How Is A Win Registered For A Pitcher

Ray Scarborough holds the first modern assigned win in baseball history, April 18, 1950.

A recurring question among SABR members in recent years involves the starting time modern win: when was the offset win awarded to a starting bullpen incorporating a league-mandated rule requiring the five-inning minimum standard?

On the SABR-L e-mail list, historian David Nemec is often quick to respond that the standard appears in the rulebook in time for the 1950 flavor. That makes Washington bullpen Ray Scarborough's opening day victory on Apr 18, 1950, the first modern assigned win in baseball history, a game in which Harry Truman, some might say, threw out the "outset pitch." Of grade, Scarborough wasn't the first pitcher to win a game after pitching five innings: baseball history is chock full of five-inning wins dating back to the old National Association. But of those, Scarborough was the starting time bullpen to take a shower knowing full well that the "win" was in his pocket, so to speak, provided the Nationals never lost the lead. The win seems easy to understand and fifty-fifty academic, yet it was the culmination of a long, tortured history since the stat was invented.

On May 9, 1872, Boston's Al Spalding was relieved subsequently four innings in a 20–0 romp over the Brooklyn Eckfords at Brooklyn'southward Union Grounds. Spalding had a no-hitter and a 17–0 atomic number 82 when he was relieved, but amazingly still did non receive credit for the win after the game. Was this baseball history's first incidence of a no-decision and a v-inning minimum standard? No. Wins for pitchers had not yet been invented.

Fans and players of 1872, and even Spalding himself, would have likely been bewildered past the suggestion that pitchers be credited with wins and losses. Actual wins—or so it would be argued into the twentieth century—could vest to any member of the team: the first baseman who got the game-winning hit or the eye fielder who made a game-saving catch. As well, the art of pitching had not notwithstanding developed to drag the pitcher much over the uncomplicated cricket feeder. Even Spalding's no-hitter was likely considered merely a coincidence of good fielding. No sophisticated divide stats for pitchers existed. Additionally, with normally ane pitcher per team, individual win-loss records deviated picayune from team records and, at that time, would have been redundant.

The win was invented in 1884 by Henry Chadwick and he published National League individual totals in the 1885 Spalding Guide. The practice did not grab on. The loss came later. On July 7, 1888, The Sporting News for the showtime time published win-loss records, and simply then later on the following disclaimer:

Information technology seems to place the whole game upon the shoulders of the pitcher and I don't believe it will ever go popular fifty-fifty with so learned a gentleman equally Mr. Chadwick to begetter it. Certain information technology is that many an execrable bullpen game is won by heavy striking at the right moment after the pitcher has washed his best to lose it.

Free player substitutions were not allowed in baseball until 1889, but even then, only ane or two free changes were permitted per game afterward completed innings. In 1890 our mod player substitution rule was adopted but managers didn't utilize it to its full capacity. Prior to these rules, a pitcher could exist removed only by injury or by switching him to another position. In Spalding's 1872 game, he was switched to middle field and played the last 5 innings there. Box scores take him as "cf" only.

And then it was relatively easy for Chadwick to assign wins and losses in this period, and if he had any existential difficulties making these assignments, he didn't reveal them in print. In the 1890 Guide he advises, "Where 2 pitchers took role in a match on one side we credit the victory, or charge the defeat, to the pitcher who pitched in the almost innings." That's sort of a v-inning minimum, except that the timing of run support is ignored. That's the same rationale that made Spalding a heart fielder in a near no-hitter.

Then existential difficulties did arise from the commencement. When The Sporting News began listing the win-loss records of their hometown St. Louis pitchers in August 1888, rookie Jimmy Devlin, who made no starts in August and September, alternated weekly betwixt having a tape of 5–3 and five–2. The only game that he was relieved in came on the Quaternary of July, when he was knocked out in the seventh inning with a 2–11 deficit. A articulate loss by whatsoever measure? Not in 1888.

The slightly senior Sporting Life was more distanced from win-loss records. In their Nov 14, 1896, issue a list of the NL'due south tiptop winning pitchers came with this disclaimer: "though technically they did not win or lose, as almost of the games can exist charged to fielders behind the pitchers." That list shows a three-style tie at 30 wins betwixt Frank Killen, Child Nichols, and Cy Young, yet today'south encyclopedias evidence Young with 28 wins. Whatever assumption that today's encyclopedias "agree" with the 30 wins of Killen and Nichols highlights one of import trouble in reconciling pre-1920 pitcher records: understanding in victory or loss totals never guarantees that the same games are counted.

