1929 – V for Vance (and Victory)
The 1929 Figment season featured one strong pennant race (and one weaker one), saw the return to form of one of the game's all-time greats, brought the curtain down on another of the game's legends, and showcased yet another who just kept on ticking along.
The Continental Association was the circuit that did not have much of a pennant race. The defending champion Philadelphia Sailors came out fast and kept it up throughout the season. They really turned it on in June—on the first, their lead was 3.5 games over the rising Montreal Saints, and by the end of the month their lead had ballooned into double digits. Led by 24-year-old superstar RF Tom Taylor (.351-38-138), the Sailors’ offense was tops in the CA, scoring 900 runs despite ranking fifth in homers. The pitching was equally superb, allowing just 631 runs and placing three players in the top seven for ERA, including league ERA champ Russ Reel (18-8, 2.93).
Other top performers in the CA included Baltimore ace Ken Carpenter, who was one of two pitchers to top 20 victories as he went 23-13, 3.26 for the Cannons. Montreal's Charlie Stedman posted a 21-10 mark and finished second in ERA with a 2.99 (the only other starter to post a sub-three mark in the league). The Cannons' young catcher Joe Welch hit .375 to win the batting crown, while the aforementioned Tom Taylor led in both homers and RBIs (Welch was second in both categories with 36 and 128, respectively).
The New York Stars finished a distant second, 17 games behind the Sailors, whose 103-51 record was the best in the FABL by a large margin. Baltimore was third at 83-71, and Montreal was the only other .500 or better team in the CA, finishing with an even 77-77 ledger. Brooklyn came in fifth (72-82), followed by Toronto (69-85), Cleveland (64-90), and Chicago (62-92).
The Fed featured a much tighter race, as the Detroit Dynamos and Chicago Chiefs battled into the final weekend before Detroit captured its first league title since 1919. The Dynamos' 91-63 mark was two games better than the Chiefs’ 89-65. Detroit boasted the league’s batting champ in 3B Frank Vance (.372), and Vance might have won a Triple Crown were it not for a certain legendary slugger (more on him soon). As it was, Vance belted 41 homers and drove in 143 runs—both second-best in the Fed. Roy Calfee emerged as the ace of the Dynamos, going 26-8 with a 3.53 ERA to lead the league. With RF Al Wheeler (.340-37-125) and LF Henry Jones (.330-40-131) joining Vance, the Dynamos’ top three were murder on opposing pitching, and it was no surprise Detroit posted a league-best 926 runs scored.
Other top performers in the Fed included Doug Lightbody’s brother Frank, who hit .364 for Pittsburgh to finish second in the batting race; the ever-dangerous T.R. Goins of Washington, who was third with a .363 average; and that other guy in St. Louis—the one who revolutionized the game. Yep, Mighty Max was back in a big way in 1929. Max Morris led the league with 50 home runs and 145 RBIs (his average was .326—a bit of a down year for a lifetime .353 hitter). Morris pushed his career total (and the league record) to 473 home runs, putting him within sight of becoming the game’s first 500-homer man.
On the pitching side, Chicago’s Milt Fritz posted an 18-8 record with a league-best 3.22 ERA, edging out teammate Lou Felkel, whose 22-14, 3.33 marks placed him second in both wins and ERA. The Gothams, in an otherwise disappointing year, might have discovered a new ace in 25-year-old righty Jim Lonardo, who went 16-11 with a 3.37 ERA (third-best in the FA). The Keystones got a 20-win campaign from Bill Ross (20-6, 3.55)—the first time the 32-year-old had won 20 since doing it in back-to-back seasons with the Chiefs as a youngster.
Speaking of the Chiefs (89-65), they fell back a bit offensively. The two-headed monster of 3B Joe Masters (.329-24-113) and LF Jim Hampton (.328-19-115) dipped from their incredible 1928 marks, but they found yet another offensive spark plug in 22-year-old 1B Bob Martin, whose debut featured a .356 average with 7 homers and 77 RBIs. Ultimately, the Chiefs were done in by their pitching, which—beyond the aforementioned Lou Felkel and second-starter Milt Fritz (18-8, 3.22)—was terrible.
Third-place Philadelphia (81-73) had a great offense (again), powered by incomparable 1B Rankin Kellogg (.355-34-141) to produce the Fed’s second-best run-scoring attack. But like the Chiefs, Philly's pitching was shallow, with the rotation a mess behind clear ace Bill Ross. The Eagles were a bit of a surprise in fourth (77-77), somehow finishing middle of the pack despite a putrid offense, thanks to a surprising second-best pitching performance—more impressive given the lack of a single standout hurler.
The bottom half of the standings was headed by fifth-place Pittsburgh (73-81), a rising club with some good young talent. Boston started out red-hot, sitting at 27-19 and in first place on June 4, but faded badly to finish 72-82 and land in sixth. The Pioneers, essentially a one-man show in St. Louis, ended seventh at 71-83, while the Gothams (62-92) finished in the cellar for the first time in club history.
New York also said goodbye to Ed Ziehl—at least as a player—as the player-manager hung up his bat at age 42 after a final season in which he hit just .256, far below his career average. Ziehl ends his stellar career with a lifetime .322 average and as the career leader in games played (3,025), stolen bases (913), walks (1,639), and caught stealing (650). He also sits in third place with 3,496 hits (behind Powell Slocum and John Dibblee), ninth in doubles (429), sixth in triples, seventh in RBIs (1,366), and fifth in runs scored (1,679). His status as Gothams manager may be in question, but there is no doubt at all about his legacy as the game’s greatest second baseman.
