If 1968 was the year of the pitcher, one in which the guys on the mound dominated like never before or since, then 1930 has to be the year that the pitchers wished never happened.
It was the year after the great stock market crash, but the bats were definitely not in a depression. The 16 teams in the league averaged a little over five and a half runs per game per team. That’s right. The league averaged over 11 runs per game. A far cry from 1968 numbers.
The league batting average was .296, with half of the teams batting over .300. The Phils would end up in last place with a 52-102 record, but they were second in all of baseball with a .315 batting average. Individually, Bill Terry batted .401. Hack Wilson hit 56 homers, challenging Ruth’s three year old record. Although he fell short of that record, he drove in an amazing 191 runs, a record that still stands. Ruth himself wasn’t too shabby, with a .493 OBP, a .732 slugging percentage, and a AL leading 46 homers.
Even with all those runners circling the bases, Lefty Grove of the Philadelphia Athletics had an amazing year on the mound. He was 28-5, with a 2.54 ERA. Unfortunately, there was only one other pitcher who had an ERA below 3.00 that season, Dazzy Vance of the Dogers with a 2.61 ERA. The strange part about Vance’s season was that he was also tagged for 22 unearned runs, which probably played a part in his merely average 17-15 record. The league ERA was 4.81.
Now the most amazing part. The Athletics met the Cardinals in the World Series, and beat them in 6 games. Unlike the regular season, though, there was virtually no offense in those six games. The A’s, the best team in baseball and defending champs, who batted .294 and scored over 6 runs per game as a team, hit only .197 in the series. The Cards were just slightly better with a team BA of .200, just slightly off their .314 regular season avereage. In one 30 inning stretch, the A’s managed only one run. That’s the equivalent of three and a third games scoring only once, yet they still won the series.
For Phillies fans, they had some stars on offense. Chuck Klein batted .386, with 40 homers, 158 runs scored, and 170 RBIs of his own. Lefty O’Doul batted .383, and Pinky Whitney batted .342. In fact, of the 10 players on the team with over 300 plate appearances, 7 batted over .300. The pitchers, on the other hand, had a league worst team ERA of 6.71. The worst of the worst was Claude Willoughby, who was 4-17, and had a 7.59 ERA. He was nearly matched by Les Sweetland, who was 7-15, but with an even more horrendous ERA of 7.71. It was this combination that had the Phillies playing in 13 games that season in which both teams reached double digits in runs.
If you are a fan of offense and like lots of runs, this would have been the greatest season to be alive and be a baseball fan.