By the tardily 1890s, Chadwick, editing the Spalding Guides, used different formats for his bullpen games won, maybe because his stat was not catching on. Guides listed "Games" and "Per Cent of Victories"—rather than wins—and this became the standard for a generation, leaving fans the task of fudging and multiplication to figure out actual games won. This was the primary reason Christy Mathewson'southward 373rd victory went uncounted until 1946—much to the chagrin of the bed-ridden Grover Cleveland Alexander—as recounted by Joe Wayman in the 1995 Baseball Research Journal. In the 1900 Guide, Chadwick listed the NL's tiptop winners counting just their records confronting first partition teams. It was a dainty SABR-like twist.

NL secretary John Heydler issued guidelines to official scorers in 1916 that specified a starter had to pitch "at to the lowest degree the first half of the game" to get a win.

In 1903 official scorers probable began the practice of placing a "West" or an "Fifty" aslope pitchers' names on score sheets. That's the year new NL president Harry Pulliam hired John Heydler equally a personal secretary at the recommendation of Nick Immature. The 33-year-one-time Heydler had impressed Young equally a local Washington surface area semipro umpire who kept his ain major league statistics. Young had also used Heydler sometimes as an NL ump for the better function of iii seasons up to 1898. Heydler immediately organized NL stat-keeping, and corrected the previous season. Previously the NL was run by a "board of directors" headed by John Castor, a disorganized grouping said to be too distracted by the NL-AL war to requite stats their due consideration.

It's possible official scorers assigned wins and losses in 1901 or 1902, but those original sheets take been misplaced for many years. In any case, after each season, league secretaries summed up each pitcher's win-loss record for the Spalding and Accomplish guides. League secretaries and league presidents as well, from time to time, began stepping in and "correcting" a scorer'due south awarded determination. Chadwick, for his Spalding Guides, connected determining his own winners and losers for each game, even though, shockingly, he was rarely in attendance to encounter the pitchers perform.

Frank J. Williams'southward landmark essay "All the Tape Books Are Wrong," in SABR'due south 1982 inaugural issue of The National Pastime, catalogues the methods official scorers used to assign decisions during the Deadball Era. Williams reveals 11 methods of assigning wins and losses in this period, and is kind to scorers of the fourth dimension past referring to them as "eleven scoring practices." It was the Wild West of official scoring and many of these practices are flat-out contradictory. Oft, the assignment of wins and losses hinged on an official scorer's breezy post-game poll of sportswriters sitting side by side to him. Bias toward more popular or established pitchers might also have existed.

It is due to Williams's work that today encyclopedias agree on 1901–1920 pitching records, simply even he acknowledges that "a couple of more practices may yet sally." Ane is the Fielder Jones dominion of 1914. With Jones sometimes using four or 5 pitchers in a game, official scorers required that a pitcher throw at least one pitch to get a win. The Federal League didn't enforce such a dominion, then on September 19, 1914, Jim Bluejacket of the Brookfeds got the majors' starting time no-pitch win.

Christy Mathewson'south 373rd career win went uncounted until 1946.

Changes in baseball were turning Chadwick's art of determining winners and losers into conundrums of logic. On April 26, 1894, information technology can exist argued that Baltimore manager Ned Hanlon made the start pitching alter "on a hunch" when he replaced the uninjured left-hander Bert Inks with the right-handed Kirtley Bakery, in the lesser of the sixth inning hosting Boston, with a 7–five lead. Ane tin can also argue that on June fifteen, 1907, John McGraw pulled the first double-switch after he had Roger Bresnahan pinch hitting for Joe McGinnity in the top of the eighth inning at Pittsburgh. And on May 13, 1909, managers Joe Cantillon and Baton Sullivan, of the Nationals and the White Sox, respectively, engaged in the kind of late-game, lefty-righty pitcher and compression-hitter matching that would make a 21st century director proud. Alongside these events, relief pitcher use was perennially on the rising in the major-league arena. Pressures from all these directions came to a head 101 years ago thanks to two pitchers: Rube Marquard and Walter Johnson.

