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ominated the american league with a record of 102 50 and outpacing the senators by 14 games the speed boys as they were known despite stealing only 185 bases the senators led with 274 and leading the league in homeruns with 29 led the league in runs scored and fewest runs allowed in the national league the giants while not as dominant won 103 games and finally shook off both the pirates and cubs in the final months of the season for the giants it was their second consecutive appearance in the series having lost to connie mack s athletics in six games in 1911 while the red sox were returning for the first time since the inaugural series played in 1903 from there the book offers a chapter for each of the eight games and an extra for the final day of the series along with a well done epilogue that wraps up the few loose ends that remain and provides a platform for a poignant commentary on how we remember our heroes perhaps the only nitpick with the presentation is the lack of an index a feature most readers with baseball libraries would i m sure find useful if the first fall classic isn t quite as comprehensive in its historical context as murphy s or certainly josh prager s the echoing green in terms of the style vaccaro hits a homerun in his descriptions of the action on the field he notes in the introduction that the bulk of his research was in reading contemporary news accounts and so given the colorful language and detailed play by play that newspapers of that time produced perhaps some of that rubbed off as i found that the sense of drama and reality he portrayed was simply first rate while prior to reading i had a summary knowledge of the series although not all the particulars to be sure several chapters had that page turner quality that are inherent in well written books if for no other reason than its readability and drama i d recommend this book of course when coupled with the other reasons noted at the beginning of this review picking up this book is simply a no brainer for anyone with an interest in a truer picture of the game s past as a quick aside as always books like this interest me because of their ability to contrast knowingly or unknowingly how the game was played in the past with its modern version and of course those that describe play in the dead ball era when the art of playing for one run was king and defenses weren t particularly efficient in turning batted balls into outs are even more appealing to that end a crucial baserunning gaffe or should i say base coaching gaffe by one of the teams in game three grabbed my attention since it came at an interesting time in the evolution of the practice of employing full time coaches while the first fill time coach arlie latham was hired by the reds in 1900 it would be 20 years before the practice was widely accepted not surprisingly it was mcgraw who hired both latham and duke farrell as full time coaches in 1909 while other teams used either their manager or a rotating set of players although the gaffe from game three might have occurred if there were a full time coach there or not it illustrates how far specialization in the game has come and with it a higher overall level of play posted by dan agonistes at 7 59 pm 104 comments labels baseball history giants red sox world series saturday september 20 2008 as time goes by today we ll run another tidbit from the errata of it ain t over til it s over the baseball prospectus pennant race book during which decade did baseball fans enjoy the best pennant races bill james in the new bill james historical abstract says unequivocally that the 1940s was the best decade ever for pennant races our compilation of race score by decade agrees decade aggregate races avg 1900s 375 5 12 31 3 1910s 234 9 9 26 1 1920s 423 6 12 35 3 1930s 226 1 13 17 4 1940s 390 9 11 35 5 1950s 371 5 12 31 0 1960s 385 1 12 32 1 1970s 310 0 17 18 2 1980s 354 1 20 17 7 1990s 247 0 16 15 4 2000s 431 5 27 16 0 the 1940s pulled out the highest average race score although the 1920s came in a close second and actually included one more race interestingly the 1930s included 13 races the highest percentage at 65 of any decade and nine of those were in the nl with only 1931 excluded however many of the races were only marginal with the 1934 nl race won by the cardinals on the strength of a 33 12 record down the stretch taking the highest score at 29 9 and ranking 43rd james ranks the races of the 1940s and so here is his list alongside our ranking james year lg score rank teams winner 1 1940 al 46 0 16 3 detroit tigers 90 64 2 1944 al 21 0 80 2 st louis browns 89 65 3 1948 al 72 0 3 3 cleveland indians 97 58 4 1946 nl 32 9 35 2 st louis cardinals 98 58 5 1949 nl 37 0 30 2 brooklyn dodgers 97 57 6 1949 al 37 0 29 2 new york yankees 97 57 7 1942 nl 50 9 15 2 st louis cardinals 106 48 8 1941 nl 36 5 31 2 brooklyn dodgers 100 54 9 1945 al 18 0 86 2 detroit tigers 88 65 10 1945 nl 29 9 43 2 chicago cubs 98 56 