Another legend, Chicago Cougars star John Dibblee, kept right on going in 1929. Despite a career that has seen “The Top Cat” suffer multiple injuries—particularly over the last five seasons—Dibblee still hit .346 (matching his career average) at the ripe old age of 41. His 167 hits pushed his second-best total to 3,741, leaving him more than 400 shy of Powell Slocum’s record of 4,144. Dibblee has said nothing about retirement, and it would surprise no one to see him out there in 1930, continuing a career that began way back in 1906 and showing his young Cougars teammates how it’s done.
On paper, the 1929 FABL World’s Championship Series looked like it could be a mismatch. The Continental Association (and defending Series champion) Philadelphia Sailors had made a mockery of the pennant race and came into the Series with a sterling 103-51 record, 17 games better than the runner-up New York Stars. Meanwhile, the Federal Association champion Detroit Dynamos were a bit of an upstart. Detroit had finished dead last in 1925—earning the #1 overall draft pick (which they used on a high-school outfielder named Al Wheeler)—then improved to seventh in 1926 before making the big move to contention. By 1929, they were ready to grab their first pennant since 1919.
The Series started in Detroit on October 9, and the Dynamos served notice that they would not bow to the Sailors’ juggernaut, clawing their way to a 3-2 victory behind Calfee and a clutch performance from veteran backstop Dick York. Detroit showed plenty of fight in Game Two as well, a contest that was tied 4-4 after nine innings and went a full 14 before Philly keystone star Jack Cleaves drove home the go-ahead run in the top of the 14th, giving the Sailors a 7-4 win.
The scene shifted to the City of Brotherly Love for Games Three, Four, and Five. Before Game Three, newly minted FABL President Henry Salmon announced to the crowd that the FABL Championship Trophy would henceforth be known as the Jefferson Edgerton Trophy, honoring the man who had owned the crosstown Keystones since pro baseball debuted back in 1876. The notoriously fickle Philadelphia crowd cheered for Edgerton, a man universally respected—even if he did (to Sailors fans) represent “that other team.”
Once the players took the field, Game Three evolved into the Henry Jones Show. The 25-year-old outfielder put the Dynamos back in the driver’s seat with a clutch performance, going 4-for-5 with two homers and two singles, driving in three runs (and scoring three as well) in a 7-3 Detroit win. With both Wheeler and Vance underwhelming thus far, it was Detroit’s third star (and its maligned pitching) that had the club just two wins away from hoisting the newly christened Edgerton Trophy.
For Game Four, Dynamos manager Joe Johnson sent Reeve Kirby to the hill. Kirby (16-10, 4.88) had been up and down during the regular season, and on the game’s biggest stage he delivered a downer for Detroit. The Sailors jumped all over him in the first inning, hitting three homers and plating six runs to seize the initiative. Although Kirby settled down and the Dynamos fought hard, the Sailors ultimately won a 10-4 decision to tie the series at two apiece.
Game Five was pivotal—the winner would be just a single victory from the title. It was also the Sailors’ last home game, and the crowd at Soldiers & Sailors Memorial was in full throat throughout a tightly played affair that stood at 4-4 heading into the bottom of the ninth. Roy Calfee, after allowing one run in each of the first four frames, had settled down and was looking every bit the ace he is. But in the home half of the ninth, with one out and no one on, Johnny Rabago (pinch-hitting for pitcher Bob Clements) ripped the first pitch he saw over Henry Jones’s head in left, cruising into second with a stand-up double. The next batter, 1B Dick Walker, worked a 2-1 count before flicking a Calfee curveball into center, scoring Rabago with a walk-off 5-4 victory and giving the Sailors a 3-2 edge in the Series.
Detroit took some consolation in heading home for Game Six—and Game Seven, if necessary. The Dynamos turned to 31-year-old right-hander Wayne Robinson, who had been acquired from the Cleveland Foresters. A 20-game winner in 1928, Robinson had struggled mightily in 1929, going 3-6 with a 4.53 ERA for the Foresters before being dealt to Detroit. He was arguably even worse for the Dynamos, posting a 5-8 mark with a 5.52 ERA, but he was still the best option skipper Joe Johnson had. Robinson stepped up in a big way, looking like the man who had won 20 games the year before as he outdueled Russ Reel in a 4-3 Dynamos victory. Detroit benefited from a pair of Sailors miscues—particularly one in the eighth by CF David Merchant that allowed the go-ahead run—but local fans will likely only remember Robinson’s gutsy complete-game performance: three runs allowed on eight hits, with no walks and four strikeouts in the biggest game of his life. The victory knotted the Series again and set up a winner-take-all Game Seven at Thompson Field the next day.
Game Seven fell on a blustery October Sunday in Detroit. The temperature was 53 degrees, but a 19 mph wind promised to be a factor. The Dynamos turned to ace Roy Calfee—winner of Game One and loser of Game Five—on just two days’ rest. The Sailors countered with 19-game winner Rollie Beal, a solid pitcher whose surname had caused one creative fan at Game Three to hold up a sign reading “Reel and Beal will seal the deal!”
Unfortunately for Beal, it would be the Dynamos who sealed the deal in Game Seven. Detroit scored in the first inning, and after the Sailors tied it at 1-1 in the top of the second, the Dynamos responded with two more in the bottom half. They then exploded for four runs in the sixth to put the game out of reach, cruising to an 8-3 win and their fifth championship overall—and first since 1919.
Series MVP honors went to Frank Vance, the superstar third baseman for Detroit, who hit .344 with three homers and seven RBIs. Many fans, however, tipped their caps to Wayne Robinson for his clutch effort in Game Six and to Roy Calfee for gutting it out in Game Seven on short rest. What everyone could agree on, though, was that it was a heck of a series—and that Detroit’s victory was very much a team effort.