WTOP - A Half-Century of Awful
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really fun tournament… can’t wait to see who ‘wins’!
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@wildfire2099 It’s been on hold for the past five days, while my kid played at a tournament in Cincinnati. Now back home, I’m finishing it up this week. Should have a ‘champion’ within a few days here…
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Game #2 of the series resulted in yet another 5-1 victory for the 1935 Braves.
Wally Berger’s three-run homer in the third inning gave Boston a commanding 4-0 lead, which proved more than enough for Fred Frankhouse (D), who allowed only one run over seven innings. In improving his W-L record to 6-and-4, Frankhouse also lowered his tournament ERA to 2.66… absolutely amazing for a D-rated starter who has pitched more than 80 innings.
Browns’ starter Jack Kramer (D-W) fell to 0-and-8, while lowering his ERA to 10.37. In his 46 innings of work, Kramer has now given up 53 earned runs.
Berger’s homer was his 8th of the tournament. He led the Braves’ offense by going 2-4 with 3 RBI.
A cool moment for the hometown Boston fans saw seldom-used Babe Ruth single home an insurance run in the bottom of the seventh inning. Batting 2-for-6 (.333) in the tournament, Ruth’s RBI was his first of the WTOP event. He was then replaced for a pinch-runner by another Hall of Famer, Rabbit Maranville.
The best-of-seven final now swings to 1939 St. Louis for Games #3 and #4.
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After the game’s first six hitters, nobody could have blamed the 1939 Browns for simply throwing in the towel. The Browns had committed two errors and already trailed 3-0. Already down two games to none to the ‘35 Braves in the WTOP Championship Series, things looked bleak for St. Louis.
But stop the presses.
The Browns banged out 16 hits and stunned Boston 13-6 to claw their way back into the series. Three St. Louis hitters - Harlond Clift, Chet Laabs and Myril Hoag - drove in three runs apiece, while surprise LF starter Joe Grace went 4-for-5. And suddenly, we have a series again.
Braves’ starting pitcher Ben Cantwell (D-Z) entered the game with a solid ERA of 2.94. But the Browns roughed him up for nine earned runs over six innings. Cantwell drops to 6-and-4 in the tournament.
Meanwhile, St. Louis got a decent start from Roxie Lawson (D), who went five innings and left the game with an 8-5 lead. Relievers Emil Bildilli and Harry Kimberlin allowed only one more run the rest of the way.
Lawson improves to 2-3, while improving his ERA to 6.33.
The Browns will now try to square the series at home in Game #4.
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Thanks. The screen shots are easy to put in and come out formatted correctly?
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@falcon4fever Yes, very easy. You just have to click on the icon to the right of the emoji icon, and then drag your screenshots in…
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The ‘39 Browns had somehow stolen away Game #4. Then they gave it right back. And as a result of their 6-5 loss in ten innings, St. Louis is now on the brink.
After staking the ‘35 Braves to a 4-0 lead (thanks to four unearned runs), the Browns roared back. After Chet Laabs’ two-run homer in the eighth inning, St. Louis took a 5-4 lead into the ninth.
But Boston rallied against Browns’ reliever Emil Bildilli (C-YZ). Randy Moore singled home the tying run in the top of the ninth, and Frank Hogan drove in the winner in the tenth. The Braves’ win gives them a commanding three games to one lead in the series.
The home team had been dodging bullets all day. Boston outhit St. Louis 19-7, but stranded 15 baserunners compared to the Browns’ four. St. Louis also committed three errors, two of them by Laabs in CF.
Al Blanche (3-2) earned the win in relief for the Braves, retiring all six hitters he faced in the final two innings. Bildilli suffered the loss, to drop to 2-3.
Boston now returns home to 1935 to try to wrap up the series in Game #5 at Braves Field.
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In the end, there was never a doubt. The 1939 St. Louis Browns were the worst of the worst.
The Browns captured the WTOP title with a 3-2 loss to the ‘35 Boston Braves, falling in the ‘championship’ series in five games. St. Louis gave up all three runs (two unearned) in the second inning and trailed the rest of the way. It was reminiscent of the round-robin portion of the tournament, when the Browns lost their first ten games… and never really recovered.
Boston pitcher Danny MacFayden (D-Z) went the distance, tossing a ten-hitter while walking one and striking out five. MacFayden had been winless prior to the final series, but tossed two CG’s against the Browns. In allowing only three runs in his 18 innings of work, he was named Series MVP.
Browns’ starter Vern Kennedy (D-W) didn’t get out of the second inning and took the loss. Kennedy finished the tournament with a W-L record of 2-6 and a 7.94 ERA.
St. Louis lost star 3B and cleanup hitter Harlond Clift in the fourth inning, when he was spiked while tagging out the Braves’ Randy Moore on a stolen base attempt. Myril Hoag had three hits, including two doubles, and drove in a run in the loss.
The Browns finished the WTOP tournament with an overall record of 10 wins and 27 losses for a dismal winning percentage of .270 against a field of seven other horrible teams.
“Let’s face it, we’re an ugly team,” said Manager Fred Haney. “Uglier than the 1933 Fuller Dymaxion.”
Listening nearby, Haney’s St. Louis players all chuckled.
They were champions. And nobody could ever take that away.
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Before I put this thread to bed for good, thanks to all for your interest. Hope I didn’t bore anybody with posts about this project. In the end, it was a lot of fun. And I finished right at my original target date of mid-June. :blush:
In 131 total games, the overall tournament ERA was 4.54 (which was actually a bit better than I had anticipated). The WHIP was 1.51.
The final tournament batting average was .284, with a SLG of .372, and an OPS of .719.
The tournament fielding average was .970. (In my GTOP tournaments, it’s about .980)Some observations about playing with awful teams:
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Never underestimate the value of Fielding Two over Fielding Three. It’s significant. The two best-fielding teams in the tournament were the Braves (.982) and Senators (.981). They were almost always F2. The three worst-fielding teams - the Browns (.954), Mets (.961) and Pirates (.963) - were practically always F3.
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‘D’ pitchers with W’s are absolutely dreadful and should be avoided at all costs. They simply can’t get people out. Of the 40 pitchers who started games in this tournament, only four were D’s with a W. But those four guys were a combined W-L of 3-15 with an ERA of 9.05 (122 earned runs allowed in 121.1 innings).
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The HOF’ers in the tournament did really well. The Senators’ Walter Johnson (A-Y) was the only HOF pitcher and he went 5-2, 1.92 ERA. But the seven HOF hitters (Lajoie, Ruth, Maranville, Klein, Kiner, Ashburn, Hodges) also performed well. They batted a combined .323 (150-for-465) with 15 HR’s and 87 RBI.
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The two teams with the worst pitching had almost entirely D pitchers. The ‘champion’ Browns overall ERA was 6.52, while the Mets were slightly worse at 6.58. And with both stuck almost exclusively as F3 defensive teams, their games often got pretty ugly.
In the end, I learned that those 1939 Browns were simply terrible. They were so bad that you can’t even find a team picture online. The closest I could find was this photo of the six unlucky souls who were traded to St. Louis from the Tigers midway through that '39 season. Credit to their organization that they won the AL pennant only five years later.
I’m out, gang. Thanks again for your patience. :+1: :baseball: :game_die:
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@RandySteinman Very entertaining. Thank you!
