APBA's Original Great Teams Of The Past Selections
Why did they choose what they chose?
APBA's Original Great Teams Of The Past Selections
As I mentioned the other day, we’re going to start taking a look at the greatest teams lists that show up in certain books and in sets sold by certain baseball sim companies.
We’re going to start off with the original APBA Great Teams of the Past sets.
Why? Well, there’s a story behind this.
Sports Games Publishing
During one of APBA’s many flirtations with bankruptcy, a company called Sports Games Publishing was formed. Sports Games Publishing was helpful because it offered past APBA baseball card sets for sale, something that the APBA game company was apparently not able to do at the time.
This was almost 20 years ago. I was a poor college student. And I was absolutely fascinated by a $20 set that included reproductions of the original APBA Great Teams of the Past team sets.
Those original sets dated back to the early 1950s, and were something that I wasn’t completely aware of. I had always known that APBA had created Great Teams of the Past, but had no idea that they went back to the single column era.
I bought the cards sometime around then, though I’m not sure how I got the money. Sadly, I never got around to playing with them. Changes to the APBA boards over the year made their results questionable (and the results were questionable anyway — especially that 1927 Lou Gehrig card!). I wound up selling the reprinted set a few years ago, back when we were a bit short of money for rent.
I’m not quite to the point yet where I want to look at those cards again to analyze them. However, we can at least look at some of those old teams to try to figure out what J. Richard Seitz was thinking.
Now, I’ve got an electronic copy of the revised version of the infamous APBA Zack Handbook. I used to have a scanned version of an earlier physical copy of the handbook, which had fewer typos; sadly, that file was lost several computers ago. The Zach Handbook is not necessarily the best source of information, but it can at least give us an idea of when these card sets were printed and generally in what order.
I’ve been searching high and low for scans of original APBA advertisements, especially from the 1950s. I know from this APBA Between The Lines post that there is at least one copy of an original Great Teams of the Past brochure floating around in somebody’s collection:
Sadly, the original picture has been lost to the internet abyss, as it was not picked up by any archival services.
At any rate, with the help of the Zack Handbook, we can get a pretty good idea of which teams were featured in each batch. It seems that J. Richard Seitz released the teams in small batches, at least 2 at a time, starting in 1951. The collection in question goes up through 1958, after which double columns were introduced.
First Batch: 1951
You’ll occasionally see people on message boards who claim that these card sets were released in a specific order:
I don’t know of any proof out there for this assertion — and will add that the list above is incorrect, as you’ll soon see.
However, I am quite confident that we can figure out which year the individual teams were printed based on the old cards themselves (or what we can find of them) and whatever advertising has survived over the decades. This is why I trust the analysis is the Zack Handbook, which is what I’m using for this analysis.
J. Richard Seitz printed a batch of 4 great teams of the past in 1951. These are the original great teams:
1927 Yankees (110-44, 1st place, won World Series 4-0). I don’t think this team needs any introduction. In fact, I’d argue that any great teams list that excludes this team is problematic.
1931 Athletics (107-45, 1st place, lost World Series 4-3). It’s not surprising that Seitz wanted to choose one of the great Philadelphia Athletics teams from his boyhood; after all, he did grow up in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. I’m a bit surprised that he didn’t go with the 1929 version (104-46) or the 1930 version (102-52), both of which won the World Series. One of those three teams absolutely needs to be on any greatest teams list.
1934 Cardinals (95-58, 1st place, won World Series 4-3). This is kind of a surprising choice. I presume that Seitz was mostly interested in creating a card for Dizzy Dean’s best year. You’ve got to wonder, though, why he chose this team instead of the other teams that he could have created in this initial batch.
1937 Yankees (102-52, 1st place, won World Series 4-1). Most people would choose the 1939 Yankees (106-45) instead; in fact, as we’ll see, the general consensus among older baseball geeks is that the 1939 Yankees were probably the greatest team of all time. The 1936 Yankees (102-51) also have just as much of an argument as this team does. Note that including the 1937 Yankees means that Seitz created two Lou Gehrig cards in his very first Greatest Teams of the Past batch.
Second Batch: 1952
1922 Giants (93-61, 1st place, won World Series 4-0). This is another odd decision. Yes, the Giants were in a stretch of 4 consecutive National League pennants (something that most modern fans forget: these guys weren’t that far off from the Yankees of 1936 to 1939). Yes, this team won the pennant by 7 games. But I’ve never seen this team on anybody’s list of the greatest teams of all time. Remember that this is one of the first 6 classic old time teams that Seitz printed.
1926 Cardinals (89-65, 1st place, won World Series 4-3). Another odd selection. The Cardinals not only failed to win 100 games, they didn’t even win 90! St. Louis won the National League pennant by 2 games ahead of the Cincinnati Reds — a pennant race I’ve honestly never heard of. I believe the claim to fame here is Grover Alexander coming in to save the day in the 7th game of the World Series against the hated Yankees. There’s a big question here as to why Seitz included this team over, say, the 1927 Pirates or the 1919 Reds, neither of which received single column sets.
Third Batch: 1953
1909 Tigers (98-54, 1st place, lost World Series 4-3). This isn’t a particularly controversial selection, and is probably the best of the 1907-1909 Tigers teams.