1947 nl 9 8 2 brooklyn dodgers 94 60 the only race from the 1940s that james doesn t include is the 1947 nl race which ranks 121st on our list in which the dodgers overcame the braves at midseason and held off the cardinals winning by a margin of five games as james notes the nl races of the 1940s were dominated by the dodgers and cardinals while in the al the races were more diverse this compilation by decade also reinforces the notion that modern races garner lower race scores overall as not only the average race score has declined but also the number of races that have positive scores has fallen from around 57 before divisional play to 44 after but since our race score gives extra weight to races with multiple teams with good records this trend can also be attributed to an increasing competitive balance over time as shown in the graph below for the al from 1901 2005 the standard deviation in winning percentage has noticeably declined over time albeit with a number of bumps along the way and a small upturn in the past five years as the dotted linear trend line indicates as more teams are bunched closer together it is statistically less likely that two or more teams will break away from the pack and therefore score very highly in the race score metric just why competitive balance has generally increased with time is another story the most accepted notion popularized by the late paleontologist and baseball fan stephen jay gould in the context of the disappearance of the 400 hitter wrests upon two pillars first as knowledge about how to play the game has improved and become standardized it has become more difficult for players and hence teams to take advantage of their less skilled competitors second the general level of play has increased due to better athletes produced through a larger population from which the best players are chosen better diet and training and better technology all of which moves the game closer to the limits of human ability providing less space for variation in the end that leaves great players and great teams in gould s words less space for taking advantage of the suboptimality of others the 1996 book full house the spread of excellence from plato to darwin by stephen jay gould contains an extended discussion of gould s argument also see my column schrodinger s bat the myth of the golden age posted by dan agonistes at 5 19 am 92 comments labels baseball history pennant races tuesday september 16 2008 the wheel of change with the firing of ned yost yesterday with less than two weeks to go in the regular season i thought it would be interesting to continue the errata from it ain t over til it s over the baseball prospectus pennant race book with this tidbit on managerial changes and pennant winners after dropping a 4 2 contest to brooklyn at ebbets field on tuesday august 2nd 1932 the cubs under manager rogers hornsby were sitting at 53 46 in second place staring up at the pirates who held a 5 game lead as in his three previous managerial jobs hornsby rubbed the powers that be the wrong way and william veeck father of the more famous bill veeck ousted him and his 8 000 per month salary for the best interests of the club as the cubs traveled on to philadelphia in his place he ensconced first baseman charlie grimm after an off day the team beat the phillies 12 1 with the pirates dropping a doubleheader to the dodgers to shrink the lead to three and a half games under grimm the cubs went a sizzling 37 18 the rest of the way including a 14 game winning streak from the 20th of august through the 3rd of september the pirates meanwhile struggled to a 27 26 finish thereby propelling the cubs to the pennant by a comfortable 4 game margin and coming in 132nd in our rankings the distinction of the 1932 season was that it was the first time in the modern era that a team changed managers in mid season and went on to win the pennant perhaps inspired by the move owner p k wrigley in 1938 with his team in third place with a record of 45 36 5 5 games out fired grimm at the end of july and replaced him with catcher gaby hartnett in no small part the hiring of grimm as the needed sparkplug was based on the results of a study performed by a university of illinois professor wrigley hired to psychoanalyze the team while team chemistry is often derided perhaps the professor was onto something down the stretch the cubs posted a 44 27 record including a 10 game winning streak from september 22 28 and of course famously it was manager hartnett who homered in the bottom of the ninth on september 28th with darkness threatening to give the cubs a 6 5 win over the pirates and the league lead which they would not relinquish that 1938 race ranked 70th in our list and so in the span of six years the cubs had twice replaced their manager well into the season and both times it paid dividends although these first two occurrences were wildly successful it would take another 40 years and the advent of divisional play before the fateful