1904 American League

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The 1904 season of the American League was the fourth season of the league.

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Season summary

The 1904 American League pennant race was one of the most exciting in history. On August 22nd, the entire first division of the league was within two games of each other, with the fifth-place Cleveland Naps just 5 games back. From August 27 to the end of the season, the Boston Americans and New York Highlanders would be within one game of each other for all but four days. The third-place Chicago White Sox weren't eliminated until the first week of October.

The pennant was decided in a five-game season-ending series between Boston and New York that began on Friday, October 7th in New York with Boston holding a half-game lead. In the opener, Jack Chesbro won his 41st game for New York, setting a league record that still stands. There were now two doubleheaders left to play, and the already overused Chesbro started one of the games on the Saturday in Boston. He and Walter Clarkson were battered in a 13-2 loss, then Boston also won the nitecap, 1-0, behind the pitching of Cy Young and a costly error by Wid Conroy. With Sunday baseball still banned, the last two games were played on the Monday, October 10th, back in New York. The Highlanders needed to win both games, and sent Chesbro back on the mound for the opener. New York had little choice, as they basically had a two-men pitching staff, with Chesbro and Jake Powell (who had been on the wrong end of the 1-0 decision) combining for a record 845 innings). Facing Bill Dinneen, one of the heroes of Boston's World Series win the year before, he took a tie game into the 9th, but famously uncorked a wild pitch with Lou Criger on third base to allow the winning run. The Highlanders were unable to score in the bottom half of the inning, stranding two runners, and lost the game, 3-2, to give Boston its second consecutive pennant. That wild pitch would (unfairly) haunt Chesbro for the remainder of his career and of his life, even though the batter, Freddy Parent, followed with a single that would have scored the winning run anyway.

However there was no World Series that year, as the New York Giants, who won the National League title handily, refused to "debase" themselves by facing what they considered the champions of an inferior league, a decision that was largely prompted by the fear that the upstart Highlanders could be the AL champs. The decision did not go down well with fans and prompted officials of the two leagues to agree to a truce after the season and make the World Series a permanent fixture.

Standings

Bold indicates league champion; there was no World Series played

Rank	Team	G	W	L	T	WPCT	GB	RS (RS/G)	RA (RA/G)	AVG	OBP	SLG	ERA	FPCT
1	Boston Americans	157	95	59	3	.605	-.-	608 (3.87)	466 (2.97)	0.247	0.294	0.340	2.12	0.963
2	New York Highlanders	155	92	59	4	.594	1.5	598 (3.86)	526 (3.39)	0.259	0.301	0.347	2.57	0.958
3	Chicago White Sox	156	89	65	2	.571	6.0	600 (3.85)	482 (3.09)	0.242	0.294	0.316	2.30	0.964
4	Cleveland Naps	154	86	65	3	.558	7.5	647 (4.20)	482 (3.13)	0.260	0.302	0.354	2.22	0.959
5	Philadelphia Athletics	155	81	70	4	.523	12.5	557 (3.59)	503 (3.25)	0.249	0.292	0.336	2.35	0.959
6	St. Louis Browns	156	65	87	4	.417	29.0	481 (3.08)	604 (3.87)	0.239	0.284	0.294	2.83	0.960
7	Detroit Tigers	162	62	90	10	.383	32.0	505 (3.12)	627 (3.87)	0.231	0.278	0.292	2.77	0.959
8	Washington Senators	157	38	113	6	.242	55.5	437 (2.78)	743 (4.73)	0.227	0.267	0.288	3.62	0.951

League leaders

Bold indicates league record, Italics indicate all-time record

Batting

Statistic	Leader	Team	Number
Games Played	Jimmy Barrett	Detroit Tigers	162
At Bats	Patsy Dougherty	Boston Americans/New York Highlanders	647
Runs Scored	Patsy Dougherty	Boston Americans/New York Highlanders	113
Hits	Nap Lajoie	Cleveland Naps	208
Doubles	Nap Lajoie	Cleveland Naps	49
Triples	Joe Cassidy Buck Freeman Chick Stahl	Washington Senators Boston Americans Boston Americans	19
Home Runs	Harry Davis	Philadelphia Athletics	10
Total Bases	Nap Lajoie	Cleveland Naps	305
Runs Batted In	Nap Lajoie	Cleveland Naps	102
Stolen Bases	Harry Bay Elmer Flick	Cleveland Naps Cleveland Naps	38
Walks	Jimmy Barrett	Detroit Tigers	79
Hit by Pitch	Dick Padden	St. Louis Browns	18
Sacrifice Hits	Fielder Jones	Chicago White Sox	36
Batting Average	Nap Lajoie	Cleveland Naps	0.376
On-Base Percentage	Nap Lajoie	Cleveland Naps	0.413
Slugging Percentage	Nap Lajoie	Cleveland Naps	0.552
On-Base plus Slugging	Nap Lajoie	Cleveland Naps	0.965
On-Base plus Slugging Plus	Nap Lajoie	Cleveland Naps	205

Pitching

Statistic	Leader	Team	Number
Wins	Jack Chesbro	New York Highlanders	41
Losses	Happy Townsend	Washington Senators	26
Win-Loss Percentage	Jack Chesbro	New York Highlanders	0.774
Appearances	Jack Chesbro	New York Highlanders	55
Games Started	Jack Chesbro	New York Highlanders	51
Complete Games	Jack Chesbro	New York Highlanders	48
Shutouts	Cy Young	Boston Americans	10
Games Finished	Ed Walsh	Chicago White Sox	10
Saves	Case Patten	Washington Senators	3
Innings Pitched	Jack Chesbro	New York Highlanders	454.2
Batters Faced	Jack Chesbro	New York Highlanders	1778
Hits Allowed	Case Patten	Washington Senators	367
Home Runs Allowed	Jack Powell	New York Highlanders	15
Base-on-Balls Allowed	George Mullin	Detroit Tigers	131
Hit Batsmen	Case Patten Barney Pelty	Washington Senators St. Louis Browns	20
Strikeouts	Rube Waddell	Philadelphia Athletics	349
Wild Pitches	Happy Townsend	Washington Senators	19
Balks	9 players tied		1
Runs Allowed	Happy Townsend	Washington Senators	163
Earned Runs Allowed	Case Patten	Washington Senators	122
Earned Run Average	Addie Joss	Cleveland Naps	1.59
Walks plus Hits per Inning Pitched	Cy Young	Boston Americans	0.937

Postseason

The World Series between the league champions of the American League, the Boston Americans and the National League, the New York Giants was not held.

Umpires

• Monte Beville*
• Bill Carpenter
• Tom Connolly
• Bill Coughlin*
• Lew Drill*
• Frank Dwyer
• Harry Howell*
• Charles King
• Silk O'Loughlin
• Jack Sheridan

* Denotes a fill-in umpire

Further Reading

• Tom Ruane: "A Retro-Review of the 1900s (the 1904 edition)", Retrosheet.org [1]