1922 - Top Cats

Max Morris produced a second-straight Triple Crown season and Powell Slocum continued to astound with another .400 season but both Morris and Slocum played for teams that didn't factor into the 1922 pennant races. And while the Federal Association race was a great one, the Continental's was not and that was because the biggest story of the season was the Chicago Cougars.

The Cougars had long been John Dibblee's team. Heck, when you're the only guy in 15 years to beat out Powell Slocum for a batting title, that says something about you and Dibblee was just that sort of guy. But that batting title came back in 1911 and Dibblee was coming off two straight injury-ravaged seasons. In 1922 he turned 34, but proved that he still had some magic in his bat. He hit .360 with 34 doubles and 21 triples (and six homers, but he was old school and wasn't into this whole "home run" fad that Morris was promoting). He only led the league in OPS, which wasn't even a stat back then, but he was the definitely still the team's leader. Ample support was provided by shortstop Jack Gray, who hit .365 with 43 doubles, 15 homers and 131 RBIs. 2B Charlie Carr hit .341, 3B Jack Peal hit .330 - you get the picture. The Cougars could hit - .306 as a team (best in the league) and 894 runs scored (also tops). The pitching was pretty good too - 2nd in runs allowed but didn't have a 20-game winner on the staff. Didn't matter - the team won 93 games and finished 12.5 up on second-place New York.

 Wait... the Stars were second? Yep, you read that right. The team that had been seventh the last two seasons had a solid year and was second. That was mostly due to their pitching which was tops in the Continental. Luke Smith was mostly back - he had a flat 3.00 ERA, much improved over his three previous seasons and that made a big difference. Brooklyn was third for the second straight season, with 79 wins - the same total they had in 1921. Kings catcher Paul Tattersall led the league in home runs with 36 and was third in RBIs with 128. The RBI crown went to Cleveland's Carl Martin, who also hit 32 homers (2nd) for the fourth-place Foresters. Montreal fell to fifth - an off-year for the Saints who had only six fewer wins than their pennant and championship winning team of the year before had.

Powell Slocum hit .401 but his team, the Baltimore Clippers, still finished sixth. The Clippers both scored a lot - along with Slocum they had 1B Danny Singleton who hit .317 with 27 homers and 108 RBIs and C Jim Black (.323-11-98) but they gave up almost as many with 800 for and 794 against. Oscar Jefferson, a midseason pickup from Pittsburgh, won 19 games between the two teams and looked like he might be the ace the Clips needed. The Sailors were seventh but did debut 1920 1st overall pick David Merchant, a 23-yea-old centerfielder who hit .298 with 16 homers and 97 RBIs in his debut season. Toronto was last, and though they also had some promising youth, they were too far down the chain to be of use in 1922.

The Federal's race was - as mentioned earlier - a really good one. Five teams were in the race and the fifth-place finisher was just five games out as season's end. The flag was won by the Washington Eagles who edged Detroit by a single game after winning seven straight (and six of those were three consecutive doubleheaders!) to close out the season. Detroit dropped their season finale to the Gothams thereby missing out on an opportunity to force a one-game playoff. Third-place Pittsburgh dropped out of first place - thanks to being on the losing end of those three-straight doubleheaders with Washington. They lost six games in three days and went from first-place to third, three games out - a tough end for the Miners. Fourth-place Boston was four out and missed out on their shot thanks to Washington being so red-hot at the end. Chicago was fifth, but fell out of the race two weeks earlier when they dropped 11 games in 15 days.

The Max Morris-powered St. Louis Pioneers were not mentioned above, because they dropped out of the race in August and finished sixth, nine back and with a losing record (74-80). Morris had another eye-popping season: .376 average, 59 home runs and 161 RBIs. He won the batting title by 24 points, had 37 homers more than the runner-up (Danny James of Detroit) and 61 RBIs more than Chicago's Jim Shelton. He was truly in a class by himself. But even with Morris leading the league's best lineup, the pitching was the league's worst, allowing 853 runs (25 more than the league-leading offense scored). The Gothams wee 73-81, 10 back in seventh and the Keystones were last with a 67-87 record.

Boston's George Johnson led the league with 24 wins and 110 strikeouts. Chicago's Denny Wren had a 3.08 ERA to lead the league in that category.

The World Series was a bit of a letdown, unless you were a Cougars fan. Chicago took games one and two, at home, lost game three and then took games four and five to win the title. LF Art Panko hit .350 with 3 home runs and 9 RBIs for the Cougars all of whom's victories were by at least three runs except for a 3-2 game two.

Morris won his fourth-straight Whitney Award in the least surprising development in the award's history. The Continental's Whitney went to Jack Gray of the Cougars. John Dibblee? He got another ring and went home to Hubbard, Ohio with a smile on his face and a championship paycheck in his pocket.