Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1917-03-15
GIANTS CHALKED UP NEW RECORDS
IN STRAIGHT WINS, BUT TWO-THIRDS
OF '16 ERA PLAYED TAIL lend CLIP
Won 43 Out of 43 Starts in Two Wild Dashes, But
the Rest of the Season Played Jowl to Jowl
With Cardinals and Reds
BY .GRANTLAND RICE

|ERTAIN citi.enS one meets up and dotcn
~ the highwdy Of this spiral cristence al
rays insist that figures are boring. dull
and ineldStic
Perhaps so.
Yet, there are frequent occasions Chen
ice tire Of romantic figures and find that
daring adventure pals. and ~1Cc turn TO
the record book OF baseball 10 liven things
up.
In wandering through these records one
eau light upon a Sufficient number Of queer
aud quaint turns to more than make IL all
Uorth tchile.
In looking through the records we paused
for a moment the 1916 career of the
Giants. After studying. the figures again
we foaad them to offer one of the oldest
turns in the history of game replete with
oddities and such.
These figures were absolutely beyond the
dope-almost beyond belief. Here is the
situation: The Giants last year played 152
ball games, of which they won Sc and lost
&c, the same being reasonable enough But
in separating these figures we come upon
this unusual turn:
OF their eighty-six victories the Giants
won no less than forty-three in two un-
broken dashes. Here them was ball
club able in May and September to win
forty-three games out of forty-three starts
That double performance at two stages
OF the race would indicate power enough 10
win a pennant in n romp.
But what of the other 100 games? Here
we find the Giants won forty-three and
lost sixty-six, leaving them a percentage
for these games of 1894, Cincinnati for last
year had percentage of 1892. So did st.
Louis in tie for last place So, in spite of
the fact that the Giants won forty-three
games in forty-three starts out of two wild
dashes. for two-thirds or the year they
skidded along at the same clip maintained
by the Cardinals and Reds.
In all the span of baseball there has
never before been such an erratic turn.
For club to smash all records for con-
secutive victories and still play at tail
end clip more thon two-thirds of the season
is at least fairly close to something new
beneath the sun"
You say this may be due to the fact that
the Giants had quite a different lineup at
the finish.
on the other fin, take the roster Of their
thirty-ttCo games. Uhere the same cast Of
fciated. From the first fifteen Of these
they ICON tiUo and lost thirteen. OF the
last seventeen they. ICON each start.
Who, in his prime. is or was, the greatest
heavyweight? In a discussion the other
night our selection was Jim Jeffries. An
other picked Jack Johnson. A third Sc
lected Jess Willard. At the end of forty
seven minutes the only proof established
was that all three were heavyweights, The
main trouble is that great fighters never
seem TO meet in their prime Corbett
knocked out Sullivan when John L. was
quvering on the edge of senescence. JEFF
fries beat Fitz when Robert the Red was
far beyond his prime johnson knocked out
Jeffries when Jeff was but a shell of the
"troglodtic behemoth" that used to be- And
when Willard beat Johnson the Zulu i'm
presario had left his prime many leagues
behind Hence. when one dives into an argu-
ment along these improbable lines, the citi-
zen with the loudest intonation and the
greatest stamina usually wins. 1t is gem
orally admitted that Fitz, poung for pound
was the greatest piece of fighting machinery
extant. But II some non-combatant desires
to ward this signal honor to Kid Lavigne
or Joe Cans. there is nothing to be done