summer of 1978 would see a similar occurrence with the yankees sitting at 52 43 in fourth place and behind the red sox by 10 5 games on the morning of july 25th bob lemon would replace billy martin dick howser managed one game in the interim who resigned after disparaging comments referencing star reggie jackson and owner george steinbrenner lemon is credited with calming the stormy sea and the team went on a 47 20 tear to tie for the al east title and then well the rest as they say is history it wasn t long after that three teams in the fateful summer of 1981 would make the post season after having made a managerial change the kansas city royals slumped badly in the first half after their 1980 world series appearance posting a 20 30 record under manager jim frey after opening the second half 10 10 frey was dismissed in favor of dick howser and the royals went 20 13 the rest of the way winning the second half western division title the montreal expos were in a similar situation posting a 30 25 record in the first half under dick williams a 14 12 record to begin the second half led to his ouster and replacement by jim fanning who guided the team to a 16 11 finish and the expos only post season appearance the yankees led by gene michael won the al east first half title with a record of 34 22 however a 14 12 start to the second half led to michael s replacement by the miracle worker of 1978 bob lemon this time though the yanks did not respond and went 11 14 the rest of the way before picking themselves back up and beating the brewers and the a s enroute to the world series this was the only time in history that a post season team s replacement manager had a worse record than the manager being replaced but none of these were statistically speaking anyway the biggest turnarounds correlated with managerial changes by post season teams that honor goes to the 1989 toronto blue jays after enduring a 12 24 333 start under jimmy williams general manager pat gillick hired cito gaston on may 31st as the interim manager that interim title was quickly forgotten as the jays reeled off a 77 49 611 record with the help of acquisitions lee mazzilli and mookie wilson from the mets leading to a 20 9 august that saw them pull into a first place tie with the surprising orioles as the month closed after holding a slim lead most of the month of september the jays hooked up with the orioles in a three game series at the new sky dome opened in june and host to a new major league attendance record of almost 3 4 million fans on the season s final weekend with the orioles one game back the blue jays took the first two games of the series 2 1 and 4 3 to seal the deal and come in 129th in our rankings the difference in winning percentage after the managerial change of 278 was the largest in history by a wide margin all of the races already mentioned and a few more where post season teams have made managerial moves are shown in the table below and sorted by change in winning percentage year team lg manager w l pct replaced by w l pct change 1989 toronto al jimmy williams 12 24 0 333 cito gaston 77 49 0 611 0 278 2003 florida nl jeff torborg 16 22 0 421 jack mckeon 75 49 0 605 0 184 1981 kansas city al jim frey 30 40 0 429 dick howser 20 13 0 606 0 177 1978 new york al billy martin 52 43 0 547 bob lemon 48 20 0 706 0 159 2004 houston nl jimmy williams 44 44 0 500 phil garner 48 26 0 649 0 149 1932 chicago nl rogers hornsby 53 46 0 535 charlie grimm 37 18 0 673 0 137 1982 milwaukee al buck rodgers 23 24 0 489 harvey kuenn 72 43 0 626 0 137 1983 philadelphianl pat corrales 43 42 0 506 paul owens 47 30 0 610 0 105 1988 boston al john mcnamara 43 42 0 506 joe morgan 46 31 0 597 0 092 1938 chicago nl charlie grimm 45 36 0 556 gabby hartnett 44 27 0 620 0 064 1981 montreal nl dick williams 44 37 0 543 jim fanning 16 11 0 593 0 049 1996 los angeles nl tommy lasorda 41 35 0 539 bill russell 49 37 0 570 0 030 1981 new york al gene michael 48 34 0 585 bob lemon 11 14 0 440 0 145 a few notes fifteen years after his replacement by gaston jimmy williams was once again shoved aside in favor of phil garner who led the astros to a playoff appearance in 2004 making williams the only manager to capture such a distinction trader jack mckeon captures the second biggest turnaround with the marlins 75 49 finish on the way to their second world championship mckeon was no stranger to big turnarounds on may 23 1978 the a s were leading the al west by two games with a record of 24 15 when manager bobby winkles deciding he d had enough of charlie finley stepped down mckeon replaced winkles who ironically had replaced him the previous season and the a s went on to post a 45 78 record good for the largest drop in winning percentage after a managerial change at 250 the replacement in 1982 of buck rodgers by harvey kuenn was told in colorful detail by daniel okrent in his classic 9 innings mike caldwell ted simmons and rollie fingers were among the most vocal of rodgers critics in fact a p...