Controversy in Boston!
Did I do it wrong?
Controversy in Boston!
You know, the worst part about filming these games is that my idiotic decisions are suddenly on display for the whole world to see.
The Boston Doves are longshots for pennant contenders in any 1908 project. It’s early, and so the Doves are still just a few games off the pace.
That was also true on this date in 1908, by the way. This is from The Boston Globe on April 25, 1908:
If you squint your eyes just right, you’ll see that the Doves were 4-5, and yet were only 3 games off the pace of the league-leading Cubs. Apologies for the lack of focus, though there’s not much we can do with age-old microfilm.
There’s also this cartoon, which is much more interesting:
My Poor Decision?
We’ll jump right into the heart of the action. The Phillies led, 2-0, as we entered the bottom of the 9th. Up for Boston was right fielder Johnny Bates, taking his cuts against Philadelphia starter Tully Sparks:
Bates advanced to second when Dan McGann grounded out. That put a runner on at second base with one out.
The advantage was two runs, of course, which is why I didn’t bother to bunt or do any of that 1908 small ball stuff. Bill Sweeney was up, and I knew he had to swing away:
Sweeney got the base hit, knocked in the run, but was then thrown out trying to steal second when the next batter came up.
And this is where the controversy lies.
NPIII includes these small caught stilling indicators, which those of us in the know refer to as the “little c.” These indicate times when the batter is caught stealing. It’s a forced event, and it is actually quite helpful. It saves the manager the trouble of trying to call for stolen bases “realistically.”
And that’s not all. The “little c” ratings also ensure that you get enough outs on the basepaths. I mentioned before how important outs are. If your out totals are off, you’re going to have major problems, no matter how good your game engine is at replicating base hits, extra base hits, and so on.
Now, I don’t have the space here to go into too much detail about this stolen base system. If you are curious, watch this video:
The system isn’t required, by the way. In clutch situations, there is a way you can tell the batter not to steal a base if he gets a hit. In fact, it’s right up there in that screenshot:
That brings us the question: is it realistic for Sweeney to steal here?
Well — it’s kind of hard to say.
The problem is that we simply don’t have caught stealing statistics from this era.
Now, I know how these Skeetersoft NPIII cards were made — well, in a general sense, that is. The caught stealing totals for each batter are estimated using a formula, and using what little data is available.
They might not be perfect, but they are absolutely good enough for our purposes. A casual glance at Baseball Reference tells me that Sweeney was successful at stealing a base 17 times in 1908. He had 84 singles (102 hits, minus 15 doubles, minus 3 triples, and minus 0 home runs), 45 walks, and 0 times hit by pitch, meaning that he was on first 129 times.
For the sake of simplicity, let’s pretend that he stole second base each of those 17 times. We don’t know this, of course, because the play-by-play data for 1908 is still incomplete (and I should say that it’s a miracle that we have anything). In other words, he’s stealing second base about 13% of the time.
Given all of that, it’s not inconceivable to me that he would try to get himself into scoring position in this situation. This isn’t a player who is dreadfully slow, nor is this a player who seems to be thrown out every single time he gives it a try.
You can see what I mean if you take a look at his card, too:
My apologies in advance to those who aren’t yet fluent in the language of National Pastime and APBA.
Sweeney has 2 of those “little c” readings on his cad, flanked by 1 “11” stolen base result, and 1 “10” that is a steal a certain percentage of the time. Now, those “little c” results are only going to come into play if he’s not facing a grade B pitcher, and will only be activated if there is not a lead runner on at second base. Neither of these restrictions apply to the “11” result, and the pitcher’s grade impact comes in only rarely to impact the “10.”
What I’m trying to say here is that Sweeney’s card isn’t exactly an automatic caught stealing. I’d say he actually has a better chance of stealing successfully than being caught, though he’s probably just going to ground out or strike out most of the time.
That’s my defense.
Still, there’s a lot of second guessing that ought to take place. Sweeney’s caught stealing was the second out, and the Doves simply had no chance after that.
