Scientific Baseball
Small Ball in 1908
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Scientific Baseball
1908 was the year of small ball.
It’s not hard to see that this is the case.
Batters in the 1908 American League hit for .239 on average, with a .294 on base percentage (easily the worst in American League history) and a .304 slugging percentage (also easily the worst in American League history). Teams scored 3.44 runs per game, behind only the 1968 American League, in which teams scored 3.41 runs per game.
The 1908 National League was similar. Hitters in the National League also posted a .239 batting average in aggregate (lowest in National League history), with a .299 on base percentage (the lowest post-1888 total in National League history) and a .306 slugging percentage (easily the lowest in National League history). And the 3.33 runs per game in the National League was by far the lowest total in baseball history, beating out even the 3.43 of 1968.
It wasn’t a great year to be a hitter.
Up-To-Date Baseball
The baseball analysis of the day (yes, it did exist) reflected the reality in the ballpark.
Take this excerpt from The Unforgettable Season, a compilation of contemporary newspaper articles that every baseball fan needs to read:
Apologies for not showing the original newspaper scan; due to monopolistic behavior on the part of Proquest, I have no way of accessing the Evening Journal archives.
The point here is that “up-to-date” baseball back in 1908 was clearly defined by playing for a single run at a time. That was the intelligent way of playing in those days: the “scientific” game.
Want to see more sources? Sure thing.
“Up-to-date” baseball seems to have been universally recognized as playing a baserunning-heavy, single run focused game of strategy:
You can see here that the baseball of the time seemed to include a touch of psychology and deception to go along with the heavy pitching of the day. Of course, with runs so hard to come by, it’s no real wonder that players did all they could to score a run.
Similarly, it’s safe to say that phrases like “strategic baseball” in 1908 always meant playing for a single run:
“Baseball strategy” in those days seems to have more to do with double steals (and preventing them) than with figuring out how to find more line drive hitters in the Adam Dunn tradition. Take this, for example:
Hints of Advanced Analysis
There are also hints from time to time of advanced baseball analysis. Take this excerpt from The Boston Globe for example:
The same article included a bit of insight into some roster management theories of the time:
As always, you’ll see a bit of pining for the “good old days” of the past, which is one of the great constants of baseball history. And I’ll bet you weren’t expecting to see a 1908 article about how the pitchers of a generation earlier were so much better.
Teamwork
One of my pet peeves with modern sabermetrics is its emphasis on individual performances at the expense of teamwork. In my mind, that is responsible for the lack of attention paid to team defense (which is a thing), as well as the general disdain for sacrifice bunts (which has a lot to do with the designated hitter concept). More on all that later.
This plainly shows that the common sense surrounding 1908 baseball was completely different:
Also worth noting here are the complaints about games being delayed by meetings on the mound and players not running to their positions in the field. I suppose those complaints about baseball games taking too long are nothing new.
The Original Orioles
If you look into the old newspapers for the source of this strategy, you’ll find the same answer everywhere. It all came from the original Orioles of the mid-1890s. That was true even in Hartford:
By the way, as you probably already know, batters being called out on strikes after a foul bunt with two strikes was relatively new. It was first adopted in the National League in 1901, and did not shift to the American League until after the peace agreement of 1903. You can read more in this excellent CBS Sports piece.
Home Runs
However, don’t be fooled. Over-the-fence home runs were actually a thing in 1908. They just weren’t all that common.
While researching for this article, I came across this account purely by accident:
Judging from the description on ballparks.com, I would guess that the fence that Ferris and Waddell homered over was about 380 feet or so away. That’s an impressive feat, especially for the era of dirty baseballs with dead corks.
And, since we’re having fun with these old newspaper accounts, I figured I’d include some of the accompanying small articles for the sake of posterity:
I bet Ferris was happy, though the interesting thing to me here is the lack of any comment on how Rube Waddell must have felt.
I was tempted to write that home runs might not have been such a big news back then. However, they must have been a big deal if three people fainted from excitement. And the cheering lasting so long really must have been a sight to behold.
If Waddell had hit this home run in Diamond Mind Baseball, we’d see a ton of posts on the official forums about how unrealistic the game is. After all, he hadn’t homered for 6 years!
And I suspect that the tally of 18,000 in the crowd might have been a little bit inflated, even if this was a Sunday game. Ballparks.com estimates that 18,000 was the crowd limit after renovations in 1909. The 1908 version of the park probably looked more like it did in 1902:
I really have a hard time seeing how they would cram 18,000 into this park, even if there were similar seats on the first base side.