1917 Season Recap — Southern League
Carefree not singing the blues after another great season; Babe powers Tempe
Baseball is suddenly THE thing in the little town of Carefree, north of Phoenix. Of course, it helps that the Blues had another super season on the diamond.
The Blues Boys had the best season in franchise history, posting 100 wins. That beat the previous best of 93 wins, set last season. No wonder the stadium is full most games.
Carefree was a lot like Jerome in that solid pitching often overcame mediocre hitting. The Blues had just the 10th best batting average this season and were 15th best in home runs. But the team did score quite a bit, recording 784 runs (fifth in the league). Must have been solid in manufacturing scores.
Carefree got great production from its starting pitching rotation. Check out this line:
Code:
Player # Role Birthday Bats Throws ERA W L S WHIP
STARTERS
George Ferguson 60 SP 8/19/1886 Right Right 2.89 23 16 0 1.18
Raymond Bressler74 SP 10/23/1894 Right Left 2.96 19 9 0 1.31
Doc Crandall 5 SP 10/8/1887 Right Right 3.94 3 10 2 1.53
Marty Mchale 20 SP 10/30/1888 Right Right 3.43 25 13 0 1.27
Jeff Tesreau 17 SP 3/5/1889 Right Right 3.91 20 14 0 1.38
Never heard of these guys? Me either.
Jeff Tesreau was a late July pick-up from Nogales.
George Ferguson is now up to 163 career wins.
On the offensive front, Carefree didn't have a single regular earn a .300 batting average. Catcher
Art "Dutch" Wilson was the team leader at the plate, batting .293 with 90 RBIs. He had a 20-game hitting streak during the season. 2B
Larry Doyle batted .291 and new OF
Baby Doll Jacobsen hit .292 (driving in seven runs in a game against Tempe over the summer).
Hats off to reserve catcher
Ed Blackburn. He made four plate appearances during the season (working behind Dutch) and went 4-for-4 with a double and three RBIs. "That's right, baby, I batted 1.000 this season."
Speaking of Tempe (mentioned a few paragraphs above), the Sun Devils burst onto the scene thanks in large part to RF
Babe Ruth. The Devils also had their best season in franchise history, winning 96 games. The previous best was 88 way back in 1907.
Tempe has never won a Southern League title and has only finished second two other years. The Devils have never been last in the league but have finished seventh in the standings six times, sixth two times and fifth five times. In other words, Tempe usually isn't very good. Tucson, which usually is, missed the playoffs for the first time in seven years, finishing a few games behind the Devils.
Babe Ruth has certainly upset the balance of power in the South. The Sultan of Swat certainly swatted a lot, recording 186 hits, batting .343 and bashing 33 home runs. For the second year, he crossed the 100-RBI plateau, finishing with 107. Ruth also walked a lot and now has 233 free passes in two seasons. He also has 59 career homers. That's a nice pace during this "dead ball" era.
Ruth had a three-home game on July 17 against Bisbee. "I've never seen anything like him before," Ty Cobb said earlier in the season. "He just makes hitting look effortless. Pitchers just quake and crumble when he comes to the plate."
1B
Fred Merkle had a 99 RBI season for Tempe. Pitchers
Dave Davenport and
George Baumgarder won 25 games apiece. Erv Lange had 21 wins. "Thank you, Babe. Thank you, Babe. Thank you, Babe."
So Babe Ruth will make his first post-season appearance. And a new team from the Southern League will make it to the Cactus Champions Cup.
Here are the final 1917 SL standings. After Tucson, the rest of the Southern League was pretty pitiful.
Code:
Team W L PCT GB Pyt.Rec Diff Home Away XInn 1Run M# Streak Last10
Carefree 100 62 .617 - 100-62 0 50-31 50-31 12-7 28-20 * W5 7-3
Tempe 96 66 .593 4.0 98-64 -2 49-32 47-34 8-11 26-27 - W1 6-4
Tucson 92 70 .568 8.0 90-72 2 41-40 51-30 8-8 23-23 - W2 6-4
Nogales 78 84 .481 22.0 79-83 -1 41-40 37-44 10-8 21-21 - L1 5-5
Bisbee 76 86 .469 24.0 74-88 2 38-43 38-43 9-6 25-24 - W1 4-6
Yuma 74 88 .457 26.0 78-84 -4 36-45 38-43 8-9 25-24 - L1 5-5
Tombstone 69 93 .426 31.0 63-99 6 34-47 35-46 4-7 26-20 - L2 4-6
Phoenix 63 99 .389 37.0 68-94 -5 32-49 31-50 3-6 16-31 - L2 3-7