea resides in Seoul’s metropolitan area. South Korea has about the 29th-highest adjusted-GDP in the world [International Monetary Fund (2020 estimates] {see this, List of countries by GDP (PPP) per capita).

KBO League est. 1982; 10 teams. Season: 144 games/5-team playoffs w/reg-season-winner getting bye to the 5-game Korean Series
Pro major-league baseball in South Korea began in 1982, with the institution of the KBO League as a 6-team league. A minor league was established eight years later in 1990 – the KBO Futures League. In 1986, the KBO League expanded to include a seventh team.

In the first decade of its existence, the KBO League as a whole was only drawing in the 5 to 7 K range. By 1991, the KBO League had 8 teams. In 1995, cumulative attendance for the season finally topped 10 K per game, boosted by the exciting 1995 KBO season which saw three teams, the OB Bears, the LG Twins, and the Lotte Giants, go neck-to-neck for the pennant (the title in ’95 was won by the OB, now Doosan, Bears).

However, this league attendance figure wasn’t surpassed for 14 years. After 1995, the KBO began to see dwindling fan interest that lasted for about a decade. What first helped reverse the gradual slide in attendances from 1996 to 2004 was the good showing that the South Korean national baseball team had in the first World Baseball Classic, in 2005, when they finished in third. Another boost to the game there came three years later, when South Korea narrowly lost to Japan in extra innings in the second World Baseball Classic, and then six months later, the South Korean baseball team won the gold medal in the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.

These results convinced many South Korean sports fans that KBO baseball was a product worth supporting. In 2008, league-wide attendance shot up 2.3 K per game to 10.4 K; the next year [2009] it was 11.1 K, and the KBO League began drawning above 11 K (up to 2018). The health of Korean pro baseball was seen in the fact that there was recent expansion. The KBO League finally got to 10 teams, first with the creation of a 9th team (the NC Dinos) in 2013, and a 10th team (the KT Wiz) in 2015.

But after reaching peak attendance in 2017, the KBO League has seen two straight years of attendance decline, including a 9.8% drop in overall attendance in 2019. The KBO League had peak attendance in 2017 at 8.40 million tickets sold, which was 11,668 per game {2017 KBO League attendance}. 2018 saw a 4% decline in attendance, at 8.07 million ticket sold and an average of 11,214 per game {2018 KBO League attendance}. Then 2019 saw a more drastic decline in attendance, at just 7.28 million tickets sold and an average of 10,119 per game {2019 KBO League attendance}.

The explanation for the alarming drop in attendance in 2019 at KBO League games is twofold...
1) A number of the bigger teams had bad seasons in 2019. Like the Lotte Giants, who finished dead last, and dropped over 3,000-per-game in attendance. Also in that category were the Kia Tigers and the Hanwha Eagles, both of whom had below-.440 -percentage seasons in 2019, and both of whom saw a drop-off of around 2,400-per-game in attendance. But then there was of situation of the SK Wyverns, who had a very good season for the second straight year (finishing in 2nd place in both 2018 and 2019), but who nevertheless saw a drop-off of around 750 per game (to a still-respectable 13.6 per game). Why?…see below.
2) The KBO League changed the specifications of their official baseballs to 1 mm wider and 1 gram heavier. And that has appeared to lower offensive numbers in 2019. In other words, the KBO messed with their baseball, and it backfired. {See this tweet from February 2019, by a writer at FanGraphs.com who is also an employee of the Lotte Giants: ‘The KBO is implementing new baseball. It is 1 mm bigger and 1 g heavier, hoping that it could help neutralize the high-offense environment that the league is known for. According to a simulation ran by the SK Wyverns, the ball resulted in 20% less home runs than the previous one’, tweet from twitter.com/[Sung Min kim].} {Also see this article, The KBO Appears to Be De-Juicing its Baseballs (by Sun Min Kim at fangraphs.com on 23 April 2019).} The theory is that the drop in offense (particularly the drop in Home Runs) drove fans away in 2019. {See this, Pitching regains foothold as home runs, attendance drop in S. Korean baseball (by Yoo Jee-Ho at en.yna.co.kr on 2 October 2019).}

Only one team had a substantial increase in attendance in 2019 in the KBO League, and that was the relatively new team the NC Dinos (est. 2013). The NC Dinos went from last-place in 2018, to a wild-card berth in 2019, winning 25 more games in the process, and seeing a 3,700-per-game increase in their crowds, to a more respectable 9.8-K-per-game attendance. That is still below the general league average (in a good season), but NC Dinos’ attendance figures were certainly better than the other new team, the KT Wiz (est. 2015), whose average attendance has dropped 2.1-K-per-game in two years.

