The player limit of 21 didn't start until May 15, according to the article, so Halas's four starts, for example, all happened earlier than that, and Lamar's only start for New York was on May 14. (Lamar became a regular for the Red Sox after June 30, the only player in the group to play for another MLB team during 1919.)
Despite the author's claim hat his list includes 19 players and three alternatives, it actually lists 21 and three.. So if Huggins had 25, it'd seem that this guy only eliminated one of them, and all of the reserves (including Halas and Lamar) played after May 15, though not extensively. Comparing the list to the 1919 roster on BRef, of the 24,, only catcher Baldwin didn't play, and Schneider didn't play until June 25. Don't know what conclusion to draw from that: was enforcement up to the teams rather than the league?
Another thing to keep in mind is that the league really didn’t have an effective mechanism to strictly enforce these limits.
This is particularly apparent if you look at the attempts to impose even stricter roster limits in 1901 and 1902. The league came down with the rules, but they were pretty helpless in the face of managers using trial contracts to temporarily sign local sandlot players for one-off games.
Anyway, this is one of the reasons why we really could use a comprehensive database of transactions. The Diamond Mind disk actually does a really good job of getting the active rosters correct…
Thanks for the newspaper scans. The 21-man 1919 limit was news to me. But I don’t think we gamers are unaware that ye olde tyme pitchers have higher fatigue ratings than the more modern hurlers. That said, I’m probably the only gamer who found APBA and Strat-O-Matic’s old 20-man rosters acceptable. 12 batters, 8 pitchers, 4-man rotations. In my universes, an injury that cleaned out a position like catcher didn’t count until after the first sidelined player “returned,” LOL. Increasing specialization required bigger rosters, but the Big Two game companies made us pay for “additional players.”
I have wondered where the 21 man roster cards came from. That'd be a pretty tight crew. Definitely interesting that they thought that their ideal 25 man roster included 12 fielders and 3 catchers but only 10 pitchers. Seems like a lot more depth to have in the infield and outfield than you would potentially need. Even with the pitchers being able to go deeper, it still seems like it would be a position more prone to injury.
It will be fun to follow the progress of your 1919 replay. It seems that 25 was the roster size come May 15th that year. I am guessing the 21-man limit at the start might have been a holdover from the war impacted 1918 season?
Still very high by modern standards, but pitchers did not complete the game on average 42 percent of the time. So, for most games always had a few arms ready to be called. But not throwing a complete game was still the exception.
The player limit of 21 didn't start until May 15, according to the article, so Halas's four starts, for example, all happened earlier than that, and Lamar's only start for New York was on May 14. (Lamar became a regular for the Red Sox after June 30, the only player in the group to play for another MLB team during 1919.)
Despite the author's claim hat his list includes 19 players and three alternatives, it actually lists 21 and three.. So if Huggins had 25, it'd seem that this guy only eliminated one of them, and all of the reserves (including Halas and Lamar) played after May 15, though not extensively. Comparing the list to the 1919 roster on BRef, of the 24,, only catcher Baldwin didn't play, and Schneider didn't play until June 25. Don't know what conclusion to draw from that: was enforcement up to the teams rather than the league?
Another thing to keep in mind is that the league really didn’t have an effective mechanism to strictly enforce these limits.
This is particularly apparent if you look at the attempts to impose even stricter roster limits in 1901 and 1902. The league came down with the rules, but they were pretty helpless in the face of managers using trial contracts to temporarily sign local sandlot players for one-off games.
Anyway, this is one of the reasons why we really could use a comprehensive database of transactions. The Diamond Mind disk actually does a really good job of getting the active rosters correct…
Thanks for the newspaper scans. The 21-man 1919 limit was news to me. But I don’t think we gamers are unaware that ye olde tyme pitchers have higher fatigue ratings than the more modern hurlers. That said, I’m probably the only gamer who found APBA and Strat-O-Matic’s old 20-man rosters acceptable. 12 batters, 8 pitchers, 4-man rotations. In my universes, an injury that cleaned out a position like catcher didn’t count until after the first sidelined player “returned,” LOL. Increasing specialization required bigger rosters, but the Big Two game companies made us pay for “additional players.”
I have wondered where the 21 man roster cards came from. That'd be a pretty tight crew. Definitely interesting that they thought that their ideal 25 man roster included 12 fielders and 3 catchers but only 10 pitchers. Seems like a lot more depth to have in the infield and outfield than you would potentially need. Even with the pitchers being able to go deeper, it still seems like it would be a position more prone to injury.
It will be fun to follow the progress of your 1919 replay. It seems that 25 was the roster size come May 15th that year. I am guessing the 21-man limit at the start might have been a holdover from the war impacted 1918 season?
Still very high by modern standards, but pitchers did not complete the game on average 42 percent of the time. So, for most games always had a few arms ready to be called. But not throwing a complete game was still the exception.