Outfielders Danny Murphy, Bris Lord and Rube Oldring batted a composite .312, while pitchers Jack Coombs, Eddie Plank, Chief Bender and Cy Morgan combined for 82 victories. The Athletics’ World Series opponent was the New York Giants, setting up a rematch of the storied, shutout-punctuated 1905 fall classic that paired Mack’s team against John McGraw’s…

The American League champion Philadelphia Athletics put up some pretty good numbers in 1910, too — collectively and individually. The young A’s won 102 games and took the AL pennant by 14 1/2 games. They boasted .300 hitters in second baseman Eddie Collins and outfielders Rube Oldring and Danny Murphy and a 31-game winner in…

Wagner won his seventh NL championship in 1909 (he added an eighth and last title two years later), hitting .339. Howie Camnitz and Vic Willis won 25 and 22 games, respectively, for the Pirates and Lefty Leifield posted 19 victories. Detroit won its third straight AL flag in 1909, paced by the hitting of Ty…

In a September 23 Cubs-Giants game, Merkle failed to touch second base when Al Bridwell delivered an apparent game-winning hit in the bottom of the ninth inning. By the time the Cubs retrieved the ball and eventually forced Merkle at second, fans had swarmed the field. With order impossible to restore, the game was declared…

Sure enough, Donovan struck out Howard. Tiger fans couldn’t have asked for more. Except, maybe, for catcher Charlie Schmidt to hang on to the ball. Schmidt didn’t. And as the ball got away from the second-year major leaguer, Steinfeldt raced home with the game-tying run. Donovan retired the side, but the real damage had been…

Unquestionably, all of Chicago was abuzz over the World Series pairing. The South Side Sox against the West Side Cubs. (The National Leaguers’ move to the North Side was another decade away.) Manager Fielder Jones’ White Sox played true to form in the first four games of the Series (Games 1 and 2, incidentally, were…

The New York Giants, having scuttled the 1904 World Series with an unmistakable air of disdain, were willing participants in the 1905 fall classic. And with righthanded sensation Christy Mathewson in tow, why not? The 25-year-old Mathewson had just reached the 30-victory plateau for the third consecutive season. It’s not that the 1904 Giants, National…

After going at each other viciously for two years, the established National League and fledgling American League buried the hatchet, at least temporarily, in 1903 — thanks in large part to the owners of the NL’s Pittsburgh club and the AL’s Boston team. With their clubs apparently headed toward pennants, Pittsburgh’s Barney Dreyfuss and Boston’s…