Mordecai Brown by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Mordecai Brown

Page 143

And that was more than enough.

P Team W L W-L% GB

1 Chicago Whales 86 66 .566 --

2 St. Louis Terriers 87 67 .565 --

3 Pittsburgh Rebels 86 67 .562 0.5

4 Kansas City Packers 81 72 .529 5.5

5 Newark Pepper 80 72 .526 6.0

6 Buffalo Blues 74 78 .487 12.0

7 Brooklyn Tip-Tops 70 82 .461 16.0

8 Baltimore Terrapins 47 107 .305 40.0

When the Federal League folded, Brown returned to the National League and the now sub .500 Cubs for 1916, where he proceeded to have the worst year of his career, going 2-3, with the highest ERA of his life at 3.91, in just 12 games, as age and injury allowed. The Cubs only did better than him through playing a full, dismal, second division season.

It was a gray, windless afternoon at West Side Grounds, the kind where the air felt stale even before the first pitch. Mordecai Brown arrived early, as he always did, though “early” no longer meant what it once had. In 1908 he would have been there before the grounds crew, loosening his shoulder with that quiet,