The Story of the 1902 American League Champion Athletics

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Philadelphia Athletics first American League championship, one of nine the team would win during its illustrious history. The 1902 title was, in some respects, the most improbable the Mackmen would claim. The year started disastrously for the A’s—not on the ball field, but in the courts. Mack and his stalwart players would recover from this setback to give the City of Philadelphia a pennant flag to savor. This is the story of the Athletics’ climb from adversity to triumph in 1902.

Mack Lures Players to the A’s…

When the American League (AL) was established in late 1900, clubs had to cast about to find quality players for the 1901 season. The National League (NL) offered a bountiful, albeit expensive, source for players of a caliber needed by the AL to be competitive and affirm its credibility as a major league circuit. Raiding the senior circuit for players was made all the easier by the NL’s refusal to acknowledge the major league rights and status of the new league. Absent this recognition, AL clubs felt no inhibition about plundering players from NL teams with the siren’s call of fatter paychecks. Among the biggest raiders was Connie Mack, and his main target was the cross-town rival Philadelphia Phillies.

The AL’s job of luring players also was simplified by the NL’s ceiling of $2,400 as the most a player in that league could earn in a year. Attracted by the AL’s promises of no salary cap and lucrative offers from individual teams, players jumped in droves to the new league. According to the “Spalding Guide,” 74 active NL players jumped to the AL by the start of the 1901 season. Napoleon (King Larry) Lajoie, the Phillies star second baseman, was among the many players who felt they deserved more money. Lajoie, one of the NL’s best hitters and a future Hall of Famer, jumped to the A’s before the start of the 1901 season in response to Mack’s offer of a $4,000 salary. Mack didn’t stop there. He also snared two of the Phillies’ best pitchers, Chick Fraser and Bill Bernhard, who each had won 15 games for the Phillies in 1900, along with pitcher Wiley Piatt and infielder Joe Dolan who joined the A’s after the 1901 season had begun.

Mack also loosened his purse strings before the 1902 season, and his primary target again was the Phillies. This time, he convinced right fielder and future Hall of Famer Elmer Flick, pitcher Bill Duggleby (a 19-game winner in 1901) and shortstop Monte Cross to join the A’s. Other AL teams delivered the biggest blows against the Phillies in 1902, however. The St. Louis Browns purloined Red Donahue, who had a 21-13 record in 1901 for the Phillies, and the Washington Nationals grabbed hard-hitting outfielder Ed Delahanty along with pitchers Al Orth (a 21-game winner in 1901) and Jack Townsend and third baseman Harry Wolverton. Delahanty became the third future Hall of Famer to leave the Phillies in 1901-02 for the larger paychecks of the American League.

…And the Phillies Head to the Courts

Not surprisingly, the Phillies didn’t look kindly on the AL raiding its roster. The club went to court in March 1901 to seek redress arguing that the option clause (better known as the reserve clause) in standard NL baseball contracts prevents players from jumping to another team or league unless the player is first released by the original club. The Phillies lost the initial round when a Philadelphia Common Pleas Court judge threw out the case ruling the NL contract lacked sufficient mutuality. The team immediately appealed to the state supreme court, but the appeals process took time, and Lajoie and the other ex-Phillies players were able to play for the Athletics during the 1901 season. However, on 21 April 1902, that state supreme court ruled in favor of the Phillies. Following the ruling, the team obtained injunctions against Lajoie, Fraser and Bernhard playing for any club other than the Phillies. (Monte Cross, Elmer Flick and Bill Duggleby were never joined in any litigation although they had also jumped to the Athletics. Nevertheless, there was little doubt the ruling also applied to them.)

