1916 BBW Replay Week 1 Summary - April 12-16, 1916

Boston (AL) Manager
Bill "Rough" Carrigan

Week One of the 1916 BBW replay is in the books, and we are off and running. The season started on a Wednesday, so it was a comparatively short week as far as the schedule goes, but all the teams were ready to play regardless. Plenty of highly graded pitchers, plenty or steal and sacrifices, occasional hitting … having just completed replaying 1938, my first thoughts were "This ain't 1938 is it?" So far, I have seen four shutouts, four extra-inning games, some real nail-biters … this is going to be a fun replay.

Both leagues started out with teams playing other teams from their part of the country, so no cross-country train trips yet. That will come soon enough, though. In the AL, the Red Sox, the 1915 World Series winners, jumped off to a fast start as they swept all three games from the lowly Philadelphia Athletics. The A's are going to struggle this year. The other teams split their opening series, with close games all around. The one game to mention was the Opening Day heroics of the Cleveland  Indians - twenty-four hits and thirteen runs against St. Louis, an exciting introduction for Tris Speaker in his new uniform, and all in only four games. The big opening day went to the Indians' left fielder and lead-off hitter, Jack Graney. Graney hit the ground running with a 6-for-6 day that included four runs scored, an RBI, and a double.

 

In the NL, the Chicago Cubs ventured to Cincinnati to start their season and came away with four road wins, only to travel to St. Louis and end the week with a loss. This puts them in second place at the end of the week, a half-game ahead of the 2-0 Boston Braves, who reside in first by dint of the 1.000 winning percentage. Brooklyn lost their two games to Boston and currently resides in last place … it's early, and we’ve only played a half-week of baseball, anything can happen and probably will.

 

Tris Speaker has a hot hand on his new team with five doubles, ten RBI's, and a homerun. The Indians fans were shocked to find out that Cleveland had acquired the star outfielder, and just a week before the season started, and Speaker hasn’t disappointed yet. Including Speaker's homerun, there were a total of long ones hit in the first few days of the season. Chicago (AL) center fielder Happy Felsch hit homeruns on back-to-back days to the delight of the hometown White Sox fans.

 

These games do go faster … fewer hits and fewer runs than in a high offense season like 1938, but there is still plenty of strategy around stolen base attempts, sacrifices, and hit-and-runs. Teams have a cut-down date for their rosters coming up in May, so a lot of players are getting in their limited number of appearances (i.e., cup of coffee) before being farmed out. We're off to a good start, so let's go play!