1908 American League

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1908 American League
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The 1908 season of the American League was the eighth season of the league.

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Season summary

While the pennant race in the National League is more famous, the 1908 American League had an even closer pennant race, as four clubs were neck-and-neck coming into September: the Chicago White Sox, Cleveland Naps, Detroit Tigers and St. Louis Browns, who also happened to be the league's four western teams, with the east coasters being all also-rans. On September 17th, all four teams were within five games of each other, and over the next two weeks, the four eastern teams toured the four western cities, facing all four contenders. By October 1st, the Browns had dropped off the pace, but Detroit, Cleveland and Chicago were only separated by a game and a half, as the eastern teams headed home. The White Sox went to Cleveland to play two, while the Tigers hosted the Browns. On October 2nd, Addie Joss pitched the second perfect game in American League history, defeating the White Sox and 39-game winner Ed Walsh, 1-0, the only run being unearned. Meanwhile, Detroit came back from a run down in the 9th to win, 7-6, and won again the next day. The White Sox avoided elimination when Walsh saved a 3-2 win over Cleveland. That set up a three-game series between Detroit and Chicago, with Cleveland hosting St. Louis. Detroit was in the driver's seat, as the only way they could fail to win the pennant was to be swept, or to lose at least two of three to Chicago, with the Naps sweeping the Browns. Cleveland dropped out when, after a tie with St. Louis on October 4th, it lost the opener of a doubleheader the next day. But the White Sox won their first two against the Tigers, setting up a showdown game for the pennant on October 6th. Walsh had just won his 40th game of the season and was unavailable to pitch for Chicago, so Doc White faced Wild Bill Donovan. But the game was never in doubt: the Tigers scored four runs in the top of the 1st, then added another in the 2nd, and cruised to an anti-climatic 7-0 win to clinch the pennant.

Standings

Bold indicates league champion, Italics indicates World Series champion

Rank	Team	G	W	L	T	WPCT	GB	RS (RS/G)	RA (RA/G)	AVG	OBP	SLG	ERA	FPCT
1	Detroit Tigers	154	90	63	1	.584	-.-	647 (4.20)	547 (3.55)	0.263	0.307	0.347	2.40	0.953
2	Cleveland Naps	157	90	64	3	.573	0.5	568 (3.62)	457 (2.91)	0.239	0.290	0.309	2.02	0.962
3	Chicago White Sox	156	88	64	4	.564	1.5	537 (3.44)	470 (3.01)	0.224	0.290	0.271	2.22	0.966
4	St. Louis Browns	155	83	69	3	.535	6.5	544 (3.51)	483 (3.12)	0.245	0.292	0.310	2.15	0.964
5	Boston Red Sox	155	75	79	1	.484	15.5	564 (3.64)	513 (3.31)	0.245	0.286	0.312	2.28	0.954
6	Philadelphia Athletics	157	68	85	4	.433	22.0	486 (3.10)	562 (3.58)	0.223	0.276	0.292	2.56	0.957
7	Washington Senators	155	67	85	3	.432	22.5	479 (3.09)	539 (3.48)	0.235	0.287	0.296	2.34	0.958
8	New York Highlanders	155	51	103	1	.329	39.5	459 (2.96)	713 (4.60)	0.236	0.277	0.292	3.16	0.947

League leaders

Bold indicates league record, Italics indicate all-time record

Batting

Statistic	Leader	Team	Number
Games Played	Nap Lajoie	Cleveland Naps	157
At Bats	Sam Crawford	Detroit Tigers	591
Runs Scored	Matty McIntyre	Detroit Tigers	105
Hits	Ty Cobb	Detroit Tigers	188
Doubles	Ty Cobb	Detroit Tigers	36
Triples	Ty Cobb	Detroit Tigers	20
Home Runs	Sam Crawford	Detroit Tigers	7
Total Bases	Ty Cobb	Detroit Tigers	276
Runs Batted In	Ty Cobb	Detroit Tigers	108
Stolen Bases	Patsy Dougherty	Chicago White Sox	47
Walks	Topsy Hartsel	Philadelphia Athletics	93
Hit by Pitch	Jake Stahl	New York Highlanders/Boston Red Sox	23
Sacrifice Hits	Bill Bradley	Cleveland Naps	60
Batting Average	Ty Cobb	Detroit Tigers	0.324
On-Base Percentage	Doc Gessler	Boston Red Sox	0.394
Slugging Percentage	Ty Cobb	Detroit Tigers	0.475
On-Base plus Slugging	Ty Cobb	Detroit Tigers	0.842
On-Base plus Slugging Plus	Ty Cobb	Detroit Tigers	169

Pitching

Statistic	Leader	Team	Number
Wins	Ed Walsh	Chicago White Sox	40
Losses	Joe Lake	New York Highlanders	22
Win-Loss Percentage	Ed Walsh	Chicago White Sox	0.727
Appearances	Ed Walsh	Chicago White Sox	66
Games Started	Ed Walsh	Chicago White Sox	49
Complete Games	Ed Walsh	Chicago White Sox	42
Shutouts	Ed Walsh	Chicago White Sox	11
Games Finished	Rube Vickers	Philadelphia Athletics	17
Saves	Ed Walsh	Chicago White Sox	6
Innings Pitched	Ed Walsh	Chicago White Sox	464.0
Batters Faced	Ed Walsh	Chicago White Sox	1799
Hits Allowed	Ed Walsh	Chicago White Sox	343
Home Runs Allowed	Cy Morgan	Boston Red Sox	7
Base-on-Balls Allowed	Jimmy Dygert	Philadelphia Athletics	97
Hit Batsmen	Ed Summers	Detroit Tigers	20
Strikeouts	Ed Walsh	Chicago White Sox	269
Wild Pitches	Eddie Cicotte	Boston Red Sox	14
Balks	Fred Burchell	Boston Red Sox	3
Runs Allowed	Joe Lake	New York Highlanders	157
Earned Runs Allowed	George Mullin	Detroit Tigers	100
Earned Run Average	Addie Joss	Cleveland Naps	1.16
Walks plus Hits per Inning Pitched	Addie Joss	Cleveland Naps	0.806

Postseason

In the World Series, the American League champion Detroit Tigers were defeated by the National League's Chicago Cubs, 4 games to 1.

Umpires

• Tom Connolly
• Rip Egan
• Billy Evans
• Tim Hurst
• John Kerin
• Silk O'Loughlin
• Jack Sheridan
• John Warner*

* Denotes a fill-in umpire

Further Reading

• Charles C. Alexander: The Half-Game Pennant of 1908: Four Teams Chase Victory in the American League, McFarland, Jefferson, NC, 2018. ISBN 978-1-4766-6506-1
• Cait Murphy: Crazy '08: How a cast of cranks, rogues, boneheads and magnates created the greatest year in baseball history, Smithsonian Books, Washington, DC, 2007.
• Tom Ruane: "A Retro-Review of the 1900s (the 1908 edition)", Retrosheet.org [1]
• Stew Thornley: "Regular Season Showdowns", Baseball Research Journal, SABR, Vol. 47, Nr. 1 (spring 2018), pp. 85-90.