Nowlin: This year in baseball, 1916
From SABR Vice President Bill Nowlin at The National Pastime Museum on March 3, 2016:
The year 1916 saw two very good pennant races, both of which came down to the final few days of the season. The World Series pitted the Brooklyn Robins against the reigning world champion Boston Red Sox. As it happens, the Red Sox extended their reign for another year, taking the Series in five games.
Boston had to get there first. It wasn’t quite as easy as it may have seemed in 1915, when the Sox won 101 games. That said, the Detroit Tigers had won 100 games, and Boston really only clinched that one on October 6. They’d won the 1915 Series in five games, too, over the Phillies (the Sox scoring a total of only 12 runs in all five games combined).
The 1916 Red Sox were managed again by Bill Carrigan; the 1916 Robins by Wilbert Robinson (whose name was reflected in the team’s nickname at the time). The Red Sox enjoyed the third of four world championships in seven seasons (1912–1918). Brooklyn hadn’t won a pennant since the Superbas had finished first in the back-to-back seasons of 1899 and 1900. Their third-place finish in 1915 was the highest they’d finished since 1902 but were seen as real contenders as the 1916 season began.
Read the full article here: http://www.thenationalpastimemuseum.com/article/seasons-past-1916
Originally published: March 4, 2016. Last Updated: March 4, 2016.