“It makes little sense, but apparently that is just the way it is.”
So went the response I received from another member of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) when I polled over 1,200 baseball historians asking about the incongruity over how stats from the 1882-1891 American Association (AA) are handled.
Individual players’ results are included while their team results are excluded from the history books.
As you already know if you are a regular reader here, the issue surfaced when the St. Louis Cardinals recently won their 10,000th game as a franchise. The club disagreed, reiterating an earlier position that they do not recognize their years during the 1880s as a member of the AA.
The team’s position is a consistent one as none of the other three former AA teams still surviving in today’s National League consider their AA years to be part of their respective histories, either.
Complicating matters is the fact that major baseball history sites such as Retrosheet.org and Baseball-Reference.com include the AA standings in team records; hence the attention over 10,000 wins, about 800 wins sooner than the Cardinals recognize.
Since my last post, I have confirmed that MLB does recognize player stats accrued during the years of the American Association. So what we have here is a league whose individual stats are ok, but their teams’ results are not.
In 2007, an MLB.com article about the AA (a good summary read) made this very definitive statement:
“Eventually, the American Association was recognized as a full-fledged Major League and all of its players’ statistics and career highlights are counted accordingly in the annals of Major League history.”
I made what would prove to be an incorrect assumption that MLB would be the ones to define the details of their own history. To that end, I contacted a friend, MLB.com Director of Stats Cory Schwartz. My intent was to learn the logic behind this decision from the guy who controls the numbers.
Cory begged off, saying that the Elias Sports Bureau “maintain the historical records and are the final arbiters of what is ‘official’ or not”.
At that point, I grabbed my copy of the Elias Book of Baseball Records off the bookcase shelf. The confirmation was instant. The very first record on the very first page is held by an AA player. Deacon McGwire owns the official record for the most major league seasons with 26. He spent his first, in 1884, and four of his 26 campaigns playing in the AA.
My next call was to Elias researcher Ken Hirdt, who seemed to be the right person when he acknowledged he knows “as much or more than anyone around here about 1800’s records”.
Hirdt understood the inconsistency, but wrote it off as being “lost to history”, going on to characterize the late 19th Century as “a murky time” for baseball records.
From there, my last stop was the esteemed members of SABR, as noted above. None of the game’s most avid historians could shed any more light on the situation.
And with nowhere else to turn, that is where I left it – a most dissatisfying conclusion.
My guess, and it is a guess only, is that when the four American Association clubs were accepted into the National League, the NL made a decision not to recognize the AA, considered an outlaw league. This would explain the consistent posture by all four teams to not accept their AA results, including the Cardinals.
Later on, perhaps the decision to count AA player stats was made independently from the NL, maybe by Elias. As an aside, for most of baseball’s history, the league offices had considerable power. Only in recent years was all decision-making consolidated in the MLB offices.
Related posts:
“Not recognizing 10,000 wins ignores American Association”
“Cardinals assert team history began in 1892”
Maybe historians in the know should do what makes sense to them and not concern themselves with whether MLB agrees? The telling of history is the province of historians, not nay-saying corporations.
Truth Jumbo. I think a lot of it is that those in the stats business now-a-days live it and breath it and make a living at it and tend to forget that back then nobody gave a damn. I seriously doubt much thought was given the stat keeping question at the time, as the industry wasn’t invented yet. It would be an interesting research project to try and find out when was the first time an issue was made of it, many years after the fact I would bet.
Regardless of the outcome of tonights game, this is more like it. Its 7/4, and the responsive, rally type of hitting shows very well!!!
I’m not positive but I believe that is how the stats of the ABA (basketball) are handled also.
Do you think that if the Cardinals had decided to include the AA team records, MLB and Elias say it wouldn’t be recognized ?
Elias didn’t seem to have a point of view on what the teams recognize in terms of their win totals.
Since the Cards declared their 1992 centennial, they weren’t going to change now.
Brian, you could commission development of a Cardinals Nation logo that dates the team to 1882. The rationale would be greater historical accuracy. Also the player statistics are allowed from the 1880s, your second basis of defensibility. 1882 to 2009, more than 12 decades.
The Cardinals should have had more motivation than any other American Association team to claim their 1880s wins as they earned four pennants and a world championship during those years.
To top it off, their 1886 World Series win was over the NL champ, the White Stockings, recognized as the direct predecessor of today’s Cubs. Hard to explain that the NL didn’t recognize the AA yet played them in a World Series each year… Even though they were considered exhibitions, the games were played to big crowds and records kept. I have to stop here or I am going to get angry all over again…
Moving on… Those who enjoy Cardinals history and have noted the name Vinegar Bend Mizell on some of the recent pitching lists provided here should ensure you read my friend Bill McCurdy’s blog post today: “Wilmer David Mizell: The Buff from Vinegar Bend!”
[i] “Hard to explain that the NL didn’t recognize the AA yet played them in a World Series each year… [/i]
The two leagues weren’t completely estranged. They were partners from 1883-1890 in something called the National Agreement, which among other things kept players from jumping their contracts to take a better deal in the opposite league. After the players’ revolt of 1890, the National Agreement unraveled over the issue of a couple of AA players who were “pirated” away by the NL’s Pittsburgh franchise, which picked up a new nickname in the dispute.
Is the AA the only professional league from which player stats are recognized by MLB but not team stats?
Anyone know last time Cards got 10 runs without a homer?
You are right on Brian, I feel that the Cardinals can’t change their stance unless they want to be rebellious, but they were foolish in turning down that part of their lineage.
thanks for the link on Wilmer Mizell !
bb, according to Tom Orf:
89 times since 1954, 1 game with no extra base hits, 16 times under La Russa.
Although it’s hard to beat the 2nd inning of the 1985 NLCS when the Cardinals scored nine runs without an extra-base hit.
Last time before last night the Cardinals scored 10 without a homer was Aug. 22, 2008, when they scored a whopping 18 runs against the Braves on 26 hits, none of them homers.
I remember the 18 run game now, we had pitchers and .200 hitters going 4 for 5 and stuff like that, crazy.
NLCS Coleman/tarp game, forgot about that 9 run inning.
Also, I read where the NL didn’t like the AA because the AA allowed beer sales at the games. There’s your answer Brian, MLB just can’t accept that kind of moral degeneracy.
You might be onto something bling . . .
It was called The Beer and Whiskey League for some good reasons!