Roger's 1920 APBA Replay: Week 23 Summary (09/13/1920

Week Twenty-Three of the 1920 BBW Replay is in the books, and the tension keeps mounting, making the upcoming two weeks very exciting. The NL has two teams that haven't reached the 140-gaes-played mark (Boston and Cincinnati) and the Al has one (Washington). With only fourteen days remaining these teams will have a very busy upcoming schedule. The NL Midwest teams will finish their games on the east coast at mid-week for their final round of games at home, while in the AL it is the east coast teams that will be returning homeward in the mid-week as well.

Frankie Frisch

In the AL, Chicago won 2-of-3 at home from New York and ended the week with a 4.5 games lead over the second place Yankees. The White Sox are a good team as they have solid pitching and defense, and offensively they may lack the power numbers of New York, but they can score with anybody.

New York has a narrow 2.0 games lead over third place Cleveland. The Indians still have the idea that they can sneak to the top of the AL, and over their past ten games they have gone 7-3 while New York has gone 2-8, so Cleveland is keeping their hopes alive. New York will likely come out of its doldrums, while Cleveland so far has managed to avoid going into a sustained surge, but for the meantime, the Yankees are just happy they are done with both Chicago and Cleveland for the regular season.

In the NL, Cincinnati had quite the week. They lost consecutive games when lowly Philadelphia got hot in the bottom of the ninth and earned two walk-off wins. On Wednesday morning, Cincinnati was still in first, but only by percentage points and New York and Brooklyn were both tied for the top spot with the Reds. On Thursday, it was Brooklyn all along in the top spot, while Cincinnati found themselves in third place, but then on Friday all three teams were tied for first place once again.

Jesse Haines

Cincinnati ended the week by sweeping a three-game series in Brooklyn and then winning the first of four games in New York and were back in first place by a full 2.0 games. Once Brooklyn completed its streak of going 17-2 they seem to have gone lethargic again. They only have eight games remaining to be played, so they are going to have to wake up quickly if they can.

New York was the hot team in the NL for the first two-thirds of the season, but for the past few weeks they have been quite flat. Their pitching has leveled off as has their hitting, and while this is a bit of a return to the norm for them, they still have twelve games remaining in which maybe they can find that magic once again. Cincinnati has sixteen games remaining, so they really control their own destiny. With New York and Brooklyn seemingly floundering as the season's end draws near, they really don’t require a miracle finish, they just have to keep playing well and they should be able to repeat as the NL pennant winners.

Of course, as we know the AL is about to experience a major upheaval. Betting shenanigans and the 1919 World Series is something that has been whispered about for the past year, but now a States Attorney is investigating and just this past week those whispers have turned into newspaper headlines, and yes, this is all going to blow up soon. Included below is a recap of the final week of the season that I published in a pre-season blog post, so it is included here as a reminder of what is about to happen.

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The 1919 World Series was marred by serious accusations of gamblers influencing the outcome of the series, and indeed eight players of the White Sox were banned from baseball for life on September 28, 1920. This has several potential replay implications with regard to the World Series:

On 09/27/1920, the soon-to-be-banned players played, and Chicago (95-56) ended the day in second place, one-half game behind Cleveland (94-54).
Chicago did not play on 09/28/1920. Cleveland (95-54) won their game to expand their lead to 1.0 games.
Chicago did not play on 09/29/1920. Cleveland (96-54) won their game to expand their lead to 1.5 games.
There were no games on 09/30/1920
Chicago (95-57) resumed play on 10/01/1920 with a makeshift lineup and lost, while Cleveland (97-55) split a doubleheader, ending the day with a 2.0 game lead, both teams with two games left to play.
Chicago (96-57) won on 10/02/1920, but Cleveland (98-55) also won and clinched the AL pennant with one game remaining for both teams.

In replays, the teams that actually won don’t always win. What do I do if Chicago, still a very good team, were to find itself in a position where they still ended up winning the AL pennant for me in 1920, even without their key players? Would the White Sox and their makeshift lineup still be allowed to play in the World Series, or would baseball step in and arbitrarily declare them out? Would Charles Comiskey voluntarily declare them out? Would there even be a World Series at all in 1920 if this were to occur?

Ultimately, it's my replay, and therefore I get the final word on this, so if the White Sox should reach the World Series they will play and use their makeshift lineup. That may not give them much hope I suppose, but that is why you play the games.

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This ending is a lot more exciting than I could have ever anticipated, so let's go play!