The Miracle 1924 Senators

An improbable event

The Miracle 1924 Senators

It’s funny how we tend to forget things over time.

Most of us know the stories of the famous “worst to first” teams. The 1990 Minnesota Twins finished dead last; they wound up not only winning the American League West in 1991, but managed to win the World Series that same year.

Their opponents in that World Series, the Atlanta Braves, duplicated the feat, going from last place in 1990 to first in 1991.

It’s not quite as impressive these days, of course, thanks to the abundance of divisions. There are more chances to finish in last place, and so feats like the 2013 Boston Red Sox don’t seem as impressive in comparison.

Now, the 1923 Senators didn’t finish in last place. However, the fascinating thing here is that the franchise had simply never really been in a pennant race up to that point.

For example, take this graph from the old Washington Evening Star not long after the Senators finally clinched the pennant:

From The Washington Evening Star, September 30, 1924, page 26

Even the old National League Washington team was pretty bad.

You’ll notice, of course, that the Senators finished in 2nd place in 1912 and 1913. However, they weren’t actually in a pennant race in either of those years.

The 1912 Senators were never in first place. The closest they came was within one full game after the end of play on April 24, 1912:

From The Washington Evening Star, April 25, 1912, page 18

Of course, being a game out after playing only 8 isn’t that impressive. The papers tried to play it up, however:

From The Washington Evening Star, April 25, 1912, page 18

In the heat of the pennant race, the closest they came to Boston was 5 games on August 5:

From The Washington Evening Star, August 6, 1912, page 11

Of course, the wise guys in the press just had to point out the obvious:

Not only did that not happen, but the Senators never got closer than 5 games.

In 1913, the Senators repeated the feat, finishing 2nd in the end. They were in first place on April 23, which hardly counts, since it’s when the season started. Afterwards, they came as close as a half game on April 30:

From The Washington Evening Star, May 1, 1913, page 20

The Senators only managed to hit 2nd place on September 26:

From The Washington Evening Star, September 27, 1913, page 9. Note the confusion between the winning percentages and the won-loss records.

Of course, the Philadelphia Athletics had won the pennant long before that.

The latest date Washington had ever been in first place before 1924 was June 8, 1914:

From The Washington Evening Star, June 8, 1914, page 13

And that was after only 44 of 154 games had been played.

And so you can imagine what a big deal it was that they managed to pull it off in 1924.