The New York Giants' Marquard was given credit for a xix-game winning streak from flavor's get-go on April 11 to July iii, 1912, and the Senators' Walter Johnson was given credit for a 16-game winning streak from July 3 to August 23, 1912. Contradictory and counter-intuitive scoring practices occurring during these streaks created a sense of public outrage that swelled as the pennant races drifted into blowouts. Frank Williams provides the details in his essay, but suffice to say Johnson was credited with his 13th consecutive win in a circumstance like to Marquard'due south no-decision when his streak was simply 2 victories long. Marquard's streak hinged on the question of giving a bullpen a no-determination when the score became tied later on he exited, and the proper crediting of runs in an offensive inning when the pitcher is compression-hitting for. The big Johnson upshot, occurring when his streak was 16 games long, antiseptic that inherited runners are, in the calculation of earned runs, the responsibility of the pitcher who put them on base of operations. Merely immediately after the August 26 game, American League president Ban Johnson went against this latter notion, raising the ire of every Washington fan, and saddling modest Walter with a loss that ended his winning streak.

Heavily criticized, Ban Johnson reacted like the kid in the sandbox with all the toys: he removed wins and losses from American League tabulations and released no pitcher win-loss records for the next six years. Fortunately for future generations, official scorers nonetheless marked score sheets with W and L. The National League took a more than professional person tack. League president John Tener was in a higher place the minutiae of pitchers' decisions, leaving his competent league secretary John Heydler to issue bulletins to official scorers. These independent guidelines as to how wins and losses would be awarded. The most famous of these bulletins was released to the press Apr i, 1916, ten days before the get-go of that season.

The showtime three rules in this bulletin, in rapid fire succession, clarify and make modern the three issues raised past the Marquard and Johnson streaks of 1912. The quaternary rule is the earliest official hint of a five-inning minimum for starting pitchers, admitting with an exception for pitchers who have a big atomic number 82:

Practise not give the first pitcher credit for a game won even if score is in his favor, unless he has pitched at least the showtime half of a game. A pitcher retired at close of 4th inning, with the score 2–1 in his favor, has not won a game. If, however, he is taken out because of his squad having secured a commanding and winning lead in a few innings, and then he is entitled to the win.

This bulletin tightened up National League win-loss decisions in 1916, and spilled over into American League practices the next season. In 1918 win-loss data became more commonly dispensed, and The Sporting News box scores begin listing winning and losing pitchers in their May nine issue. (Withal, periods do exist, until early in 1925, when The Sporting News boxes omit this information.) By 1918, nigh everything about awarding wins and losses was modern. Scorers had simply to consider "commanding and winning leads" in awarding wins to starting pitchers with fewer than v innings of work. Over the side by side 32 years two opposing practices evolved to bring us to the 1950 rule. On the i hand, wins awarded in low-inning starts were phased out even when "commanding leads" existed, while on the other brand new excuses came into play allowing wins in depression-inning starts. Between 1918 and 1949, Retrosheet shows 849 games in which a starting pitcher could have gotten a win without pitching 5 innings. In 205 of these games, 24 per centum, the starting pitcher did get the win. The effigy might have been 29 percent, only league secretaries overruled official scorers in 39 games, nudging the habits of scorers towards our modernity. In 1918, for example, there were 23 games of this type of which xvi saw starting pitchers get wins, lxx percent. In 1949 at that place were 30 such games with 4 of them becoming wins for starting pitchers, 13 percent. We'll call these primitive wins. For a yr-by-year graph of the penchant of major league official scorers to honor archaic wins, between 1918 and 1949, run into Effigy 1.

(Click image to enlarge.)

John Heydler ascended from NL secretary to NL president in 1918. By 1923, the National League was honoring the five-inning minimum well-nigh 70 per centum of the time. The American League, however coddled by founder Ban Johnson, honored the five-inning minimum only 9 percent of the time. When Ban Johnson retired in 1927, the NL honored the five-inning minimum 100 percent of the fourth dimension (10 out of 10) over the AL'south 37 pct (7 out of 19). In Ernest Barnard'south first full year at the AL'due south helm, 1928, both the NL and the AL awarded mod wins 67 per centum of the time (8 out of 12). Then no surprise here, besides the fact that the NL regressed on the result. Ban Johnson didn't approve of the five-inning minimum and worked against it. Barnard actually took over running the AL mid-July, 1927. Up to that fourth dimension, the AL honored the five-inning minimum 23 percent of the time. During the second one-half of the flavour the AL honored information technology 50 percent of the time.

