1899 Cleveland Spiders season

The 1899 Cleveland Spiders season was the team's 13th and final season in Major League Baseball, and their 11th season in the National League.

1899 Cleveland Spiders
Major League affiliations
Location
Other information
Owner(s)Frank Robison
Manager(s)Lave Cross, Joe Quinn
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In 1899, the owners of the Spiders, the Robison brothers, Frank and Stanley, bought the St. Louis Browns baseball club from Chris von der Ahe, renaming it the Perfectos. However, they continued to retain ownership of the Cleveland club, an obvious conflict of interest that was later outlawed.

Stanley Robison publicly announced his intention to run the Spiders "as a sideshow", and fans took him at his word: after the first 16 home games, Cleveland's total attendance was 3,179, for a trifling average of 199 people per game. Other NL teams responded by refusing to travel to Cleveland's League Park, since their cut of the ticket revenue would not come close to covering their travel and hotel expenses.

As a result, the Spiders only played 26 more home games for the rest of the season, including only eight after July 1. In so doing, they set a number of negative records, including one, 101 road losses, that is unbreakable under MLB's current schedule. Sportswriters of the day began referring to the team as the "Exiles" and "Wanderers." Their final record for the season was 20–134 for a win ratio of .130, still the worst in Major League Baseball history.

Offseason

The Robisons decided that a good team in St. Louis would draw more fans, so they transferred most of the Cleveland stars, including future Hall of Famers Cy Young, Jesse Burkett and Bobby Wallace, as well as manager Patsy Tebeau, to St. Louis. Most of the players Cleveland received were non-entities. Jack Clements (known to history as one of MLB's few left-handed throwing catchers) and Joe Quinn were at the end of successful careers, and player-manager Lave Cross was traded back to St. Louis after the Spiders got off to an 8–30 start.

According to various individual pages at Baseball-Reference.com, most of this activity took place on March 29, 1899, just 17 days before the beginning of the new season:

Pitchers
Frank Bates, Nig Cuppy, Cowboy Jones, Pete McBride, Jack Powell, Zeke Wilson, Cy Young to St. Louis
Kid Carsey, Jim Hughey, Harry Maupin, Willie Sudhoff to Cleveland
Catchers
Lou Criger, Jack O'Connor[1] to St. Louis
Jack Clements, Joe Sugden to Cleveland
Infielders
Jimmy Burke, Cupid Childs, Ed McKean, Ossee Schreckengost, Bobby Wallace to St. Louis
Patsy Tebeau to St. Louis (to be manager)
Joe Quinn, Suter Sullivan, Tommy Tucker to Cleveland
Lave Cross to Cleveland (to be player-manager)
Outfielders
Harry Blake, Jesse Burkett, Emmet Heidrick to St. Louis
Tommy Dowd, Dick Harley to Cleveland

They also transferred numerous home games to the road—including the original Opening Day game to St. Louis. As a result, the Spiders did not play their first home game until May 1.

Regular season

With a decimated roster, it was apparent almost from the start that the Spiders would make a wretched showing. After their first game, in which they were beaten by the Perfectos 10–1, the headline of the April 16 edition of The Plain Dealer proved to be prescient: "THE FARCE HAS BEGUN."

Ultimately, the club finished 20–134 (.130), losing 40 of their last 41 games of the season. By season's end, they trailed the pennant-winning Brooklyn Superbas by 84 games, and finished 35 games behind the next-to-last (11th) place Washington Senators. For comparison, this would project to 21–141 under the current schedule, and Pythagorean expectation based on the Spiders' results and the current 162 game schedule would translate to a record of 25–137.

The 1899 Spiders were 11–101 (.098) on the road and 9–33 (.214) at home. The 101 road losses is far and away the most in major-league history, and will never be threatened, since under current scheduling practices a team plays 81 road games (this excludes tie-breaking playoffs, which are counted as regular season games).

The team's longest winning streak of the season was two games, which they accomplished once: on May 20 against the Phillies and May 21 against Louisville. The Spiders were winless against two teams: Brooklyn and Cincinnati. Spiders opponents scored ten or more runs 49 times in 154 games. Pitchers Jim Hughey (4–30) and Charlie Knepper (4–22) tied for the team lead in wins. The pitching staff allowed a record 1,252 runs in 154 games. The Spiders batters combined to hit 12 home runs, matching former Spiders star Bobby Wallace, who hit 12 home runs for St. Louis.

A mere 6,088 fans paid for Spiders home games in 1899, or an incredibly low average of 145 people per game. By comparison, St. Louis drew 373,909 fans for their home season, including 15,000 for one game (their home opener against the Spiders). In the last 57 games of the season, the Spiders only won three games.[2] They also accumulated the second longest losing streak in league history, at 24 games from August 26 to September 16, trailing only the 26 game losing streak set by the 1889 Louisville Colonels.

Somewhat ironically, the 1899 Spiders did lead the league in one notable statistic - games played. Cleveland was the only team in the league to finish all of its games in the then-154 game schedule of the 1899 season, a rather unusual occurrence in that era.

Aftermath

The dismal 1899 season was the end for the Spiders, and for National League baseball in Cleveland. The Spiders were disbanded, along with franchises in Baltimore, Louisville, and Washington, as the National League contracted from 12 teams to 8.