The Athletics were in spring training at Chapel Hill, North Carolina in 1902 when the court’s decision was announced. Mack recalled that, upon hearing the news, “I felt as though they had swept my ball club right from under me.” The fledgling AL, however, had no intention of allowing its star players to return to the NL. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision could be enforced only within that state, so AL President Ban Johnson, with Mack’s consent, had Lajoie, Bernhard and Flick assigned to the Cleveland Americans. (Whenever Cleveland came to Philadelphia to play the Athletics, Lajoie allegedly frolicked in Atlantic City to avoid violating the injunction against him playing for anyone in Pennsylvania other than the Phillies. Lajoie rejoined the Athletics in the twilight of his career, playing for the team in 1915-16.) Monte Cross, in whom the Phillies showed no particular interest during the court proceedings, stayed with the A’s as the club’s regular shortstop. Fraser and Duggleby returned to the Phillies.

The Phillies Continuing Woes

A final word about the effects of AL player raids on the Phillies. The 1901 Phillies finished in second place in the NL, 7 ½ games behind the league-leading Pirates. Of the three key Phillies players Mack lifted from the team prior to the season, Lajoie hit a league-leading .422 for the A’s in 1901 and also led the league in home runs (14), RBIs (125), runs (145), hits (229) and doubles (48). Fraser and Bernhard won a combined total of 37 games for the Athletics. Had these three players still played for the Phillies that season, it’s not unreasonable to believe that the team would have been NL champions in 1901 instead of the Pirates. The 1902 player raids were too much for the Phillies, however, and the loss of additional key players to the AL, especially Delahanty, Flick, Donahue and Orth, contributed to the Phillies’ collapse to a 7th place finish that year. Player raids by the AL had cost the Phillies so many quality players that what had been a competitive team went into a tailspin. Indeed, the first five batting champions of the AL were the future Hall of Famers who had jumped the Phillies—Lajoie (1901, 1903-04), Delahanty (1902) and Flick (1905).

Perhaps more importantly, the raids and rising costs of retaining good players convinced Phillies’ owners A.J. Reach and Col. John I. Rogers to sell the club after the 1902 season. It was Reach who had brought the Worcester Browns club to Philadelphia in 1883 and renamed it the Phillies. But, he had had enough and sold the club to a socialite named Jimmy Potter. The move was disastrous. Potter became the first of a series of Phillies’ owners who, through under-capitalization, incompetence and indifference, made the team the weak sister of the National League until it was rescued by the Carpenter family over 40 years later.

Mack Replenishes his Ranks

In response to the devastating losses the Athletics had experienced, several AL clubs sent players to help Mack carry through the 1902 season. Cleveland sent over catcher Ossie Schreckengost and second baseman Frank Bonner. Boston transferred pitchers Fred Mitchell and Howard “Highball” Wilson to the A’s while Milwaukee shipped pitcher Bert Husting to toil for Mack’s staff. Husting and Schreckengost would prove the best of the bunch for 1902, although none could ever replace the loss of Lajoie.

But all was not lost, and two key acquisitions by Mack after the 1902 season had begun would prove decisive. To augment his pitching staff, Mack convinced the highly talented but zany George Edward “Rube” Waddell to join the A’s. Waddell had pitched for Mack when he managed in Milwaukee in 1900. Rube’s daffy but colorful behavior would tax Mack’s patience innumerable times during the season, but he would prove the jewel of A’s pitchers in 1902. Although Waddell didn’t join the Athletics until 26 June, he won 24 games while losing only 7 and struck out 210 batters. “Gettysburg” Eddie Plank, who had pitched respectably for the A’s in 1901, developed into a star in 1902, winning 20 games while Husting contributed 14 victories. Together, these three pitchers won 58 of the 83 games in which the A’s prevailed in 1902, while an assortment of seven other pitchers garnered the additional 25 wins.

The second major addition to the A’s team was second baseman Danny Murphy who Mack purchased from the Connecticut League. While he was no Napoleon Lajoie, Murphy hit a strong .313 in 1902 and helped anchor the A’s infield. Indeed, in his first game with the team on 8 July 1902 in Boston, Murphy lashed out six hits in as many times at bat including a Grand Slam. Murphy would prove a solid player for Mack through the 1914 season.