One of Barnard's first moves every bit AL president was to overrule the official scorer who gave George Pipgras a win July 8 for beingness knocked out in the bottom of the third inning at Detroit with a 6–2 lead. That occurred in the last full day of Johnson'due south stewardship. Pipgras was so well rested that he pitched the adjacent 24-hour interval—the mean solar day Barnard became AL president—and Pipgras received another win despite beingness knocked out in the bottom of the fourth inning. This second archaic win Barnard permit slide. Afterward all, the 19–7 final score was pretty commanding. Barnard established a iv.0 inning minimum in the American League when Heydler's 5.0 inning minimum was being accustomed in the National League. These scoring practices came to a head in the Worlds Series where unlike standards applied to unlike players in the same game. Good research by SABR's Warren Corbett identified George Earnshaw as a benefactor of this bipartisan scoring truce in game two of the 1929 Fall Classic. Earnshaw pitched 4 innings and won "under American League rules."

The retirement of Ban Johnson remains the single greatest hurdle cleared towards the acceptance of a v-inning minimum. Just as time marched towards Ray Scarborough's first 1950 start, official scorers began invoking whatsoever of five different exceptions, when events warranted, for the assignment of low-inning wins. That makes the written report of the first modern win an effort with a lot of moving parts. Here are the exceptions official scorers used:

THE INJURY EXCEPTION

The main exception used by official scorers from the Deadball Era all the way to 1949 was the injury. Any pitcher injured was released from any minimum innings requirement—near of the fourth dimension. Of 58 post-1917 games in which the starting bullpen had the atomic number 82 merely was injured earlier completing 5 innings, 34, or 59 pct, went for wins.

Frank Williams identifies this tendency nether the 4th of the eleven practices. But after April 28, 1930, this injury exception takes on a life of its own. That 24-hour interval Clarence Mitchell received the beginning sub-4.0 inning injury exception win since July 31, 1923, when, coincidentally, the very same Mitchell had been carried off the field in the fourth inning after a collision with showtime baseman Walter Holke. Mitchell's 1923 win seemed to be the final of its kind—until Mitchell'due south 1930 win rekindled the practice.

Forty-seven potential injury wins be between 1930 and 1949, and 27 are stamped with major league Westward'south. Injury wins accelerated in utilize equally 1950 approached. During the 1948 and 1949 seasons it was granted a whopping 90 per centum of the fourth dimension, when events warranted. Descriptions of these games run the gamut. Carl Hubbell got one when he slipped and cruel on a play (June 10, 1934), Johnny Allen got one when he wrenched his back (September xv, 1936), and Lefty Grove left a one-sided game against Detroit (July xiv, 1938) when his hand became numb, a chronic event from which he suffered. All got wins. Two-fourth dimension winners in this category include Lefty Gomez and Dutch Leonard. On the flip side, Bob Feller and Sad Sam Jones are two-time not-winners. The difference in these games? Hard to tell.

Consistency, lacking in the awarding of injury wins, was defective in the awarding of all archaic wins. Some starters in this 32-year period did well, others didn't. Eddie Rommel had the greatest luck in existence awarded wins: he won nine against two no-decisions. Ben Cantwell and Rosy Ryan both won six with ane no-conclusion. Firpo Marberry, his relief piece of work then often unrecognized in the 1920s, would have won fifteen extra games had a 5-inning minimum come sooner. Instead he won iv. Ralph Branca, Ray Starr, and Johnny Vander Meer each had over five no-decisions in low-inning games that could have gone for wins.

Schoolboy Rowe pocketed one on July 19, 1939, when he took a Mickey Vernon line drive on the knee. Earlier that day, Al Munro Elias, the compiler of stats for both leagues and baseball'south go-to guru on the art of win assignment, suffered a stroke that removed him from mean solar day-to-day tabulations. He passed away a few days later on. Gone with Elias was the concept that "If a pitcher couldn't lose, he shouldn't win," ane that worked against the vultured wins we see relievers obtain today.

Elias plainly also kept injury wins in cheque, because afterwards he left things got out of control. Braves starter Al Javery left a game early with breast pains, and got a win (August nine, 1944). Virgil Trucks left early with a one-run atomic number 82 and indigestion. He got the win (June 5, 1946). Four days after Ken Heintzelman took a Sid Gordon liner on the jaw: alas! He got no win. Any pitcher who exited a game early on with a lead simply rubbed his arm and looked upwardly endearingly to the scorer's berth. Blisters, pulled thighs, headaches, sinus trouble, back aches, you lot name it: pitchers were eager to talk over these sufferings with beat writers. The Pirates' Elmer Singleton had a shot at a win, which went to relief bullpen Tiny Bonham (April 30, 1947). The official scorer, Stan Baumgartner, came into the clubhouse later the game and interviewed players regarding a possible injury. He switched the win to Singleton, but was on the fence and switched again to Bonham when he sent his score sheet to the league. Singleton didn't know that and bought beers for the whole club to celebrate what he thought would be his first win in 2 years. As far back as 1930, A'south starter Rube Walberg lost a win when managing director Connie Mack told the official scorer that Walberg hadn't been injured, but instead had been removed on a hunch (July 12, 1930). Sports editorials lambasted the lack of hard and fast rules on the subject.