The departure of baseball from Cleveland left an opening for the upstart American League, which opened for business in 1901 as a second major league and included among its charter members a new team, the Cleveland Blues. The Blues still exist today as the Cleveland Indians. As of 2020, the 1962 New York Mets (120 losses) and 2003 Detroit Tigers (119) have the post-1900 NL and AL records for most losses in a season, respectively. After the Spiders folded, a National League team wouldn't play in Cleveland again until the Indians played the Brooklyn Dodgers (then known as the Robins) in the 1920 World Series, which they won in 7 games. Meanwhile, in St. Louis, the Perfectos were renamed the St. Louis Cardinals in 1900, which they are still called today.

Season standings
National League W L Pct. GB Home Road
Brooklyn Superbas 10147 0.682 — 61–16 40–31
Boston Beaneaters 9557 0.625 8 53–26 42–31
Philadelphia Phillies 9458 0.618 9 58–25 36–33
Baltimore Orioles 8662 0.581 15 51–24 35–38
St. Louis Perfectos 8467 0.556 18½ 50–33 34–34
Cincinnati Reds 8367 0.553 19 57–29 26–38
Pittsburgh Pirates 7673 0.510 25½ 49–34 27–39
Chicago Orphans 7573 0.507 26 44–39 31–34
Louisville Colonels 7577 0.493 28 33–28 42–49
New York Giants 6090 0.400 42 35–38 25–52
Washington Senators 5498 0.355 49 35–43 19–55
Cleveland Spiders 20134 0.130 84 9–33 11–101

Record vs. opponents
1899 National League Records

Sources:
Team BAL BOS BKN CHI CIN CLE LOU NY PHI PIT STL WSH
Baltimore —7–76–89–54–912–26–7–210–46–7–19–38–69–4–1
Boston 7–7—6–85–710–411–39–512–25–910–48–612–2–1
Brooklyn 8–68–6—8–5–17–614–011–310–48–68–68–4–111–3
Chicago 5–97–55–8–1—8–613–17–77–6–15–96–7–28–64–9
Cincinnati 9–44–106–76–8—14–08–69–5–14–1010–3–35–8–28–6–1
Cleveland 2–123–110–141–130–14—4–101–132–122–121–134–10
Louisville 7–6–25–93–117–76–810–4—7–77–66–8–15–9–112–2
New York 4–102–122–106–7–15–9–113–17–7—4–10–16–74–107–7
Philadelphia 7–6–19–56–89–510–412–26–710–4–1—6–87–712–2
Pittsburgh 3–94–106–87–6–23–10–312–28–6–17–68–6—7–711–3
St. Louis 6–86–84–8–16–88–5–213–19–5–110–47–77–7—8–6
Washington 4–9–12–12–13–119–46–8–110–42–127–72–123–116–8—

Opening Day lineup

Notable transactions
  • June 5, 1899: Some of the March 29 activity was undone. Willie Sudhoff and Lave Cross were sent by the Spiders back to the Perfectos, with Frank Bates and Ossee Schreckengost coming back to Cleveland.

Roster
1899 Cleveland Spiders
Roster
Pitchers Catchers

Infielders

 Outfielders Manager

Player stats

Batting

Starters by position

Note: Pos = position; G = Games played; AB = At Bats; H = Hits; Avg. = Batting Average; HR = Home Runs; RBI = Runs Batted In

Pos Player G AB H Avg. HR RBI
CJoe Sugden7625069.276014
1BTommy Tucker127456110.241040
2BJoe Quinn147615176.286072
3BSuter Sullivan127473116.245055
SSHarry Lochhead148541129.238143
OFTommy Dowd147605168.278235
OFDick Harley142567142.250150
OFSport McAllister11341899.237131

Other batters
Player G AB H Avg. HR RBI
Charlie Hemphill5520256.277223
Lave Cross3815444.286120
Ossee Schreckengost4315047.313010
Jim Duncan3110524.22929
Chief Zimmer207325.342214
Otto Krueger134410.22702
Jack Stivetts18398.20502
Louis Sockalexis7226.27303
Jack Clements4123.25000
George Bristow381.12500
Charlie Ziegler282.25000

Pitching

Starting pitchers
Player G IP W L ERA SO
Jim Hughey362834305.4154
Charlie Knepper27219.24225.7843
Frank Bates201531187.2413
Crazy Schmit20138.12175.8624
Harry Colliflower14981118.178
Bill Hill1172.1366.9726
Willie Sudhoff1186.1386.9810
Kid Carsey1077.2185.6811
Jack Harper537143.8914
Highball Wilson18019.001
Eddie Kolb180110.131

Other pitchers
Player G IP W L ERA
Harry Maupin5250312.60

See also

Notes
  1. Jack O'Connor page at Baseball Reference
  2. Crazy '08: How a cast of Cranks, Rogues, Boneheads and Magnates created the Greatest Year in Baseball History, p. 165, by Cait Murphy, Smithsonian Books, a Division of Harper Collins, 2007, ISBN 978-0-06-088937-1

References

"1899 Cleveland Spiders Statistics". Baseball Reference. Sports Reference LLC. 2018. Retrieved March 15, 2018.

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