 The 1902 campaign saw the National League have its pennant race decided early while the American League featured a much closer and exciting chase for the flag.
The New York Giants quickly established themselves as the class of the National League, and ended up with an impressive 103 victories in a runaway that saw them finish 26 games ahead of the Brooklyn Superbas. The defending-champion Boston Beaneaters were derailed by a rash of injuries and finished third with a 73-67 record.
The Giants powerful pitching proved too much for the rest of the National League clubs. Aidan O'Day (29-8, 2.16 ERA), Bernard Berry (23-7, 1.84 ERA), Clive Hines (24-9, 2.36) and Lonnie Tauber (18-9, 2.49) were the league's top quartet with O'Day the league's top winner and Berry its most stingy hurler. The offense was provided by Davey White (.333, 103 runs), Paul Samples (.338, 91 runs), Dell Coyne (.324, 101 runs) and Bruno Barbella (.281, 100 runs).
While New York was running away with the pennant in the National, the American League had its race come down to the wire. Cleveland was the surprise leader for the bulk of the season, but could not hold off the defending champions from Philadelphia as the Athletics ended up winning the pennant with a 84-51 record.
Injuries had the Athletics scuffling a bit this season, with such stalwarts as Fred Johnson playing only 104 games, though he did hit .324 for the season and scored 84 runs. The pitching prowess was provided by Bob Batts (19-5, 2.22 ERA), Eric Frontz (20-13, 2.18) and Jim Kirby (21-13, 2.89).
Top individual performances were turned in by Washington's Harvey Cart, whose .394 average topped both leagues, with Detroit's Jack Honeywell (.382) second in the American League. St. Louis Cardinal Milton Cumberledge hit .371 to lead the National with young Boston star Claude Martin finishing second with a .367 average. The ageless wonder in Cleveland, Tom Ewart topped the home run chart with 12, with Floyd Dill of Cincinnati topping the National with 11. Ewart's Cleveland team mate Orville Taylor had 104 runs batted in to lead the American while Cincinnati's George Hinkley was the National leader with 97. While Hinkley & Dill provided the offensive punch for the Reds, the Baxter Bullet was setting down the opposition in Cincinnati with 240 strikeouts before ending his season with an arm injury. New York's Bernard Berry was the ERA leader at 1.84 in the National while Eric Frontz of the Athletics topped the AL. |
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 The Boston Beaneaters and Philadelphia Athletics each ended up winning their respective League's pennants with relative ease. Rumors of a post-season series between the two were quickly squashed by officials from the National League which refuses to acknowledge the legitimacy of the "upstart" American circuit, leaving fans to wonder just which team is the true champion.
The Beaneaters had a tremendous campaign in winning their third consecutive National League pennant. Boston finished with 94 wins in its 140 games, good for a twelve-game cushion over the second-place Pittsburgh Pirates. Stanley Sweetwater, Boston's ace pitcher, also had a momentous season, winning his 200th career game on October 1st (a 9-2 win over Pittsburgh) less than a month after throwing a no-hit, no-walk game against the same Pittsburgh club, missing out on a perfect game by a pair of fielding errors. For his career, Sweets is 200-84 with a 2.75 earned run average.
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September 16, 1903 Update - udlb58 Thursday, 02 July 2009 22:46 [1 reply]
August 31, 1903 Update - rocknfire7 Thursday, 02 July 2009 09:34 [2 replies]
August 16, 1903 Update - commish Wednesday, 01 July 2009 19:18 [3 replies]