As of the 27th of May 2020 (19 or 20 games played), the NC Dinos currently lead the 2020 KBO League, by 3 games over the LG Twins and 4 games over the reigning champions the Doosan Bears. {KBO League standings.}

    Doosan Bears, 2019 Korean Series champions (the Bears’ 3rd title in 5 years)
    두산 베어스, 2019 한국 시리즈 챔피언 (5 년 만에 베어스 3 위)

korean-series_doosan-bears_2019_kbo-league_champions_bears-sweep-kiwoom-heroes_d_.gif
Photo and Image credits above – Blank map of Seoul, by Mikey641 & OpenStreetMap contributors at File:Seoul South Korea location map.svg (commons.wikimedia.org). Overhead view of crowd and field at Jamsil Baseball Stadium right before start of the 2019 Korean Series, screenshot of image from video uploaded by Video Mug at youtube.com. Oh Jae-il makes leaping catch, screenshot of image from video uploaded by Video Mug at youtube.com. Oh Jae-il hits walk-off single in 9th to win Game 1 for Doosan Bears, screenshot of video uploaded by Arirang News at youtube.com. Park Kun-woo is congratulated by teammates after his walk-off single in the bottom of the 9th in Game 2, photo by Yonhap via en.yna.co.kr. Game 3 standots: Park Kun-wa and Seth Frankel, photo by Yonhap via en.yna.co.kr. Doosan Bears players rush the field to celebrate their title, screenshot from video uploaded by BearSpotv베어스포티비 at youtube.com.

Josh Lindblom, photo by News1 via koreajoongangdaily.joins.com. Jose Miguel Fernandez, photo by OSEN via news.chosun.com. Oh Jae-il, photo by Yonhap via koreatimes.co.kr.
___
Thanks to all at the following links…
-Globe-map of South Korea, by Ksiom at File:South Korea (orthographic projection).svg (commons.wikimedia.org).
-Blank map of South Korea, by NordNordWest at :FileSouth Korea location map.svg (commons.wikimedia.org).
-Attendance…koreabaseball.com/Record/Crowd/History (koreabaseball.com).
-Lotte Giants’ official shop, lottegiantsshop.com/[new 2018 cap], thanks for photo of the brand-new Lotte Giants’ deep-navy-blue-and-wine-red ball cap logo.
-KBO teams’ K-stamps (2016) [KBO-team-cap-with-mascot], by Shin Jaeyong/Korea Post stampworld.com/stamps/South-Korea/Postage-stamps/g3144/.

April 27, 2020

1928 Major League Baseball: map with crests & uniforms, final standings and stats leaders; champions: New York Yankees.

Filed under: Baseball,Baseball-1928 MLB season,Retro maps — admin @ 11:15 am

http://billsportsmaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/mlb_al_nl_1928-map_w-uniforms_logos_standings_stats-leaders_1928-ws-champs_new-york-yankees_post_b_.gif
1928 Major League Baseball: map with crests & uniforms, final standings and stats leaders; champions: New York Yankees




By Bill Turianski on 27 April 2020; twitter.com/billsportsmaps.
Links…
Sources:
-Baseball-Reference.com, 1928 AL season; 1928 NL season.
-Baseball Hall of Fame’s Dressed to the Nines (uniforms illustrated by Marc Okkonen), exhibits.baseballhalloffame.org/dressed_to_the_nines/database.htm.
-US cities’ populations (1920 figures), biggestuscities.com/1920.
-Attendances. Source: baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/1928-misc.shtml.
-Most logos. Source: SportsLogos.net, sportslogos.net/[MLB logos].

Aspects of the map-and-chart:
A). 1928 location-map of the 16 MLB teams. Home cities listed, then franchises listed in smaller text below the home-city name. Each team (franchise) has at least one logo from that year (in this case, 1928); the logos are sized to reflect average attendance from that season: the higher-drawing teams have larger logos-and-or-multiple-logos. In this case, that applies to the top-drawing teams in the NL in 1928 (the Chicago Cubs and the NY Giants, as well as the Brooklyn Robins [aka Dodgers], and the St. Louis Cardinals), and it applies to the top-drawing teams in the AL in 1928 (the New York Yankees, as well as the Philadelphia Athletics). Similarly, the lower-drawing teams in MLB that season have much smaller logos on the map (in this case, such as the Boston Braves and the Philadelphia Phillies).