A tape 6 injury wins were awarded in 1948, including Dutch Leonard receiving the majors' last two-inning injury win (June thirty, 1948, as noted above). The Braves' Glenn Elliott received the majors' last 3-inning injury win (September i, 1948) after he collided with brawny Ted Kluszewski: knowledgeable fans might consider this a off-white application of the exception. It was Elliott's only appearance of the yr, and so his season stat line showcases the injury exception. The Reds' Ewell Blackwell received the terminal four-inning injury win (July 18, 1949), indeed the very terminal injury win ever awarded. Not too sur-prisingly, Blackwell developed a stomachache after giving upwards back-to-back hits in the fifth inning. The official scorer gave the win to reliever Eddie Erautt, but the league changed information technology to Blackwell. It's a rare example of the official scorer being more than chic than Frick.

Only 3 games in this study show ejection as the cause of a starting bullpen departing. In all three cases, wins went to centre relievers. Unlike the Deadball Era, pitchers afterwards WWI were held responsible for actions that led to ejection. For case, in the about recent of these three games, the Cubs' Claude Passeau was ejected for shoving umpire Lee Ballanfant (July xvi, 1939). No argument seems to have been put forth that Passeau was the victim of his ain Cajun atmosphere. I have not actually seen or heard of this dominion, just looking at the information, it's clear: if 2 pitchers appear in a game where the starting pitcher has not pitched 5 innings, the starting pitcher got the win 17 percent of the time; if three or more than pitchers appear in a game, the starting pitcher got the win 37 per centum of the time.

That harkens back to the "bulk of the skillful pitching," the fifth scorer'due south practise outlined past Frank Williams. Three innings for a offset looks shabby when a reliever has gone six, but looks ameliorate when ii other relievers each go three innings. These types of wins, non because injuries or any other alibi, were a popular scorer'southward option until 1930. From 1918 to 1929 we see 39 such wins, about three a year. From 1930 to 1949 nosotros see 18, less than ane a year. This change of behavior in 1930 is abrupt, and follows a design of leagues overturning official scorers on this issue which begins in 1924. Game reports for 2 of these victories reveal fuzzy logic. For a June 5, 1924, win, the Washington Post notes that Curly Ogden got the nod "because he left the box with the Nationals on pinnacle and the score was never tied after his departure." On May 22, 1940, Mel Harder got the win because he "stayed long enough to get credit." A Brooklyn 9–6 win at Philadelphia, May two, 1948, seems to be the impetus for the discarding of the multiple reliever rule in awarding wins. Each of three bad pitchers could have won, and so NL president Ford Frick stepped in immediately afterwards the game and announced the winner, and, for that thing, the loser. A few weeks later, on June 12, Cleveland's Bob Muncrief benefits from this practise for the last fourth dimension in big league history.

THE WORLD SERIES WARM-UP

The World Series warm-up involves the apply of a starting pitcher afterwards the pennant has been clinched. The pitcher must go a few innings and be removed with the excuse given that he is getting set up for the Earth Series. No matter how many innings the starter went, it was only required that he leave the game with the winning pb. Of course there have been hundreds of games in which pitchers were warmed up for the postseason, but there were simply 13 during this study flow in which the starter had the winning lead, and left before the 5th inning. In those 13 instances the starter got the win 12 times.

The kickoff World Series warm-upwardly was pitched past the White Sox's Doc White, October 5, 1906, but he was removed after seven innings. In 1910, 1911, and 1912, the Cubs' Orval Overall, the A's Jack Coombs, and the Giants' Jeff Tesreau, respectively, pitched the next three such warm-ups. However all 3 were removed later on pitching the 5th inning, and only Overall had the winning lead. On Oct 2, 1913, Christy Mathewson was removed after iv innings with a 2–one lead in a meaningless game: history's offset official win in this category.

