The 1926 Philadelphia A’s

Early this year as I was doing prep work for the ’71 NL draft league, I ran across an old file folder that had
the ratings printed out for the 1926 AL season. I had intended long ago to try a single team replay and had never
got around to it, so with the baseball jones eating away inside me I concluded I could go ahead and roll the games
for Connie Mack’s A’s to test my mettle and see if I could bring Philly in a notch or two higher in the standings,
while at the same time continuing to prepare for the ’71 season. Mind you, this was not an as-played project. I made
up the schedule and did the lineups my way, and only kept stats for the A’s. The Mackmen won 83 and lost 67 (.553)
that year, a total of 150 games. I played a full 154 game season, making sure they played each opponent 22 times
with 11 of those games at home and 11 on the road. To cut to the chase, under my leadership the A’s won 81 and
lost 73 for a winning percentage of .526. The 1976 edition of MacMillan’s Baseball Encyclopedia gives the ’26 A’s
a .270 batting average, while Neft-Cohen has them at .269. In my replay they came in at .270 and their team ERA
was 3.38, .38 higher than their actual 3.00 ERA.

Lefty Grove won 18 games in my replay, a far cry from the 13-13 record he wound up with in that year. Oddly, he only
recorded a ten plus strikeout day one time, when he racked up 11 whiffs against the Tigers in the 122^nd game of the season.
Sam Gray socked a home run in game 41 of the season against the Browns, becoming the only Philly pitcher to perform
the feat this year. Multi-home run games were turned in Al Simmons, Walt French, Mickey Cochrane and Joe Hauser.

Hauser turned the trick twice during the season. Jim Poole, Joe Hauser and Mickey Cochrane each hit a grand slam during
the campaign. The longest game of the season was an 18 inning 2-1 loss at home against Cleveland in game 74.

The A’s opened the season on the road with a 19-0 drubbing of the Detroit Tigers. Cochrane collected five hits in the game
while Jimmy Dykes drove in five runs. No home runs were hit in the contest, but of the 22 hits for the Athletics that day, six
were doubles. Grove threw a three hit shutout in the opener, striking out seven and walking five.

The final game of the season was also on the road, a 7-3 loss to Cleveland which capped off a four game series sweep by the
Indians. Tris Speaker had two doubles and drove in four runs off A’s starter Howard Ehmke, who dropped to 8-8 with the loss.
Bill Wambsganss got the start at short for Philadelphia, and he had a four hit day, all singles.

The outlier of the replay by far was Joe “Unser Choe” Hauser, who socked 19 home runs in a season where he actually had a
total of eight. Hauser just happened to get the good rolls at the right times.

The Athletics made whipping boys out of the Boston Red Sox, taking 17 of their 22 tilts against the Nor’-Easters. They did well
against St. Louis (15-7) and Detroit (13-9) and were .500 against the Yankees and the Senators. The A’s had trouble with the
White Sox, going 8-14 against the South-Siders, and were eaten alive by the Indians, winding up with a record of  6-16.

The playing of the games in this replay presented no obstacle when it was time to get the ’71 draft league up and running, as the
latter was the priority for me, while the A’s season came to a temporary halt about sixty games into the season. The original plan
was to play out the A’s 154 game season over a time period of about 39 days, then start the ’71 league. As it happened, the draft
league began in February, and ran full speed until late September, making it the first full eight team, 154 game replay I completed
during an actual baseball season. Once it was all over, I quickly finished the remainder of the A’s schedule.

You know, I didn’t mention the final out of the season. Well, here we go…As you may recall, the game was played on the road in
Cleveland. The A’s were down 7-3 in the top of the ninth, and left hander Sherry Smith was on the hill for the Tribe. Smith was
going for the complete game, and had allowed three earned runs on the afternoon, but now he was in trouble. With Wambsganss
on third and Cochrane on second with two out, Mack let left-handed batter Walt French stay in the game and hit against Smith.
He hit the ball alright; a little dribbler back to the mound. Smith retired him at first, and it was all over.

Here’s how the club did in the replay, with the actual stats in parenthesis:

Batting (Avg., 2B-3B-HR)
Billy Lamar .292, 16-3-5 (.284, 17-6-5)
Bing Miller .232, 7-3-0 (.291, 6-2-2)
Dave Barbee .208, 2-1-3 (.170, 1-1-1)
Jim Poole .263, 22-5-5 (294, 23-5-8)
Al Simmons .325, 55-5-17 (.343, 53-10-19)
Jimmy Dykes .293, 43-5-2 (.287, 32-5-1)
Max Bishop .267, 23-1-0 (.265, 20-2-0)
Mickey Cochrane .286, 7-13-10 (.273, 8-9-8)
Chick Galloway .229, 14-4-0 (.240, 13-6-0)
Cy Perkins .389, 7-0-0 (.291, 6-0-0)
Alex Metzler .269, 4-0-0 (.239, 3-0-0)
Sammy Hale .245, 20-8-0 (.281, 22-9-4)
Walt French .325, 26-8-5 (.305, 18-7-1)
Jimmie Foxx .281, 0-0-0 (.313, 2-1-0)
Bill Wambsganss .414, 2-0-0 (.352, 2-0-0)
Charlie Engle .143, 0-0-0 (.105, 0-0-0)
Joe Hauser .247, 12-0-19 (.192, 10-0-8)
Tom Jenkins .083, 1-0-0 (.174, 2-0-0)
Frank Welch .263, 6-0-2 (.282, 8-1-4)
Frank Sigafoos .233, 0-0-0 (.256, 0-0-0)
Team .270, 274-58-69 (.270, 259-65-61)

 Pitching (W-L, ERA, HA-K-BB)
Lefty Grove 18-11, 2.85, 257-208-105 (13-13, 2.51, 227-194-101)
Eddie Rommel 14-15, 3.35, 253-47-60 (11-11, 3.08, 225-52-54)
Jack Quinn 9-6, 2.84, 164-48-35 (10-11, 3.40, 191-58-36)
Rube Walberg 10-10, 4.86, 222-75-58 (12-10, 2.80, 168-72-60)
Stan Baumgartner 0-2, 5.32, 34-0-5 (1-1, 4.10, 28-0-10)
Slim Harriss 1-5, 6.91, 86-16-21 (3-5, 4.10, 66-13-22)
Sam Gray 12-9, 3.28, 168-83-56 (11-12, 3.64, 164-82-50)
Joe Pate 5-5, 2.01, 70-11-27 (9-0, 2.71, 109-24-51)
Howard Ehmke 8-8, 3.73, 138-53-50 (12-4, 2.82, 125-55-50)
Fred Heimach 2-0, 0.81, 26-4-2 (1-0, 2.81, 28-8-5)
Lefty Willis 2-2, 0.52, 25-9-10 (0-0, 1.41, 31-13-12)
Team 81-73, 3.38, 1443-554-429 (83-67, 3.00, 1362-571-451)

   December 23, 2023