Evening star., 1924-11-28


The American League has record
for nnder 500 competition that makes
that of the National League take q
hack seat. In 1908, a year which
stirred with lot of excitement In
all major league base ball, the De-
troits captured the pennant with .6SS
Everybody marveled about the close
ness of the competition and Hughey
Jennings shed a flock of freckles try
ing to worry along with his troubles.
The Clevelands were the runners up
and their figures were .5S4.
The next best was the Boston hg-
ure of 5s1 in 1915 and after that came
Boston again with .595 in 1918. or
course, the season terminated abrupt
ly in 1918 because OF the work or
fight" order, but the Bostons had to
play ball all of the time to keep the
lead they started with. The Giants in
the National League, who were
thought to be probable winners. lost
their lead that year after they had
run like wildfire, because some Of the
players got so fused up over the war.
Washington Figures Next Best.
The next best figure in the Amer
ican League was that OF Washington
this year with .597. New York was
second with .5S6, which was exhibit
closeness of competition is to be taken
into consideration.
There is no such thing in base ball
board of handicappers who sit
down and attempt to distribute play
erS SO that the race for the pennant
shall be close and exciting. The
handicappers are the managers and
the owners and usually they manage
to handicap themselves as well as the
M b,,<x T. vhnr
managers fear to tread there always
is trouble. The moment a club owner
feels that he knows all about his base
ball club he is pretty sure to be head
ed for the tail-end OF the league.
The unconscious handicapping of
the American Lea que race by its
managers, assisted by it's owners, is
one of the rare things OF base ball
that cannot be explained, but 1t has
given the American League partisans
a chance to crow time and again as
to the relative value OF the two COM
petitions. The American League fans
not only say that they have better
and Closer races, but they reason
from the closeness of finish that they
have better ball players.
American League Stronger.
The Giants won their championship
in 1924 with .60S. That is one Of the
low figures of the National Leagues
history. They played against Wash
ington, a .597 team, and lost to them
In series of seven games. That is
one of the landmarks of history now.
The American Lea que fans insist that
it is only added proof to their state
ments that the American League is
collectively the stronger of the two,
because the team which won Its
league championship with the great
er percentage was defeated by the
team which won with a lesser per-
centage. Offhand. there might not
appear to be much to that except the
fact that the American League has
the better of the contention because
it captured the world series.
Keen observers Of base ball think
the lower winning percentages in
the American League are due to a
better balanced array of teams. The
outfields and the infields of the Amer
lean are rather uniform on the part
of six clubs, and there is no pre-
dominance in pitchers and catchers.
In the National League the custom
has been to center strength in two
or three clubs, while the other teams
are only auxiliary to the race, and
that argument is Well borne out by
the fact that in the National League
there have been winning percentages
repeatedly of almost 200, and some
of more than 700, while the highest
in the history of the American
League is that Of Boston, in 1912,
with .6e1. That year the Giants won
their championship with .682, and
then lost to Boston in the first series
Of eight games ever played in
world series.
(Copyrirht IQoAN