Information technology'southward a small category of victories, merely information technology's real. On September 30, 1934, Tigers teammates Alvin Crowder and Tommy Bridges picked up warm-upward wins in both games of a doubleheader hosting the Browns. Only four warm-upward wins follow: the Giants' Hal Schumacher in 1937, the Reds' Bucky Walters in 1940, the Yankees' Tiny Bonham in 1943, and finally the Braves' Nels Potter in 1948. Schumacher hit a game-winning three-RBI home run in his short 1937 win, and Potter's victory was the terminal 2-inning victory in MLB history.

The Yankees' Lefty Gomez, pitching on Oct 2, 1938, is the but pitcher in this era to exist denied a Globe Serial warm-upwardly victory. Gomez allowed 1 hit, and left later on three innings with a 1–0 pb at Fenway Park. Steve Sundra pitched six relief innings to consummate the win, the only time a reliever went that long in this type of win.

A 14th win in this category might include Van Lingle Mungo's September 27, 1936, get-go. Brooklyn manager Casey Stengel announced before this end-of-season game that Mungo would pitch only two innings. This he did, leaving with a 6–0 lead while padding his season total in strikeouts to 238. He got the win, but Brooklyn finished 7th, and so what Mungo would have been warming upward for is unclear.

THE SAVE WIN

Impressive work by a relief pitcher, in the full general area of what we would today call a save, garnered 21 official wins during this catamenia. Iii of these announced in 1948, a record for the "save win," and an indication that the practice was accelerating when the 1950 rule book was released. Almost immediately after the 1950 scoring change, the modern save every bit we know it was born, becoming an official statistic in 1969.

This is the third scoring practice every bit outlined by Frank Williams. However, "relieve wins" could be awarded regardless of how many innings the starting bullpen went, thus shedding little light on the development of a v-inning minimum. The 21 "save wins" occured in the 78,286 games played during this written report, and then it happened about 2 times every three major-league years, sharing the frequency of a celestial event. Additionally, of those 21 "salve wins" only five occurred when the starting bullpen left before the 5th inning, thus only five intersect with the games of this report. The obvious is illustrated in Table v: in none of the five games did the win become to the starting bullpen.

The three "save wins" in 1948 include Dan Casey's three-inning bailout of starter Rex Barney in Brooklyn's Opening Day victory; a win for Detroit's Virgil Trucks, July 23; and another for a Brooklyn pitcher, Paul Minner, September 16. A fourth "save win" was awarded to Clint Hartung of the Giants, June thirteen, simply rescinded past the NL a few days later on. They doled it out instead to middle reliever Larry Jansen.

WEATHER-SHORTENED GAMES

Twelve games in this study saw starting pitchers go two, three, or four innings in a game that went 5 or six innings. With ii exceptions, the starting pitcher got the win per a scoring do that really survives to this day. The most recent four-inning victory in a rain-shortened game went to the Phillies' Andrew Carpenter in 2009. Weather condition- and darkness-shortened games of seven or 8 innings accept a healthy percent of primitive wins awarded: 45 percent. However, this pales in comparison to the 83 percentage we see in five- and six-inning conquests.

The AL enforced a iii-inning minimum while the NL looked for four innings in these ultra-brusque games and the two starting pitchers who did not gain wins in this category both brutal shy of those milestones. The Cardinals' Jim Hearn pitched 3.1 (7/5/1948) and the Browns' Dick Starr pitched 2.2 (9/25/1949).

Wins in this category did not be between July ten, 1949, and May 12, 1978, a span of nearly 30 years and over 45,000 games. So the 1950 ruling did affect atmospheric condition-shortened wins for a generation, until Wilbur Woods received official scorer mercy for his 157th career win on that 1978 date. Larry Luebbers' 1999 win was finally awarded late in the evening, October 3, when the game was cancelled.

3 of the terminal four pitchers to receive these wins never won again, their weather-shortened victory becoming their very last in The Evidence. Luebbers was the first of this cursed group; the Reds' Chris Michalak besides won late in 2006, and the Phillies' Carpenter every bit mentioned. The quaternary pitcher, CC Sabathia, won a 2001 game in this fashion in his tenth career commencement. He is still agile and may yet bring together this grouping past bowing out with a rain-shortened win. It would, however, require him to get the outset pitcher to gain two wins in this teensy category.

The post-1950 incarnation of the weather-shortened win is different only in that three-inning wins are disallowed. The terminal three-inning win in a weather-shortened game went to Washington's David Thompson, September 19, 1948.

