Baseball's Hall of Fame or Hall of Shame by Cohen Robert

Author:Cohen, Robert [Cohen, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Cardoza Publishing
Published: 2012-02-09T07:00:00+00:00

PITCHERS (68)

Walter Johnson/Lefty Grove

As the greatest righthanded and lefthanded pitchers of all time, Johnson and Grove head the list of exceptional pitchers whose Hall of Fame credentials would not be questioned by anyone.

During the Deadball Era, there were many outstanding pitchers, some of whom totally dominated the hitters of the day. However, the most dominant hurler of all, and quite possibly the greatest pitcher in the history of the game was the Washington Senators Walter Johnson. Although the Senators were a second-division team for much of Johnson’s career, the big righthander still managed to win 416 games (against 279 losses) and compile a .599 career winning percentage. During his career, Johnson won 38 games by a score of 1-0, and lost 27 others by the same score. He holds the major league record for lifetime shutouts (110), his career ERA of 2.16 is the lowest of any American League pitcher with more than 2,000 innings, and his 416 wins are the most by any pitcher during the 20th century.

Johnson led the American League in wins six times, ERA five times, strikeouts twelve times, innings pitched five times, and shutouts seven times. He captured the pitcher’s version of the triple crown—by leading the league in wins, ERA, and strikeouts in the same season—three times. Johnson won more than 20 games twelve times during his career, surpassing 30 victories on two separate occasions. He won at least 20 games in every season from 1910 to 1919. Over that 10-year stretch, Johnson was clearly the best pitcher in the American League, and he was the finest pitcher in the game in many of those seasons. In nine of those years, his ERA was less than 2.00, and his mark of 1.14 in 1913 is the best in A.L. history for pitchers with more than 200 innings. In that remarkable 1913 season, Johnson also finished with a won-lost record of 36-7, 243 strikeouts, and 12 shutouts. That year, Johnson won the first of his two Most Valuable Player Awards, a feat accomplished by only two other pitchers in baseball history.

If anyone could rival Johnson as the greatest pitcher in baseball history, that man would be Lefty Grove. Pitching for the Philadelphia Athletics and Boston Red Sox from 1925 to 1941, during much more of a hitter’s era, Grove was the dominant pitcher of his time. He finished with 300 wins and only 141 losses, thereby compiling a lifetime winning percentage of .680, one of the best in baseball history. He led the American League in wins four times, ERA a record nine times, strikeouts seven times, and winning percentage five times. While Grove’s career earned run average of 3.06 runs per game may not seem particularly impressive on the surface, it was a truly exceptional mark considering the era during which it was compiled. In both 1930 and 1931, Grove’s ERA was more than two runs a game below the league average. The 1931 season was the best of Grove’s career. Not only did

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