We’re spending the 2025 season wanting again at earlier seasons, particularly the 50 biggest groups in historical past, a bunch that I name the Greatest 50. In the present day’s entry, the 1903 Boston Individuals, is No. 45 on the listing, as decided by my new guide, Baseball’s Greatest (and Worst) Groups.
Right here’s a fast boilerplate rationalization that I’m appending to each story on this sequence:
I compiled the Greatest 50 by analyzing 2,544 major-league groups from 1903 to 2024. These golf equipment have been ranked by their group scores (TS), that are plotted on a 100-point scale. (A given membership’s all-time percentile is the proportion of the opposite 2,543 groups that it outperformed.)
See my guide for a proof of my TS calculations. The guide additionally presents separate breakdowns of the perfect and worst golf equipment for each decade and franchise, complete profiles of the Greatest 50 (together with position-by-position lineups and way more info than you’ll discover on this publication), and comparable summaries of the ten worst groups of all time.
Now on to as we speak’s profile.
Staff: 1903 Boston Individuals
Staff rating: 85.216 factors
All-time rank: 45 of two,544
All-time percentile: 98.27%
Season report: 91-47 (.659)
Season place: First place in American League
Last standing: World champion
Boston wasn’t included within the American League’s plans for its inaugural season in 1901, not initially. However founder Ban Johnson steadily realized the inevitability of conflict with the Nationwide League. He rapidly shifted his Buffalo franchise to Boston, the place the brand new Individuals would battle the present Nationals for the hearts (and {dollars}) of native followers.
The Individuals lured star third baseman Jimmy Collins from the Nationals, putting in him as their player-manager. Collins introduced a number of gifted teammates with him, and the brand new membership additionally lured star pitcher Cy Younger from the NL’s St. Louis Cardinals. The Individuals rapidly turned Boston’s favourite group, ending second and third of their first two seasons. All the pieces lastly clicked in 1903, once they rolled to the AL pennant by 14.5 video games.
Get the whole lowdown on the 50 biggest (and 10 weakest) golf equipment of all time
The creation of the World Sequence can in all probability be attributed to boredom. Each pennant races in 1903 have been exceedingly uninteresting — the Pittsburgh Pirates coasted via the Nationwide League as simply as Boston breezed via the American League — so sportswriters and followers started agitating for the first-place golf equipment to satisfy in a postseason playoff.
The leagues had reached a peace settlement earlier within the yr, however they hadn’t determined to stage a championship sequence. The homeowners of the Pirates and Individuals took the matter into their very own fingers, arranging a best-of-nine showdown.
Cy Younger threw the primary pitch within the preliminary World Sequence sport on October 1, 1903. Common-admission seats value 50 cents, the equal of $17.50 in 2024 foreign money. Greater than 16,000 followers attended, together with a number of thousand who lined the sphere and have been held again by ropes. The joy was intense.
The Pirates received the opener, 7-3, however the Individuals rebounded to take the title in eight video games. Invoice Dinneen tossed a four-hitter to clinch the championship for Boston, notching his third win of the sequence. “The Bean-eaters had the sport nicely in hand from the very begin, and the guests have been unable to resolve the Boston twirler’s supply,” raved the Sporting Information.
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Buck Freeman wasn’t an enormous man — simply 5-9 and 170 kilos — however he was sturdy. He shocked the nation by blasting 25 dwelling runs for the Washington Senators in 1899; no person else within the Nationwide League hit greater than 12 that yr. He was, within the phrases of historian Eric Enders, “the primary reputable home-run hitter in baseball historical past.” Freeman received one other crown in 1903, main the American League with 13 homers for the Individuals. He additionally topped the AL with 104 runs batted in.
Patsy Dougherty paced Boston with a .331 batting common, third-best within the league. Opponents rightly feared his velocity. His 35 stolen bases additionally ranked third within the AL. The membership’s different .300 hitter, spunky shortstop Freddy Dad or mum (.304), slapped the ball to all fields and bunted proficiently.
The pitching employees was anchored by a trio of 20-game winners: Cy Younger (28 victories), Invoice Dinneen (21), and Tom Hughes (20). Younger was a 36-year-old veteran of 14 big-league seasons. He not flashed the velocity that had earned him the nickname of “Cyclone,” although his management was meticulous and his confidence was unrestrained. “There was no hitter that ever gave me bother, at the least not the second time round,” he stated laconically.
Younger pitched 341.2 innings in 1903 — an astounding workload by as we speak’s requirements — and Dinneen was shut behind with 299. “I used to be a pitcher,” Dinneen stated after his retirement in 1909. “And I’d have been a pitcher for much longer, however for the truth that I needed to pitch so usually.”