Unless he'd seen it in the 1885 Spalding Guide, which was unlikely, Former Hoss Radbourn probably never knew he won threescore games — or close to it — one season.

COMMANDING LEADS

Afterwards filtering out the excuses and exceptions of the study era, one is free to analyze the remaining 766 games for clues to the guidelines official scorers used in awarding archaic victories. Overlap does exist between groups—there may be multiple relievers in a game in which the starting bullpen is injured—and then the quantity of starts when adding up all of these groups totals lower than expected.

One trend stands out: NL official scorers honored John Heydler's 1916 bulletin. Think, Heydler's "commanding lead" guideline said that "a pitcher retired at close of quaternary inning, with the score 2–one in his favor, has not won a game." Sure enough, no NL pitcher since won a game with a 2–1 lead and fewer than five innings of piece of work. In fact, only two out of 139 starters won an archaic victory with a ane-run lead. The Cubs' Alex Freeman (September 9, 1921) and the Pirates' Bill Swift (August 23, 1935), both won after leaving with v–4 leads, simply only because multiple relievers followed them. For the thirty-two years in the study period, Heydler'due south guideline required NL teams to play for one run if the starting bullpen with a one-run pb was to get a win. This is the real reason that, to this mean solar day, the NL is known as a one-run league. It wasn't considering John McGraw loved to bunt. John McGraw abhorred the bunt.

Even two runs couldn't guarantee you an NL win. Only seven starters out of 99 games received archaic wins with 2-run leads, and six of those again took advantage of multiple relievers to win. Only the Phillies' Pretzels Pezzullo, in his showtime career kickoff (May 27, 1935), managed an archaic win with a ii-run lead and ane reliever. Pezzullo gave up nine hits in 4 two?3, leaving with the bases loaded. Euel Moore gave upwards three hits in 4 1?3 innings of close-out relief, and left the game with the same 4–2 score he inherited.

Even for leads of three, four, and five, the AL handed out archaic wins by a 39–25 margin over the stingy NL, despite the fact that the NL had more occurrences of these potential archaic wins: 142–123. Merely when leads were six or more did NL official scorers grant low-inning victories: the NL awarded 14 in 25 contests, while the AL awarded 9 in 26 contests.

The AL was simply non guided by commanding leads. Ban Johnson actually oversaw two archaic two–1 victories handed out under his watch. They went to Washington's Harry Harper (May 3, 1919) and the A'due south Sam Greyness (August 19, 1926). Harper went merely two innings and the official scorer gave the win to the reliever, Ed Hovlik, but in complete defiance of the NL rule Ban Johnson overruled the official scorer and made sure Harper got the win.

American League primitive win awarding was more an art form. In the Ban Johnson era the AL out-awarded the NL 79-to-27. Once Johnson retired, the AL and the NL were practically on even terms and the AL out-awarded the senior loop, 23-to-22. Barnard'southward four-inning minimum was ignored only twice in the tardily 1940s, when multiple relievers dirty the waters for ii win assignments. Yankees' pitcher Randy Gumpert's first win after returning from Globe State of war Ii duty was the beginning of these (April 24, 1946) and the sore-armed Mickey Harris got the terminal (July 6, 1947). Harris was arguably the best of four Red Sox pitchers that day.

Snowballing exceptions like these threatened to make a mockery of minimums. On June 13, 1948, the Cardinals hosted the Giants in a double-header that was the talk of the offseason. In the beginning game Clint Hartung got a win for what was effectively a two-out salve, later overruled by the league. In the second game Cherry Munger got a three-inning win after he jammed his finger diving into showtime base of operations. In July 1949, baseball commissioner Happy Chandler appointed a committee of senior official scorers to solve these winning decision problems. Tom Swope, shortly after being appear as the senior member of that commission, went out and credited a loss to Warren Hacker in a game in which starter Monk Dubiel immune the go-ahead run (July 6, 1949). Hopes were not high that the group could fix the issue. Even so, in mid-January 1950, Swope, Roscoe McGowen, Dan Daniel, Halsey Hall, and Charles Young agreed on the five-inning minimum and passed forth their ruling to Chandler for both leagues. It marked the end of an era of bitterness and grouse and promised a future of fairness and goodwill.