The A’s Prevail as AL Champions

Early in the season, the Athletics hovered around the top of the standings, even landing atop the league for a few days in May. The St. Louis Browns were the A’s principal competition early on. In June, the Chicago White Stockings took over first place, but the Athletics stayed close. With Waddell’s arrival and the hot hitting of several A’s players, the club went on a tear in August, winning 16 of 17 games at one point and securing first place. The Athletics’ lead remained precarious, however, as the Browns refused to fade and the Boston Pilgrims also began making a run at the pennant. By the beginning of September, Boston had pulled within one game of the A’s with the Browns close behind.

The Athletics went on a “western” trip in early September, playing against St. Louis, Detroit and Cleveland. The trip started inauspiciously, with the Mackmen losing two straight doubleheaders to the Browns. The A’s left St. Louis with a half-game lead over the Browns and one game over the Pilgrims. The club rebounded, however, sweeping a three-game series against Detroit and winning two of three against Cleveland. The Mackmen returned to Philadelphia for a series against the lowly Orioles with a two-game lead over both the Browns and Pilgrims.

The A’s won two doubleheaders against Baltimore at Philadelphia’s Columbia Park before taking the train to Boston. The series against the Pilgrims opened with Waddell losing a 5-4 cliffhanger to Cy Young. The Athletics came back, however, taking two from Boston as Plank beat Dinneen and Waddell bested Young. Mack and his team returned to Philadelphia and performed in grand style as the A’s swept three from Washington. Boston then came to town for a four-game series that the Pilgrims had to win to stay in contention. In game one, Waddell again prevailed over Young, while Plank did the honors in game two with a win over Tully Sparks. Boston took game three, but Waddell came back to win the final game of the series, virtually assuring the A’s the AL championship.

The Athletics traveled to Baltimore and won three in a row, clinching the pennant on 25 September. Mack bestowed upon Philadelphia its first title since the Athletics of the old American Association had won the pennant in 1883. A parade to honor the AL champions was planned, and it proved to be quite an affair. It was held on 29 September, and some 350 clubs and organizations sent bands and other marchers to participate. The parade wound its way down Broad Street from Girard Avenue to Vine with a group of carriages bearing the A’s players and Manager Mack. Even the Philadelphia Giants, a “colored” baseball club, was allowed to march in the parade. It was a grand occasion.

Postscript

Having won the AL pennant, Mack and his players hoped there would be a post-season championship series against the NL victors. But, it was not to be. Pittsburgh won the NL title in a walk (second-place Brooklyn finished 27 ½ games behind Pirates). Pittsburgh’s owner, Barney Dreyfuss, bore ill will against the AL because, like the Phillies, his team had lost many players to raids including, most notably, pitcher Jack Chesbro. Dreyfuss was in no mood to confer legitimacy upon the AL by playing that league’s champion in a post-season contest. The answer from Dreyfuss to the idea was a resounding, “No!” The AL-NL “war,” however, was soon settled. In January 1903, a “peace agreement” was reached in which the senior circuit recognized the legitimacy of the new league. The agreement paved the way for an annual post-season World Series between the champions of the two leagues.

Despite the lack of post-season play, Connie Mack’s performance in managing the A’s to the 1902 AL pennant remains a noteworthy achievement. He had to rebuild the club at the start of the season and compensate for the loss of the nucleus of the pitching staff and two future Hall of Famers (Lajoie and Flick). The acquisition of Waddell and Murphy proved a terrific boost for the club’s fortunes, as did the contributions of other team members. Six players hit over .300, including outfielder “Socks” Seybold, who also contributed 16 home runs. That figure would stand as the AL home run record for a season until Babe Ruth surpassed it with 29 in 1919. As noted, Plank proved a clutch pitcher at the beginning of a career with the Athletics that would lead him to the Hall of Fame. Finally, Mack realized quickly that the A’s regular catcher, Mike Powers, wasn’t compatible with Waddell. He inserted Schreckengost as Waddell’s catcher, and the two free spirits became a solid battery that would endure throughout their careers with the A’s. Mack and the Athletics still had many successes and pennants before them, but nothing ahead could diminish the luster of their triumph as AL champions in 1902.