1918 Red Sox: Winning a Championship

Winning a championship involves a large number of ingredients coming together in just the right fashion and at the right time. 1918 was an unusual season in that it was truncated by war and the timing of the truncation was not known until shortly before it occurred. Because teams played the season without knowing how many games they would play, or whether there would be a World Series at season’s end, many of the usual strategies involved in conducting a 154-game campaign didn’t apply. When the regular season ended, the Red Sox had played 126 games (while Washington and Philadelphia had both played 130, and the Browns had only played 123.)

As we see in perusing the many individual biographies, and in considering the timeline, Ed Barrow and Harry Frazee were wheeling and dealing throughout the entire season. Players were called off to war; others signed up for war-related work to preempt conscription. Unusual for the era, there were 10 players who only appeared in six or fewer games for the Red Sox.

Using earned run average as a rough measure of a pitching staff’s performance, the Red Sox (2.31) were distinctly better than most teams, second in the American League to the Washington Senators (2.14). In third place was Cleveland with a 2.64.

The Red Sox allowed the fewest runs (with 381, they were the only team under 400) and the fewest earned runs (287 – Washington, with 292, was the only other team under 300). Boston’s 105 complete games overshadowed the second-place Athletics, who had 80.

A full 26 of the Red Sox’s games (more than 20% of the schedule and more than 1/3 of the team’s wins) were shutouts. Only two other teams reached double digits in shutouts. Eight of Boston’s shutouts were by a 1-0 score. And, if that wasn’t remarkable enough, Bullet Joe Bush won five of those eight 1-0 shutouts. Sad Sam Jones won two and Carl Mays won one. Bush’s five 1-0 shutouts set a major league record; the final two of them were extra-inning affairs: July 9 (12 innings) and July 22 (10 innings). Bush led the Red Sox starters with a 2.11 ERA, but poor run support gave him a year-end record of only 15-15.

Carl Mays led the league with 30 complete games — his eight shutouts also led the league. Bush was second with seven shutouts.

In addition to the eight 1-0 shutouts, the Red Sox won 16 additional games by a margin of just one run.

It was pitching where the Sox excelled. It certainly wasn’t batting. The team batting average was .249, the same as Detroit (who finished in seventh place, 20 games out of first place). The only team with a lower average was Philadelphia at .243. The team ranked more or less in the middle of the pack in on-base percentage and slugging average, and even in runs batted in (four teams had an equal or higher number of RBIs, and three teams a lower number).

The 15 home runs hit by the team as a whole was still a smaller total than Philadelphia’s 22 and New York’s 20. Interestingly, the Red Sox had the fewest at-bats of any team – the only team with fewer than 4000 at-bats – but that’s a function of winning so many home games in which they led after 8 1/2. There were 38 games in which the Red Sox never needed to bat in the bottom of the ninth. There were 11 additional games in which the Red Sox won in a walkoff and thus made fewer than three outs in the bottom of the final inning, whatever inning that might be. Of these, twice the winning run scored before they made any outs, six times there was only one out, and three times there were only two.

The Red Sox were the best fielding team in the league overall with a .971 fielding percentage, and concomitantly the fewest errors (the number of errors per team ranged from their 152 up to 228 – an average of more than one per game was typical during an era where fields were still rougher and gloves more primitive than those of today.) The two positions at which they were strongest were at first base and shortstop; they led the league in fielding at both positions. They were weakest at catcher; Boston catchers were tied for the lowest fielding percentage at that position. Carl Mays recorded 122 assists, still the most ever for a Red Sox pitcher. It was a record he’d built on two years in a row: in 1916, he set the record with 117 and in 1917 he had 118 assists.

It was friendly Fenway for the 1918 Red Sox. They were 49-21 at home, for an outstanding .700 winning percentage at Fenway Park. They were 26-30 on the road. Note that because of the truncated schedule, the Red Sox ended up playing 70 games at home and only 56 on the road (they would have spent much of September on the road). Playing 55% of their games at home favored their chances of success. Even with all the one-run games they played (several of which were on the road), they outscored their opponents 272-165 in Boston.

Against the second-place Indians and the third-place Senators, the Red Sox played .500 ball overall. They beat up on the Browns (14-5) and the Athletics (13-5), and had a losing record against only one team (they were 6-11 against the Yankees, who finished a distant fourth in the standings.)

Of the 26 shutout victories, 18 were at home and eight on the road. The shutouts were mostly clustered in two months, June and July, with nine in each month, with only four prior to June 1 and four after July 31. Boston was shut out 12 times.

The Red Sox jumped out to an 11-2 start in April and really never looked back. They were 0-6 on the road in May, swept by New York and then by Washington on a six-game road trip, but the experience obviously didn’t sink them. There were only 12 days throughout the season when they were not in first place. On nine of those days, they trailed by percentage points. On one day, they were 1/2 game behind the leader. On only two days (June 28 and July 4) were they as much as one game behind. After July 5, they were never out of first place, despite playing .500 ball (16-16) in their last 32 games. The race was never a foregone conclusion, though, as Cleveland ended the season only 2 1/2 games out and Washington was four games behind.

BILL NOWLIN is national Vice President of SABR and the author of nearly 20 Red Sox-related books. Bill is also co-founder of Rounder Records of Massachusetts. He’s traveled to more than 100 countries, but says there’s no place like Fenway Park.