And speaking of Al Spalding, he did, of form, eventually get the win. That came 96 years later when Data Concepts Inc. was given unprecedented access to baseball's official records for the production of the 1969 Baseball Encyclopedia. Most other pre-1920 pitchers had to wait until the seventh edition of Total Baseball, in 2001, to accept proper won-loss records shown. Remarkably, Chadwick himself never retroactively figured won-lost records and never presented a pitcher's career won-lost total. It seems that to Chadwick what a pitcher did in consecutive seasons was irrelevant given the overall changes in teams and leagues. Charles Radbourn likely died without knowing he won sixty—or close to lx—games in one season.

Career totals begin with Cy Young, whose win milestones from 300 to 400 to 500 in the first decade of the twentieth century proved irresistible for newspapers who guessed as to his actual lifetime won-lost tape. George L. Moreland was a Columbus, Ohio railroad baggage master who became a small league investor, umpire, baseball reporter, and major league scout in the 1890s. Moreland bankrupt both his ankles early in 1898 and reportedly reviewed all of baseball history while convalescing at Pittsburgh's eastern commune White Ash mail service part. In 1905 Moreland's stats began actualization in newspapers. By June 1910, his weekly averages appeared nationally—always "by George L. Moreland" who had made himself a brand. He opened his ain sports bureau and published Moreland's Baseball game Records and Percentage Volume in 1909.

Moreland was the outset to provide lifetime totals for pitchers in press releases that went national, but his works seem to have been stabs in the night after Henry Chadwick passed in 1908. In 1911 he credited Cy Young with a 504–317 lifetime mark. In 1914, in his magnum opus encyclopedia, Balldom, he presented Young with a 508–311 tape. Moreland, Fred Lieb, Ernest Lanigan, and Al Munro Elias all did their own enquiry in secret and about every career pitching line published failed to match whatsoever other. During this era researchers maintained strict secrecy about their stats lest someone else double-check their totals for accuracy and claim their work.

Moreland had serious breadbasket trouble during WWI. He lost 100 pounds and buying of his sports bureau. When he was sick, John Heydler rose to the NL presidency and reportedly asked Al Munro Elias instead for the lifetime hits of Tris Speaker and Cap Anson. Elias pulled an all-nighter counting, presenting Heydler with the totals the side by side morning. Impressed, Heydler fabricated the very individual Elias the NL's official statistician over Moreland. Secrecy came to dominion and even xx years later, when Lefty Grove won his 300th game, no one knew the won-lost records of the 300-win club. Grove didn't accept whatever chances. He pitched a complete game.

FRANK VACCARO is a longtime SABR member and Teamsters Local 812 shop steward for Pepsi-Cola (KBI) in Northern Queens, NY. He lives in Long Island City with his wife Maria and their cat Furgood.

Sources

All data on game decisions, scores, and dates, sourced from Retrosheet. Accessed July 2012.

Baltimore Sun, April 27, 1894.

Boston Journal, September xxx, 1916, 9. Chicago Tribune, August i, 1923; July 24, 1940, sec 2, i.

Frank Williams essay in The National Pastime, 1982, l.

Joe Wayman essay in the Baseball Research Journal , 1995, 25.

George Moreland, Balldom, 1914, 283.

Los Angeles Gazette, April ii, 1916.

Macon Telegraph, August 24, 1887, 1.

New York Clipper, November 4, 1876, 253.

The New York Times, June 16, 1907; September 28, 1936; Oct 4, 1937; July 26, 1941, 10; September two, 1948.

SABR-Fifty electronic bulletin board: postal service #079724, Feb 27, 2010; post #084889, January 15, 2012.

Spalding's Official Base Ball Guide, 1890, pages 32, 53; 1900, 61.

Sporting Life, July 11, 1888, 4; November 14, 1896, 2; July ii, 1898, five; November four, 1899, 5; 21 March 21, 1903, 7; Feb 22, 1913, 14; September 19, 1914, xiv.

The Sporting News, July 7, 1888, 6; August 4, 1888, half dozen; July 17, 1930, v; May 21, 1931, 7; January 5, 1939, 5; August 10, 1939, ii; May eleven, 1944, 16; June 7, 1945, 10; May 21, 1947, 12; July 23, 1947, 36; September 3, 1947, 12; May 19, 1948, 15; July 29, 1949, 6.

Washington Post, August 27, 1912; July 19, 1949; April 19, 1950.

Washington Times, December 3, 1919.

Wheeling Register, March 24, 1895, 7.

How Is A Win Registered For A Pitcher,

Source: https://sabr.org/journal/article/origin-of-the-modern-pitching-win/

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