What No Replayer Can Go Without
The Sporting News Baseball Guide
Reviewing a Classic
Most serious replayers will tell you that the first step in starting a replay is to review the annual baseball guide for the season you’ve chosen.
As we will soon see, this leaves you with a choice for many pre-World War II seasons. There were actually two guides for years: the Reach Guide and the Spalding Guide. But we’ll leave that debate for another day.
Instead, we want to focus our attention today on The 1949 Sporting News Baseball Guide, a classic that is sure to get you geared up for your latest baseball project.
The thing that many younger fans don’t realize about these guides is that they were more than just a collection of statistics and occasional pictures. The writing inside them was superb, and there was coverage of all the key moments of each season. If you’re doing any sort of serious research on any baseball season, you really need to start off with these old guides.
Why Not Review 1950?
The first question you’re going to ask me is why in the world I wouldn’t review the 1950 guide instead. After all, that is the guide that covers the action that took place in 1949.
We will get to the 1950 guide in due time. However, reviewing the 1949 guide allows us to see what the key stories and discussions leading into the 1949 season were like. It also helps us have a feel for the culture of baseball in 1949, including some cultural tidbits that have been lost to time.
Where to Get the Guide
You can find these guides on eBay, though you might wind up having to pay a bit of money for them.
For some years, though, you can also find copies for free at the Internet Archive.
Here is a link to the 1949 guide.
1948 In Review
This baseball guide gives a lot of information about managerial changes, which were widespread in 1948 and which have largely gone forgotten today. 4 managerial changes took place during 1948, and 3 more took place at the end of the season — that makes 7 in all, which is significant when there were only 16 major league teams in total.
1948 was also the year of Bill Veeck, as noted here:
No matter how much you may like your sports management simulation, it will never come close to replicating the big stunts and promotions that Veeck put on in 1948. We’ve never seen anything like him in all of world sport, and I’m afraid that we’ll never see the likes of him again.
But, as noted here, Veeck was also a shrewd trader. He turned the Indians into a contender in a single season, and would have had an amazing team if he had managed to pick up Stephens before the Red Sox got him. And note, of course, that the transaction listings on sites like Baseball Reference will never mention the ones that got away; you’ve got to go to the contemporary publications for that.
The old Sporting News Guides also offer excellent pennant race reviews, like this:
You almost certainly knew about that one game playoff — but did you know that there was a real possibility of a three way tie for first place near the end of the season?
Odds and Ends
Did you know that the 1948 Cleveland Indians pitched 47 straight scoreless innings?
You probably also didn’t know about that 1903 Cleveland pitching staff. I didn’t know about them until reading this earlier today.
How about the hitting exploits of Pat Seerey?
Seerey is another one of those players who is worthy of a spotlight in these pages. He managed only 7 plate appearances with the White Sox in early 1949 before being sent back to the minor leagues for good. You can read more in his SABR biography. Seerey is one of those odd players who did something that few had ever done before or have ever done since, and yet he has been condemned to the margins of history.
Or what about the 1948 Cincinnati Reds, who had so few catchers that Dewey Williams had to serve out a suspension in uniform in case their sole remaining catcher was injured?
Note that there was no second guessing here of Cincinnat’s roster management, which is where questions really should have been placed.
Williams, by the way, never played in the major leagues again after 1948. He, too, has been memoralized in a well-written SABR biography that most of us have never come across before.
Ever wonder why I’ve been flummoxed at Brooklyn’s inability to hit so far in 1949? This might tell you why:
One more thing. My constant comments about hitters going too deep in the count in Diamond Mind Baseball is somewhat offset by this comment about the 1948 World Series:
Perhaps taking pitches was more in vogue in this era than I thought.
An Old Controversy
Finally, I came across this infamous play from Game 1 of the 1948 World Series:
A little bit of history is necessary here.
This came in the 8th inning of that first game. Boston and Cleveland were deadlocked in a scoreless draw.
Catcher Bill Salkeld walked for the Braves, and was replaced at first by pinch runner Phil Masi. We know Masi, of course, and have seen that he was a pretty fast runner for a catcher.
Mike McCormick bunted Masi to second base, which was the first out of the inning.
Cleveland starter Bob Feller then intentionally walked Eddie Stanky, which was the right call. Sibby Sisti came in to pinch run for Stanky at first.
That brought up pitcher Johnny Sain (of “pray for rain” fame), who lined out to Wally Judnich in deep right field for the second out.
And that brought up this play.
Feller and player-manager Lou Boudreau had worked out an excellent pickoff play at second over the course of the 1948 season. They decided to put it into action here.
And, to be honest, it really looks like the play worked. I think Masi was out.
If you think those pictures above aren’t clear enough, let’s look at a few other sources.
First comes this from The Sporting News:
Sadly, the photo quality here isn’t quite as good as in the guide above.
Now, I don’t have any access to Cleveland newspapers, largely due to poor rights management on the part of ProQuest (a rant for another time). However, I can find clippings from Akron, Ohio, which is somewhat close. This was on the front page:
Some “mild dispute!”
For good measure, the Boston Globe also had it on the front page:
That’s the clearest photo I’ve seen of the play. Here’s the entire sequence:
As a side note, that issue of the Boston Globe also has what I consider to be the best artistic representation of this World Series game, thanks to the immortal Gene Mack:
Forgive me for beating the horse to death, but there is actually video of that play — if you’re interested, of course.
I knew about this play because of a segment in an old video called The History of Baseball from early 1987. You can see the relevant clip here.
Alternatively, you can watch this from the official World Series video, as long as the link stays up:
And, if you’re really interested, you can listen to a clip of the radio broadcast here.
I think it’s clear that Masi was out at second base. And it’s amazing to me just how passionate I can feel about a play that took place in a random World Series game 75 years ago.
Anyway, as the historians will tell you, Tommy Holmes singled, Masi scored from second, and Feller never won a World Series game. All of this because of a blown call at second base.
What We’re Missing
They don’t make books like these anymore. I consider that to be a massive shame. It’s one more piece of the former culture surrounding baseball that is conspicuously missing.
Now, I know that information is digital these days, and that there isn’t the same statistical need that there once was.
However, it’s really nice to have old guides like this to refresh our memories on some of the controversies of the past — and to help us get to know players that have been lost in the footnotes of history. These guides weren’t only statistical books, although they were a bit numbers heavy. They featured excellent writing as well, and serve as quick indexes of the biggest controversies and stories of the year.
All in all, there’s nothing quite like a good old baseball guide to reignite those old controversies — or to get you ready for your replay project!