In my first MLB retro map, I took a look at attendance figures – by team – in this era…{here, 1925 MLB retro map [Pirates win WS].}

B). Population of US cities (1920 figures). A small chart showing the 25-then-largest cities of the USA in 1920 is shown at the upper-left-hand side of the map. MLB representation-by-city is noted there. In my 1926 and 1927 retro MLB maps, I took a look at Populations of US Cities (1920 figures), with a small expanded chart of the one on the map…{1926 MLB retro map [Cardinals win WS].} {1927 MLB retro map [Yankees win WS].}

C). Attendance {data from baseball-reference.com}. 1928 MLB team average attendances are shown at the upper-right of the map. Two paragraphs above is a link to an article I wrote about MLB attendance team-by-team, circa the 1920s.

D). World Series champions (for 1928, the New York Yankees). World Series champions are represented by a prominent section at the top of the map. A photo of the manager of the WS winner is shown (Miller Huggins), along with 7 photos of the top players on the WS-winning Yankees of 1928 (Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Herb Pennock, Waite Hoyt, Tony Lazzeri, George Pigras, Earle Combes). The players shown were determined by WAR [Wins After Replacement]. Players who have been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame [HoF] are noted, by a bronze-colored square with year of HoF election listed.

E). Top players in MLB for 1928 are shown at the foot of the map. Photos of stats leaders in several categories are shown…for Pitchers: ERA, Wins, and WAR (Pitchers); for Position-Players: Batting Average (BAvg), HR, RBI, OPS, and WAR. Again, HoF players are noted.

1928 MLB stats leaders…
ERA, Dazzy Vance (Brooklyn). Wins: [joint-best] Larry Benton (NY baseball Giants) / Burleigh Grimes (Pittsburgh). WAR (for pitchers), Dazzy Vance (Brooklyn). BAvg, Rogers Hornsby (Boston [NL]). HR, Babe Ruth (NY [AL]). RBI, Lou Gehrig (NY [AL]). OPS, Babe Ruth (NY [AL]). WAR (for position players), Babe Ruth (NY [AL]).

F). MLB team sections: flanking sections, in alphabetized chart-form, show the 8 NL franchises (of 1928) on the far-left of the map, and the 8 AL franchises (of 1928) on the far-right of the map. The sections include several things…In each franchise’s rectangular box is shown their uniforms from that season, and at least one of their primary logos from that season, along with a narrow bar that is in the team’s colors that season. A photo of the present-day-franchise’s home ball cap is shown [2020 ball caps]. And franchise info is shown for each team, including: years of existence [seasons in NL or AL], location(s), league-titles [Pennants] and MLB titles [WS titles], plus any franchise movements. Standard abbreviations for each team are used. As far as former teams go, to avoid any confusion, I used baseball-reference.com’s abbreviations. {Here: baseball-reference.com/about/[team_IDs](MLB team abbreviations).}

    1928: New York Yankees win their second straight World Series title, with another Series-shutout…

In 1928, the American League’s New York Yankees won their second consecutive (and then-3rd overall) World Series title. Coming off the heels of the legendary 1927 Yankees (when they swept the Pittsburgh Pirates in 4 games), the 1928 Yankees repeated, by sweeping the National League’s St. Louis Cardinals. The Yankees beat out the Philadelphia Athletics by 2.5 games for the 1928 AL pennant; the Cardinals beat out the Cubs (by 2 games) and the Giants (by 4 games), for the NL pennant.

The Yankees used only 3 pitchers in the 1928 World Series: Waite Hoyt, Tom Zachary, and George Pipgras {see photo below}. Between them, they pitched 4 Complete Games. In the 1st game, RHP Waite Hoyt held the Cardinals to just 3 hits. Hoyt went the distance, and the Yankees won 4-1, with Bob Meusal hitting a HR. In the 2nd game, RHP George Pipgras also went the full 9 innings, as the Yanks won 9-4. Lou Gehrig hit a 3-run HR in the 1st inning. Pipgras gave up just 4 hits.