1909 Pirates (110-42, 1st place, won World Series 4-3). This is another common selection in greatest team lists. This also shows the beginning of Seitz’ obsession with classic World Series matchups, which would be on full display when the World Series version of his game came out in 1971.
Fourth Batch: 1954
APBA was growing from a kitchen table project into something big by 1954. You can see this in the expanded selection of teams. We’ll talk more about APBA’s early history later — once we finally figure out what in the world is going on with National Pastime.
1906 Cubs (116-36, 1st place, lost World Series 4-2). Another obvious choice for a greatest team list. The only question that comes up about them is whether they beat up on a weak National League, evidenced in part by their inability to win the World Series.
1906 White Sox (93-58, 1st place, won World Series 4-2). It only seems fair to make cards for the team that actually beat the 1906 Cubs. However, I’ve got to ask why in the world Seitz didn’t make cards for the 1931 Cardinals as well. Perhaps he thought the 1934 Cardinals were a more representative team? At any rate, the 1906 White Sox don’t usually make it to greatest teams lists.
1914 Braves (94-59, 1st place, won World Series 4-0). These were the famous “Miracle Braves,” a story that used to be told with every telling of early baseball history. We know now that the Braves were able to rise from last to first in the second half of the season largely because the Federal League was buying off players from the other teams. Most don’t consider these Braves to be one of the greatest teams of all time.
1922 Browns (93-61, 2nd place, 1 game behind Yankees). This is where it gets strange. Why make cards for a team that finished in second place? Can a “great team” miss out on finishing in first? I suspect that Seitz just wanted to make a card for George Sisler, who hit .420 that year. Most others don’t consider the 1922 Browns to be one of the greatest teams of all time.
1924 Senators (92-62, 1st place, won World Series 4-3). This is the most famous team in Washington D.C. history, and is actually a pretty common team to find on greatest teams lists. They won the American League pennant by 2 games over an incredibly strong Yankees team, which should add to their lore.
Fifth Batch: 1957
Seitz expanded APBA’s ratings by this time, including speed ratings, strikeout ratings, and walk ratings. As such, these 5 teams began with “type B” cards. The existing 13 Great Teams of the Past were also created and modified into “type B” cards. All single column Great Teams of the Past sets are rare; however, the ones that don’t have the extra ratings are extremely rare, as they were not sold after 1957.
1915 Red Sox (101-50, 1st place, won World Series 4-1). This is a team that is commonly forgotten among great team lists. This was Babe Ruth’s first full season as a pitcher, and featured excellent pitching performances by Ernie Shore and Smoky Joe Wood.
1917 White Sox (100-54, 1st place, won World Series 4-2). The success of this team is a big part of the reason why some people still believe the 1919 White Sox could never have lost to the Reds without cheating. The White Sox won the American League pennant by 9 games, and it really wasn’t that close.
1920 Indians (98-56, 1st place, won World Series 5-2). It’s only fair to include this team if you’re going to card the Black Sox. I don’t remember of Ray Chapman received a card in the original 20 card set; maybe somebody can let me know.
Sixth Batch: 1958
1915 Phillies (90-62, 1st place, lost World Series 4-1). Now you can really see Seitz’ preference for having World Series opponents to play against each other. Incidentally, it took the Phillies another 65 years to win a World Series game.
1920 Dodgers (93-61, 1st place, lost World Series 5-2). The Dodgers beat out a good Giants team by a comfortable margin to win the National League pennant. Having said that, there’s really no reason to consider this team one of the all-time greats, unless you happen to be a big fan of Burleigh Grimes.
Closing Remarks
This is jumping the gun a little bit, but I’m honestly not sure where Seitz got the statistics for these sets. The Baseball Encyclopedia was not published until 1969, and earlier “encyclopedias” did not include enough statistics for complete teams.
It’s possible that The Sporting News might have published features on some of these teams around this time. I’ll try to dig that out before we start digging into APBA history, though it might take a while.
Seitz might have also had access to the old Spalding and Reach guides. If that is the case, we should make sure that we compare his cards with the statistics printed in those guides, since that’s the base that he likely used. That would help explain insane cards like this (stolen from The APBA Blog):
Overall, Seitz seems to have focused on teams with interesting stories, and had a clear preference for World Series opponents. Some of these teams are unquestionably some of the greatest teams of the early 20th century. He did miss a few notables, though, such as:
1902 Pirates (103-36; a controversial team to include among the greatest teams of all time for reasons we’ll get into later)
1904 Giants (106-47; the famous team that refused to play in the scheduled World Series)
1905 Giants (105-48; this team would have worked if Seitz had insisted on reliving World Series matchups)
1910 Cubs (104-50; the 1906 Cubs arguably cover for this team)
1910 Athletics (102-48; I’m surprised Seitz didn’t include a great Philadelphia team like this one)
1912 Red Sox (105-47; considered better than the 1915 team)
1912 Giants (103-48)
1931 Cardinals (101-53; this is almost certainly a better team than the 1934 Cardinals, though I’m guessing Seitz wanted a card for Ol’ Diz)
1932 Yankees (107-47)
1934 Tigers (101-53)
1939 Yankees (106-45; almost certainly the most questionable exclusion on this list)
I’m not certain that we should consider this to be an attempt at a true “greatest teams of all time” list. My guess is that Seitz just wanted to include teams that had players he thought would be fun to play with.