Two days later (Oct. 7 1928) in St. Louis, Missouri, the Yankees won their 3rd straight complete-game-win. This time, the pitcher was journeyman LHP Tom Zachary. (Zachary was picked up off waivers from Washington in August, replacing the injured Herb Pennock.) The Yanks won 7-3, on the strength of Lou Gehrig’s 2 HRs. In the 4th and final game, Waite Hoyt again threw a complete game. The Yankees hit 4 HRs…3 HRs by Babe Ruth, and one HR by Lou Gehrig (his 4th of the Series). The final score, again, was 7-3. The Yankees had swept, and they had avenged their 1926 Fall Classic loss to the Cardinals.

1927 / ’28 was the first time a team had ever swept back-to-back World Series contests. No other ball club in Major League Baseball has accomplished the feat of back-to-back World Series sweeps…but the New York Yankees have gone on to do it two more times…in 1938 / ’39, and then in 1998 / ’99.

Below: 1928 New York Yankees: the first team to ever sweep back-to-back World Series titles…
1928_ny-yankees_ws-champions_babe-ruth_lou-gehrig_waite-hoyt_george-pipgras_tom-zachary_c_.gif
Photo and Image credits above -
Photo from right-field bleachers at Yankee Stadium [opening game of 1928 World Series], from a screenshot from a video uploaded by New York Yankees at youtube.com. Waite Hoyt, Tom Zachary, George Pipgras [photo taken before game 1 of the 1928 WS]: photo from gettyimages.com. Gehrig and Ruth [circa 1928], photo from Wikimedia Commons via pinstripealley.com.

___

Photo and Image credits on the map page…
1928 World Series champions New York Yankees…
Babe Ruth [colorized photo from 1928], photo unattributed at twitter.com/[@baseballincolor]. Lou Gehrig [photo circa 1927], from Bettman-Corbis/Getty Images via si.com. Herb Pennock [photo circa 1928], unattributed at cmgworldwide.com. Waite Hoyt [photo circa 1928], unattributed at baseballhall.org. Tony Lazzeri [photo from 1929], photo unattributed at mearsonlineauctions.com. George Pipgras [photo circa 1928], unattributed at fold3.com. Earle Combs [photo circa 1927], unattributed at pinterest.com. Miller Huggins [colorized photo circa 1929], photo unattributed and colorized by Don Stokes at baseballhistorycomesalive.com. “Murderers Row”, featuring Gehrig, Ruth, Combes, Lazzeri [colorized photo from 1929], photo unattributed at flickr.com/[Willie Brown]. Photo of 1928 World Series Game 1 ticket, from hugginsandscott.com.

1928 MLB stats leaders…
Dazzy Vance (BRO) [photo circa 1928], photo unattributed at sabr.org. Larry Doyle (NYG) [photo circa 1928], trading card from vintagecardprices.com. Burleigh Grimes (PIT) [photo circa 1929], photo unattributed at oldbucs.blogspot.com. Dazzy Vance (BRO) [photo circa 1924], photo unattributed at mearsonlineauctions.com. Rogers Hornsby (BSN) [photo from 1928], photo from the cover of Time Magazine via File:Rogers Hornsby 1928.jpg (commons.wikimedia.org). Babe Ruth (NYY) [photo circa 1927], unattributed at huntauctions.com. Lou Gehrig (NYY) [photo circa 1928], unattributed at sabr.org. Babe Ruth (NYY) [photo circa 1927], from Bettman-Corbis/Getty Images via si.com.

Thanks to all at the following links…
Sources:
-University of Texas at Austin online archive (Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection), legacy.lib.utexas.edu/maps/united_states.html.
-Baseball-Reference.com, 1928 AL season1928 NL season.
-Baseball Hall of Fame’s Dressed to the Nines (uniforms illustrated by Marc Okkonen), exhibits.baseballhalloffame.org/dressed_to_the_nines/database.htm.
-US cities’ populations (1920 figures), biggestuscities.com/1920.
-Attendances. Source: baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/1928-misc.shtml.
Most logos from:
-SportsLogos.net, sportslogos.net/[MLB logos].
-1928 Detroit Tigers home jersey script- logo, illustration from flickr.com/photos/heritagesportsart.
-1928 NY Giants road cap logo, photo from sportscards.com.

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